Dec 17, 2007
Reflections on Le Web 3
Last week, I went to Le Web 3 in Paris with my boss (who was participating in an onstage recreation of this debate and m’colleague Neil. It was a good event, mostly, and great to connect with a variety of people I like and admire both personally and professionally. I go to a lot of conferences – both as speaker and participant – through my work at The Guardian (and previously at AOL) and in a personal capacity, so it’s always interesting to get another perspective on the industry we work in. This time, it was with a distinctly European flavour.
We stayed in a rather odd hotel (but that’s another story), and since I got back there’s been a series of festive parties to attend, so it’s taken until now to catch up on sleep and distill my reflections on the event into any kind of order. So here goes.
The good:
- Great to have a spacious event with plenty of different areas, all with a lot of space for talking during breaks
- The food was awesome with impressive attention to detail. It was like being catered for at a wedding!
- The seats were comfortable and the stacked area at the back of the main hall meant that even people at the back of the room had a great view
- Production values – the sound quality was great, the projection of live video onto big screens meant it was easy to feel closer to what was going on onstage
- A good and eclectic selection of stimulating talks from interesting people, and only a few bits that felt like “we’ve heard this before”. I took copious notes and was delighted to hear some really challenging and inspiring points from the stage.
- Powerplugs. Hallelujah – finally a conference where I can recharge :)
The less good (and could be improved on next year without too much effort, I’m sure):
- The lighting in the main hall – too dark to see the keyboard/notepad during the talks (which has meant my conference notes are going to require some deciphering….)
- The location. Great space once you got there, but try finding a Parisian cab driver who’d heard of it! Lots of shrugs and baffled looks. Maybe it’s a new venue? In the end, we wound up getting a cab to Porte de la Chapelle and then the shuttle bus to the event and vice versa, which worked out ok, but that – combined with the shocked “Oh! Don’t walk around there with your laptop bag!” from people in the hotel – meant it felt a bit out of the way.
- The party. Too loud, too crowded – couldn’t talk, couldn’t find anyone…
- I was rather frustrated that the questions from the audience seemed to come from the same 4-5 people after each session. I don’t know whether this was down to the questioners (for hogging the mic a bit and not letting other voices be heard!), the rest of the audience members (for not putting their hands up!) or the onstage moderators (for repeatedly picking the same people to speak from the crowd!) but the net result was that at times it felt like Robert Scoble was the official mouthpiece of the conference attendees, giving live reaction to the onstage speakers directly after they’d finished. Liveblogging, out loud? I think Scoble’s got a lot to say, but others should have a voice too.
- On a related note, I think it’s worth thinking about why certain people are involved in the programme, and what they can bring to the event. Are they there because of their name, job title or company profile? Or because they can form opinions, present, construct arguments and so on? You need a good slug of both.
- Timing. Lunch was too long at 2 hours, and the days were very very long indeed. In fact, by the end of the first day, most people I spoke to were suffering from presentation-fatigue, emerging blinking into the Paris night like moles, having seen no daylight! By the time the afternoon session started on a lot of people had obviously decided to call it a day, which was a shame because there was still a lot on the programme. Perhaps it might be worth having more different tracks on a future occasion, while keeping the conference stimulating but with less overall must-pack-it-in length.
- There was rather poor representation of women in the programme. I know there are way, way more men in technology than women, and I know that there are far, far, far more high profile crowd-pulling men’s names in that space than women’s names. I get that, and it’s a shame, but there it is. But to have only
seveneight women on the stage out of 110 speakers over the two days, one of whom was the program director of the event and three of whom were in panel discussions? That seems a little under-representative to me! This is something that I know Loic has heard loud and clear from the blog feedback about the event and hopefully taken note of – in fact, he mentions it in his roundup of the feedback here.
And finally, the ugly – or rather, the just plain weird:
I spotted a video called Girls of Le Web posted on the blog of Loic Le Meur, who organised the event. Even though he didn’t make the video, he links to it saying “bravo!” and later another link to it under the heading “very cool videos”. [Update: link removed]
He also twittered about it, and it’s on the front page of the conference site, too. This looks a lot like the organisers are condoning it, doesn’t it?
I guess it’s potentially funny to a particular audience – you know, it’s a typical youtube fodder montage of conference footage played over a song. Except this video highlights – nay, lingers on – the physical merits of the female participants in the conference, and the song is about sexy girls. Shots of women who don’t know they’re being filmed walking away, talking on the phone, eating, scowling at the camera, plus giggling and reading out cue cards with the name of the startup which made it, with voyeuristic zoom shots of bums and so on. There are men in it too, mostly being interviewed and wearing suits.
I don’t particularly care about the video itself – I mean, I don’t think it’s big or clever or funny, but I’m not particularly shocked about it because I know there are people in the world who get kicks from making bizarre voyeuristic videos of women on the tube or on escalators or smoking or whatever. It’s weird and leaves a bad taste in the mouth and I’m glad I wasn’t in it (though if you were, and you don’t mind, then great. If you were in it and you DID mind, then I’m very sorry), but it’s largely irrelevant, puerile, and decidedly not cool.
I appreciate that I’m completely opening the door to accusations of being a lefty-media humourless feminist whinger by saying this, and that someone will no doubt take this as some sort of warped opportunity to comment on my own physical shortcomings or riposte that I’m only jealous because I didn’t make it into the video (I’m really, really not) but this needs to be said.
