We’ve just finished going thru the submissions for my iOS Developer conference, 360|iDev. While we had some great submissions from women in the field, the showing wasn’t large. somewhere around 4%. Of the total line up for the conference, those women make up barely 10%

We even went against our long standing policy and invited a few people to speak. We rarely invite anyone to speak. We sometimes have to remind people to submit, but we almost never solicit someone to submit whom we’ve never had speak before. We won’t be doing it again, for the record. Matt Gemmell has an awesome list of women in tech, and Mike Lee has been very vocal in advocating more women be involved in Tech Conferences. We’re glad both are so engaged, now if more women were too. The one thing we disagree with both of them on is this. It’s not our job to pull anyone, male or female onto the stage. We want people who want to be there. Women fought for rights to vote, work, etc, but somehow as event organizers it’s our job to gift-wrap speaking spots for them, and when there aren’t women at our events, it’s our fault. Bullshit.

We pinged two people off Matt’s list. We didn’t pick randomly we asked around for recommendations. We got no reply from one, and the other said “I’m not a very good speaker”. We only did two because frankly we think it’s a waste of my time going through lists of women in tech to solicit submissions from them, especially if they then demure or don’t reply (please see #2a). We don’t want people at our conferences, that don’t want to be there. That’s why we can’t pay airfare, speaker fees, etc (please see #3).

Back to the point, ladies…. you can’t write blog posts about sausage-fests, and too many dicks on the dance floor at tech conferences, and then never show up. You can’t wait for people to include you. That never works. It doesn’t work for men, and it doesn’t work for you. The only way the programming world will get to a better gender mix is for women to stop hiding, waiting for us to stop what we’re doing and invite them in.

If you don’t attend conferences “because there’s not enough women” you’re part of the problem.

You know who’s part of the solution?

• Mollie Rusher
• Andrea Jensen
• Jaimee Newberry
• Justine Pratt
• Dee Sadler
• Michelle Yaiser
• Huyen Tue Dao

They didn’t wait for an invite to speak. The submitted awesome topics, that would be accepted no matter who submitted them (please see #2b). We’re pleased to have each of them presenting at my conference.

The door is open. we’re holding it open, but I’ll be damned if we’re gonna grab you and pull you through the door or try to coax you through it. WALK THROUGH THE DOOR.

(UPATE)

I wanted to add a few things. I’m super glad so many great discussions sprung up, even the ones that attacked my credibility and motivations. If this post had no reaction, I’d be worried about us all :)

1. I shouldn’t have made it about me. I used “I” a lot and really it was about the conferences and the company, which is 50% run by my wife. I think that helped me look even more douchy and ass-hole-ish. I think it made my point harder to see and talk about, which bums me out. I’ve edited the post to be more “we” so if you didn’t see the original, sorry, just assume this one makes me look less like a bad guy… I hope.

2. I got a lot of complaints of being sexist. I’ll be honest I don’t know how that could be inferred from my post, but if expecting women to submit talks is sexist, i’m ok with that. We encourage women to be as active as possible at 360|iDev and 360|Stack. Along with Mollie Rusher host a women’s breakfast to 1. offer women attendees a break from us men, but 2. and most importantly to get feedback on the conference, how to involve more women, etc.

2a. Our sample wasn’t 2. This post has been 5 years coming. Those two were just the latest. I’m sorry I made it seem like an attack on them.

2b. To be clear on our process for speaker selection. The first pass is done without looking at the name on the submission. We do that to help from doing two things. Picking people we know without regard to what they proposed, and taking gender and race ( as much as that can be assumed from a name) into account.

3. Despite Aral’s claims to the contrary we do cover 3 nights hotel for our speakers and this year are trying to an honorarium. From the beginning our aim has been to do as much as we can to ease the burden of speaking. We don’t charge a lot, and we have a lot of sessions, that’s a lot of speakers. That means it’s a lot of money that we often don’t have. We’re hoping the honorarium becomes a standard part of being a speaker at 360 conferences.

3a. If anyone is curious how the money works, since it was claimed I was getting rich at the expense of pro speakers. We do a session on the state of the conference including a full breakdown of income and expenses. You can buy the video here. Email me if $5 is too much to sate any curiosity on my intentions, regarding money. This year was the first time it’s been made publicly available, but we thought sharing it was valuable.

