2010 was the year where we revisited not only the definition of influence, but also deeply explored its meaning in today’s social economy. What represented an ongoing series of virtual global summits on the topic, influence was scrutinized as a way of better understanding its role in new media.

It goes beyond academic study however. Influence permeated the realm of the masses and suddenly, we the people, were gifted with the opportunity to voice what moved us. In doing so, we also earned the opportunity to build networks around who we are. The quest for the meaning of influence emerged as something much more personal. Influence impacted digital societies and many were earning it without fully understanding why or how.

With the pervasiveness of social media, we were learning, and sometimes confusing, the differences between influence and new found, micro fame, celebrity and popularity. Suddenly the dichotomies of influence and popularity were blurring. And, the controversial Fast Company Influence Project only diluted distinction.

Unlike so many terms in Social Media, influence is not a new word invented or reinvented to suit the times. Its origin is Latin, “influere” which translates into something very interesting for the social era, “to flow into.” Almost everything we discover and share in social networks these days is done through our streams and to loosely translate the root of influence symbolizes the ability to flow into the streams of others.

The text book definition of influence is the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself.

Effect…

Effect is key in understanding influence and its role in societies online and in the real world. In social media, it’s the ability to cause measurable actions and outcomes. While popularity may help, this really becomes a study of the quality, caliber, and conditioning of an individual’s social graph where context plays an increasingly important role over time.

Understanding the relationship between cause and effect in new media also helps us better understand the shift from influence to influencer.

In 2010 and heading into 2011, influence will only continue to captivate attention and interest. With services such as Klout, PeerIndex, et al, we are now measured by how we interact online and whether we like it or not, our influence factor (IF) is also weighted. To introduce a sense of urgency into the subject, many businesses are placing great importance on these scores, which in the real world is not new either, but here, we still have much to learn about social currency and individual capital.

Looking back to 2010, I’ve assembled a few of my favorite discussions on influence.  We learned many lessons and sparked significant insights that will help us continue the discussions in years to come. And, we’ll learn every step of the way.

Please read and share…

The 2010 Series on Influence

- Exploring and Defining Influence: A Study with Vocus

- Please Repeat: Influence is not Popularity…and Popularity is not Influence

- Influence is Bliss: The Gender Divide of Influence on Twitter

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by Cathy Brooks (@CathyBrooks, CathyBrooks.com)

This is not another post about the “issue” of why there are fewer women in business and technology. This is a post about doing something about it.

You would think based on coverage, like this article last April in the New York Times and this more recent post in the Wall Street Journal that women had made little to no progress in Silicon Valley.

Hogwash.

To be fair, if we’re talking raw numbers women are still at a disadvantage. There are fewer of us, especially if we’re talking about hands-on, up to your elbows in code technologist work. The numbers on the business side are better, but there still isn’t anything really resembling parity.

My question is: Why on earth should that be a problem? It shouldn’t.

My bigger question is: Can we PLEASE stop complaining and just start doing the work? From the response I’ve heard in the last week to the Wall Street Journal post it would seem the answer to that may well finally be YES!

Sparked by a post penned by Michael Arrington, a litany of women stamped down their collective foot. The time has come to grab the glasscutters and storm the ceiling. Is there chauvenism? Yep. Is there misogyny? You bet. In continually talking about these things, we’re wasting time. I for one am done wasting mine and on Wednesday, September 15 I’ll be joining about 800 other women who feel the same way. The gathering is the third annual WomenWhoTech Telesummit.

Started in 2007 by Allyson Kapin of RadCampaign in response to the lack of opportunities for qualified female speakers, WomenWhoTech takes a decidedly proactive tone in its content. Rather than commiserating about how challenging it is to be a woman, this one-day virtual conference tackles topics like launching start-ups, diversifying founding teams, best practices in open source development and female ferocity as a business asset.*

Speaking about the premise of this Telesummit, Kapin notes that if you wait for the challenges to go away, you’re wasting time. She said, “Sexism … racism … all the ‘ism’s. Are they going to disappear any time soon? Probably not, but if we band together we can address the issues. Instead of being reactive, it’s time to be proactive and productive and become part of the solution.”

Some additional related articles on this subject:

• The perspective from a “real” geek, Leah Culver
• Jon Pincus gathered a great set of links stemming from the recent Arrington/WSJ debate.
• The Geek Feminism blog (penned by a collection of great female and male geeks) offers some reading materials

*Disclosure: Cathy Brooks is moderating the WomenWhoTech panel discussion on female ferocity.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Based on data collected and analyzed using Google Ad Planner, I recently discovered that in Social Media, women rule. Across almost every major social network, the balance was revealing and in some cases, profound.

