SHE Should Talk At TED: 5 Ways to Get Started

Thanks so much to you readers who got in touch with me to share your ideas about a diversity & inclusion action plan for TED. I had the chance to fold some of these ideas into a live conversation with two of my favorite NYC feminists, Dr. Debra Condon and Gloria Feldt, and together we came up with these 5 possible Action Steps to share with you readers, and with the TEDWomen /TEDx636_11thAve follow-up round table being sponsored by NYWSE. While these suggestions are specific to TED, the general idea behind each step is applicable to any organization.

1. Clarify goals: Gender Parity with Proportional Representation at the next TED, and at every TED & TEDx thereafter.

The goal that we’re working for, at least in the efforts focused on TED per se, is to move to full Gender Parity with Proportional Representation in the next TED conference. As Marie Wilson of The White House Project is known to say, “You can’t be it if you can’t see it.” We need to help people see women as TED speakers and opinion leaders with big ideas, because we are sure that women have at least half the big ideas in this world. But we’re so accustomed to not having that recognized that we have not been helping ourselves to our fair share.

2. Set Up “SHE Should Talk At TED” campaign.

A “SHE Should Talk at TED” campaign will help identify more women as potential speakers at TED and TEDx. So far, the women who have spoken at TEDs have been fabulous … and there are more women out there who also have fabulous big ideas.

“SHE Should Talk At TED” is a tactic for raising awareness of the broad array of women whose ideas are so worthy that we want to see them presented at TED.A first step is to make each of these women more visible by something as simple as tweeting her name and #SHETalkTED. You can also come and join our Facebook group as we get that up and going.

We can make these women visible by sharing a button each one can put on her blog or twitter page. And, we can tell each other that we think each others’ ideas are worth sharing, by sending the button to our female colleagues who “Should Speak At TED”. (The image at the top is an early draft– stay tuned for the real thing!)

3. Invite the curators at TED to meet with a group of advocates for Gender Parity…

… to share suggestions and action steps that TED can take not only to get gender parity immediately, but also to build in a concern for parity and inclusion into all TED activities.

These action steps could included re-examining selection criteria and making a public commitment to inclusion. TED might also look to its own licensees for ideas, and incorporate the inclusion tactics of those TEDx conferences that have gotten closer to gender parity in their presenter line-ups. While we understand that TED is necessarily based on judgment calls about attendees, speakers, and topics, we are certain that a) there are plenty of women who qualify on all fronts and b) gender parity and inclusion of other diversities will have the added benefit of making TED even better and its ideas even more expansive.

4. Plan ahead for a Parity Party.

The next TED conference is not far off. We can start planning now to celebrate TED’s achievement of gender parity at events to be held right after the next TED conference.

5. Stay Open for More Ideas

More ideas, and more specific tactics for Gender Parity at TED, will surely be generated at the NYWSE Round-table: Building on TED & the TEDWomen Conference: How can _we_ make conferences more inclusive spaces?

We anticipate, too, that others might want to look past TED and work toward gender parity and conference inclusion in other ways. For example, some may decide to create an explicit alternative to TED, a conference about ideas worth sharing that is build on the premise that good ideas can come from anyone, and that good ideas can be shared not only in presentations but also in non-hierarchical, ‘sage from the stage’ formats.

Check out the SHE Should Talk at TED facebook page!

Gloria Feldt

GLORIA FELDT is the New York Times bestselling author of several books including No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, a sought-after speaker and frequent contributor to major news outlets, and the Co-Founder and President of Take The Lead. People has called her “the voice of experience,” and among the many honors she has been given, Vanity Fair called her one of America’s “Top 200 Women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers,” and Glamour chose her as a “Woman of the Year.”

As co-founder and president of Take The Lead, a leading women’s leadership nonprofit, her mission is to achieve gender parity by 2025 through innovative training programs, workshops, a groundbreaking 50 Women Can Change The World immersive, online courses, a free weekly newsletter, and events including a monthly Virtual Happy Hour program and a Take The Lead Day symposium that reached over 400,000 women globally in 2017.