Tell me if this is familiar: you hear about a hot new tech/entrepreneurship/marketing/business conference being promoted around the web.
You click through to check out the marketing site and see if it might be the kind of event you’d be interested in attending.
The overall message resonates, so you head to the speakers page. Thirteen white, 30–40 year old dudes, and two white women. Typical.
The best stories do not come from people who look the same. The biggest successes are not limited to white males. The best speakers are not all cut from the same cloth.
If you’re organizing an event, do us all a favor and do your homework.
Yes, find the best people for your event. But do the work to truly find the most important stories for your audience to hear, not just the stories that look and sound like yours.
If only there was someone to thank for the inspiration for today’s post. So instead, I’ll say thank you to TED for being the best example I know of. If you know of a conference that’s supporting the best, most diverse stories, please share by email.