Priming the Conference Pump and a Complaint to Some (Blog) Conference Organizers

Blogher Nicole Simon has been posting podcast interviews with presenters at December's LesBlogs 2.0. This is a great way to prime the pump for a conference. It gives people a taste -- which is good if the presenters are great -- and helps build excitement. If people listen and use the comment feature, they can begin connecting -- even better. LesBlogs is fortunate to have Nicole do this.

Now for my snarky comment to the folks organizing Les Blogs. I'm sorry. I've been resisting but it is late at night and I'm giving in...

First a disclaimer. I wrote to Loïc Le Meur, the prime Les Blogs organizer, and offered to speak as I was possibly going to be in Europe at the time. In my offer, I also pointed to a few other very cool women and said I could find more if he needed it. He responded quickly and said he'd get back to me. Never did. Pfft. I probably should have written to Elisabeth Albrycht who I later learned was also a co-organizer. Maybe I would have gotten more traction for the plea to have more women at the podium. I don't care if they didn't want me -- in truth I believe they are much better served by European speakers. But I did care that people follow up as they suggest the would. Ahem. (yeah, it's late... my snarky side, which I usually repress, is in full bloom.)

In they end, the Les Blogs organizers did a wretched job tapping into the diverse set of women blogging talent in Europe. And they were not the first. This fall a blogging conference in Portugal noted that half the bloggers in Portugal are women. Yet there, few women were speaking. An event in London earlier this year (I need to mine the link) had the same issues.

What gives? I am beginning to believe that blogging conference organizers think blogging is a male sport with a few token women (usually the same ones, no offence, sistahs) tossed in to say they tried. Come on guys, we have been offering you suggestions in the comments of your speaker list. There is a women's speaker wiki. There is no excuse for the feeble ration of women to men (by my count 7:44) presenters. There are tons of fabulous women doing cool things in Europe. It is hard to keep giving you guys the benefit of the doubt. If you don't have the contacts, ask some women. Remember, we're great networkers! (snarky face)

The Bottom Line
There are financial implications to the short sightedness of conference organizers. We have economic clout and we are not going to spend our bucks on your conferences if you keep ignoring us. You are not only losing by not having more, great, women speakers presenting more diverse ideas. You are losing seat sales. Look at the participant list at Les Blogs. Mostly men. Look at the market you are missing and connect the dots. We want to see ourselves represented in your offerings, not the same old boys.

Come on, take a risk. You will win. And if you need our help, we're happy to offer it.

What does it take to turn the tide?

Categories: lesblogs, blogher, podcasts, NicoleSimon, unconference

Communities are like a slice of good layer cake

Slice of Larry's birthday cake
Originally uploaded by Choconancy1.

I have been involved lately in a lot of projects with distributed communities and groups of many types. They are complex. Sometimes they are darned complicated. The challenge I find in talking to people about these kinds of groups is that they want a simple explanation, a tidy set of easily describable practices to make them work.

I don't succeed very well in that.

So I've been playing with metaphors. Here is one: a distributed group is like a delicious layer cake (in this illustration, a souped-up German chocolate cake with an extra addition of layers of ganache - more chocolate. Always more chocolate.)

When you look at the whole assembled frosted cake, you see the final product. It looks like a single entity.

As you look closer, you see the texture of the icing. Drips may be on the edge of the cake plate. Sprinkles of coconut slipped off to the side.

Cut in an the layers reveal themselves. A layer of chocolate sponge cake. The thick-gooey coconut/pecan/caramelized milk layer. A thin separating wash of ganache.

These are not random layers. The cake balances the sweet, chewiness of the filling. The dark, creamy ganache keeps the flaky cake from falling apart and absorbing too much moisture. The light and the heavy. The sweet and the almost bitter. The smooth and the crunchy.

It is the marrying of that diversity, each into a bite of cake, that makes it great.

Same for distributed teams. By dint of being able to be anywhere, they can be diverse. But they need their "flavors" to find a point of harmony. Still distinct. Still identifiable, but sublimely successful when taken together.

Categories: collaboration, distributed_teams, CoPs, community, chocolate

Tom Davenport on Knowledge Workers

I realized about 10 years ago that I was a knowledge worker. That's another story for another time, but because of this I appreciated Tom Davenports post on reflecting on his presentation at this years KM-World. Reflecting on KM-World...

"I spoke about my book Thinking for a Living and the various types of interventions that one can make into knowledge work. As I spoke I became even more convinced that improving the performance of knowledge workers is what knowledge management should be about. God knows, nobody else is addressing the issue, and with that focus knowledge managers could address a range of solutions that go beyond just technology. Somebody needs to be thinking, for example, about how knowledge workspaces affect knowledge work, and lobbying on behalf of knowledge workers with the facilities and real estate people. Somebody needs to look at what the “self service” movement in organizations—having knowledge workers do all their own administrative transactions—is doing for knowledge worker productivity. Somebody needs to be thinking about how knowledge workers manage their personal information and knowledge environments. Most of the technologies at the KM World conference were oriented to making knowledge work more productive anyway. I think we should step up to that responsibility in terms of technology and anything else that might help."

Now, I'm not sure no one else is addressing these issues. Earlier this year the KM4Dev group talked about knowledge worker environments and published a summary of those reflections in it's journal. The conversations are around me all the time. But maybe they aren't getting press!

By the way, Tom is blogging with Larry Prusak and Don Cohen as part of an offering from Babson Executive Education. Looks interesting!

Categories: km4dev, Tom_Davenport, knowledge_workers, knowledge_management

Speaking of Collaborative Writing - Here is a new experiment in progress!

This one will be writing and images! Juicy! vitriolica webb's ite:

"Which gave me an idea the other day (although Keith is now claiming it as HIS idea, honestly, men). A story. Told a chapter at a time by bloggers, in the style of their choosing. What a laugh. D'ya wanna? D'ya wanna? huh? huh? D'ya wanna? let me know if you want in.

Here is Vitriolica's proposed process:

When I have everyone in (by the end of Friday), i'll put anyone who wants to write in a cyber-hat and assign a chapter number. Then I'll do the same for the illustrators. Then we'll get this bloomin' thing started. And to have each chapter written in the style of each blogger's blog would be fantabulous. And even though this is going to be in English, if English isn't your mother tongue feel free to join in. "

Hm, I think I shall toss my hat in the ring (as if I needed something else to do. Oi!)

Categories: collaborative_writing