I Take It All Back

Over the years, I've griped plenty here about how tech conferences ought to have more women speakers. For my sins, I've agreed to come up with not one, but two all-women panels for upcoming conferences.

Coming up with panelists for SxSW was easy. As Shelley gave away a few days ago, she, Kathy Sierra, Virginia DeBolt and I are going to be on a panel together, and I think it's going to be a blast. I asked three women, they all said yes, and life's been easy.

But I also agreed to come up with one for Macworld Expo in SF in January, and that's been a different thing entirely. I have asked probably a couple dozen women so far, and I've gotten one to say yes (after I twisted her arm). I've asked about 40 guys to send me their recommendations for women, or to pass along my search for same, and I've gotten nobody that's willing to do it.

I've exchanged lots of emails and chats with incredibly smart, savvy women, all of whom say the exact same thing: "No, I'm not smart enough/tech enough/good enough to do that. You should talk to so-and-so!" And then I talk to so-and-so, and she tells me the same damn thing.

In the name of all that's holy, are there any Mac-savvy women out there willing to talk in public? In private, ya can't shut 'em up, but nope, nobody's willing to go out on stage.

I still need two women. Ideally, one will be a developer-type and one will be a unixy-sysadmin-type. It'll take a couple of hours of their time at the show. They'll get free passes to the conference, but no, no travel expenses, sorry.

If this sounds like someone you know, please tell her to contact me. If this sounds like you, please contact me ASAP. I can't give more details about this gig publicly right now (especially if I'm not going to be able to pull this off), but I'm happy to discuss it more privately.

And I take back everything bad I said about all you conference-runners who didn't have enough women speaking at your conference. Damn, this has been an eye-opening experience.

Ok, I take back nearly everything I've said — 'cause if I can do this, and you're the professionals, why can't you?

Beginning Mac Programming

Things to do in my copious free time: Core Data as a Cheap Database by Mac Geekery.

Ivy League Selection

Here is an interesting article in The New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell, of Blink and The Tipping Point fame, about the admissions process for Ivy League schools. As longtime readers know, we're in the hunt for Sean's college, and as it happens, we were looking at the Princeton admissions packet just last night.