Articles: Conference Resources

The Risk in Speaking Up

July 9, 2013

If you're familiar with me or my work, you know that I speak a lot about the issues surrounding the lack of diversity in tech. Sometimes this means sharing articles, social commentary, or giving talks at conferences. Other times this may mean speaking up about the bad behavior of a person or company to draw attention to the issue and educate the community.

I'm one of a growing number of people that are speaking out loudly and publicly about these problems. In doing so, we receive a lot of responses in the form of emails, tweets, and blog post comments concerning both the way we chose to speak up as well as the response they expect us to have to this -- a form of silencing. Comments range from thanks to sympathy to dismissiveness to rudeness to physically threatening. Most incidents that get a reasonable amount of attention will see the whole gamut repeated multiple times, predictably so. As an example, the responses to a set of ignorant tweets made last night by someone are nearly identical to the responses today about a completely separate incident that fell in the same ballpark of poor behavior.

This post has been a long time coming; with each incident the feelings of frustration, sadness, and anger swell up again. The energy I and others have to explain the complexity of these issues gets quickly depleted dealing with the same reactions each time. I'm writing this to help you understand a little about what it's like to speak up as well as the kinds of responses we hope to get when we do.

Risk and Reward

Why do we speak up?

There are a lot of social problems in technical communities and companies. Homogeneity fueled by the thinly veiled ideal of "culture fit" has allowed companies and conferences to discriminate in a way that's become socially acceptable. Attrition rates are on the rise, new entry rates into the field are falling. We're seeing many of the most intelligent, talented, and driven people around us being pushed out of the only career they've ever known because of constant harassment, discrimination, and inequity. 

We believe that the things many people are experiencing are not only unethical and illegal, but harm the industry and our ability to innovate. We want to see everyone have equal access and treatment in a field that is pushing the boundaries in every social context.

In speaking up about these things, we educate people about the reality of this behavior, why it's not okay, and what it's doing to people. Without people being exposed to this information, they may never realize it's a problem.

What do we risk speaking up?

Being a person in the minority and/or challenging the way things have always been comes with a lot of risks. We weigh these risks everytime we speak out: "choose your battles", "is this really worth it?", "what will I gain from this?", "how will this hurt me in the long run?" are all things that regularly go through our minds.

A taste of some of the risks we open ourselves up to include the following:

Financial and Professional

  • losing a job for views deemed controversial to your employer's customer base
  • failing to get a job because of the very thing you are speaking out against, for fear you may ruffle feathers, be difficult to work with, or will attract unwanted attention to yourself or the company
  • being labeled as a trouble maker, angry, or fringe
  • being seen as a risk to an employer, conference organizer, or any group that relies on the financial support of customers or members that do not hold equality in the same esteem that you do

Social Risk

  • distancing friends and colleagues who are afraid to be ostracized or seen in the light detractors may see you in out of fear for their financial, professional, and social safety
  • alienating people that otherwise enjoy your company because they'd rather not be exposed to the depressing reality of many people's lives

Physical and Emotional Risks

  • receiving physical threats of violence, whether or not the person would actually act on them
  • receiving threats toward your public, professional, or social image
  • physical assault or confrontation
  • receiving messages with abusive language
  • doxxing, DDoSing, etc
  • harassment of friends, family, and acquaintances in your name

Common Responses

"You should name and shame the people who harass you."

I see this most often when someone tweets or blogs about incidents while anonymizing the details of the event or person. The logic behind naming and shaming may seem simple - "tell us who this person is so we can put them into professional and social exile."

While this may sound like a great idea in the long run, doing this can expose yourself to even more harassment, especially if the person is a well-respected member of the community. Their voice - and "army" - can quickly overpower yours and you can be punished for daring to shed light on this person's poor behavior.

Of course the other thing to keep in mind about this is that the people who behave badly are free to then go on to continue doing it without reprisal. I commented yesterday on twitter that many of the women I know in the community talk to each other about bad experiences with individuals, companies, and conferences as a way of protecting each other and removing ourselves from potentially bad situations. The downside is that because many of us feel this has to be done underground to avoid the risks, this means you have to be in the trusted circle to get this information. We don't have a list we can share of bad things that have been committed by these people to keep everyone safe. 

"The people who do these things are young, friendless losers; they can't actually hurt you."

This comment tends to be made in an effort to console the person, as if to say "this is just one person and they're not worth your time." Unfortunately this isn't the case - the people who commit some of the worst acts are your coworkers and friends, they own and run companies, are in charge of hiring/firing, choose who speak at conferences, are core maintainers of popular open source projects, are popular authors, or are cult personalities for any number of other reasons. People in power who do these things are the absolute worst case scenario - it's more likely that they will be able to effect your life or the lives of people like you. Plus they have a large following of people which means that there are more people to agree with them loudly. Think of this person as the popular kid at school who no one dared cross.