;

That stuff aside, I got some great and bluntly honest feedback. One of which I’ll implement this weekend. We’re going to post a anti harassment policy for all the events. Some will say that’s kind of obvious but it was pointed out that if things happen at our events, we might not hear about it. This is a sad sad list, and I’m ashamed of most of it from the perspective of a guy and a conference organizer. Frankly that kind of crap is whack. If a speaker did that at our events they wouldn’t be welcomed back, end of story. But it was also pointed out that we should be explicit in that stance and encourage anyone who feels harassed to let us know. I will say, I’m happy our events weren’t on that list that I could see.

I’ll post the policy on the company site and link to it from the conferences. So look for that, and let me know what you think of it, what I can fix or be more clear about.

Lately they’ve added to the Board of Directors which is what caused the twitter discussion. I should be clear I have no problems with anyone on the list, and actually really respect Joel Spolsky. However no one on that list represents the “app maker” community. Sure many of them employ and manage app developers. Some of them make money from developers leveraging their platform, some of them love talking about apps. But for something called the “App Developers Alliance” I’d expect people actively developing apps to be on the BOD. And that doesn’t seem to be the case.

I mean as a comparison, Appsterdam is run by people making apps. Not people managing people who make apps, or people who invest in apps, or who want to sell ad networks to app makers. It’s run by coders.

It seems the whole point of the alliance is to bring together those who have platforms they want developers to use (buy), and then, well I don’t know what after that. Looking at the service discounts, it’s a mix of companies that represent the BOD’s employers or investments, which seems a little shady to me.

They’re also not open to criticism it seems because After Tim and I made our points the conversation went dead. I personally avoid companies who can’t operate transparently, ESPECIALLY when it comes to criticisms. It’s also worrisome that when confronted on the lack of app developers on the BOD, the conversation ends.

I’m not (yet) condemning the concept of the App Developers Alliance, but I am seriously questioning it’s motives, and will be watching with great interest. I think things like 360|iDev and 360|Flex would be a perfect fit. Not from a sponsor standpoint (they do mention loving to sponsor events, but I suspect that’s just for marketing purposes). I think events that are really and truly focused on the developer community make a ton of sense for an organization that also claims to be focused on the developer community. If our focuses align, it seems like a great fit. The “if” is the big question right now, and I’m waiting to see if there’s an answer.

I’ve railed about this before, but wanted to bring it back to the top. It’s simple, I have money, and I want to spend it. BUT I want to spend it on what I want, not a bundle of shit with a few nuggets of goodness in it. That means I don’t want ESPN, I don’t want MTV or Nicktoons and I certainly don’t want Lifetime, but I do want HBO, USA, the main networks, FX, etc. I’d pay per network or per show. But I’m not against paying people who make content for that content. I’m also not against suffering through ads in exchange for it (within reason)

I’ve been paying for Hulu+ since it went live. Many networks were onboard and I want to pay them for their content….  Except… The only way Hulu is usable is if you use the desktop app, because of licensing bullshit, the mobile apps can’t show certain shows, some are web only, etc. The desktop client skirted that shit and we could watch whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted, on our TV via a Macbook running the desktop app.

Too bad Hulu’s desktop app is a red-headed step child and hasn’t been updated in years. Not only is it not updated, but now it’s so old that if you update your Flash player, the app breaks. So you have to choose, new flash or hulu.

Ok fine, the PS3 has a hulu client and is HD with surround vs. our Macbook that is simply stereo. Except… The PS3 client is hamstrung with all those stupid licensing rules. Some ABC shows are ‘web only’ All USA and Sci Fi shows are too. So now I’m paying for shows I basically can’t watch. Why can I watch Castle on the  PS3, but not (it’s for my wife) The Bachelor?

So what’s the solution? Torrents. I was already torrenting CBS programming because they won’t be a part of Hulu and have even said they believe “cord cutting” is a fad that will pass and are willing to wait it out rather than offer streaming options.

The downside of torrenting TV programming is that the network doesn’t know I’m watching. The advertising don’t get my attention, and the net effect can be canceled shows, etc. It’s a trade off, be treated like shit, or risk not being counted as a viewer. I choose to not be treated like I don’t matter.

