Women of Drupal Please Stand Up: a community conversation with exceptional women in drupal discussing how to encourage more public participation from women

A panel discussion featuring some really cool members of the Drupal Community, including Crystal Williams from WorkHabit, Brenda Boggs from Acquia and Nicole Bluto from the LA Drupal Users Group and Intrinsic Web Designs.

Our goal is to both highlight the great work that is being done in the Drupal world by featuring exceptional individuals, and to find a solution to the low percentage of women actively participating in the drupal community (currently projected at around 10%, which is better than the percentage of participation in open source projects overall, but still quite small).

- Business Owners:
Recent research also shows that companies that include a diverse mix of men and women at the top echelons of their business hierarchy/decision-making chain have a higher bottom line. (http://tinyurl.com/qzq2w4)
How can you capitalize on that research? How can you recruit and retain talented female engineers?

The women we have in this community are so stellar, more can only be better :)

Robert Kaye summarizes a recent talk from Kirrily Robert at OSCON:

“Any steps you take to include women in your project will only increase the total pool of hackers who can work on it!”

Drupalists of all genders: please join us!  

Please also submit your questions and thoughts.  

Please submit anonymous questions to make this a better conversation! Questions can be read and submitted here: Questions for the Drupalchix Panel

About the Participants

Crystal Williams
Crystal found her way to Drupal in 2006, and hasn’t looked back. With experience in the worlds of Retail/Channel Marketing, Web Development, Design Agencies, and the Music Industry, she loves crossing industries to create innovative solutions for clients. Crystal is also a passionate organizer of BarCamps in the US, Canada, and China, and founder of DrupalCampLA; all free conferences focused on knowledge transfer and inspiration between individuals from all walks of life. Her “10 Steps to Organizing a BarCamp” article is now translated into German, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and has become the standard guide for founding new un-conferences.

Brenda Boggs
Drupal fanatic hailing from Acquia. Brenda will be “The Doctor” during soon-to-be-scheduled “The Doctor Is In!” shifts at the Drupalchix table, were you can bring your Drupal questions for in-person help during the camp!

Nicole Bluto
Nicole and her husband recently formed Intrinsic Web Designs LLC for the purpose of building websites for police officer’s associations. They are bringing the formula that was successful for the Torrance Police Officer’s Association to other associations around the country. Nicole is also a mother of three, and co-organizer of the drupalchix track at DrupalCampLA 2009.

Moderator: Rain Breaw
Owner/co-founder of SunRain Productions, a web development company working primarily with non-profits, Rain has taught web development and been building websites since 1998. During 2008, Rain served as the Technical Supervisor for the Drupal-based Stand Up To Cancer website, StandUp2Cancer.org. She is also co-organizer of the drupalchix track at DrupalCampLA 2009.

For more information on Women in Drupal

Drupalchix group:
http://groups.drupal.com/drupalchix

Women in Open Source talk from Open Web Vancouver 09 (by Angela Byron aka webchick):
http://webchick.net/presentations/women-in-open-source-owv-09

Geek Girls Guide: 
http://geekgirlsguide.com/

Standing Out in the Crowd talk from Kirrily Robert: 
http://infotrope.net/blog/2009/07/25/standing-out-in-the-crowd-my-oscon-…

O’Reilly Radar on Standing Out in the Crowd:
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/07/oscon-standing-out-in-the-crow.html

rc33.org on Kirrily Robert’s talk:
http://rc3.org/2009/07/29/kirrily-robert-on-women-in-open-source/

Some cool drupalchix to follow on twitter:

Kate Lawrence @pingKate
Laura Scott @lauras
Crystal Williams @ccg
Brenda Boggs @brenda003
Emma Jane Hogbin@emmajanedotnet
Angela Byron @webchick
Amy Cham @amycham
Drupalchix @drupalchix

DrupalCampLA Drupalchix track organizers:

Nicole Bluto @nbluto
Rain Breaw @sunrainprods