Dismissing these issues and stating that the people saying or doing these things are fringe or 4chan/reddit/HN trolls who aren't actually in the community or friendless losers or otherwise unimportant, inconsequential people takes the obligation off of us to revoke their power. In reality, these are the thought leaders of bullies (all lols intended).

"We're not all like that."

Not only is this reponse not helpful or supportive, it's not news. Think hard about why you're responding this way.

As an example: if it happens to be a man that sends a sexist remark my way and I comment that I'm tired of that happening, what are you accomplishing by stating "not all men make sexist remarks"?

"Don't let a few bad apples ruin your whole career/experience/hobby/whatever" or "Stay and fight to show that they're wrong." or "There will always be jerks."

While meant to be encouraging, remember that many of the people that are on the receiving end of rampant harassment see this stuff constantly. To us, it's not "a few bad apples", it's yet another person that people respect saying terrible things, one more scary email in our inboxes, another person that is slinging slurs in our direction. How long should a person endure that kind of punishment simply for daring to exist in the same space as these "bad apples"?

What's more, is it ethical to guilt people into staying in a field to stand in the face of these horrible events?

How You Can Help

The best way you can help is to work on being an ally. An ally is someone who is outside of a marginalized group, but empathizes with the things they experience and want to help create change. An ally may have privilege that people in that group don't have. Remember: having privilege doesn't make you a bad person, it just means you have to educate yourself about what that privilege gives you while it takes away from other people. You can start by learning more about being an ally as a person with privilege.

Start removing problematic language from your vocabulary

This is an ongoing process and one that all of us need to be concious of. For instance, I've been trying to stop saying words like "crazy" and "lame" because they are exclusionary, offensive, and derogatory to some people. For others, it may mean starting lower on the ladder by removing generalizations, stereotypes, and slurs about marginalized groups of people.

Be humble; practice apologizing

To go along with the previous tip, you're going to screw up. I do it all the time and I feel I'm better versed in these issues than the average person.

For instance, I was speaking at a conference recently and I accidentally said the word "crazy" in a derogatory manner. I stopped myself and said, "I'm sorry, I'm trying to stop using that word. I actually meant 'ridiculous'." It's as simple as that and provides good behavior modeling for bystanders :)

Eventually it's going to happen where someone calls you out for something you say. The way you respond says volumes about you as a person. Stopping and sincerely apologizing allows you to not only save face, but to earn back the respect of the person who called you out. Level up this skill by not needing someone to call you out to correct yourself.

Create change however you can

If you're a marginalized person, it's understandable that you may not necessarily feel you can speak up. The risks for some are far greater than for others and no one expects you to be potentially further punished because you happen to fall into an underrepresented group. What you can do is not make the situation worse. Far too many times I've seen someone remark plainly that they've experienced none of this - which I wish more of us could say! - so therefore they believe it never happens. Empathize with the people who haven't been as lucky as you have. Nothing is harder to deal with than someone from a marginalized group you belong to telling people that "those other people are making it up/it's not so bad." That gives fuel to the people that are hurting others and you end up being used as a tool against people like you, which you don't want.

If you're a person with privilege (which most of us are) and power, your actions have far more weight. If you feel you can loudly speak up, do so. Understand that as a person with privilege, though, that you want to be advocating based on what people within that group have said they want and need, not what you think they want or need. It's not impossible that someone may help you correct the way you speak out to be better aligned with the group's needs and desires.

If you aren't ready to speak out against others to change things, don't worry! Start at home. Educate yourself about the kinds of issues facing people different than you and do your best to not exacerbate them. Remember that being an ally isn't a permanent state nor a label you get to choose for youself - your actions prove you to be an ally.

See something, do something

Someone getting harassed in person or online? Ask the person how they'd like you to help. For some people, like me, all that means is blocking or reporting that person for abuse. When it comes to twitter, I will quickly block abusive people and then have to deal with a barrage of @replies from acquaintances who are replying to that person and leaving my name in the tweet, so I have to continue to be upset by it. For others, they may want people to stand up loudly beside them so they feel they aren't alone. Each person has different reasons for their approach and remember that you are trying to minimize the impact on the person on the receiving end, so ask what they want done and respect that.

Be a good friend

Have a friend that regularly goes through this? Ask them how you can help them deal with the stress, anxiety, anger, or depression that are byproducts of the process. An offer to screen emails, tweets, or tag along with them to events to act as a buffer can greatly decrease their anxiety. Helping to keep their mind off of the issue by talking to them about something else or distracting them with funny movies and pizza may be just what they need. Maybe being a person they can vent to in private to dump the adrenaline out of their system is how you can help. Above all, ask them what they need and how you can be most supportive.

Further Reading

What You Need to Know About Speaking at Conferences

April 20, 2013

Like many people, I've spent much of my life being terrified of public speaking.

