A whole bunch of people I like and admire are at sxsw. I went to that conference the previous two years, but this year it overlaps with O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology conference. I’m currently in a Days Inn in San Diego, ready to go to etech tomorrow. I’ve been going to etech for the past couple of years because it’s over my head, so I learn a lot.

After talking with some women, I considered skipping etech this year because it’s too much of a boy’s club: Only 9% of the speakers are women, by my count. That sucks.

So, I checked with O’Reilly. They say that 5% of the submitted paper topics came from women. That sucks even more because it’s harder to fix. And it’s hard to determine why: Fewer women techies? Fewer women who feel welcome at etech? As far as I can tell, though, O’Reilly is behaving honorably, and the O’Reilly organization itself seems to be a good place for women to work.

So, I’m here.

(BTW, O’Reilly rejected my own proposal for a talk on the social effects of taxonomies.) [Technorati tags: oreilly etech]

Categories: Uncategorized dw