Comments on: Don't reduce your audience to a stereotype

By: Angelee

Angelee — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 10:17:34 +0000

Paul made a good point in the article. But what I'm picturing out is the whole conference that Paul was invited to. Organising conferences is never an easy task and it's very challenging for the whole team to make the whole event perfectly done. Sometimes, there are just things that we thought are attractive or amusing but then it turned out to be an unpleasant impact to somebody. I think both the organiser and the entertainer should learn the lesson here.

By: Paula

Paula — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 11:04:11 +0000

Indeed, "humor" has its place, but not in public events. As anyone who cares about their brand will know, bad news travel fast. Kudos for Teodor for your humble reply.

P.S. Saw the pics, many hot geek guys there! ;)

By: Teodor

Teodor — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:19:22 +0000

Hi Paul,

Thank you for a great presentation at FRONTEND 2010 and your great feedback.

We have our “Lessons learned” from 2010 that we will be aware of for the great 2011.

FRONTEND 2011 is now up at www.frontend2011.com

Best regards Teodor Bjerrang IXD

Creator of the FRONTEND conference in Oslo

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:46:12 +0000

Thanks for another interesting article.

Things like booth babes and sexist jokes are insulting to men as well as women, appealing to the the lowest common denominator.

I've experienced the same kind of thing in reverse - a women's networking event featuring male waiters in just their pants. Sadly, most of the ladies present seemed to like this aspect. I just found it horribly exploitative.

goes to patch up feminist banner

By: Mallory

Mallory — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:12:45 +0000

Pff. As a woman, I have no issue with booth girls (well, they always look better than I do, so I might get jealous). Sure, if I had been to that notorious CouchDB Ruby talk, I would have rolled my eyes, but unlike a commenter above me I would not let such things stop me from attending a conference about my profession (the cost would though).

What I actually wanted to comment on was the "Personas" trick I see companies using... where you make up imaginary people who represent types of users you think you have. Is this any different? Better? Just as stupid?

What is a developer supposed to do when their audience isn't some niche, but is everyone? First, we have no choice but to make at least some basic assumptions. Second, we can only keep in mind that they're probably totally wrong for at least some users. And if it is a niche group? In catering to them you cannot help but alienate... someone. More likely, lots of someones.

By: Bea

Bea — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 01:45:55 +0000

I think there's another debate for this. Designers... design, and Developers well, develop codes. It probably got lost somewhere but, the point is to not stereotype our audience whatever field it might be - design, or development.

By: Peter Wilson

Peter Wilson — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:31:25 +0000

"Was this the organisers fault? Not at all. After all if you employee a professional you expect them to know the audience and do their research."

I think the reverse is true:

"Was this the hosts fault? Not at all. After all, employing a professional requires research, auditioning, and matching compare to audience."

By: Leslie Jensen-Inman

Leslie Jensen-Inman — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:09:05 +0000

Wow. It always surprises me when I still hear about these types of experiences. As a woman, who teaches the next generation of web designers (both men and women), I thank you for writing this. I keep hoping that the young woman whom I teach, will have a more favorable experience at "geek" events but it seems like things are going backwards (at least with marketers). I'm grateful that most attendees and speakers do not believe this type of marketing is appropriate. Hopefully, posts like these will help marketers to better understand their target audience.

By: Irene

Irene — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:53:02 +0000

Welcome to our (female designers/developers) world.

I've been living with this kind of thing for so long, and watching the political correctness pendulum swing from one extreme to another that I have no idea what to expect really when attending a tech-related event or trade show, especially if it's outside North America.

I've simply had to learn how to tune out, ignore, find the correct "authority" person to send comments to, or just spend company money elsewhere.

These kinds of articles are bittersweet, really. When we (women in tech) make comments or critiques about booth babes, sexist jokes, or otherwise stereotypical geek humour, we usually get dismissed as overly-sensitive, politically correct whiners, or raging lesbians. "That's the way it is, honey! Can't change the culture of geekdom."

So now that men are echoing our statements YEARS later, their comments get traction and attention. Of course.

Hopefully you will understand why we might feel conflicted about that.

Thanks for pointing it out for FrontEnd 2010. I'll be sure not to attend their conferences in the future. Last thing I need is to attend a conference to learn about emerging technologies just to get offered semi-erotic swag by booth babes or tune out yet another imbecile making inappropriate comments. Note to conference organisers: if you can't take the time to properly think about your audience, then your show will likely be a waste of our time and money.

By: A WebDeveloper

A WebDeveloper — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:29:32 +0000

Lol, I got distracted by booth girls too.
Web Developer and Web Designer are different things. Web Designers don’t think in code and maybe they even don’t think in sex, because the stereotype is that they’re gays, or they’re smoking weed, they’re more like beggars (in the way they dress), LoL; and for Webdevelopers they really think in code and aspire to have sex rather than only having virtual sex with Alice ( http://alicebot.blogspot.com/2009/06/adult-chat-bots-advance.html)

LoL, I’m joking, this is a nice post, but maybe talk about stereotypes will be like talking about religious topics, so broad to make a good conclusion.