Posts Tagged ‘Liz Strauss’

Mindfulness the Key to Finding Female Speakers

Posted on: September 1st, 2010 by Geoff Livingston 19 Comments

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It’s late in another summer, and another thought “leader” has said that the blame for the lack of female speakers (or success) should be laid squarely on the shoulders of women. While there have been several great direct responses to this latest link frenzy, I felt that instead of participating directly (like I did last summer), the best commentary I could make is to outline how as a conference organizer I successfully garnered approximately 50% female speaker rates for all three BlogPotomacs.

First, I co-organized the first BlogPotomac with Debbie Weil, and together we set the precedence for the event series. We mindfully decided that at least three of the seven speakers will be women. This seemed like the right thing to do, especially considering that there are more women in communications than men. We wanted to represent our stakeholders with a group of speakers that at least came close to matching our audience.

Each of the three BlogPotomacs had predetermined topic areas, and speakers were matched to the topics. In almost every instance there were natural choices that made sense. A couple of times the would-be speaker was not available. So we found someone else! In one case, I held the spot for two months until my networking yielded the speaker.

But I didn’t give up. And when men asked for speaking spots (women rarely solicited a speaking spot, in fact I cannot remember one), I said no. I did not want the loudest chest beater. I wanted quality lady speakers, was committed to achieving that result, and would not be distracted.

We had some fantastic lady speakers including KD Paine, Maggie Fox, Kami Huyse, Shireen Mitchell, Liz Strauss, Amber Naslund, Jen McClure (emcee), Beth Kanter, Natalia Luckyanova, Jane Quigley, and Shonali Burke (emcee). Two of them are so great, they are now my business partners.

So, the morale of this story is as a conference organizer, it’s a conscious decision to either have women or not. As I told my friend Allyson Kapin, “If you spend time in a homogeneous social network like Silicon Valley’s VC community, then you will only get white, male venture backed candidates. It’s your job to go beyond the comfort zone. Victimization may be an easy out, but it won’t stop the criticism of your inability to break out of limited social circles.”

BTW, if you would like to hear some outstanding lady speakers sign up for some of the WomenWhoTech Telesummit on September 15. I’ll happen to be one of the few men participating, a refreshing change.

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SOBCon NonProfit Give Back Day

Posted on: February 25th, 2010 by Geoff Livingston 2 Comments

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Brian Clark (@copyblogger) Presents at SOBCon 2009


On Sunday May 2nd, SOBCon 2010 will highlight four charities (501c3) that have volunteered themselves for a social media coaching session from its attendees. I have the great honor of serving the conference as the NonProfit Give Back facilitator.

Each of our four charities — Anixter, Ashoka, InvisiblePeopleTV and Vitamin Angels — will discuss their strategy, current social media efforts, and online hopes. From there the room, comprised of some of the brightest minds in social media, will match the mission and goals of the organizations with the tools, with the end game of providing meaningful social media strategy that can impact the world.

Like my Zoetica colleague and CEO Beth Kanter likes to say, “Even better, what if we all learned from the process?” In addition to group sharing, we will have break-out sessions where each table

Sounds like a plan to me. The following is a brief description of each of our four participants. I hope to see you at SOBCON!

Our Participants

anixterlogo293.gifAnixter: The mission of Chicago-based the Anixter Center is to enhance the ability of individuals living with or at risk of disabilities to live, learn, work, and play in the community. Each year, at dozens of locations across greater Chicago, Anixter Center provides an array of effective, innovative services to more than 5,000 children and adults. These services include education, employment, life skills, communication, recreation, health care, counseling, and support.

image_preview.jpgAshoka: The global association serves the world’s leading social entrepreneurs—men and women tackling system changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems. Since 1981, more than 2,000 leading social entrepreneurs have become Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in more than 60 countries. With its global community, Ashoka develops models for collaboration and design infrastructure needed to advance the field of social entrepreneurship and the citizen sector.


invppl.jpgInvisiblePeopleTV: Mark Horvath (@hardlynormal on Twitter) will come and discuss Invisible People. For years mark used the lens of a television camera to tell the stories of homelessness and the organizations trying to help. The reports were produced well and told a story, but the stories Mark produces now on Invisible People are much different. These are the real people, telling their own, very real stories… unedited, uncensored and raw. The purpose: To make the invisible visible.

VA_logo_2color_RGB.jpgVitamin Angels: This socially-savvy charity seeks to mobilize and deploy private sector resources to advance availability, access and use of micronutrients, especially vitamin A, by newborns, infants and children in need. Vitamin Angels reduces child mortality worldwide by connecting essential nutrients, especially vitamin A, with infants and children under five. Essential nutrients enable young immune systems to fight infectious diseases, helping children attain good health and the opportunity to lead meaningful and productive lives.

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