My fears were stoked by anxiety-inducing experiences from middle and high school where I was thrust in front of an unkind class of my peers against my will, being told to read aloud from a book report I'd probably hastily written the night before. The teacher would ask for volunteers to speak and I'd slink down in my seat, doing my best impression of someone cooly bored (note: I am not, nor have I ever been cool). The second I heard my name, my hands would get shaky and a heavy weight would settle in somewhere deep in my stomach. After the dead man's walk to the front of the room, I'd stand in front of the class, red-faced, nervously rolling my feet outward onto the edges of my shoes and back in. How did my limbs work again? Everything felt like it was in the wrong place, not sitting right against my torso. And then I had to actually speak. My voice quavered, I quietly sped through what I'd written, tripping over words and pausing only when the last bit of air had been forced out of my lungs.

That is to say: it wasn't good. 

Thankfully putting myself in these positions as an adult weren't nearly as bad. It takes a lot of practice to feel comfortable in front of a group of people and to leave people feeling educated/entertained, but I really believe that with enough practice everyone can be a great speaker.

Getting Started

The first couple times I spoke were at local user groups and barcamps. I was familiar with most of the people in my small audiences which added to the air of casualness. The open format made me feel less authoritarian standing in front of a group of people, which helped. My experiences with those first two talks served as good training wheels for the larger events that I wanted to speak at eventually.

Finding speaking opportunities

Talk Ideas

"I don't know enough to speak, I'm not an expert on anything." I hear variations on this pretty regularly. I think everyone feels this way before they speak for the first time. Looking at conference lineups and seeing the people you respect speaking can make you feel out of place and lacking the expertise to present. Remember that everyone started somewhere: once upon a time they were first-time speakers, too. They weren't always perceived as experts.

Many conferences are going out of their way to let people know they're looking for speakers of all experience and knowledge levels, which is great. 

Coming up with ideas

Most of my talk ideas stem from lively conversations over random observations I've made. A good rule of thumb is if a bunch of people have more questions than answers (or more feels than facts), it'll make an interesting talk. People want to learn something new from a talk, even if it's just a different perspective on a long-standing issue.

I've heard many people say that they'll choose something they want to learn to create a talk around. Then they'll spend the time learning it and have the advantage of having the fresh knowledge and experiences of a beginner so they know what might trip other people up. Take notes while you're learning something new. How did you expect something to work? Did it work differently? How would you compare it to something similar that you know well? Channel your learning into a story.

Expertise and Abstracts

An abstract is the information about your presentation that you'll send in during a call for proposals (CFP) for a conference. Some people also call these papers.

Abstracts are complicated beasts. No matter how amazing your talk actually is, your abstract is what will likely get you accepted or rejected. Most conferences I've been involved with (and from what I hear from other organizers) judge based on the following criteria in this order:

  • Talk title and abstract
  • Showcased knowledge of the subject (blog posts, open source work, on-the-job experience)
  • Previous speaking experience
  • Person's relationship to the community, conference, or organizers

So if you haven't spoken before or aren't well known for your involvement in this area, it's important to have a killer abstract and to start making your knowledge of the subject visible through blog posts, tweets, open source work, etc.

Titling your talk

As my friend Brad says, naming things is hard. The title of your talk is what should immediately grab people and get them interested. It should be short, memorable, and give them an idea of what they're in for. I tend to name my talks after I've written the abstract because the tone and language I use in the abstract colors the way it should be titled.

Writing the Abstract

Abstracts should give you the mile-high view of your talk. What are the interesting topics that will be covered? Why is it interesting or controversial? What will the take-aways be? The first couple sentences may be the only thing a reviewer will read, so you should start out with something compelling.

Every conference has a slightly different requirement for the format of an abstract. Some call for a couple paragraphs, some a full paper. Others call for an outline in addition to the abstract or a list of objectives that will be achieved through your talk.   If you have a conference in mind while creating this abstract, check to see what format they are looking for before you begin.

Rejected abstracts

Your talk will likely get rejected at a bunch of conferences at first. Don't take this personally! Keep in mind that most conferences get between 4 and 5 times more proposals than they have speaking slots. Your talk won't be right for every conference or for every audience and that's just fine.

If your talk gets rejected, you may be able to reach out to the organizers to find out why so you can improve for next time. Thank them for reading your proposal and giving you an opportunity to submit, whether or not they are able to give you any feedback.

Additionally, ask friends who are in your potential audience how to improve it. Ask "would you be interested in seeing this talk? What would make this talk more interesting for you?". You may need to go through a few revisions before you find one that sticks.

Speaker Bio & Picture

Conferences will likely ask for your speaker bio and a picture at the same time you submit your proposal. 

For many people, the bio is harder to write than the abstract. How do you write about yourself and make it sound interesting? I highly recommend having someone who knows you well either write this for you (offer to write theirs for them!) or give you ideas of what to include. Your bio should tell people what is unique about you: where do you work? What have you focused on in your career? What have you done that is unusual? Depending on the type of conference you may also want to include some personal details like unusual hobbies or a fun fact about you.

