Why CES’s keynote line up is a deeper problem.

An open letter to CES

Dear CES,

In case you were wondering, yes, we’ve all seen this. You’ve heard that we’ve seen it, so I’ll cut to the chase.

This whole thing is head scratching:

1. You guys (and I mean that literally) are in tech. I hope that you’re not deaf, and assuming you aren’t, it doesn’t seem possible you haven’t heard what’s been happening the last 9–12 months in the tech space. Gender, gender, gender, sex, gender, gender, sex sex sex.
2. Let’s say you were deaf. You have an entire staff and PR team and advisory board put together to…do what? I think to help you not be deaf. There were numerous voices on that board that brought to light this shocking 9–12 months of our existence that you somehow missed.
3. But it sounds like they weren’t loud enough. Like I said, we’ve all been vocal the last few days about this whole “thing”. I think you’re still deaf?

The thing is, this isn’t even about deafness. It’s about unwillingness.

Fundamentally, you aren’t willing to hear any of this, and you aren’t willing to care enough about it. Let’s examine a few angles.

Sponsored keynotes

We get it, sponsors get keynotes (which I would debate in another forum any day, this criteria alone makes for bad conferences, and attendees feel the loss in value).

When your available women are few or none, what do you do? You have a choice to make between staying relevant or looking at the cheque size. I’m biased, but obviously the former seems like the right thing to do. Unfortunately it seems like you don’t find that as obvious as we do.

Here are two simple solutions (you can have them, they’re FREE!):

• Devote one of your keynotes to the issue of diversity in the very industry you’re supposed to serve, as one of the largest issues the industry has faced this year, out of the goodness of our heart.
• If that’s not possible (specifically the “out of the good of your heart” part), ask a sponsor if they would like to have the exact same amount of this coveted global exposure by hosting a speaker who can speak to this issue. Your cheque size remains the same.

[Deeper issue to consider: Money is driving your actions, blocking your creativity, and increasing your deafness.]

General keynote criteria

This seems like a very obvious place to stop and reconsider how you choose your keynotes. If your panelist profiles (or cheques?) don’t fit the times, wouldn’t you want to stay relevant, stay innovative? Aren’t you supposed THE conference on innovation?

Here’s where I start to get upset, and frankly really worried about our future:

• When people don’t reassess things, there’s no innovation, generally speaking.
• In this particular instance, the very act of not reconsidering your criteria is one of the reasons we’re all in this boat in the first place and one of these reasons we aren’t getting off the boat fast enough. It’s either total and complete obliviousness, total and complete unwillingness, or total and complete apathy. All of these inhibit progress.

If no company in the world stopped to look at their hiring practices, they’d just keep hiring the same people (and women and other minority representation wouldn’t change).

If no company in the world stopped to look at salary gaps, they’d continue to compensate the same as they always have (and women and other minority representation wouldn’t change).

If no industry in the world stopped to look at their diversity numbers, they wouldn’t be able to realize or acknowledge the problem (and women and other minority representation wouldn’t change).

I could go on (add yours in the comments!), but I won’t, because I’m tired.

[Deeper issue to consider: REASSESSMENT. It doesn’t happen enough, and it crucial.]

PR

There’s a purely self-centered, PR-driven opportunity here for you, and you aren’t taking it. I don’t want to duh this one to death — because it’s the really dirty, low-hanging fruit that tastes horrible and everyone should spit it out and burn (I digress) — but my god, talk about marketing.

Again, assuming you aren’t deaf, wouldn’t aligning with gender issues in the tech space at this very moment be kind of brilliant play right now?

[Deeper issue to consider: Duh]

I’m probably not going to get through to you, we’re not going to get through to you.

At the end of the day….so be it. Because we could just go ahead and call a spade a spade…..

You still have booth babes, so…yeah.

Have fun at CES this year I guess?

Cheers,
Women Everywhere