women in open source

With huge thanks to Sarah Cruise from dyke it, here's the video and slides for the Women in Open Source talk at Open Web Vancouver 2009 a month or so ago.

View Slides (16 MB PDF)
Download Video (195 MB FLV)

If you've seen the old version of that talk, the content is fairly similar, but some additional tweaking, so it might be worth checking out. Like always, there's a new horror story (and of course this debacle happened the very next day *sigh*), and at the end there is a new section called "Myth Busters" that's an attempt to shatter misconceptions that a lot of would-be open source contributors have that make them think they're not "good enough" to participate. (I know, because I was one of those myself for about a decade.) The discussion at the end is also pretty fun, esp. for the Drupal crowd. ;)

I wanted to sincerely thank the organizers of Open Web Vancouver (esp. Malcolm Van Deist and Jeff Griffiths) for having me. The conference was absolutely awesome: a wonderful mix of technology, important social and political issues, and genuinely interesting people to talk to.

It was also great to re-connect with old Drupal friends. Made me all nostalgic for my very first Drupalcon back in 2006 that completely changed my life. :') Aw!! Thanks too for all the great recommendations that have come in for "Operation: Show Marci How Awesome Vancouver Is." 18 days to go... DUN DUN DUNNNN... Keep those suggestions coming if you have them. :)

So the past couple months have been completely nuts trying to get Drupal Jumpstart out the door (one month left! eek!), I haven't had the chance to write about this.

Tomorrow, I'm headed to San Francisco, California for BlogHer '08, and will be co-presenting with Marianne Masculino from WordPress on Saturday about how to participate in an open source community; I of course will be talking about the Drupal community. :)

Then Monday, I'm headed out to Portland, Oregon for OSCON 2008 and will be hanging at the OSCON Welcome for the Drupal Community and hopefully the Drupal Media/Files Code Sprint. I also get to meet our book's editor, Julie Steele from O'Reilly, which I'm really excited about. :D

Anyone else going to be at either of those events?

On Friday, February 8, in Los Angeles there's going to be a special Women in Open Source mini-conference as part of the larger Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE).

Both Addison Berry (add1sun) and myself will be speaking there. Addi will be talking about Open Source Mentoring, including efforts around the Drupal Dojo, and then I'll be doing a Drupal demo that will show how Drupal works by giving an overview and building a small website with it.

Additionally, Mike Stewart from the Drupal Los Angeles User Group will be helping to manage a Drupal booth at the conference. Stop on by if you'd like to meet some fellow Drupal users and talk shop with some folks who won't give you a funny look when you say "Druplicon." ;)

So if you are in the area Feb. 8-10, pick up your ticket and stop on by for some fun! :)

Also, on a slightly related note, if you're local to Montreal, I'm also going to be presenting Tuesday night at the January Montreal Girl Geek Dinner about open source. This is the second Girl Geek dinner, and the first one was a lot of fun, so go sign up at that accursed Facebook page if you want to come. ;)

Thanks to Khalid for the heads-up about a video out there of my Women in Open Source talk I gave last month at the Ontario Linux Fest. Check it out here: http://www.archive.org/details/onlinux_womeninopensource

The slides for this talk are also available at http://webchick.net/files/presentations/women-in-open-source-onlinux-200...