Yesterday, SMX - Search Marketing Expo, a conference I am associated with in many ways, published its first gender diversity report.
In short, they wanted to see the ratio of women to men speakers and the ratio doesn't seem that bad.
I actually coordinated three panels at the last SMX event, SMX Advanced. One panel, Advanced SEO had three speakers and all were women. The second panel on Mobile SEO was two male speakers and one female speaker. The third panel on App Linking was two male speakers (I wanted a third speaker who was female but she couldn't make it). Truth is, I didn't even think about getting a female on the panel, just the best possible speaker.
In any event, it seems like the overall ratio was similar. Here is the chart:
Danny Sullivan said they don't have "race" data yet but if he had to guess, "our shows are definitely heavy on White speakers, with Asian speakers probably the second-most represented group," Sullivan said.
And with all of this, you can't pay to speak on a spot at SMX. There are sponsored sessions but those are labeled as such. The core sessions, you can't pay SMX to get on them.
Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.
