The Speakers Group: 'Women will be better represented'
The last couple of weeks begot a bit of brouhaha when The Speakers Group posted a "top 10 list" of social media speakers that included only men. The Internet backlash was severe from a social media community up in arms, questioning why the speakers bureau couldn't find at least one woman to include on its list of ten. The situation was made slightly worse when complaints surfaced that The Speakers Group was moderating its blog post and only allowing certain comments through for publication.
While the list has since been renamed a "10 to know" the issue, and concern, remains the same. I come at it from a unique perspective -- I am represented by The Speaker's Group. I was introduced to the bureau a few months ago and have since been offered several social media speaking opportunities. Was I angry that I wasn't on the list? Heck yes. However, I was more upset by the overall lack of women having been represented in general.
I went through several different thought processes -- many of which were talked out with my Technically Women community (an amazing group of female speakers, by the way). Should I continue working with The Speakers Group? Should I walk away and continue to work on my speaking portfolio alone? In the end, it was counseled and decided that I could do more of a service to the social media community by continuing to work with The Speakers Group and help bring more women into the fold. Why turn my back on an opportunity for myself and for multiple other women, especially when they are willing to address their mistake and correct the deficit of women speakers on their roster?
All that said, I did a bit of a Q&A with Shawn Ellis, founder of The Speakers Group and author of the blog post in question, to find out his side of the story. While I am not here to defend The Speakers Group (I don't agree with the comment moderation, for one), I am a believer in finding solutions for problems and moving forward rather than going on witch hunts. I'll let the Q&A speak for itself:
A. [Shawn] There is an obvious deficiency in women under the social media topic on our roster. We're in the early stages of developing this topic as a point of emphasis at The Speakers Group and it just so happens that most of the speakers we've gotten to know so far are men. That's been purely unintentional - and I suppose the lesson is that we should have been intentional about seeking out speakers of both genders. Not recognizing that there is an existing problem of women being overlooked as authorities in technology and social media, though, we just set out to find outstanding speakers capable of addressing social media in a way that is relevant to our client base - primarily corporations, associations, government and health care organizations - and our search led us to these men (one of whom was recommended to us by a woman, for what it's worth).
As for women already affiliated with TSG, at the time we published the list, the only woman we had come to know well enough to include was you. You were qualified to be included except we weren't able to gather some necessary materials before our deadline. We weren't thrilled that we had a list with no women on it, but we were - and are - very confident in the 10 speakers we featured and went with it, knowing that we would have other opportunities to feature more social media speakers - including women - in the future.
Next: How will they fix this? -->
Q. You're standing by your original list (noting the headline change) but what are you going to do to attract and promote more female speakers moving forward?
A. As I mentioned, our roster of social media speakers is still very much in development and women will absolutely be better represented as time goes on. For starters, we'll be reviewing the women who have been suggested through comments on our blog, and after that, we'll place an emphasis on searching for women who fit the qualifications outlined in the original blog post.
As for how we will promote the women in social media on our roster, we'll find some unique ways to spotlight them on our blog and in other materials, but for the most part, we'll feature them the same way we'll feature men: on our blog and in other promotional materials, and of course in our individual client proposals whenever appropriate.
Q. Who are some of the female speakers that have been most recommended since this came up?
A. Charlene Li's name has come up several times, and she is outstanding. Her book, Groundswell, is one of the must-reads regarding social media and I cited it when I wrote a blog post about "Twitter for Meeting Planners" earlier this year. Charlene is represented exclusively by another agency, though, and while the nature of the speakers bureau business and our relationships with other bureaus and agencies allow us to book virtually any speaker for clients, it's an accepted practice that one bureau does not promote another bureau's exclusive speakers on their web site. This is widely understood among our clients and those in our industry, but it was not known by those who were criticizing us over the past few days. Others mentioned more than once were Beth Kanter and Shireen Mitchell. Several other women were suggested on singular occasions, and we'll be reviewing all of them.
