To be clear I harbor no illusion of gender parity having been reached in business, let alone technology, but I have to say that if my recent trip to SXSW is any indication, we may well be at least moving in the right direction. I don’t know the official stats, but from where I sat the female power at this year’s Austin fest seemed more solid than ever. Granted this may be due to my paying more attention this year than at other times, but be that as it may I found myself proudly perusing the preponderance of powerful females populating panels and permeating parties (sorry, alliterative itch had to be scratched).

Quite a few months ago, when panels were submitted for SXSW, the gals of Technically Women swapped myriad emails proposing sessions, helping each other promote panels and ultimately Jennifer Leggio proffered this great post about the way women were going to be taking over SXSW. Fast forward several months to the final stretch of weeks before SXSW and I got a call inviting me to be among a small group of women honored at “Digitini” a luncheon held at the Frost Building in Austin.  Orchestrated by Sloane Berrent and Sarah Evans – two women whose work I hold in high regard – the idea was simple: honor 7 women from various sectors of business and tech at a women’s luncheon. While I admittedly had a bit of an issue with the girly girly name and the fact that the invite leaned a bit too much towards the pink and frilly, in practice this gathering was all bid-ness.

From the moment I walked through the door for that luncheon, which took place on the first official full day of SXSW Interactive, it was clear the honorees were just part of the story. As I looked around the room noting the women who were in attendance, I felt more and more humbled at being among this remarkable crowd. Every person there was worthy of recognition. It also merits noting that after this luncheon I seemed to keep running into great women – it’s as though the event opened my eyes to just how many of us there *are* … kind of like meeting someone at a party, finding out they live in your neighborhood then suddenly you start running into them everywhere

Everywhere I turned during my week in Austin there were more powerful women.

From the opening keynote delivered by the always-insightful danah boyd to a panel on “open science” populated by not one, not two, not three but four female speakers (who, for the record, were: Ariel Waldman of Spacehack.org; Dr. Kiki Sanford of This Week in Science; Natalie Villalobos from Institute for the Future; and Jessy Cowan-Sharp from NASA), to Women Techies United, a fabulous booth and related events set up by a collection of the top women-focused groups in tech there seemed to be no shortage of places catering to the women of SXSW.

Have we shattered the glass ceiling? Have we won the battle? Hell no. In fact, if anything the next phase of really hard work starts now. There must be no resting on laurels. There must be no complacency. We must continue to support each other, revel in our female ferocity and push the limits for where we go next.

The largest number of women to attend Kinnernet, photo by Barak Berkowitz

It’s a fact. When you look at the agendas for top tech gatherings – whether social media focused or not – there are blessed few women on the stage. Period. Though this issue has percolated to the top of the meme stream of late, thanks in part to this post by TSG (about which I’ll comment more specifically a bit later in this post) the idea that this is somehow new or different is far from true.

What is true, however, is that it’s time to stop talking about it, and take action. Big time.

No matter how you slice it this is a complex topic and one with which I have found myself confronted very directly in the last several years in my role helping produce/content curate for a number of major technology gatherings. On more than one occasion I have found myself torn because while I am as big a proponent as any for supporting women in business, the plain fact is that it’s a numbers game. There are just fewer women from whom to choose. I’m not suggesting there aren’t smart, accomplished, capable women available to speak on pretty much any topic, but let’s face it. When you look around any given room at any given conference and do the math – apart from BlogHer or other gatherings by women-inclined organizations – if you find a room where the percentage of female presence is anything more than 5% to 10%, I’ll buy you lunch.

Then there’s the other math – qualifications. For several years I had the pleasure of working with Loic and Geraldine Le Meur on their LeWeb conference. When it came time to pick speakers for the stage, the first criteria was putting the most well-versed, articulate and, yes, entertaining, speakers on the stage. They were equally as concerned that those speakers represent a solid cross-section of the best voices possible. Many of those speakers were men, but in any and all cases where there was a chance to book a qualified woman, it was done.

In looking at the LeWeb agenda for this year (for the record, I’m not working on the 2009 conference, but will be in attendance and who knows, if there’s an appropriate fit maybe I’ll get to speak ), along with that of the upcoming Supernova, you might say, “Um, Cathy … the numbers still look pretty small overall, are you suggesting that there aren’t more women than this?”

I’m not suggesting that at all, but as I’ve said, and as was also stated in this comment by Jen Pahlka, posted by Tim O’Reilly in response to the WomenWhoTech petition, it’s about quality first.

So that’s the part of my post where I acknowledge that we can’t change several hundred years of Old Boy Network behavior overnight, that we *have* made progress and that when it comes to booking speakers it’s most important to first ensure you have the best voices.

And this is where the gloves come off.

For starters, while the numbers are small the qualified women do exist and for any conference organizer, or speakers bureau, to claim ignorance that there’s an overall lack of women on stage … is a joke. One need only attend a few tech-oriented gatherings to immediately sense the gender imbalance. It also doesn’t take long in any of those rooms to recognize that the depth of knowledge at any given geek fest is not gender exclusive – especially when it comes to social media.

