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My take on the hottest discussion on the lawn at PodCamp Boston

Mon, 08/10/2009 - 21:35 — cynthia

The best thing about podcamp was the great discussions with insightful people. I’ll try to re-cap one of the most interesting ones here, but I’ll leave out names to avoid misquoting anyone. I do want to thank Kathryn Jones for setting up the session, and being a great moderator with a very passionate group!

 
The impetus for the discussion was that of some 35 speakers at Pod Camp Boston, only about 5 of them were women. Why?
  1. A. “the man” is holding us down
  2. OR
  3. B . Because as women, we’re de-valuing our own skills and aren’t promoting ourselves
I think we could all agree that A is clearly not true. Several men were in attendance, and they were clearly not there to quash the evil uprising. Chris Penn put it pretty succinctly when he said: If you want to speak at podcamp – “be awesome”. I don’t care what’s between your legs.
 
Some people proposed that you have to be a blond bombshell to be a successful woman in social media. Others refused to believe that theory, or felt that you had to be a smart blond bombshell with good ideas. Some thought we are taught from the time we’re children that as women, we should be in the background and not self-promote. Women who attended previous podcamps commented that the ratio of women to men was higher this year than ever. Men jump into things without looking – women hold back and make the plans first before they act. Statistics prove that women tend to underestimate their skills, while men over estimate them. Why is that?  We couldn’t answer that question.
 
Instead, we concluded that we need to change, one person at a time, and that its up to all of us to help each other. Encourage each other to get out there and share what we have. We need to mentor our fellow women, to make each other the best that we can be. As individuals, we should recognize the skills we have, be confident in them and start promoting ourselves – and support the others around us who are doing it.
 
In a different session the next day, the issue came up again. Someone (and important to note it was a man) said that if you’re not promoting yourself, you’re doing the community a disservice. People need your skills – you need to let them know how to find you. Think about a gas station that was underground and didn’t let you know it was there. Remember that, ladies, I know I will!
 
So who won? We all did. We learned from each other, heard new ideas and perspectives based on different genders, races, and ages. These are powerful tools we take home with us from podcamp. Now its just up to us as individuals to decide what to do with them.
 
It was a passionate, heated discussion and not the kind where I took notes. This is how I remember it – if I forgot anything or you heard things differently – please comment! Let’s keep the discussion going, and make each other awesome!
 
#pcb4