I'd recently given a talk at a conference and was gently basking in the glow of people telling me how fabulous I was, when some entitled prick came up to me and said... Great talk, mate! Really interesting stuff. But... "Oh great!" I thought. "Here it comes..." To play Devil's Advocate for a moment, have…
Continue reading →Inclusivity Tips for Conference Speakers
by | | 1 comment | Read ~692 times.
I'm lucky enough to get invited to speak at a variety of conferences around the world. After accepting a speaking invitation, and checking I'm not on an all-male line-up, I usually make one of the following requests to the organisers. Thanks for inviting me. Can you let me know if the venue is wheelchair accessible?…
Continue reading →Do Adults Need Conference Codes of Conducts?
by | | 1 comment | Read ~381 times.
(Because what the world needs is another CoC thinkpiece from a straight, white-passing, cis-gendered man.) This is a rambling blog post inspired by Cate Hudson's "Codes of Conduct and Worthless Manfeelings". You should read that first, it's pretty good. Don't worry, I'll wait. (In which I do my best not to insult all my friends…
Continue reading →You Mustn't Criticise The Status Quo At A Hackday
by | | 2 comments | Read ~793 times.I was at a hackday recently. During one of the talks, a speaker from a small company made a fairly stinging criticism of a large tech firm. As it happened, one of the audience members was an employee of said behemoth and heckled the speaker. After the presenter told him to shut up, he spent…
Continue reading →OpenTech 2011
by | | 1 comment | Read ~171 times.
Another year, another OpenTech. I found last year's OpenTech conference to be awe-inspiring. This year's was equally good. This is a quick rundown of the sessions I attended that I found particularly interesting.
Continue reading →Feminism in London - 2009
by | | 7 comments | Read ~722 times.
On Sunday, I attended the Feminism in London 2009 conference. The conference was inspiring, depressing, uplifting and infuriating in equal measures. That's probably a good thing. I'll briefly discuss some of the sessions I attended and also what I think the organisers could do better next year. The Conference Kate Smurthwaite expertly chaired proceedings and…
Continue reading →