When you run a user group, conference, etc.. you sometimes are faced with the issue of not getting enough diversity in your submissions. I think about this a lot and try to figure out levers I can pull to make changes, even if they are small. Time seems to be a big factor for many in underrepresented groups, and I’m certainly no stranger to that dilemma myself.
So I’m trying something new with my user group: a recorded option that isn’t bound by a specific date/time. The idea came after realizing that there are important voices that need to be heard in the community, but having availability that coincides with a static schedule can be sometimes difficult for underrepresented speakers. I want to introduce another way for all voices to be heard: the #KCSSUG YouTube channel. In addition to providing a space for speakers to be heard, it also provides a great benefit for our members to see more content from people they can either relate to and/or get new perspectives from. Diversity of perspective and experience brings more knowledge to others.
Speakers will submit their topics as normal (please feel free to submit multiple), which will go through a normal selection process. Here are the formats options available for sessions:
Have a one-on-one talk with the organizer about a specific topic.
Submit with multiple speakers to have a round table discussion with organizer.
Record at home at a time convenient to you.
If you have an idea of another option, throw it in the notes section of your submission. You can submit any length, including lightning. Let’s go crazy and not restrict ourselves.
Well – actually – there is a restriction. Technically 2: it has to be approved and can’t contain sponsor content. Obviously we want to make sure that we serve quality content, but rarely have I seen that as an issue and I can give suggestions to get you polished if you are feeling you need it. Cough cough: New Stars of Data Speaker Improvement library. Oh oh! Speaking of which, I see a couple there I need to look/relook at myself.
This will only work if people know about it, so please share far and wide. In fact, after sharing, steal the idea for your own group. I won’t tell. I’d also LOVE to hear your ideas on other things I could be doing.
WHAT ABOUT YOUR REGULAR SCHEDULED SESSIONS?
No worries, we will still have those. Our call for speakers on our regular schedule will go out in April-ish. We currently have a Evening option (6PM CDT) and a lunch&learn option (12 PM CDT). We will be sending out additional information to see if the day of week works for everyone so stay tuned.
Let me start this post saying I 100% empathize with the difficulties women and other underrepresented groups face with speaking. I won’t go into a dissertation on the multitude of whys in this post – except to say for me, a big part really boils down to time. And how little I often have.
But… I also know the importance of being represented. And as a neurodiverse woman that has grown up with interests where I was often the minority – I have a lifetime of frustration with having to learn things mostly from a man’s POV. That’s not to say that it doesn’t have value – it does! Tons! But lots of examples used in training things DO. NOT. EXCITE. ME. And my very unscientific polling of people shows that many do not even understand why having diversity and things that excite others, is important; even just from the perspective of getting a diverse pipeline in the IT industry.
All this to say: I run a Microsoft Data Platform user group and I want to hear your voice. I want you to know your voice is important to hear.I want you to know your voice is needed. It’s important for other women, other underrepresented groups, and yes, even for men.
That’s the easy part: saying tech needs you to speak. Across the board from my user group and with other user groups/conferences, we are seeing a serious drop in women speakers. The hard part is figuring out the logistics. Because as much as I can spout my stories all day of why it is difficult for me, I’ll bet there are 100s of reasons I haven’t considered for others. If we don’t know all the reasons, then it’s difficult to come up with solutions. So first – I invite you to tell me your reason.
Second, I realize that sometimes it has to do with confidence or inexperience. Women in tech in particular, tend to be perfectionists IME, so to speak can be a bit daunting. If that’s the case, then please please please consider applying to New Stars of Data. Why would you apply to speak if you have confidence issues or inexperience??? Because the NSoD program will assign you a mentor that will help you as much or as little as you want to overcome any real or perceived issue you may have with your abilities. (Hint: women tend to underestimate their capabilities, while men overestimate.)
Third: Reach out to me on how I can best get you an opportunity speak. This includes all people that fall into underrepresented groups. (I realize I often refer to women specifically, but this applies to all that fit in this category.)
Want to find an in-person group? I will assist to help you find one.