The picture is less difficult. It should be an unobscured shot of your face and be appropriate for the event. I personally like using the same picture I am using as my avatar on twitter + github because people are likely to recognize it. You should have access to the high resolution original (depending on the conference, they may be printing it in a program or projecting it onto a screen during the conference) as well as a few standard-use sizes. I like to keep a folder that includes the original along with various sizes (100x100, 200x200, 300x300) so I can send off whatever they prefer.

If you don't have any recent or appropriate pictures, ask a friend to take a few for you. Natural lighting is best, but an indoor area with good lighting works, too.

Before Creating Your Talk

Once your talk has been accepted, get as much information from the conference organizers/track chairs as possible. Here is a list of basic questions I ask for every talk:

  • Audience
    • How many people will be in the audience?
    • What is the experience level of the audience?
    • Will there be a sign language or foreign language interpreter? Do I need to keep anything in mind for that?
  • Room
    • What kind of room is it?
    • What is the configuration of the room?
    • Is there a stage? How big is it?
    • What is on the stage (podium, table, stool)?
    • If the talk is being video recorded, am I discouraged from moving around the stage?
    • Will water be provided for me on stage or should I bring a bottle up with me?
    • Will the room be well lit or dark?
  • Technology
    • What resolution is the projector?
    • Are there any color issues with the projector?
    • Will a power adapter for my laptop be provided?
    • Will a projector dongle for my laptop be provided?
    • Will there be wifi? Is there a separate access point for presenters?
    • What kind of mic will I have (handheld wired/wireless, podium, lapel)? Have you had issues in the past with people being unable to hear a speaker?
    • Will there be a monitor for me to view my slides, or just my computer on a podium?
    • Will there be a timer?
  • Content
    • Have you had any issues with speakers in the past? Anything I should keep in mind?
    • Can I see a copy of your code of conduct and speaker guidelines?
    • Is swearing allowed in my talk or slides?
    • What day and time is my talk?

Preparing Your Talk

Before I start preparing my talk, I look at the conference's past presentation videos to get a feel for what they're expecting. I sometimes give the same talk at different conferences, but I'll tweak it to fit the audience.

Additionally, if I'm not familiar with the audience I'll talk to the organizers to get a better idea of the knowledge level and demographic make-up. This is especially important if you are giving a talk to an audience that may not share your language or culture. You want to make sure that your talk is appropriate for the audience and that nothing you do or say will be in violation of the conference's code of conduct.

If you're giving a talk in a place whose dominant language or culture is not your own, I would also recommend finding someone who fits into that group to review your talk and slides to avoid things that would be inappropriate or not understood by the audience.

Outline

I start by opening up my abstract and starting an outline. I want to make sure that I'm going to cover everything that's mentioned in my abstract so people feel like they learned everything they expected to from my talk. I divide the outline into three areas.

1. Intro

The intro should cover a little bit about yourself (less than 30 seconds, don't be obnoxious). After that, speak to why this topic is important, why you are the right person to speak about it, and give a short teaser of the points you'll be covering.

2. Exposition

The exposition is the meat of your talk. Each major point in your talk should have supporting information to prove or demonstrate that point. If I have a list of points, I will try to make sure that I am covering information in the same structure. For instance, if the first two points have a description of the point, a story, and a demonstration, I will try to make the third point fit the same format if appropriate.

3. Conclusion

The conclusion should quickly recap what was covered in the exposition, any calls to action (what you expect the audience to do with this newly learned information), and a thank you. 

Draft

After I have a solid outline, I begin writing my talk as if it's a blog post. This helps me make sure that the talk will have a story arc, enough supporting information to get my points across, and I will know what I'll be saying in each section within the exposition. Additionally, this helps me make sure that things are in a logical order with smooth transitions between them.

Note: many people try to add humor into their talks, which is very hard to do well. If you want to do this, be sure to avoid self-deprecation (nothing is more uncomfortable than wathing someone you don't know put themselves down) as well as inside jokes or obscure references. Don't leave your audience feeling like they missed something.

Slide Deck Content

As soon as I am comfortable with my draft, I start breaking it down into slides. I err on the side of a ton of slides with very few words on each. Each slide should be able to read in a second or two by the audience, so avoid walls of text or bullet points. The slides are just there to support what you're saying, not the convey the message itself - that's your job!

For major points of interest, I may put more words on the slide to reinforce what I'm saying. The ideas on these slides should also be short enough to be tweetable.

If you're using an application like Keynote, it'll allow you to nest slides which I highly recommend. Nesting them for each major point in my exposition just like I would if they were an outline allows me to quickly and easily see the structure of my talk via my slides as well as rearrange groups as needed.

Slide Deck Design

I would highly recommend not using one of the default Keynote/PowerPoint themes. Sure, some of them aren't super terrible, but everyone uses them. Your slides should be unique to your talk and you don't want any part of it to come off as boring.

You can create your own Keynote theme very easily, and I highly recommend it. While you're at it, be sure to take some time and configure your presenter display for Keynote. You'll probably end up tweaking this a few times before you have it set up the way that works best for you.

