Lessons learned from failure
Opinions my own and do not reflect those of Stanford Rabbit Hole.
A few weeks ago, Stanford Rabbit Hole — Stanford’s VR/AR Club — hosted its annual Stanford Immersive Media Conference (SIMCON). SIMCON 2019’s theme was ‘Reaching Beyond Reality,’ focused on novel interaction models in VR/AR. My job was to recruit demo companies and speakers for the event. We had cutting edge technology like the Oculus Quest, Varjo human-eye resolution headset, and Ultrahaptics mid-air tactile input. We also had a stellar line-up of speakers.
As I put the website together, I was feeling pretty excited about the speakers. But I took one look at the faces on the line-up and quickly realized I really dropped the ball on diversity. I hate to admit it, but diversity wasn’t a priority for me this year, when it really should have been. Although I had reached out to other women, one dropped out, and the rest were all busy. I tried, but clearly not hard enough.
SIMCON 2018
In 2018, we organized our first annual SIMCON, whose theme was ‘VR for Everyone,’ and was focused on adoption as well as diversity and inclusion. Because diversity was a priority, that year, out of eight speakers, I was able to lock in five women, as well as five people of color. Unfortunately two of the women speakers had to drop out in the few weeks leading up to the conference. But the initial success goes to show that diverse speaker line-ups happen when diversity is a priority.
Why is diversity hard?
First, let’s address why it’s important to have a diverse speaker line-up for events. Diversity makes your event better. The range of perspectives gives attendees a well-rounded understanding of your topic. Also, having a diverse speaker line-up helps bring a more diverse audience. So then why don’t more people do it? Honestly, even with good intentions, it’s hard. Only 20% of people who work in tech identify as women, and of leadership roles in tech, only 5% of them are held by women. Two in five women in tech say they are often the only woman in the room at work. In terms of ethnicity, 83% of tech executives are white. On top of this, LGBQTA+ and people with disabilities are also underrepresented. Given these numbers, it may seem difficult to even find speakers with different perspectives at all. But here are some tips that will make it easier:
- Start early so that you can get on people’s calendars
- Don’t ask a company to send a rep; do research and find specific people you’d like to speak
- Ask speakers if they know others; leverage their network
- Form a deep bench with lots of options in case someone drops out
- If a speaker drops out; ask them to send another speaker from an underrepresented background
- It’s okay to have repeat speakers
1. Start early
Often, if you’re trying to invite speakers a few weeks out, they’ll already have plans! The unfortunate truth is that because of the smaller pool of speakers from underrepresented backgrounds, they are often overbooked for events, so you need to give them a lot of advanced notice. You should aim to invite speakers 6–8 weeks in advance at minimum, sometimes even 3–6 months in advance if possible. This is especially important if their ‘no’ means you have to find someone else to replace them. Because of this turnover time, you should start with your high priority speakers from underrepresented backgrounds.
2. Find specific speakers
While recruiting speakers for SIMCON 2019, I ended up asking a few companies to send representatives. Given the above statistics, each tech company is likely to send the same type of person. By this point, it’s too late to back track and ask for someone else. Instead, you should start by doing some research on the department you’re interested in and find out who would be a good fit for your event. Find two or three women or PoC, for example, that you’d like to have talk. When you reach out, ask for those specific people by name. If you can’t find anyone, you can mention that having a diverse speaker roster is a priority for you and they might be able to connect you with the right people.
3. Leveraging the network
If you lock in a speaker with a unique perspective, ask who else they think would be a good fit for the event. Often, women know other women, people of color know other people of color, and LGBQTA+ people know other LGBQTA+ people!
4. Form a deep bench
Brainstorm a long list of speakers from diverse backgrounds that you’d like to have. Get help if you need it. Reach out to organizations like Women in XR Fund and ARVR Academy to get in touch with amazing people.
Sometimes all your top choices will be busy or someone may cancel on you. Make sure you have a list of speakers in mind. If you have no one in mind, you will reach for the most readily available option and end up with a pretty homogeneous line-up. You should have a list of two to three people whom you would be ready to reach out to in case someone is busy or ends up dropping out.
5. Request a replacement list
In the event of a drop out, go back to point 3 above and request a replacement list from your drop out. Often, they can reach out and do a warm intro, which almost always works out well. I’ve had speakers drop out who’ve found great replacements.
“Once I was supposed to do a panel, for example, and it turned out that I wouldn’t be able to make it. I sent the organizer a list of 15 other women, and asked her which one of them she wanted to me to replace myself with. The organizer emailed me list of her top five, and when I messaged the top choice, she said yes. Often at tech or VR events there can be panels that are all male, and it’s vital we make access to opportunities fair and equitable.” — Joanna Popper (HP)
6. Repeat Speakers
At Rabbit Hole, I wanted to avoid inviting the same speakers back year after year because students usually want to see new faces and companies. However, I now think this is misguided. After a full year or two, and given topic guidelines, speakers will usually have a ton of new material to talk about. This also helps build long term relationships! I think organizations should definitely be open to having repeat speakers.
Those were just some tips that I’ve personally learned, and if you have any, I’d love to read them in the comments. If you’d like to read the story that inspired me to write this piece, it’s below. I’d like to thank Amy LaMeyer and the Women in XR Fund for reaching out to Rabbit Hole, being incredibly non-accusatory and offering to help us achieve better speaker line-ups in the future.
