speak.net.nz getting ready for launch

Shiny's picture
public
Shiny - Sat, 2008-03-22 03:25

Hey New Zealand Drupal Chix.

Many organisers of technical conferences, meetups, and dinners want to have more gender-balance in their lineups, but they don't know where to find technical women speakers.

Enter http://speak.net.nz, a simple directory and connections system to help technical women speakers and event organisers to find each other.

It needs a few more women to sign up for launch. The site will launch early April.

If you're a woman working with technology, even if you've never spoken infront of a group before, please register and list your expertise.

There's New Zealanders and Australians listed already, but woman from anywhere are welcome.


Ok, I signed up...

webchick's picture
webchick - Mon, 2008-03-24 02:05

This is a neat resource. It'd be awesome to see more women speaking at tech conferences.

I should inform other folks in this group who might be struggling with some self-confidence issues that pretty much anyone can do these talks. ;)

The first time I was asked to do a talk on women in open source, I about crapped my pants, I was so scared. :P But I found that in doing some research and just talking about what I learned along with my own personal experiences, people actually listened to what I had to say. :D Drupalcons are also great for gaining speaking experience; there you're among friends and peers who are keenly interested in everything you have to say, if it has something to do with Drupal. ;)

So if there's something that you have a passion for and feel like you could talk about it for hours on end with a willing audience, give a talk! It's a great thing to put on the ol' resume. :)


my local perl mongers has a

Shiny's picture
Shiny - Mon, 2008-03-24 02:43

my local perl mongers has a great approach to finding speakers - folks who haven't spoken for a while get a randonly selected perl module and you have one month to try it out and report back.

If you have a local drupal group (or maybe even php group) you can use this approach - randomly select a drupal module from drupal.org, try it out, and report back to the group. They'll all learn something, even if it is "this module made no sense to a newbie"


Webchick ...

patrickharris@d... - Wed, 2008-04-02 10:48

Are you going with Lullabot to Australia? If so, it's a shame you can't fly across the ditch and visit New Zealand!