Want to speak virtually? I’ve got you covered.
Don’t have the schedule to do either live? We can get you up on YouTube with something you record on your time.
Want to blog about something, but don’t want to do the whole “set up a blog thing?” I got you covered on that as well.
Want to have a group of women in tech to ping ideas off of? Yep. You guessed it. I know some people.
Want help with grammar? Ok. You’ve got me on that one. It’s not my strength.
HAVE I INTERESTED YOU EVEN A LITTLE??? Maybe just to start a conversation? Or maybe you want to join me in coming up with ways to help get more diversity in speaking? Ping me!
How do you contact me? That’s an easy one too: hit me up on linkedIn or X with a quick note. And if it takes me a little bit to get back to you, then know I’m in the same boat too, but I WILL get back to you.
Earlier this year, meetup sent their obligatory email about a group I was in needing a new organizer. Like most people during COVID, I joined a lot of online meetup groups after most groups moved their sessions online. The Kansas City SQL Server User Group (#KCSSUG) was no different and fast forward to 2023, one-by-one user groups were going back to in-person events.
Look, I get it. Lots of folks wanted to go back to the physical meetings to have that in-person interaction. But that option is not always available to people, and in particular, it often isn’t available to under represented groups for a myriad of reasons. I will let you do your own homework on why that is, but I can briefly speak to my experiences as a WIT. (Hmmmm, maybe that entire subject matter would make a good blog post all on it’s own.) I won’t even address it from a neurodiverse perspective.
A WIT Perspective
Here is a quick summary of my experience with it as a WIT: 25+ years ago, as a single mom, traveling to events wasn’t even an option. I was a young mother and my parents still were in the workforce and unable to take time off to babysit for me to go to a conference (though weekends were ok). Never mind school schedules. And even though I was in IT, money was pretty tight – so traveling costs were pretty prohibitive for me. (I once had to borrow money to buy basic groceries for a week.) None of my companies ever even considered paying for me to travel to a conference (or even attend a local conference), and I would have had to use PTO (personal time off – aka: sick /vacation time) to attend. If you are a parent, you know that PTO can often be eaten up by young children for NON vacation reasons and there simply was no room for me to chance it. Otherwise I might get docked pay and my review may come back that I had too many absences. Yes, folks, that’s how it is sometimes.
Think I’m exaggerating? Consider this: even though I was an organizer for SQL Saturday in Atlanta for 8 years, and I’ve been in the industry for over 25 years, last year was the first year I have ever traveled to a conference outside my local area that wasn’t on a weekend or that a vacation wasn’t planned around (PASS Data Community Summit 2022 in case you were wondering).* Even as an organizer, I used PTO to volunteer for our Atlanta Friday pre-con sessions. And I’m a seasoned IT Professional.
Random AI generated image of a seasoned female IT worker because I was curious after I typed that phrase.
*(All thanks to the wonderful company I currently work for: Kent Corporation. I finally work for a company that understands the importance of conferences and upskilling employees. There’s a reason they’ve won a ton of employee satisfaction awards. )
Online Options
All of this to build up to why I decided to step up as the organizer of the Kansas City SQL Server User Group: to continue to have online options for those that may need it. Be it speakers, or members, or anyone that wants to catch it on our YouTube channel. Not all of our sessions are recorded, for various reasons (including my first event where something messed up with the recording), but the majority are.
Our group isn’t the only group doing this, so I’m not doing anything ground breaking here: there are still plenty of great user groups and conferences that either have real-time online options or recorded ones – which is AWESOME. Last year SQLBits was in Wales and I was a online speaker for that conference. I wouldn’t have been able to speak at that one if they didn’t have the hybrid option and I’m forever grateful.(Side note: not only did I have many people join live online, but Andy Yun of #SQLFamily took pics for me of the in-person view. SQLBits even posted the videos a few months later; here’s mine: Migrating data solutions to the cloud – a checklist.) That said, as I was looking through my emails at the beginning of the summer, I saw the number of online options getting smaller and smaller.
