Talent is not gender specific - Xconomy Forum: Tech Agenda 2015

A couple weeks back, I was able to attend the Xconomy Forum: Tech Agenda 2015, which focused on topics including Data Visualization, E-Commerce, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Mobile Marketing, Information Security, and Robots & Drones.  The half-day event was designed to deliver information through keynotes, panels, and chats by industry experts and thought leaders.

With this rich of an agenda, I could share thoughts on any number of ideas these discussions provoked for me, but instead I'm going to share an internal monologue I had at one of the breaks:

(Looking ahead at the printed agenda after the 3rd of 9 sessions):  Wait, all of the content speakers are women.  Did they do that on purpose?  How come they didn't make an announcement or hullabaloo about it?  Is it just a coincidence?  No, can't be.

(Later in the day):  So I noticed that all the speakers are women.  Did others notice?  Should I feel guilty about noticing?  I mean, they are all qualified, which was never a question in my mind anyway?  Do I notice when the speakers at an industry event are all men?  I think I'd notice that too.

Here's the link to the agenda btw - http://www.xconomy.com/boston/agenda-the-tech-agenda-2015/

After the fact, I was able to confirm that it was intentional to utilize only female speakers for this event.  Check out this post direct from Xconomy, after the event, which states, " We made it a point not to talk about “women in tech” at this event, but to let the program speak for itself. And speak it did. Here are seven highlights..." - http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2014/12/04/epidemics-inequality-and-narcissism-tech-agenda-2015-highlights/

So, while this was not the main takeaway from the event for me, I thought that it may be the most interesting thing to share for readers here.

Needless to say, the event was worth the time and I took something from every item on the agenda.  One, in particular that I connected with, was the keynote delivered by Fernanda Viegas, co-leader of Google's "Big Picture" Data Visualization Group.  The exploratory nature of trying to find ways to share data and stories was compelling.  Check out this wind visualization she highlighted:

http://hint.fm/wind/index.html

A question that pops into my head though, even in it's not focused on at conferences is in this era where the focus is Big Data, is isn't it just as important to cultivate better understanding of our small data?

Something for me to explore a bit further I guess.