December 2, 2023 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Fake Speakers
December 4, 2023 at 8:54 am
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December 4, 2023 at 11:49 am
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December 4, 2023 at 2:24 pm
This situation was quite the train wreck. First blush, I kind of felt bad for the organizers. I understand the struggle to get a diverse rost put together. Then, the more I thought on it, the more horrible the act of faking out profiles became (and, I read they did two, not just one). Crazy stuff.
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December 4, 2023 at 5:34 pm
Before COVID I went to quite a few MeetUp events. The women at these events are often in the minority. Going to these events when you know you will be in a minority must be daunting. Speaking up, doubly so.
When you speak to these people privately it is a great shame that the environment isn't conducive to them speaking up. I've found that people who have the guts to go to these events where they are one of the few also tend to have the guts to walk to the beat of a different drum. They have interesting and often challenging perspectives which make the event even more worthwhile.
To go to an event specifically to hear from someone further along the career path you are following and to find they aren't there, nor were they ever going to be, is toying with fraud. These events often cost individuals money and certainly time and often time where they were facing other pressures too.
December 5, 2023 at 1:05 pm
The idea of faking speakers - that's just ridiculous. That's so easy to check these days and so easy to be caught. Why bother doing something like that?
But the responses are also over the top. I don't care about the "diversity" of someone speaking at a tech conference. I want someone who knows what they're talking about and can present that well. There are some brilliant women in tech and I'll listen to them just as much as the brilliant men. But I'm not going to choose a session based on gender of speaker. I'll look at the topic and the speaker's stated experience and then decide. It's sad that you have top level speakers who decline to speak because of the roster not being "diverse" enough. Either you want to speak or you don't. As others have noted, sometimes you just can't _get_ certain speakers or people have to back out for personal or professional reasons. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't want a speaker chosen for diversity, I want one chosen for expertise and communication skills.
December 5, 2023 at 7:44 pm
Something else that's been around for a very long time - to the point of being standard practice - are organizations (especially IT) that use stock photos of happy young and diverse employees in their promotional advertisements or LinkedIn profiles.
I mean, it's kind of the same thing.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
December 5, 2023 at 10:32 pm
Something else that's been around for a very long time - to the point of being standard practice - are organizations (especially IT) that use stock photos of happy young and diverse employees in their promotional advertisements or LinkedIn profiles.
I mean, it's kind of the same thing.
I think it's quite different. This is more like using a different name and profile for the CFO of a company. That's fraud.
December 5, 2023 at 10:37 pm
The idea of faking speakers - that's just ridiculous. That's so easy to check these days and so easy to be caught. Why bother doing something like that?
But the responses are also over the top. I don't care about the "diversity" of someone speaking at a tech conference. I want someone who knows what they're talking about and can present that well. There are some brilliant women in tech and I'll listen to them just as much as the brilliant men. But I'm not going to choose a session based on gender of speaker. I'll look at the topic and the speaker's stated experience and then decide. It's sad that you have top level speakers who decline to speak because of the roster not being "diverse" enough. Either you want to speak or you don't. As others have noted, sometimes you just can't _get_ certain speakers or people have to back out for personal or professional reasons. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't want a speaker chosen for diversity, I want one chosen for expertise and communication skills.
Easy to say that, but part of what helps us find more talented people is getting more people to come speak. That includes diverse speakers, because frankly different people have different ideas and bring different views. I think that's a good thing for the industry as do many others.
I, and other speakers, have seen organizers get lazy or be prejudiced and only people white males. Sometimes they might be the best, sometimes not, but without making an effort, we don't easily grow our pool of top level people.
Very few choices are made because of someone just being diverse. I'd counter those few with the fact that some white men are chosen who aren't good speakers, but they are friends of an organizers or they happened to apply.
You can feel the responses are over the top. That's certainly a valid way to feel. I don't feel that way, and I might have cancelled if I were scheduled. Not that I would have, but maybe. Likely, since this is faking diversity, not being unable to find it.
I do help run events, and I do know sometimes it's hard to get a diverse lineup. I've been inside the submissions and I've tried to help people reach out and find more diverse speakers that are qualified, but that takes work, not just expecting it to happen. Things like this fake speakers, or even comments about "only picked because of gender" turn off potential great speakers, who don't submit because they don't want to get viewed that way.
December 6, 2023 at 6:23 pm
Nobody even mentions the state of the art AI, technical skill, and creativity the organizers put into these deep fake presenters.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
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