Zack Holman is known for his awesome slide decks, especially in that he's a developer, not a designer. It goes to show that following some basic design principles, anyone can have interesting, eye-catching slides that add something to their talk. He wrote a post with some basic guidelines that I highly recommend. My favorite tip he suggests is to make text bigger. Like, gigantic. Make it as big as possible, at least 90pt.

Slide Design galleries:

Typefaces and type inspiration:

Color and palette ideas:

Practicing

The last talk I gave, I practiced sitting alone in front of my computer a few times a week. I practiced walking home from work. I recited my talk in my head twice on the bus from Madison to Chicago. I practiced in my hotel room the few nights before the talk. I even gave the talk to my cats.

That is to say, I practiced a lot.

I like to know my material forward and backward. I practice and practice until I need very little in the way of presenter notes at all. It's important to me to not worry about forgetting something key to my point on stage.

Alone

Practicing alone will help eliminate as many problems as possible before you're ready to practice in front of people.

Try recording yourself (audio as well as video) so you can find the places that you say "um", "like", or otherwise uncomfortably pause. Those are the areas you'll need to focus on most.

You can always speak slower. Take a full breath between thoughts and think about your talk as if it's a conversation. You want to give people a moment to let a thought sink in before proceeding to the next.

Practice your talk all the way through. If you screw up halfway in, just keep going. You don't want to have practiced the beginning half of your presentation more than the end.

Once you start feeling comfortable with your delivery, start focusing on your pacing. Make sure you are within a couple minutes of your talk time.

Rehearsing with an audience

This is when things start to feel real. Schedule time with friends, colleagues, and coworkers to give your presentation to them. Before the last talk I gave, I practiced with a group of friends that were in the same demographic as my audience over a Google Hangout.

Let people know that you are giving a talk at a conference and you want help improving the presentation.

Write down questions that people ask at the end of your presentation; this will give you an idea of areas you didn't go into enough detail for the audience so you can go back and flesh out those areas.

Make sure you ask them for constructive feedback. For many, it's easier to get this anonymously. Setup a google form and ask people to tell you three good things about your talk as well as three things you could improve upon.

Dry run

If you're able to give your talk to a user group or similar-sized audience before you have to give your talk "for real", do it. User groups are almost always looking for speakers. Try to schedule speaking at a user group as soon as your talk has been accepted so you can give it preferably a couple weeks before the conference. This gives you a deadline to have a solid talk completed by while still providing you time to make changes based on their suggestions and your experience giving the talk live.

Remember that this is a dress rehearsal, so try to replicate the circumstances you'll have at the conference as much as possible. Ask people to hold their questions until the end if the conference talk is structured that way. Use the same laptop and any other presentation tools you'll be using. You want to find all of the bugs now and not when you're at the conference.

When you've finished, let people know that you are giving this talk at a conference and you'd like constructive feedback to make it better. Provide them the link to your anonymized google form from earlier.

Where to put everything

For the Talk

If your laptop dies before your talk, what will you do? If you have a backup copy of your talk in a few places (such as a flash drive, Dropbox, or your email), you can recover pretty quickly with the help of a loaned machine. Similarly, if you use written notes, make sure you have a backup of those stored in a different place than your master copy. It'd be terrible if you lost your bag with *both* sets of your notes in it.

For the Audience

I try to make it easy for people to find all of the info related to my talks, so I generally create a post for each talk that includes any pertinent information, plus tweets, audio/video, the abstract, and any other related stuff. This way I can give people one link to everything. It also serves as a nice history that I might not have access to otherwise.

  • SpeakerDeck - export your slides as PDF and upload them. Include any links in the notes section so people don't have to copy them by hand from your slides.
  • SpeakerRate - allows people to rate your talk and give you feedback.
  • Lanyrd - tracks what conferences you are attending and speaking at.

Other Resources

A lot of other speakers have put together information on getting started and improving yourself as a speaker. Here's a random smattering of things I and some friends have found useful.

Blog posts and Articles

Books

Video, Audio

Mailing Lists, irc, and Other Speaker Support

Increasing Diversity at Your Conference

January 24, 2013

Due to the attention So you want to put on a diverse, inclusive conference received, I held a series of google hangouts with other conference organizers to talk about what they've been doing to increase diversity and where they need help. These round-table discussions provided valuable information and ideas that would work well at any conference.

A little context: What is Diversity?

I've noticed in quite a few discussions that have been happening online that when people say "diversity", they mean it to be synonymous with women. While women are the largest group in our general population that aren't well represented in our tech communities, they aren't the only group. It's important that we understand the various marginalized groups and the issues and barriers they face trying to participate in our spaces. I would suggest taking the time to understand these groups, both through online research, as well as talking to people in our community who fall within these groups. Educating ourselves to the difficulties others face helps us empathize and provide an atmosphere of acceptance, belonging, and comfort to everyone.

