So I’ve heard about this from a number of different sources and it’s taken me til now to get myself into gear and get back into blogging! Yep you heard right… All this tweeting and doing the London Girl Geek Dinner website re-designs has been using up a fair bit of time. So now that’s out of the way and I only have the Girl Geek Dinners dot com site left to go maybe, just maybe I’ll have a bit more time free to be able to get back into blogging again!
I’ve got a whole host of interesting things to post over the next few weeks and the first one I wanted to share with you was a new website called GeekSpeakr. In true web 2.0 style it’s got a mis-spelt name and a nice shiny web 2.0 style to it. However there is an important reason for this site being in existence.
At technical conferences how many of the speakers are female? Usually I see that it is a minority… maybe 2 in every 40 speakers is female (on a good day!). This website is there as a portal for women who are willing to speak at technical conferences. It gives organizers of conferences a single location to look to find a speaker on the right subject for their conference. It is also a great way to find out who else in your area is into the same things as you!
Next time you go to a conference and are disappointed about the no of good quality female speakers put a note in the feedback form and refer them to GeekSpeakr. Hopefully in the long term we will start seeing a few positive changes! 
Also this isn’t just for the conference organisers, if you are female and interested in speaking at public events then do sign yourself up to GeekSpeakr. You’ll find me there and I’m sure you’ll also find a whole host of other well known people on the site too! And if you would like to give public speaking a try and are a little nervous about large audiences you can always sign yourself up to your local Girl Geek Dinner as a speaker! I’m sure they would be happy to have you!
A word of advice when filling out your profile information, I did try to search for speakers in a specific location on the site. What you need to do to come up on that list is to put somewhere other than in Location where you are based and willing to travel to. It makes the searches for speakers much easier to find!! And will probably get you more hits!
Hi Margaret,
Like you I’m some what disappointed about this too. It seems to me that organizers are only too happy to have speakers fall on their lap, and be happy with that.
I do wonder sometimes though whether the organizers actually realize that they are missing out on some valuable resources and great technical minds at these things. I know as an events organizer it can be hard to get the right people to talk at events and to get people who are willing to put themselves forward. Sometimes I have to give people a gentle push in the right direction.
Margaret, would you be willing to put together some advice on how to get to speak at technical events for this blog? I’m just thinking you’ve been on even more of these panels than I have and I’m sure the girls who read this site would be interested in hearing some of the strategies to getting onto the lists…
What do you think?
Sarah
Thanks for sharing that site with us Sarah – I’ve just registered!
I also get fed up with the low showing of GeekGirls on Speakers Panels when we are in such abundance…it’s pure laziness.