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KatieConf

katieconf.xyz

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Re: KatieConf

#21

Post by rwmj »

geofft wrote: post #14
rwmj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming there was a speaker expert in the subject of the tech conference, who was as qualified as any non-Katie speaker.

Most good talks I've seen by people who understand the material well enough to give a good talk about it, and know how to give a good talk. Sometimes this correlates with being the person with the most qualifications to have opinions on the subject, period; usually it does not.

So this page is saying that all these speakers are good generalists who can brush up on any topic and deliver a reasonable (maybe not great) talk? If you "need a bit of diversity". That's really patronising.

Re: KatieConf

#22

Post by untog »

rwmj wrote: post #18
untog wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> speaker expert chicken/egg, though. You don't become a speaker expert without having plenty of practise at being a speaker. Irrespective of any demographic quality, we should be open to bringing new speakers to conferences.

If there's evidence that conferences are deliberately excluding women speakers, then that is a bad thing. Not just because of sexism but because the conference would be deliberately narrowing its field of potential speakers. But why would we favour new speakers who are called Katie (or only new speakers who are women?). We should choose speakers who are experts, and new speakers from all possible candidates.

> If there's evidence that conferences are deliberately excluding women speakers, then that is a bad thing.

The thing is, it's rarely deliberate. It's a subconscious bias thing. Which is why people use blind talk submissions - they're evaluated solely on the basis of the content of the talk.

Re: KatieConf

#23

Post by Ianvdl »

People here are saying that this page is trying to create awareness that there are enough females in technology to ensure greater numbers of female speakers at conferences, and that conferences should try harder to achieve that.

Why is that the responsibility of the conference? As far as I'm aware most conferences call for proposals to be submitted. Whether or not anyone of a particular group applies to speak at that conference is not necessarily a fault of the conference organisers? Are there conferences that actively seek out the majority of their speakers?

I am in favour of a wide variety of speakers at a conference (the more viewpoints the better), but this seems unnecessary. I would have liked for this to be a real conference though, the topics are great.

Re: KatieConf

#24

Post by snassar »

While I wouldn't have traveled to Australia for this, I find the concept of an idiosyncratic conference like this very cool conceptually in addition to supporting the political statement.

EDIT: I initially wrote Canada instead of Australia. Not that this changes the sentiment. Thanks for catching the error tedmiston.

Re: KatieConf

#26

Post by DanBC »

Ianvdl wrote: post #23

People here are saying that this page is trying to create awareness that there are enough females in technology to ensure greater numbers of female speakers at conferences, and that conferences should try harder to achieve that. Why is that the responsibility of the conference? As far as I'm aware most conferences call for proposals to be submitted. Whether or not anyone of a particular group applies to speak at that…

Everytime we try blind auditions we see more women being picked. It's the responsibility of the conference to guard against bias.

Re: KatieConf

#27

Post by cm3 »

geofft wrote: post #10
cm3 wrote: post #5

What's the joke?

If there are enough women named Katie to fill a compelling conference schedule, anyone running a conference who can't find women named anything at all is clearly not even trying.

Oh, I see. Is it really true that organizers filter out some part of the demographic, or are women due to bad experience not trying to present? I didn't organize a conference, so this is a serious question.

I mean, encouraging everyone to attend, submit talks, and ensure they all feel welcome and safe is more useful than making it seem like women (or some_x) are only at a conference due to maybe a diversity quota.

Re: KatieConf

#28

Post by tedmiston »

snassar wrote: post #24

While I wouldn't have traveled to Australia for this, I find the concept of an idiosyncratic conference like this very cool conceptually in addition to supporting the political statement. EDIT: I initially wrote Canada instead of Australia. Not that this changes the sentiment. Thanks for catching the error tedmiston.

> Katherine is a town in Northern Territory, Australia.

Re: KatieConf

#29

Post by Ianvdl »

DanBC wrote: post #26
Ianvdl wrote: post #23

People here are saying that this page is trying to create awareness that there are enough females in technology to ensure greater numbers of female speakers at conferences, and that conferences should try harder to achieve that. Why is that the responsibility of the conference? As far as I'm aware most conferences call for proposals to be submitted. Whether or not anyone of a particular group applies to speak at that…

Everytime we try blind auditions we see more women being picked. It's the responsibility of the conference to guard against bias.

Don't conferences already use a blind process to determine speakers?

Re: KatieConf

#30

Post by iamben »

kozhevnikov wrote: post #11
untog wrote: post #9

In case anyone was wondering as to the point of the parody: > If you are looking for speakers for your conference, why not ask one of the wonderful people featured here? They are all listed with their Twitter accounts, and a link to some of their prior talks. > Do you really need another conference lineup of all men? Or as many female speakers as speakers called Steve? I suspect it is a direct rebuttal to the argumen…

http://lanyrd.com/2012/benconf/

Having attended Benconf (which was really, really great), and only having skim read this page (I'm not called Katie, it's not in the UK), I didn't realise this was a parody...
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