Encouraging Gender Diversity at Tech Conferences

-Attendance follows speaker make-up : I just don't get this one. Maybe the author believes that women don't want to hear or see men, but I personally do not care who is speaking to me. I am only perturbed if the speaker has such a thick accent that I can not understand him/her. I believe this point makes no sense. -Bridge the gender gap through related fields/interests: I really hate this idea. If I want to go to a jQuery conference, then I want to hear about jQuery. I do not want to hear about the marketing arm of some jQuery widget provider or about the design aesthetics of jQuery mobile 2.50. There are reasons to have a more diverse conference, but from my personal experience these type of conferences provide smaller value if your intent is to learn something not making business connections or socially talking tech. -Watch your blind spots ( venue, marketing channels, messaging) : you are pretty much saying you need to market and get the word out through stereo typically women channels. To me, a tech conference should go through channels that the intended audience would be a part of. I would find it somewhat ridiculous to market a tech conference in a Cosmo magazine but in my reading of this article, it provides little clarity as to what you are talking about.

I am all for more women in tech, but don't try to devise a plan to "trick" or just plain shove more women into the scene. I would much prefer people at the conferences I attend to be attentive and interested. I would hate to go to a conference where half the audience wasn't geeking out over most of the presentations.