Facebook:
Male: 43%
Female: 57%

Delicious
Male: 48%
Female: 52%

Docstoc
Male: 41%
Female: 59%

Flickr
Male: 45%
Female: 55%

MySpace
Male: 36%
Female: 64%

Ning
Male: 41%
Female: 59%

Twitter
Male: 43%
Female: 57%

Upcoming.org
Male: 45%
Female: 55%

Ustream.tv
Male: 34%
Female: 66%

Yelp
Male: 43%
Female: 57%

Social Networks Go Mobile, Women Lead the Way

According to new reports, it appears that mobile counterparts paint a similar picture. Nielsen recently released data that shows that in mobile, women also dominate social networking.

At 55% women to 45% men, mobile social networking fortifies what we’re learning in social media in general.  Women also used their phones to tweet and friend 10% more than men.

Delving a bit deeper into social demographics, the 35-54 age group led the fray for active social networking via mobile devices followed closely by those 25-34.

Mobile devices are becoming increasingly sophisticated with mobile online access accelerating to match the broadband connectivity we expect on desktop and laptop PCs. As each day passes, smart phones, such as iPhones, BlackBerries, Palm, and Android devices replace the standard cell phone, introducing new capabilities and experiences to the masses. Whereas voice was the primary driver for mobile phones, dedicated apps and online destinations are augmenting and enhancing everyday user activity.

Social networks are now among the catalysts spurring mobile interaction and only continue to grow in prominence as a hub for attention, discovery, and communication.  Facebook recently announced that of its 400 million users, 100 million actively engage through mobile platforms.

In early March, comScore published a report that documented triple-digit growth in Facebook and Twitter mobile access. The study found that 30.8 percent of smartphone users accessed social networks via mobile browsers in January 2010, up 8.3% from 22.5% one year ago. Note that these numbers do not represent access to Twitter and Facebook via dedicated apps, which is currently estimated at an additional 6 million.

Perhaps most notably, access to Facebook via mobile grew 112% over the past year  and Twitter mobile usage soared by 347%. In January 2010, 25.1 million mobile users accessed Facebook and 4.7 million connected to Twitter via their mobile browser. MySpace saw a 7% drop in mobile access, however it still attracted 11.4 million users.

For those active in social networks on behalf of businesses, please keep in mind that without a mobile strategy as well as content and engagement programs aimed at specific demographics and psychographics, you may be missing essential touchpoints for true engagement and collaboration.

One size does not fit all and there is no market for generalized messages. In social media, whether it’s mobile, desktop, or laptop, opportunity clicks…

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I spend a great deal of time working within the B2B sector, among other things, and social media is a growing and or pervasive program within a comprehensive, integrated communications and service strategy. In almost every scenario I’ve encountered, executives, marcom and service executives, and brand managers have generally assumed that social and interactive activities and programming were ideally best suited for consumer applications. However, as we recently explored, in Social Media, it’s not just business, it’s business-to-business.

Indeed, Social Media is not limited to B2C applications, its impact and effects are actively measured and felt in B2B as well as government, education, military, and other prominent verticals. As decision makers take to the social web, their research, activity, communication, and most importantly, their relationships only intensify over time.

If you’re working in B2B, perhaps this post will provide you with value. Or, at the very least, it will arm with you data necessary to convince, compel, and persuade those skeptical or uninspired colleagues, clients, and managers.

Business.com recently conducted a study that evaluated Social Media activities of those in B2B and B2C. In its report, “2009 B2B Social Media Benchmarking Study,” Business.com found that North American companies focused on B2B were much more rigorous in the world of social media than those in B2C. As you’ll see, B2B leads the fray across the entire regiment of campaigns and programs.

