{"id":4572,"date":"2017-09-05T11:38:24","date_gmt":"2017-09-05T11:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/?p=4572"},"modified":"2017-09-05T11:43:20","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T11:43:20","slug":"what-its-like-to-be-a-woman-at-a-tech-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/what-its-like-to-be-a-woman-at-a-tech-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"What It\u2019s Like to Be a Woman at a Tech Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">What It\u2019s Like to Be a Woman at a Tech Conference <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/S8tqdkg3L7\">https:\/\/t.co\/S8tqdkg3L7<\/a> this photo <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/vOp7Mpz78c\">pic.twitter.com\/vOp7Mpz78c<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Grumble Bundle (@monkchips) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/monkchips\/status\/904704705196064769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 4, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>This tweet really struck a chord on twitter yesterday, after being shared by Jessie Frazelle, newly minted as a Microsoft developer advocate, so I thought I would share it here. Ilya Dimitrichenk0, developer experience at Weaveworks, shared it with me a month or so ago, but I didn&#8217;t expect it to get over 500 likes and 160 retweets when I tweeted it.<\/p>\n<p>Chloe Condon&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/shift.newco.co\/what-its-like-to-be-a-woman-at-a-tech-conference-8a1a299ac82b\">Medium post<\/a> is an excellent read. It&#8217;s funny, full of grace and charm, and definitely on point with a list of 5 Experiences women face at tech conferences.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&#8220;The more women who attend these events, the more we\u2019ll have people thinking outside the box when it comes to \u201cwhat a developer looks like\u201d, the more role models we have for young women (like Shilpa), and the more female allies we\u2019ll have at these events. Blog about it, tweet about it, and use <a class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/I_Look_Like_an_Engineer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/I_Look_Like_an_Engineer\">#ilooklikeanengineer<\/a> or #changetheratio hashtags while you\u2019re at it. Thinking about attending a conference, but afraid of feeling out of place? DO IT. You belong there, and your gender should not dictate that.<\/p>\n<p id=\"a017\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">And if you\u2019re male, I hope this gives you an insight into the mind of the woman you see at your booth. Next time, make an effort to chat with them before they have to grab your attention at your booth. I have high hopes that we can all be more aware and open to changing our preconceived stereotypes of what an engineer \u201clooks like\u201d. There are so many flavors and varieties of engineers (not just wearing a start-up shirt wearing\/male), let\u2019s try hard not to discriminate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As a company that runs a few tech conferences &#8211; indeed with <a href=\"http:\/\/thingmonk.com\/\">Thingmonk<\/a> coming up next week (some tickets still available) &#8211; we do our best to run events where hopefully women don&#8217;t feel quite so isolated.<\/p>\n<p>First- always have a <a href=\"http:\/\/thingmonk.com\/coc.html\">code of conduct<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>We put together diversity sponsorships so we can offer free tickets for underrepresented groups in tech, with mentoring and some ongoing support. Thingmonk is backed by Salesforce.com on that score. Moo provides free business cards to help our scholars with lovely little ice-breakers.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Thanks to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/thingmonk?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@thingmonk<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MOO?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@moo<\/a> for the business cards. Really looking forward to meeting you all next week! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gGUd8DCjQ2\">pic.twitter.com\/gGUd8DCjQ2<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Sam (@_notwaving) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/_notwaving\/status\/905015238466183168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 5, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>You have to hustle though. Tech conferences aren&#8217;t a field of D&amp;I dreams &#8211; if you want better representation then outreach is required. No representation without hustle. To that end, we brought in one of our scholarship alumni, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bybreensamuels?lang=en\">Bybreen Samuels<\/a> to help run the program this time.<\/p>\n<p>We also do our best to ensure that we have plenty of great women speakers at all of our events. After all, you can&#8217;t be what you can&#8217;t see. Again &#8211; some active curation is required here, but the pipeline is definitely there, in any tech field, if you look around.<\/p>\n<p>And yes &#8211; we have t-shirts made for women.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t actually know what it&#8217;s like to be a woman at a tech conference, obviously. But I listen, read, learn and try to do better every time.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What It\u2019s Like to Be a Woman at a Tech Conference https:\/\/t.co\/S8tqdkg3L7 this photo pic.twitter.com\/vOp7Mpz78c &mdash; Grumble Bundle (@monkchips) September 4, 2017 This tweet really struck a chord on twitter yesterday, after being shared by Jessie Frazelle, newly minted as a Microsoft developer advocate, so I thought I would share it here. Ilya Dimitrichenk0, developer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/files\/2017\/09\/chloe-condon.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9wfjh-1bK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}