Thinking of that, I decided to take action and become the organizer for the KCSSUG, and keep it virtual. I’m a strong believer that virtual options help play a role in DEI, and instead of complaining about the diminishing options, I could at least help in that area. All of this to say: now I’m officially the organizer for the (Virtual) Kansas City SQL Server Group.
Info About Our Group
Interested in seeing some of our sessions? We loosely follow a 2x a month schedule:
1st Tuesday of the Month in the early evening (5:45 PM CDT).
2nd Thursday of the Month as a Lunch and Learn (12 PM CDT).
The 2 different times allow us to cover people that can join in the evening and people that can do lunch and learns. It also allows us to include people in some additional time zones outside the US. Plus, it helps me not take up additional family time. As mentioned, we also have a YouTube channel that we post most of our events to afterwards. (Some quicker than others because – yea – my ADHD).
We occasionally have an additional session for guest spots with both regular speakers as well as speakers from Ben Weissman and Willaim Durkin‘s New Stars of Data. I’m particularly excited about giving new speakers an additional platform to gain experience and not just because #NSoD is where I got my start. Ok maybe I’m a little partial to them because I know all they do to help new speakers perform their best with their resources, mentors, and various volunteers that do all their magic.
Who are the amazing speakers we’ve hosted in the last 5 months?
And we have many more in the works for 2024 as well as new things coming down the line! Around February, we will have a new call for speakers to fill our remaining spots, so stay tuned (and submit!) If you’d like to volunteer to help host or join our team – feel free to reach out to me on linkedin or twitter.
Ok, so that’s it. Even I think this falls in the category TLDR, but I’ve haven’t written in awhile (at least not completed one, technically I’ve written a ton), so you get this big gush in one go. If you’ve made it this far – hope to see you soon (in-person AND online)!
Super excited as this is the program that helped get me started with my speaking (along with nudges from several #sqlfamily in the community). The event is the 5th in the series and is tomorrow (May, 12, 2023). The event is free, but make sure to register here: https://www.meetup.com/datagrillen/events/291222930/.
In case you are unfamiliar with New Stars of Data, let me give you the quick summary: Ben Weissman and William Durkin from DataGrillen saw a huge gap in the community for getting new MS Data platform speakers up and running and helping to ensure the person’s success. (Ok, that’s actually an assumption on my part, but that’s my take on it.) Rather than just offer speakers a space to get noticed, they designed a program that partners the speaker with a mentor to help with every step of the way. Sometimes multiple people (both Ben and Gabi Münster helped me with mine). They help with topic selection, abstract, presentation development, and even practice run-throughs. There is also a free library for anyone to use to help improve your speaking skills. They remove the barrier of “I know this subject really well, but I don’t want to suck in a public forum”. Afterwards, the videos are available on YouTube (after the volunteers do all their wizardry to get it uploaded). So really what you end up with is a free event on current topics with great speakers.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I will also mention it continuously, attending these events (and/or watching the videos on YouTube) helps diversity in out community. By default, underrepresented people have a harder time finding mentors for stuff like this, which makes these programs super important. If that’s a topic that interests you – than make sure you support events like these.
While I’ve been in the sql community for many many years, I have to admit it was super exciting to meet a lot of the people for the first time last year at PASS DCS who directly and indirectly helped me during my New Stars of Data Event. As well as the many friendships that have developed since. It’s not always possible to meet those that have made such an impact in your life, but if you get the chance, it’s pretty awesome.
Me, Ben, and Johan at Karaoke night.
The event is tomorrow and it is on CET time (or maybe it’s GMT, I forget), but don’t let that stop you if you are in a different time zone! I plan to catch a few sessions as I am getting ready in the morning and during the remainder of the event. I’ll circle back around and catch the ones that are too early for me on YouTube. The session lineup looks really great, and I’m chuffed to see all the new and upcoming people. Really relevant topics on things like Power BI, Azure, Machine Learning, and other SQL/Data topics. Get your TRAIN on and join us if you can!!!!
Data Work Mom 