Note: this is not an exhaustive list, but some of the more common examples. If I have missed anything or pointed to a resource that doesn't provide adequate information, please let me know so I can change it.

Thank you to Cori for this awesome list.

  • race and ethnicity
  • nationality, country/region of origin - country of personal or familial origin
  • citizenship status - immigrant/documentation status
  • language - people whose first language is not English (or the otherwise dominant language of the region), people who communicate through sign language, people who communicate through assistive devices or software 
  • physical appearance - height, weight, shape, hereditary disfigurement/injury, mod/surgical history, cultural "beauty" spectrum
  • chronic disease - diabetes, cancer, Crohn's, epilepsy, migraines, allergies
  • mental illness or disorder - schizophrenia, depression, eating disorder, addiction, bipolar disorder
  • developmental/neurological delay - retardation/cognitive impairment, dyslexia, ADHD, speech impediment, brain injuries
  • physical disability - impaired mobility, sight-/hearing-/sensory-impaired
  • veteran/military status
  • experience with violent conflict - refugee/asylum seeker
  • personal violence/trauma survivor - child soldiers, abuse survivors, former cult members
  • biological age - both actual and perceived/assumed
  • dependent status - you are or you have: children/elderly/immobilized
  • parental status - you are or you have: biological/adopted/foster children, guardianship
  • relationship status - single/partnered/married/divorced/multiple partnered
  • economic status - current and former
  • access to healthcare
  • access to travel/mobility
  • access to education
  • access to technology - includes type of technology, bandwidth, screen size, availability/ownership
  • professional experience level
  • education level - level of formal education completed, whether or not a person has graduated from college/university, self-taught

General Thoughts

Ask for help and constructive criticism

Many people don't know where to start when it comes to increasing diversity. This is especially the case for first time conference organizers or people who fall within the majority demographic (white, abled, straight or straight passing, cisgender men who speak english as their first language and grew up with technlogy or have been programming for a long time). The vast majority of people understand this and there are tons of people that are willing to give you suggestions or even pitch in to help. Asking on twitter is a great way to get public discussion and many people will offer you resources. Use them, educate yourself, and make sure you thank the people that took the time to help.

The easiest way to get feedback on your efforts is to publicly state what you've tried and ask for constructive criticism. Be transparent and truthful. I've seen many conferences write blog posts about what they've done to address the issue of the lack of diversity and the positive or negative results that they ended up with. This is important for a few reasons: it signals that this is important to you and that you are open to more ideas as well as letting people within marginalized groups know that you are considering their needs and the reality of their situations.

Get more people involved

Conferences are hard work. The more people you have to spread the burden over, the easier and less stressful it will be. I highly suggest getting a diverse group of people to help you plan your conference. Ideally your organizing group and volunteers should be as diverse as the community you hope to create. This isn't always possible and it's easier to grow this with each subsequent conference, but keep this in mind as you are putting together your committee.

“Half of our organizers are women, a quarter identify as queer, I'm hispanic. We are very diverse and that shows in the decisions we make.”

Formal Policies

Before opening any of your conference materials up to the public, have your formal policies in place. This helps frame the way you drive the conference organizing and as well as how you speak with potential speakers, sponsors, and attendees.

All of these policies should be easily accessible: add it to the footer of the conference site as well as the footer of any emails you send out under the conference's name. It should be obvious and visible.

Code of Conduct/Anti-Harassment Policy

A code of conduct and/or anti-harassment policy clearly states what behavior is unacceptable and the actions that will be taken if someone acts inappropriately at your event. It reassures attendees that their safety and comfort is important to you and that you will take seriously any incidents reported. Your event staff should be well-versed in your policy and your attendees should know who to go to in the event of an incident.

Code of Conduct 101 + FAQ

Recently many speakers and attendees have been notifying conferences that they will not be attending conferences that don't have an explicit Code of Conduct.

The Python Foundation officially requires a code of conduct as a condition of supporting a conference.

The Ada Initiative wrote an awesome article about why you should ban 'Booth Babes' and how to do it without telling women how to dress.

The GeekFeminism Wiki has a great page on Anti-Harassment Policies, which includes templates to copy and modify for your needs. You can also find examples of Codes of Conduct.

Many conference organizers will remind attendees of their code of conduct during their opening remarks and will point out the staff to contact should an incident occur.

Make a point to educate your staff, volunteers, sponsors, speakers, and attendees about various forms of harassment, exclusion, and abuse. Being marginalized doesn't mean you are incapable of contributing to the marginalization of others. Remember that diversity is about more than gender and more than male vs female.

Diversity Statement

A diversity statement serves to publicly state that you welcome and encourage diversity in your community and sets the standard for how community members should approach each other with empathy and understanding.

I particularly like Dreamwidth's Diversity Statement and YOW!'s Diversity Policy.

CFP Process and Talks

Having a formal CFP and making your process public is an important step to welcoming new people into attending and speaking at your conference, especially marginalized groups that may feel that many conference lineups and communities are insider's clubs that they haven't been invited into. 