All that said, Dear CBS, ABC, Fox, HBO and the rest. Figure it out, it’s 2012. We don’t fax things anymore, we don’t gather round to watch TV when it airs, and we don’t want to pay for things we don’t want. Adjusting is up to you, not us the consumers. We’ve moved into the 21st century, and we’re waiting for you to join us.

Take a minute and click the bar over my top banner or this link. It’s definitely important.

I don’t think anyone (well maybe the 1%) would argue that it’s a pretty fucked up time in America right now. Record unemployment and foreclosures. The Middle class is vanishing faster than Bengal tigers, and the wealthiest 1% is quickly rising to essentially a ruling class. Didn’t we have a revolution about that notion? Before anyone jumps in. I don’t care if the rich are rich, nor do I think they should just give away money to balance the scales. That’s not the same as expecting a bit more equal playing field to compete and earn money.

We’ve got banks making terrible decisions, doing shady ass deals to get richer, and then being bailed out by the government because we let them get so big, failing would further damage our fragile economy.

We’ve got small businesses struggling (mine included) to stay afloat while big businesses get loans and buy outs. You know, I’d love it if the American public owned a portion of my business, can I get a small bail out loan?

And while all this is going down the government is trying to install a kill switch on the internet. You know like what Egypt and the rest of the middle east, and of course China, like to use when their citizens get uppity wanting peace and freedom from oppression.

I’m against anything that puts the internet in the control of anyone, especially a government or corporation. I think it’s a US responsibility that the internet be free, open and as makes sense unrestricted. I remember watching the news feeds, and of course tweets about shit going down in Egypt and elsewhere. People rising up against their corrupt and sure I’ll say it, evil, governments. The first thing almost every government does in that situation is kill the internet. I remember thinking how strong and brave those folks were not having twitter, Facebook, etc to use to rally. Having to rely basically on old school approaches, and risky in person exchanges before rallies to spread the word. I thought how impressive for one thing, and how sad. And mostly how lucky I felt that such bullshit didn’t happen here. Heck we’ve got popular revolts in many major cities right now, enabled, supported, and enboldened by the internet.

How many occupy(city name) websites do you think there’d be if the US government could simply turn off the net. Block sites they don’t like or that disagree with their world view?

It bums me out when people we elected to office do things that are so far from what the general population wants, let alone cares about. I mean really, do our law makers think the guy who’s struggling to make his mortgage cares about whether the internet has a kill switch?

Think he’s concerned right now as he decides which bill to pay and which to put off until the second notice, that the government is enabling big business to come in and shut down sites that they think might be poaching their shit. Sites where someone made a disparaging comment on a blog post, etc.

He doesn’t care, he can’t. Oh wait, i guess that’s probably their plan… silly me.

Go click the link up above, it really is important.

The points outlined in the article all speak for themselves, so i don’t need to re-hash those.

Reading is good for you. Reading anything is better than nothing, but like all things, there needs to be a balance.

Reading only business books, is no better than reading only comic books. I haven’t read as many business books of late, but still keep 1 or 2 around at any given time, just to keep my brain working on business, I went through a phase where I read mostly business books, and fiction was the minority. Right now it’s the opposite, but that changes as availability of good fiction changes.

Read too many or only business books, and I think you lose an edge. Creativity. Business books, like business school (which I’m against) tell you how things have been done, what’s worked for someone else, how you should do X and Y and how you shouldn’t. Fiction opens your mind to possibilities. Sure i can’t sick a dragon on my competitors, but reading fiction at least keeps my mind able to consider other options.

Creativity is as valuable as knowing how Lou Gerstner brought IBM back, and unless your next job is running IBM, I’d argue that creativity, and a mind open to new thoughts is better than knowing how Lou did what he did.

This relates to the “I don’t have time to read” crowd. You’re fooling yourself, I’m sure you think it makes you look cool, and important that your every waking hour is consumed with something, but really you look like a Douche, and at least to me, and probably most ‘readers’ look like an imbecile. There’s time in the day for everything, and reading is one of those things you should make time for, maybe not daily, but heck, reading a page a week is still better than not reading a page a week…

Go grab a book, and be a better person, in business and in life.

My first reaction was, What. The. Fuck.

My second and third, after reading the article, the same.

The most obvious sign of retardedness to me is, in all the terror attacks of late, dating back to 9/11. Have the terrorists been telegraphing their moves? I mean they outfox our CIA, FBI, and groups I don’t know exist. Our TSA doesn’t seem able to stop a determined terrorist, so why on earth do we think terrorists are tweeting their plans?