I’m going to eschew any further debate about whether TSG did or didn’t or they have or haven’t. Bottom line is that TSG’s list was weak, they’ve acknowledged as such, and at least as seen in this Q&A with a Technically Women pal and ZDNet Journalist, Jennifer Leggio, they seem to be at least making noises about doing the right thing moving forward.

Great.

So now what?

As another Technically Woman colleague and social media leader who should have (in my opinion) been on that TSG list, Maggie Fox, articulates in her post here, some baseline criteria are a good start. It’s also important, as it is for any minority group, both to circle the wagons and support each other. Frankly I think for the most part women have the circling the wagons part pretty well in hand. The part where I believe change must take place is the same spot that most minorities fall down, and that is in reaching outside of their group, forming bridges to all those “other” – you know, the ones whose numbers shadow them?

This isn’t just about women stepping up, speaking up and breaking old conventions to do more self-promotion. This is also about those who are our allies making sure they’re looking out for us too.

Before you tsk tsk me and say that sounds awfully like I’m going all doe-eyed and asking for the men to help us … well … I am … I’m asking them to help, but I’m certainly not batting my eyelashes when I do it.

This isn’t about beseeching the boys, this is my strident call to action saying: step up or step off.

By step up, I mean more than just commenting on blog posts or writing posts of your own. These things are great and are incredibly helpful, but they are merely part of the equation. How about opening up your own platforms to their voices, just as you know they would do for you? Case in point, after talking with Brian Solis at Twiistup about this very subject, Brian thought for a moment, said he’d like to help and then asked if I would be willing to contribute to his blog and bring the conversation there. So that’s precisely what I’m going to do.

Here’s another idea … if you wish to truly walk the walk and talk the talk that you support more women on the stage, the next time you find yourself invited to be on a panel, perhaps one of the questions you can ask is whether there are any women (or any other minorities for that matter, if you happen to also be a white male) are included. If there aren’t and if you know of someone who fits the bill, perhaps you can suggest her.

Ready to be a bit more bold? How about next time you find yourself on a pre-panel conference call or email thread and see that there’s an embarrassing gap where a woman’s voice might be relevant, you say that unless the panel gets a bit more diversity, you’ll graciously decline participating.

Oh, and as for that step off part, I think that’s pretty self-explanatory.

I suppose a good first step would be to proffer .02 as to why I joined this posse. It’s not as though this was an arduous decision-making process (I mean, have you checked out this amazing list? I’m honored to be counted among them!), but at the same I’ve generally eschewed participating too deeply in women-centric … things. It’s not that I don’t care about the advancement of women in business and technology it’s just that … well … you know that quote from Groucho Marx about not wanting to belong to a club that would have him as a member? It’s kind of like that.

I entered the tech sector in the early 90’s. It was a time when I was often the only skirt – literally or otherwise – in the room. When I did cross the path of another woman I found it went one of two ways – we bonded immediately and began looking for ways to support each other … or the air was sucked from the room as eyes narrowed and claws began to unsheath.

Though it might seem to be the more repellent of the two, the latter scenario is not the reason I’ve stayed away from engaging specifically with women’s groups. Those viper-ish women are generally pretty easy to spot and so easy enough to avoid. They’re also, thankfully, the rare exception to the rule. No, my issue – and I may be excoriated for saying this – is that my experience of women’s gatherings has been an all-too-frequent emphasis on the obstacles we face … because we’re women. Yes, the glass ceiling exists, but I sometimes feel that in waving the female flag in an overly enthusiastic manner we oftentimes discredit our own efforts.

And that’s precisely what I said in the Dennis Howlett article that brought me into direct orbit with the Technically Women gang. (In the “shameless plug” field, you can find my commentary for that article directly here.). Our virtual conversation about the article, sharing our thoughts and perspectives, was conducted by email yet had a distinct feeling of a late night hangout by a fire pit drinking great wine. So when a post article discussion began about our teaming up for a blog, it took all of a nanosecond to decide.

I’ve always held that the best way to cut through that translucent blockade are to pretend it’s not there. Focus. Do your work. Be accountable. Always push the envelope. Over the years I’ve participated in a few different variations of women’s groups – almost all of which focused more on giving women a place to commiserate and support each other than they did in providing any sort of professional support. There is value to that, certainly, but it wasn’t enough of the picture for me. I found organizations like Women in Technology and the Anita Borg Institute, that were helping foster connection and development among women, but still there was something lacking. More recently the emergence and solid growth of organizations like Girls in Tech and Women 2.0 have continued down the path, bringing a new generation’s perspective on what it means to be a dame with some moxie in business.

With the emerging support network, came my increased interest to exercise my voice as a woman in the industry. I had my own blog, along with my real-time thoughts on Twitter, but I sought something more substantive. In the summer of last year, a new site out of the UK BitchBuzz launched with a tagline calling it the site “for feisty women with their knickers in a twist”, and invited me to contribute. Though it’s targeted to and written by women, as far as my writing for BitchBuzz goes, it skews less to female focus and more to tongue-welded firmly in cheek views of technology’s impact on society. What better to add to the mix than a place like this that’s designed to address women’s issues and topics, from a place of strength, empowerment and resolution.

Technically Women is the perfect complement to my evolving membership in this club and I look forward to the conversations we get started!