Social Media: B2B vs. B2C

Maintained company-related profiles on social networks:

B2B: 81%
B2C: 67%

Participate in Twitter:

B2B: 75%
B2C: 49%

Host blog/s:

B2B: 74%
B2C: 55%

Monitor brand mentions:

B2B: 73%
B2C: 55%

Engage in discussions:

B2B: 66%
B2C: 43%

Participate in Q&A sites such as Yahoo Answers, LinkedIn, forums:

B2B: 59%
B2C: 44%

Upload content (social objects) to Social Networks:

B2B: 50%
B2C: 32%

Manage a community dedicated to customers or prospects:

B2B: 49%
B2C: 51%

Monitor/support user ratings and reviews:

B2B: 49%
B2C: 51%

Produce Webinars or podcasts:

B2B: 46%
B2C: 22%

Advertise on social networks:

B2B: 42%
B2C: 54%

Utilize social bookmarking sites such as delicious and digg:

B2B: 38%
B2C: 21%

Employee recruiting:

B2B: 36%
B2C: 27%

As expected, those companies engaging in social media, whether B2B or B2C, focused efforts on creating social network profiles, microblogging, blogs, and brand monitoring, hitting a high of 81%. Most social activities however, maintained a level of participation with an average of around 50%. There is room for growth for brand engagement regardless of industry.

Business.com also evaluated where companies were focusing their attention and resources. The study surfaced that not only are a greater number of B2B companies experimenting with Social Media, they are also extending their presence across multiple networks. However, B2C businesses dominated engagement within Facebook and MySpace.

Notice the disparity between B2B and B2C adoption of Twitter. If these numbers truly reflect that of the greater community of businesses, B2B companies are at the forefront of this wildly scrutinized and popularized social property.

Facebook

B2B: 77%
B2C: 83%

Twitter

B2B: 73%
B2C: 45%

LinkedIn

B2B: 56%
B2C: 27%

YouTube

B2B: 43%
B2C: 30%

MySpace

B2B: 14%
B2C: 23%

FriendFeed

B2B: 9%
B2C: 2%

Plurk

B2B: 1%
B2C: 0%

Other

B2B: 4%
B2C: 8%

Also according to the Business.com study, 60% of B2B respondents leverage Twitter search to monitor brand or company mentions compared to just 35% of those in B2C. With Facebook slowly revising their privacy settings to open up real-time search capabilities within the 350 million strong network and MySpace recently announcing the availability of a real-time API, businesses will have the ability, and the responsibility, to search for relevant conversations outside of Twitter and Google.

Google search results, at least prior to the real-time search revolution, also proved valuable for mining and unearthing relevant content. 59% of B2B and 40% of B2C companies report using Google Alerts and 61% of B2C and 60% of B2B reported that they actively googled themselves.

With the rapid evolution of search, business monitoring will assuredly shift its focus from traditional to real-time. Just recently, Google announced both Social Search, the inclusion of content generated by your social graph in traditional search results, as well as real-time results from Twitter and other social networks. We already know that customers, regardless of industry, are actively taking to search engines to learn more about brands and products mentioned in their social stream.

A New Era of Influence

- 20% of tweets published are actually invitations for product information, answers or responses from peers or directly by brand representatives

- About half of Twitter users who were introduced to a brand on Twitter were compelled to search for additional information

- 8% of those who came into contact with a brand name on Twitter went on to search for additional information on search engines with 34% searching other social networks

Customers Take to the Social Web

- 44% admitted that they have recommended products in Social Media and 39% stated that they have discussed a product specifically on Twitter

- 46% of Facebook users talk about or recommending products on the 225 million strong social network

- Social Media already accounted for 18% of all information searching in early 2009

- 30% claim they wished to learn more

- 27% reported that they were receptive to receiving invitations for events, special offers or promotions

- 25% stated that they visited a site after learning about a product on their social network of preference

Engagement Has Its Rewards

In a recent Razorfish study, 40.1% of consumers reported friending a brand on Facebook or MySpace. Once a connection was established, the resulting activity was profoundly beneficial to the awareness and potential revenue of the brand.

Recommend the brand to others:

Always: 22.94%
Usually: 39.15%
Sometimes: 33.92%

Consider the brand when in the market for a similar product of service:

Always: 22.69%
Usually: 40.90%
Sometimes: 34.41%

Raise awareness of the brand:

Always: 21.45%
Usually: 38.65%
Sometimes: 36.66%

Purchase a product/service from the brand:

Always: 17.46%
Usually: 42.89
Sometimes: 36.66%

ROI: Return on Investment or Ignorance?

I recently wrote about the lacking of an industry-wide practice for measuring social media. According to one study, 85% of businesses engaged in interactive programs were not measuring the ROI.

Even though measurement was more pervasive in B2B over B2C, participating companies appeared to actively measure social media in this case – at least those surveyed anyway. B2C companies tended to focus on revenues to assess ROI (where the I represents investment and involvement). B2B companies typically evaluated Web traffic, brand awareness, and the quality and volume of lead generation. That being the case, B2B and B2C reported that Web traffic was considered the top metric.