“Most of the CFPs that came in were from white men. This is a problem, we need to address that. We can’t do anything about the problem if we aren’t getting anyone in the door.”

Decide what your proposal process looks like

  • Your group of proposal reviewers should be as diverse as the community you wish to create at your conference. Ask colleagues and friends of all backgrounds, ability levels, etc to help you review proposals. The nice part about this task is that your reviewers do not have to be local. Make it apparent the kinds of talks you are looking for and why having a diverse lineup is important to you and your conference. Offer to take a percentage off their ticket price for helping you out.
  • Anonymize and remove gendered pronouns from abstracts/bios before handing the data over to your proposal review committee. Someone who is outside of your proposal reviewing committee should be assigned this task.
  • Announce your CFP as early as possible to allow potential speakers time to plan vacation from work, budget for costs, and make arrangements for things like child care and travel.
  • Use gender-neutral language in your CFP - Aside from removing gendered pronouns, remove words that may have gendered connotations like "rockstar" and "ninja". Unless you are only looking for well-established top level speakers, also remove words like "expert" as it's been shown that many people in marginalized groups (as well as people with impostor syndrome) have a hard time identifying themselves as experts and this may act as a deterrent to submit.
    “Women have a hard time feeling like they are expert enough. Use language that encourages all people, get away from statements like “are you a rockstar? Do you eat/sleep/breathe technology? We want you!”"
  • Decide if you will have any curated content. Will all talk submissions go into the main proposal pool or will you hand pick some to immediately go onto the schedule? How will you be intentional about the diversity of those you select?
  • Be transparent. Announce your open CFP by writing a blog post about the process you are using and why it's important to you that you see more diversity in your speaker lineup and attendees. 

Approach individuals and ask them to submit a talk to your conference

  • Do your research! Watch videos from other conferences, ask people who their favorite conference speakers were over the past year and whose opinions in the industry they value. 
  • Personally invite these people to submit a talk. Tell them them where you got their name and why you think they'd be a good fit at your conference. 
    “Proactively, individually asking people increased our participation by about 50%.”
    • Send an email or a tweet with an action direct at them. "We would really love to get a proposal from you." or "We loved your talk at X and were hoping you'd submit something to our conference as well."
  • Do a Google Hangout (or similar) and invite people to attend and ask you questions. Offer information about your conference: what you are looking for in speakers and talks, your favorite talks from previous years of your conference, what kind of topics you would like to see presented, and explain your proposal review process.
  • Approach local colleges/universities and user groups. Not only is this a great way to create more interest in your conference, but it's an important step in growing your local community. 
  • Approach online groups like DevChix, PyLadies, SYSTERS, RailsBridge, Women Who Code, Speak Up! Mentors, and CallBackWomen. These groups can put your CFP in front of thousands of people that are looking for opportunities to speak.
  • Approach groups in your region that teach marginalized groups how to program, like Black Girls Code, Girl Develop It!, and CodeEd. Teachers and mentors of these groups make excellent speakers.
  • Attend meetups and talk about your event. Ask the organizers to mention your CFP is open and offer to answer any questions about the event, the kind of talks you are looking for, or the CFP process
  • Ask on twitter. Additionally, a number of people have put together lists of diverse speakers on twitter, like Estelle, Carina, Jen,  and RailsBridge.
  • Ask those that are submitting proposals to tweet about it.
  • Find lists of diverse speakers. Some people have started creating lists of speakers that they recommend for conferences that feel lost with where to start. Matt and Catherine provide pretty long lists to get you started.
  • Allow site visitors to suggest speakers/friends for your conference. If a site visitor thinks they know someone that might be a good fit for your conference, make it easy for them to share that data.
  • Give an incentive for submitting a talk. RealtimeConf offered a heavy discount to women who pledged to submit a talk.
  • Go to related events in your region around the time that your CFP is open - even if they are only tangentially related. 

    "We hold a Barcamp before our conference and we use that to invite people to submit CFPs because of their talk, even if our CFP is already closed."

Provide resources on your CFP page

JSConf EU has a great CFP page and Nordic Ruby wrote a helpful blog post introducing their CFP that serve as a perfect examples for many of the below suggestions.

  • a list of past talks with links to videos, as well as a list of potential topic areas to give an idea of the kind of talks you are looking for.
  • describe the way you process propsals. How many people review them? Is it an anonymized process? Do you take into account whether someone has spoken before or spoken at your conference specifically? 
  • response date - by what date should they hear whether their talk has been accepted?
  • what do you provide accepted speakers? A free ticket to the conference? Is there a special speaker's dinner? Do you pay an honorarium? Do you cover their travel and/or lodging? If not, do you have scholarship money available to help cover their costs that they can ask for in their proposal submission?  These are especially important for people who may not otherwise be able to afford to attend your conference. For many, not knowing these details may keep them from even submitting a proposal (and considering the demographics that have less financial flexibility are the ones you want to be attracting, this is important!).
  • what resources do you provide for first-time conference speakers? Are you willing to mentor a potential speaker for an hour? To help them hone a seed of an idea into an amazing talk? Additionally, provide links to organizations that will help new speakers like Speak Up! Mentors.