Q. You've also made the decision not to post all comments to the blog. There are different schools of thought on moderating blog comments. Why did you decide to omit some comments?
A. For starters, we want to keep our blog focused on helping our target audience, which is meeting planners and others who book speakers. Because of the widespread attention garnered by this particular post, we were getting a number of comments that just didn't serve that purpose. We do want to acknowledge our oversight and the bigger issue of women in technology and social media being overlooked as speakers, so I made the decision to post a cross-section of comments that would expose this in a helpful way, and we welcome comments with suggestions of speakers whom we and our clients should consider. Beyond that, we had a number of comments that were just wisecracks or outright mean-spirited, and we're not going to offer our property as a platform for that kind of nonsense from people who don't know us and apparently don't care to get to know us. You can't describe us or our work with words like "pathetic," "gross," or "ignorance," for example, or imply that we are sexist or call us unethical or without integrity, when you don't even know us - at least not on our blog. That's an insult to me, my team, and The Speakers Group brand, and it's completely uncalled for.
Q. Have you brought more women speakers into the group over the last week?
A. Yes, we now have your profile "live" on our web site, and we've also added Gwen Bell, whom we had been in discussions with before this "debacle" began. (We've added a couple of other women in other topic categories in the last week, too - and on a side note, six out of our last 13 roster additions have been women.)
Q. In general, clearly you recognize the value of having social media speakers for your clients' conferences. Why is this?
A. Our clients need to hear from social media speakers so their organizations don't get into the same mess we've gotten into over the last week or so! I'm halfway joking, but it's a valid point, I think. We're ahead of the curve in terms of our knowledge of social media and things still blew up on us in a way we never imagined. We're a small business and our controversy is pretty small on the grand scale, but imagine if a major corporation or national association made a misstep on a larger stage? I know you highlighted some of these earlier this year. Ultimately, though, we're building a niche of social media experts and speakers on our roster simply because there are few industries and professions where this is not a relevant topic. And social media applications go beyond marketing and connecting with people on Facebook. Companies are utilizing social media internally to create more engaged workforces. Hospitals are using social media to educate patients. There are so many ways to benefit from social media, and also so many dangers, that organizations and professionals need to hear from the authorities in social media rather than venture in on their own. And given that social media sessions are consistently some of the highest attended on conference programs, it's clear that people are hungry for insight and instruction. Not only that, but look how many social media-specific events are popping up - we highlighted some in another recent blog post.
Q. What types of clients do you have -- what are some of the hottest meetings and conferences you represent?
A. We represent meeting planners and business leaders from various organizations, ranging from Fortune 500 corporations to national associations to hospitals to Chambers of Commerce and so on. Those clients plan events ranging from national conferences and conventions to leadership retreats to employee recognition banquets to sales kickoffs - all sorts of programs.
Q. Any lessons learned, in general, in terms of the original blog post or how things were handled post blog post?
A. Definitely! I'd first have to say we learned some great lessons about social media in general. I saw a dark side of social media that I had never experienced before. Some of the tactics utilized by our critics were extremely disappointing to me. Social media is known as this great tool for connecting people, yet as easy as it would have been to call us or send an email, the leaders of this attack instead chose to mobilize a mass of people against us without fully knowing who we are or exactly what we do. It reminded me a lot of the witch hunts or public stoning of old. That's social media at its worst, if you ask me.
On a more positive note, we at The Speakers Group now know that there is a real problem of women in technology and social media being overlooked for men. By featuring a list of social media speakers that omitted women, we inadvertently contributed to this. I am sorry for that and I hope we can be a part of the solution rather than the problem moving forward.
There are always lessons to be learned from "incidents" like this and we'll be better for it. We're not perfect and we never will be, but I'm very confident in what we're doing here - and in the people doing it - and I invite anyone to give us a chance to show them what The Speakers Group is all about.