It appears that an industry typically characterized as lethargic is in actuality, pioneering new forms of communications, service, sales and branding in the social realm.

Questions remain for me however, in order to better ascertain how and why businesses are using these new tools and to what extent. For example, I would ask those within B2B and B2C what their level of engagement and commitment to social media is across multiple departments within the organization. I firmly believe that every department affected by outside behavior or those that have the ability to affect it will ultimately benefit from socializing. Therefore, conducting a benchmark survey to capture the state of the industry as it corresponds specifically to service, sales, branding, communications, HR, etc., will help us better surface opportunities and potential strategies. In addition, I suggest introducing one more set of questions that focuses on what I refer to as the “ a ha” vs. the “uh oh” moment, when a company decides to embrace or experiment in Social Media. Are businesses jumping online because they realized the opportunity specific to a network or because they felt it necessary based on a negative discussion or series of negative and public instances.

The Attention Economy and Earned Relevance

Attention is increasingly thinning and as such, it is considered a precious commodity.

Whether it’s B2B or B2C, we are each in the end, consumers. And, as consumers, we seek information online in order to make more informed decisions based on research, the advice of friends, peers, and experts, and the recognition of our questions and commentary directly from brands. In order to make an impact on the bottom line through sales and the ongoing investment in engendering goodwill and earning loyalty, we must focus our time and resources on the attention dashboards of our prospects and customers, as well as those who also influence them. If we do not, we will quickly find ourselves outside of the parameters within every business decision-making process.

If it is one thing that we learn right here, right now, is that Social Media affects every part of the buying cycle. This is why a company-wide SRM program must be engineered and deployed in order to effectively monitor behavior and sentiment to effectively and genuinely shape perception, cultivate meaningful relations, and inspire action.

General Buying Cycle

1. Acknowledging the need

2. Awareness

3. Research

4. Consideration (the short list)

5. Evaluation

6. Purchase

7. Applications

8. The Experience

9. Reaction

10. Opportunity for advocacy

It should also not go unsaid, that while women rule the social web, the buying process in B2C is also influenced by women in a relationship setting. According to Marti Barletta, author of Marketing to Women and PrimeTime Women, when men and women buy as partners, women control at least four out of five stages of the purchasing process. While this isn’t representative of the bigger pitcure, it is still nonetheless interesting and worthy of consideration.

This is why in the world of B2C marketing, women are considered the Chief Household Officer as they’re actively driving and steering purchase decisions.

Five stages of the purchasing process:

1. Kick-off – women
2. Research – women
3. Purchase – men
4. Ownership – women
5. Word-of-mouth – women

It is how we engage at each step of this cycle that determines our place and stature within the inevitable path of attention, analysis, and action. Once we learn how and where to engage, we can then focus our efforts on earning affinity and advocacy. This is our time to garner relevance through the intelligent practice of poignant and relevant listening, understanding, and participation. In parallel, this is also our opportunity to establish authority and attention. Without it, it’s easy to vanish from the cycle of awareness and consideration. Out of sight, out of mind…

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Imagine this scenario. It’s election time and you find yourself engaged in a heated debate with someone about a particular candidate. Fairly foaming at the mouth, this individual rails on about lousy legislators.

Then you find out this person is eligible to be but is not registered to vote.

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m of a mind that if you don’t register to vote, you cede your right to complain about politicians.

So when several conference producers with whom I spoke said that not only do women rarely submit speaking abstracts but they also tend to decline when asked to speak, I began to question where we’re putting the blame for the missing link where female speakers should be.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not letting conference organizers wholly off the hook. Nor am I giving men who don’t step up to recommend a more diverse pool of their peers when asked, a free pass. First, however, we need to put all the cards on the table.

We have some systemic issues to address, and we have some immediate action we can take. The bigger institutional monsters – like the fact that we need to get more young women engaged in the business realm – will take time. I intend to keep hammering at this topic and will be exploring things on this front in future posts here at PR2.0.

This post isn’t about the systemic issues. Those issues are legion, and combine glass ceiling with an array of other social, cultural and economic factors. This post is about what we can do now.

With that, I extend my arm, point my index finger, wag it in the collective face of my sisters, and toss down this gauntlet: If we want to change this situation there are some pretty basic things well within our purview we need to straighten out.

