With this year’s mesh conference just out of the gate, we’ve heard through the grapevine that some people are wondering why none of our keynote speakers are women. It’s a fair question, and raises an issue that we spent a lot of time thinking about when we were preparing for mesh ‘06, and thought about even more during our preparations for mesh ‘07.
There’s been a lot of discussion in the blogosphere about diversity in technology conferences, and we have been paying attention to it with great interest, because we were never all that satisfied with the results of our efforts to involve women in mesh ‘06 — and we came out of it determined to do a better job this year. The fact that a lot of this discussion has been taking place in public has helped us understand people’s concerns and how we could address them at mesh ’07.
So for almost a year, as we’ve been building our wish list of potential mesh ’07 speakers, we’ve been looking for smart, accomplished, enthusiastic women to invite to mesh ‘07. We’ve read everything we could find in the ‘sphere about potential candidates (Christine Herron, a venture capitalist and blogger, is a great chronicler of this issue), and we’ve reached out to people we know in the community for recommendations on potential speakers. And rest assured that there are **a lot** of women we’d like to — and plan to — invite to mesh ’07.
As far as keynotes are concerned, we started asking potential keynoters several months ago. During that process, we approached several women who we thought would be great for mesh – accomplished entrepreneurs, all of them. In one specific case, we actually spent a few weeks in discussions, trying to find a way to accommodate scheduling. But in each case, we just couldn’t make it work.
We remain committed to putting together the most diverse mesh possible. As we develop the remainder of our programming, we will continue to focus on attracting a diverse group of top-notch people. Many of them will be women. We’re really excited about the possibilities for this year’s line-up, and we think you will be, too. If you have suggestions about potential panelists and/or workshop leaders, we would love to hear from you. You can leave a comment here, or e-mail us at speakers@meshconference.com.