Provide feedback

  • if someone submits a great proposal but it doesn't fit for your conference, recommend it for another conference. Make the introduction to the conference organizer for them via email or over twitter. 

"The last day of the conference is open [free/anyone can attend, as well as unscheduled], so they can speak the last day. It encourages them to apply for the CFP the next year."

"After a certain point in the day when talks are over, we open up the hacker lounge and allow anyone to attend for free. People are also welcome to attend the happy hour which is open until at least 10pm."

Talks and Pre-Conference Workshops/Training

  • give beginners low-pressure opportunities to speak in front of people through lightning talks, micro-talks, pecha kecha, birds of a feather/barcamp-style sessions, etc
  • provide free or low cost beginner level pre-conference training to encourage participation from beginners or people unsure of their skill level. Invite a group like RailsBridge, who provides free workshops for women to help them learn the basics of Rails. 
    "I've seen conferences that offered scholarships for women that included one-on-one mentorship and an invitation to the RailsBridge event."
  • Include beginner-level material. Dedicate a portion of your content to beginners, whether a full/partial track.

Marketing, Ticket Sales, and Registration

  • the conference website should showcase the diversity at your previous conferences. Note: choosing stock photography or otherwise misrepresenting your conference by including pictures of people that were not actually in attendance or were not conference attendees is called Tokenism and is offensive. Don't do this.
  • ask last year's speakers to tweet or blog about their experience at your conference.
  • help people afford to attend your conference.
    "I've never been able to afford our conference, so I have always attended based on our volunteer scholarship."
  • offer shirts in both men's and women's cuts as well as a wide range of sizes for both. Provide a sizing chart from the shirt manufacturer. Have the shirt ready with the attendee's name tag or in their swag bag to avoid anxiety around publically stating tshirt sizes.
  • if you are providing any meals or snacks, provide food options for those with special diets and allergies. Offer a choice for diet/allergies with an "other" option they can fill in. If you are unsure if the food you are providing works for your attendee(s), email them and verify before you put your food order in. If you cannot accommodate them, offer to refund the portion of their ticket that covers their meals so they can purchase their own food.
  • if you are not providing meals or snacks, create a list of restaurants close to the venue that provide vegetarian/vegan/kosher/gluten-free, etc options
  • ask if the attendee how you can make their attending any easier. Offer checkboxes for options like:

Parties and other social events

  • provide options that are not alcohol/bar-centered. Offer space that is safe and quiet enough for attendees to socialize at a reasonable volume. Many hotels have meeting rooms that are cheaper in the evenings or lobby areas that can be used by hotel guests for free. Ideas: board games, movie/tv show watching, hack room, karaoke, video games, museums.
  • during drinking events, venue or conference staff should be monitoring attendees to make sure no one is overserved or is put into an otherwise dangerous situation. Offer a limited number of drink tickets to attendees instead of an open bar to encourage responsible drinking. Alternatively, limit the open bar to a shorter period of time, like 1.5hrs.

Increasing Repeat Attendance

The first couple years you start implementing these processes are definitely the most effort intensive and it should get gradually easier from there. A big part of it is making sure you encouraging repeat attendance year to year.

Ask around about people's first experiences at conferences and what made them good or bad. I love this comment by Angie 'webchick' Byron and this blog post by Wendy.

  • Create a community! The most powerful thing we do by putting on conferences is growing the community. When you have a community around your conference, you're more likely to get repeat attendance.
    • Go out of your way to get to know as many attendees as possible, especially if they are new to the community or your conference. Be approachable and available for people to come up and talk do you during the conference as much as possible. People want to feel like they belong: there's no easier way to do this than to make it known that they belong there :)
    • Encourage attendees to include people around them whenever possible. At Steel City Ruby they asked people to never talk in closed circles, but in broken ones so anyone felt like they could walk up and participate without interrupting.
    • Madison Ruby offered reservations for large parties (of 8-15 people) for a handful of restaurants in the area that attendees could sign up for each day. This helped people meet people they may not have otherwise and helped people get in and out of restaurants quicker.
    • Promote the use of the conference hashtag before and after the event to help people get to know other attendees before attending and to connect with people they met after the conference. 
  • Send out a post-event survey. Anonymity is very important here, attendees should feel that they can be 100% truthful with you. Keep your survey short (about 5 questions if possible) and offer as many multiple choice answers as possible. Be sure to ask what their favorite and least favorite parts were, and what you can do to insure they'll be attending next year.

Did we miss anything? 

I would love for this to be a living document to serve as a lasting, relevant resource for conference organizers. If I missed something or you have other ideas, please let me know so I can add them!

Further Reading