And in the interest of short attention spans, here are highlights:

1) Don’t wait to be asked: One organizer told me he had a woman tell him that she “won’t speak unless invited”. Well, unless you’re Kara Swisher, Marissa Mayer, Gina Bianchini, Sarah Lacy, or some other visible, established presence, chances are likely you’ll have to work to get on those stages. So do it. Any conference site has a link that explains how speakers can submit pitches. If they don’t, call or email them directly. Make a point of finding out the kinds of subjects/sessions that work for their event, what theme they may have for the conference and if you know people who have spoken there in the past, ask them about the experience and get insight on what works best for that audience.

2) If they ask, say yes: I’m not suggesting you say yes to every speaking opportunity. Actually, scratch that. I am, but not perhaps as you might think. If you’re asked to speak and you really just can’t do it, don’t just say no. Proffer a replacement – and make sure you’re not just giving them a friend who you want to support really think about whether the person is the right fit for the format/content. Remember, this isn’t about women for women’s sake this is about making sure we have the right women speaking in the right places.

3) When they solicit, speak up: Rick Calvert of BlogWorldExpo told me they reach out to people they know asking for recommendations for speakers and in almost all cases the men reply to him. The women rarely do. (And in an ironic twist, he added that if women do respond, the speakers they suggest are often male.) The point? If given a chance to let your voice be heard, take it.

Plenty of women may take umbrage at my remarks. They will say they have pitched themselves to speak and tried to participate all to no avail. What I would say to them is, have you really? Many years ago I took an acting class. The teacher told us there are two kinds of people who work in Hollywood – the kind who are brilliantly talented and the kind who never ever give up. Rejection after rejection they keep coming back to audition. Role after role, they persevere and continue until they establish a toehold.

So too must we persist. I know. I know. It feels like we’ve been doing this forever but how about a little perspective folks? You need only watch an episode of Mad Men for a clear reminder of the truly deep misogyny that saturated the business world merely 40 years ago. That sounds like a long time. In the big picture, it’s not.

We have made progress. Now it’s time to kick it up another notch.

To that end …

Conference organizers have incentive to diversify their speaker rosters. As both Rick and SXSW Interactive’s Hugh Forrest explained, if they don’t have a strong mix of speakers along all lines, everyone loses. These two events are among the most successful at achieving this balance, with both boasting at least a 30% female roster for the last several years. They also said that having a more effective resource would be helpful.

Tim O’Reilly made mention of wishing for a place where you can view videos of female speakers in action. He suggested a YouTube site. Brian Solis also suggested the creation of a searchable database of experts organized by content and expertise not unlike a Facebook for speakers, with images, content, videos, and also reviews from conference and event attendees.

After looking at some features and functionality I opted to launch a site on Ning where women can join and upload their videos directly. That won’t be all. The idea of this resource will be to encourage and support women in preparing more effectively (and aggressively) to speak at conferences – whether that’s making sure to know when abstracts are due, giving people a place to collaborate and support each other on pitches, or getting tips on presenting by watching each other’s work.

Having such a site may also help conference organizers avoid putting the wrong speaker into the wrong situation – as happened this past week at Gnomedex. Chris Pirillo with whom I attempted to speak several times to no avail, had four women on the program. Best as I can tell that’s about 17% of his roster. That wasn’t my biggest issue. Rather it was that one of the women, a clearly very smart, capable and articulate individual, crashed in her presentation because, quite honestly, it was the wrong crowd for her talk. Whether that was a function of poor booking, disconnect in preparation or just an unexpected oversight I’m not sure. I’m hoping Chris will engage in a discussion in the comments because I’m not one for speaking of others without their having a chance to have their say.

The reason, though, almost doesn’t matter. What matters, is that the audience had a bad experience, I imagine the speaker didn’t feel too great about it either.

And in that scenario, no one wins.

As Brian Solis so eloquently stated in this post, we are in a time where reaching across the boundaries between groups – any groups – is fraught with great challenge, but also great opportunity.

It’s time for women to seize this opportunity. Where we go from here, is entirely up to us.

There are more men than women in the tech and new media sectors…

I know. Shocking.

Joking aside, I thought it was time to take a slightly different whack at the conversational kerfuffle that’s percolated yet again in recent weeks. Yes, that seemingly unsinkable subject – the lack of women on the tech industry speaking circuit.

So when Brian Solis graciously offered me the opportunity to guest post here and use this topic as my inaugural soapbox, I couldn’t say no. Well, I could have, but it would have been silly.

