A girl’s survival guide to a tech conference

I’ve just returned from The Next Web conference in Amsterdam and I was planning on writing a summary article about the event. Then I thought I could give it a more practical spin for the benefit of the other girls out there that, like me, enjoy showing up at technology events for reasons other than parading their pretty faces to the predominantly male audiences.

Here are some universally recognized truths about what happens at such events (or generally in tech circles) and some ideas on how to tackle these situations:

• Guys ask other guys for their numbers to collaborate on tech projects (i.e. they network). Guys ask you for your number to take you out for dinner.

What you can do: Surely you’re confused. Maybe you’re slightly flattered, but mostly offended. You probably think that you shouldn’t have put on a skirt when you got dressed in the morning, which is stupid. Try to take advantage of the attention and spin the conversation around to talk business. If the guy loses interest, ditch him ASAP.

• You’re generally ignored during the day, but you become the center of attention at the after-parties.

What you can do: The morning after, add all the guys that tried hitting on you on LinkedIn. Your profile rank will definitely get a boost. Don’t approach them again at the conference though because they’ll be hungover, they won’t remember you or they’ll pretend they don’t remember you because they’re too ashamed of themselves.

• Other girls see you as competition, so they keep a more or less polite distance.

What you can do: I’m yet to crack the code (see what I did there?) for how to actually deal with this. If we only hang out with other women, then we will just perpetuate the gender segregation, right?! Maybe yes, maybe no. However, clichés aside, I really believe that if we as women discredit each other, we cannot expect men to behave any differently. So go ahead and give other women your genuine attention and treat them as potential business partners because their respect is as worth it as any man’s.

Conclusion

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed The Next Web. I’ve heard some valuable ideas (e.g. how to spot the trends that trigger innovations), I’ve grasped where the focus of the industry is right now (think AI), and I’ve experienced a bad case of FOMO while navigating between the five different stages just because the content was so good. I was inspired at times (i.e. seeing Jeff Jarvis, Peter Sunde, Casey Neistat, and meeting Gary Vaynerchuk — a guilty pleasure of mine), I was entertained (hearing the story of Matt Stopera’s rise to fame in China) and occasionally puzzled (why do people want to speak to Ryan Leslie’s texting bot?). Overall, I’ve fuelled up with creative energy and this is what keeps me going.

I’ll keep attending tech conferences, and I’m staying optimistic that the gender imbalance will change. Because for now, it’s not the most successful start-ups that are the unicorns in the tech ecosystem, it’s the women. The Web Summit took a first step in the right direction and offered 10,000 free tickets (that’s at least ¼ of the whole audience) to women in the tech industry to attend next year’s conference. I’ve managed to secure one of those tickets, and I’ve invited other friends to join. In the end, it’s us who need to take ownership of our professional presence in this industry (no matter if we’re entrepreneurs, employees of tech-giants or start-ups, software developers, designers, marketers or anything else) until men finally get used to it and start taking us seriously.

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