<sigh> Where do I begin?
I’ll start by stating that I am an African-American female with over 20 years in the IT industry and have attended various IT industry and/or trade shows all around the world for at least 15 of those 20 years. I echo Brent Leary’s sentiment, “this isn’t a new phenomenon”. To those of you for whom lack of diversity in our industry is an epiphany I ask, “where the hell have you been?” Minority inclusion is not complete without the participation of the country’s two largest minority groups. You can usually count the number of African-American and Hispanic-American (which are the two largest minority groups in the US) delegates/attendees at major industry events on one hand, and speakers are close to non-existent. Going one step further, I’m usually the only ‘woman of color’ in the bunch and occasionally the only woman (more on that in another blog). One would know or realize these discrepancies if one were aware of the entire IT community rather than myopically or ignorantly focusing on their little corner of the world. So yes, Web 2.0 (and every other majority owned and/or operated enterprise, institution, think tank, etc.) is made up of white men. DUH.
Anil Dash said that he believes that the people who organize Web 2.0 genuinely want their event to be inclusive. That may be true. However, I submit that they, and countless other companies that organize events of this type, never even consider whether or not their events will be well attended by minorities. It’s just not part of their thought process. The assumption is if the event has compelling and relevant content, is held in a ‘cosmopolitan area’ (Anil, we need to talk), and has decent speakers, everyone will attend. Newsflash: just because you build it does not mean we will come.
Pete Cashmore stated that Anil’s post on the Web 2.0 conference put into words something a lot of us have been thinking. I know that we have discussed these issues in the minority community for years but who is this ‘us’ you refer to? Now, some of my closest friends and associates are white males in and out of the IT industry and they’ve never heard this dialog from anyone outside the minority community.
Pete also asked how do we tackle the lack of diversity in the Web 2.0 world? Let’s take it a step further. How do we tackle the lack of diversity in the world of IT, events included, in general? Here is something to ponder; learn from other industries. Every mature industry in this country has had to deal with issues of diversity. IT at this level is relatively young compared to manufacturing, consumer products, agriculture, etc. The consumer product industry is a prime example. They found out the hard way that minorities in this country will not purchase a product if they don’t see someone that looks like them on the packaging, in marketing material or in the media. This gave rise to hundreds of marketing conferences and events geared towards teaching companies how to reach individual minority markets. Studies have shown that when minorities are properly engaged, revenue and profits go up. IT could use a similar model.
And to those of you in the majority community who have been thinking about this issue, stop thinking and start acting if you truly want a more inclusive community. Have lunch with or befriend a minority IT professional. Find out what they think, what’s really going on and how we can become a more inclusive community. These are issues and questions that cannot be resolved or answered by white men; they can only be answered by the population you seek to engage.
As an aside, business associates and colleagues have been after me to start a Blog but I’ve been rather reticent. This was just the catalyst I needed – Thanks Pete!
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