I mean is someone tweeting, considered a good lead? Is there no place left where someone can make a flippant comment (often out of frustration, or in this case, concerns over weather)?

Is twitter the intelligence and law enforcement communities only source of leads?

Come on folks, really? This is getting out of control. I fully understand it’s a crime to yell fire in a movie theatre, and you’d be daft to walk thru security making jokes about the bomb in your luggage, but now we can’t even tweet without fear the police will come and confiscate our laptops, phones, etc?

Boo on anyone associated with the mentioned incident, and boo on our police and intelligence communities if they can’t filter a real threat from someone making a flip remark on twitter.

I wonder if any terrorists are following me on twitter? If so, please (anonymously is fine) leave a comment and let me know if you routinely announce your plans in a tweet.

While I think a great many Silicon Valley CEOs are douchebag tards too busy telling each other how great they are, I think a great many (and many non CA CEOs) are highly intelligent, savvy guys (and gals). All very much people I’d be happy to see serve their country as our CTO.

Instead, President Obama has selected Aneesh Paul Chopra.

So who is Aneesh Paul Chopra? Good question, one I’m sure echoed around the country a lot when it was announced. Lots of “Who?”

Chopra currently serves as Virginia’s Secretary of Technology, and has previous acted as the Managing Director for the Advisory Board Company, where he advised executives on health care operations.

So he’s experienced in our frakked up healthcare system, great.

According to Virginia’s state website, Chopra was recently recognized by Government Technology Magazine’s for excellent ‘use of technology to improve government’, and he was awarded Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s 2007 State Leadership Advocacy Award.

So a group government bureaucrats think he’s a great guy, and has ‘improved government’ through technology. Let’s see, healthcare is still expensive and inefficient, hospitals are slow and disorganized, electronic records are non existent. Wonder what he’s been up to? Wonder what makes him even remotely qualified to be our CTO?

I’m sad that President Obama, has chosen a bureaucrat as our CTO. He had an awesome chance to really take us forward technologically.

According to this article published in the Washington Post in 2005, Chopra was not a career technologist before he became Virginia’s Secretary of Technology, but he has extensive experience in policy making.

Great, a clearly non-innovative, non technological person.

When I worked out Ameriquest, one of the worst parts, was the CIO. Like Chopra she wasn’t a coder or technologist. Rather she saw the ‘benefit’ in management over actual experience or expertise. Chopra’s “primary understanding is from customer need, not bits and bytes”. Which == crap. I know because our CIO spouted the same crap when asked what her experience.

The CIO was terrible, her skill was kissing ass, and managing up, coming up with grand schemes that wasted time, wasted effort, wasted money, and in the end got her ousted by a ‘better’ (and equally as technologically inept) ass kisser.

Sadly I doubt President Obama will fire Chopra and replace him, so our first CTO, for the next 4 or 8 years, is a bureaucrat, with little to no TECHNOLOGY experience. I’m not sure what the ‘T’ in Obama’s CTO is, but guessing it’s not Technology.

I know Obama is a politician, but so far he’s two for two as far as I’m concerned, working to squash the illegal wire tapping program Bush started, and now this clear political ass grab.

As a product of public education, I’m 100% opposed to private schools and vouchers. I’m more opposed to our current school system, which I think needs to be completely scrapped. Not just a little, but scrapped and started over, get rid of the teachers, the principles, the assistant principles, and even some of the guidence counselors (though that’s just cuz I think they’re lame).

One of my biggest beef’s with my pals the democrats, their allegiance to teacher’s unions. They’re as bad the auto makers unions, and unfortunately for us, they’re mess ups, are children, not just crappy cars.

Teaching is one of those jobs, where all you have to do is make it 10 years, or 15 years, and you’re set. You can suck as much as you like after you’re earned tenure. Man I wish I had that deal, so my job well enough to not get fired for a while, then coast until retirement. SURE not every teacher is that way, a great many are heroes in the truest sense, and have my undying respect, but easily as many, are terrible. I’m not being over dramatic, I’ve suffered through them, their not really caring about the students, or the curriculum, simply fullfilling the lesson plan requirements, whether we learned something or not.