To set some context, let’s be clear. This debate is not a new one, though the flames have been fanned recently as you can read in this post … or this one … or this one.

If you’re already up to speed on this story let’s wait here a second for the folks who went to peruse those links above.

Okay, everyone back?

Are we on the same page?

Good.

Now turn the page.

I began flipping forward to the next chapter last week when I reached out to Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media. He produces some of the top conferences in tech (which extends to vertical focus like government, healthcare and green/eco friendly) he also was directly involved in the most recent set of public discourse on this matter.

More than getting his take on the situation overall, I wanted to hear Tim’s thoughts on where the challenges can be overcome. During a phone chat Friday afternoon Tim agreed that the current dearth of female speakers overall needs to be addressed and he called on other conference organizers to do the same. “I think the talent bench is way deeper than any (directories or conference organizers) show. It’s time (for those of us producing conferences) to dig deeper.”

He also explained that it’s critical to remember that producing a conference is telling a story.

“It’s not just about finding fungible talent. When I’m trying to put a conference together. I’m trying to put together a story and I’m trying to find (qualified) people who are aligned with that story and are really able to drive the point home,” he said.

In other words, this isn’t about having a woman speak just for the sake of having a woman speak. That doesn’t do anyone any good. She must be qualified on the content and she must be able to articulate it. After all, if it’s a public speaking opportunity that whole speaking thing becomes pretty important.

I couldn’t agree more, and I will take it one step further. Beyond the need to ensure that the most qualified, well-versed women are chosen, it’s also critical to ensure that the right women are chosen for the right formats. As I detail in this post, some folks just aren’t cut out for some kinds of presentations.

Kara Swisher offered a more salty perspective – literal and figurative. As we finished up a Fort Funston beach romp with dogs and kids on Sunday afternoon, I mentioned this blog post and topic to her, and her perpetual intensity sparked. She emphasized that she and her irascible partner in crime Walt Mossberg spend considerable time ensuring the composition of their on-stage roster is as balanced as humanly possible. In the case of All Things Digital, where the same C-suite mandate O’Reilly faces with the Web 2.0 Summit comes into play, this becomes challenging as the ranks of available speaker candidates thins rapidly on the rise into the Fortune 500.

With the assumption that we’re talking about truly qualified, articulate, solid presenters, what’s next?

The fact that the issue is on the table again is good. The fact that there are new conversations happening to address the issue also is good, but talk is cheap. It’s time to take more bold action.

Like making a point to step up and be counted.

Like working together to appropriately support relevant, credible individuals.

Like turning to our male colleagues and ensure that they have our backs.

These are all great, socialized actions that will go towards chipping away at the institutionalized behavior to which we are all accustomed on this front.

What about something a bit more tactical? As Brian Solis and I discussed in Los Angeles during Twiistup6, what about creating a centralized, searchable resource through which organizers can find qualified, well-vetted female speakers and conference attendees can comment on performance, experience, and expertise?

After many conversations I keep coming around to the idea of a resource center that conferences organizers could use to source great speakers who happen to be female.

And of course any good idea worth having is likely to have other instances, as does this one. Several years ago Mary Hodder and some others launched a wiki on which they began a speakers list. Personally I think the list is a great start, but has some several limitations. For starters it’s too unwieldy, and that’s largely due to the fact that this list is not curated in any way. There’s no determining which speakers have more expertise, who has the best stage presence for a given format or, frankly, if they are as great presenting as they are on paper.

This is the problem Tim mentioned when we talked about the speaker database resources that currently exist. He noted that generally those lists are filled with people “who tend to heavily promote themselves.”

I get what Tim means. I’ve certainly been around my fair share of those sorts who spend so much time promoting themselves as experts of this, or gurus of that, I can’t help but wonder – when do they actually do any of the things about which they purport to have such expertise? Oh so many “pick me pick me” voices sound shrilly in my ears, or perhaps more accurate to say they ring hollow.

So do we need some resource lists for qualified female speakers? Yes. Should they be wholly open and just anyone can be on the list. I think not. Lest you think this is based in elitist or exclusionary principles … well, you’re right, they are.

I think there should be a barrier to entry. There should be qualifiers, because when it comes to public speaking, no matter how qualified someone may be on paper, their ability to translate that into a compelling discussion – whether as a panelist or on a keynote – may not be in sync.

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Please also read: Building Bridges Between Knowledge and Aspiration.

Image Credit: Jeremy Ginsberg