The 2011 TED conference begins Tuesday in Long Beach CA. Of the 55 folks who will present “Ideas worth Spreading”, 15 of these speakers will be women.
That’s a whopping 27%… no improvement over previous years, and nowhere near gender parity.
To celebrate the 15 Women who will take the TED stage, and to encourage TED to #ChangeTheRatio so that a full half of TED presenters are women, I’m spending this week with the team at SheShouldTalkAtTED, advocating for #morevoices and gender parity on the TED stage.
Join us on Facebook, Twitter, the blogosphere, and in conversation, and in action.
What you can do:
- If you know a woman (or two, or twelve) with ‘ideas worth spreading’ and think that SheShouldTalkAtTED, nominate her!
- Invite the Curators of TED to a conversation with diversity & inclusion experts, who can help TED find authentic ways to grow more inclusive, more influential, and more powerful in the world of ideas.
- Sign the invitation to Curators of TED, over at goPetition: Gender Parity at TED: http://www.gopetition.com/petition/43419.html
Gender Parity — at TED and Beyond— is an idea worth spreading.
While I’m off this week practicing and learning how to use social media for social change, here are some great posts (from AuthenticOrganizations and beyond) which will fill you in on the history of exclusion at TED, the efforts to address sexism at TED, and the actions underway to advocate for #MoreVoices and gender parity at TED.
- TEDWomen: Brilliant or Belittling?
by Michelle Tripp at BrandForward
- 15 Trailblazers Take The Stage (A Feminist’s Guide To TED 2011
by Susan Mccaulay at Amazing Women Rock
- TEDWomen: Proving That Gender Does Not Determine Great Ideas
By Linda Tarr-Whelen, at The Huffington Post


I am an organizational consultant, change advocate, and organizational identity/reputation scholar with a PhD in leadership & organizations. I research, write about, and consult with organizations on the relationships between organizational identity, actions, and purpose. I teach Technology Management, part-time, at Stevens Institute of Technology.
My current research focuses on how social technologies in the workplace can drive organizational change, generate meaning, and catalyze purpose. See the 
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