What should we do? Make teachers live in the same world we do. If I start sucking at my job, EUI will fire me. If I’ve worked there for 10 years, they’ll still let me go if I start to do a poor job. Why should a teacher be any different? Why should we give them that break that gives them the freedom to stink it up?

My idea? It’s easy, make teaching pay what it’s worth in the market like any other job, and make it no more guaranteed than any other. Teachers should be paid what they’re worth, and fired when they stink, it’s really that simple. We shouldn’t promote poor teachers to principle, and poor principles to super-intendant. Sure every industry has it’s share of “promoted to highest level of incompetence” but teaching seems to have institutionalized the concept, and codified it into their very fiber.

This quote is awesome,

She says things most superintendents would not. “The thing that kills me about education is that it’s so touchy-feely,” she tells me one afternoon in her office. Then she raises her chin and does what I come to recognize as her standard imitation of people she doesn’t respect. Sometimes she uses this voice to imitate teachers; other times, politicians or parents. Never students. “People say, ‘Well, you know, test scores don’t take into account creativity and the love of learning,’” she says with a drippy, grating voice, lowering her eyelids halfway. Then she snaps back to herself. “I’m like, ‘You know what? I don’t give a crap.’ Don’t get me wrong. Creativity is good and whatever. But if the children don’t know how to read, I don’t care how creative you are. You’re not doing your job.”

Damn straight!

The data back up Rhee’s obsession with teaching. If two average 8-year-olds are assigned to different teachers, one who is strong and one who is weak, the children’s lives can diverge in just a few years, according to research pioneered by Eric Hanushek at Stanford. The child with the effective teacher, the kind who ranks among the top 15% of all teachers, will be scoring well above grade level on standardized tests by the time she is 11. The other child will be a year and a half below grade level–and by then it will take a teacher who works with the child after school and on weekends to undo the compounded damage. In other words, the child will probably never catch up.

I can’t agree more. I came from what I consider a pretty bad district, my high school opened with not enough teachers, and an empty library. I sat on the floor for more than a month in my 70ish kid english class. Several of my classes the first year, we had to share text books. The Gym, never had showers, etc. etc. I had a history teacher, and while I thought he was nice and a cool guy, he never spoke to the class. He assigned chapters, and tests. I went to that class about once every two weeks and passed with an A, and don’t recall a damn thing! I was in an AP class that so horribly prepared me for the AP exam, that I failed miserably. What Senior AP Lit class spends the class reading a loud? Mine did.

Teachers are brave souls, and I think we treat them mostly like dirt, but I think too many of them are doing our (actually ‘your’ since Nicole and I aren’t breeders) a terrible disservice, and we as a society have empowered them to do so. We bitch and moan about the state of education, yet parents don’t get involved, we throw money at “no student left behind” which really means, “pass the dummies so they’re some one elses problem”, rather than holding students AND teachers accountable. Every job has metrics, every single one. Yet somehow teachers don’t? Test scores aren’t good metrics, blah blah blah. There MUST be a metric, and we owe it to students, and teachers a like to find it, and make it standard, and hold all parties to it. That’s it, it’s not rocket surgery, it’s not impossible.

The top names according to BW are:

Vint Cerf – Cheif Internet Evangelist for Google. I’m not sure I want some one from Google in that position. Google’s great and all “Do no evil” but I’m getting less and less convinced as time goes by that their motives are so altruistic.

Steve Balmer – uh no. Maybe CCO; Chief Crazy Officer, but CTO? Sorry Steve, you seem smart and all but I wouldn’t put in in front of a crowd of anyone. Microsoft fanboys seem to like you, but from the outside looking in, you seem a bit crazy, and not really in touch with technology that doesn’t come from Redmond.

Jeff Bezos – CEO of Amazon. I’d buy that for a dollar. I’ve never met Jeff, but from everything I’ve read about him, he’s down to earth, cool, and generally a fun guy, with a good head for business.

Ed Felton – Comp Sci professor from Princeton. I don’t know a single thing about him, but A Princeton Prof, can’t be too bad a choice.

Lawrence Lessig – I’d buy that for a buck too. I read his blog (when it’s not over my head) he seems to be spot on with technology, and politics, which seems to be sorely lacking in Washington, just look at most of our existing tech legislation, and oh god, the Patent and Copyright office.

Techrunch has a poll, so go take a look, and drop your opinion.