I think linking to this video as if it provides coverage of the conference, or provides some sort of perspective on Le Web 3 which is condoned by the organisers is inappropriate, actually. It’s crass. It undermines the event.
I think it sends a very strange message to women working on the web and passionate about technology when the creator of a great conference like Le Web 3 seems to be saying that he wants more women to be on stage and in the room and asks for suggestions on how to make that happen, and yet at the same time giving the impression that objectifying female participants by secretly filming their bums (tee-hee-hee) and/or reducing female participation to being attractive is “very cool”.
It really isn’t.
Actually, it’s a bit offputting. Maybe because I’m a woman, or because I’m British, or because I go to a lot of conferences like this – and speak at a bunch, too. It might be for one or all of these reasons that I feel uncomfortable about this whole thing.
It makes me think that the participants and organisers of Le Web are more interested in putting on a Miss World Wide Web contest than addressing the topics which demand debate and discussion and sharing of knowledge around technology and design and the future of information.
It makes me feel like any woman who is asked to participate in the event next year might think twice about how they are likely to be portrayed – or perceived – at the event, if videos like that are perceived as being “very cool” by the organisers, if that is the way they see “the women of Le Web”.
It makes me sad to think that despite all the talk about wanting to increase female participation in technology events like Le Web, when they do show up, women are still being judged and referred to by their physical assets and not by the quality, quantity or insightfulness of their contributions, which is a real shame.
Let’s talk instead about Emily Bell – my boss, but I’d say it anyway – for being insightful and intelligent with pantomime villain Andrew Keen during their onstage discussion. Or June Cohen from TED, who got excited about the potential of using video as a way of distributing the inspiring talks from the TED events. Or Lisa Sounio, co-founder of Dopplr for asking some really good questions. Or Cathy Brooks, for doing an awesome job as content curator of the conference.
Those are just some of the real women of Le Web 3. I hope we get to see more of them in future, along with anyone else who brings intelligence and ideas to such an event, not just a video camera and an outdated attitude.
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UPDATE: Loic has apologised for linking to the video, and the creators of it have removed it from the web. Thank you.
I find that video so offensive and sexist. How progressive to reduce the women at the event to sexual objects! It’s as if women have no need to fight being judged purely on their appearance and not taken seriously for their professionalism!!!
Grr.
The stupidity of it made me think of this (via another site, but I cannot recall the link, sorry): http://xkcd.com/322/
What is that terrible music? Sounds like a 16-year-old was given a sampler and asked to write something about ‘da laydeez’.
That music really sums up the attitude, couldn’t have been a more appropriate choice, ironically. Perhaps there’s also cultural differences at work here, but it’s hardly the way to encourage women to get involved.
*checking calender*
Yep, 2007, so that’s just pathetic.
A great reason why women tend not to go to tech conferences due to risk of being treated like objects. They did just as many, if not more, shots of men unawares but not of the same type of voyeuristic shots of bums etc. and for Loic to bravo it and not comment is painful.
I find it very disheartening that this video has been created. It’d be disappointing at any conference, but at one that is supposed to be about the hear and now and the future, I honestly can’t understand how this old fashioned, discredited view of women is allowed to prevail.
I like bums as much as anyone, but I really don’t feel that this is either the time or the place for such things.
There’s absolutely no way that a video like that would see the light of day in the business areas that I work in. From an outsider’s perspective, it re-casts the Web 2.0 brigade as immature and, what’s that lovely American word again, sophomoric. Never mind the sexism (although I most assuredly do), this is plain bad PR.
Great post Meg, thanks for putting your point of view out there. I thought this was a pathetic stunt too.
Women who don’t go to conferences just because of stupid videos like this are even more stupid. It’s actually good that they stay at home.
The only thing that disturbs me about that video is the music.
P.S. I am in it, btw.
[...] been saying about this topic in the past 12 hours. The following comment appeared on The Guardian, Mesh.org and Loïc’s blog. I am in that video and Loïc actually linked to a post on my blog. I [...]
Livia, thanks for coming over to leave a comment, even if it wasn’t the full comment which you then posted on your site.
I think your statement above – that women who are put off attending conferences because of stupid videos like this one are even more stupid and it’s good that they stay home – is pretty naive and/or insensitive to anyone who might have been put off attending Le Web because they thought that the organiser was condoning or promoting the objectification of female participants.
Your statement is pretty brusque, which I’m going to put down to a translation issue, because I’m sure you’re not suggesting that women attending a professional conference should actually be happy to have their bodies filmed secretly and then spliced together into an amusing video. Are you?
You seem to have missed my point, which was not that the video was off-putting, but that Loic’s apparent support of it was disappointing.
Anyway, the video’s gone and Loic has realised that posting it was probably not great for the Le Web brand, and has apologised. So no harm done.
PS I’m glad that you’re happy with being in it. I just wonder what you would have thought or felt if you had not been happy with being videoed in a slightly pervy way like that?
Dear Meg,
I am sure that Loic did not support that video. He simply linked to it because he found it funny. Moreover, the video is not just about women and I’m sorry it is no longer available.
Loic apologized for the sake of the brand, not for the women. If one likes a video and shares it with others on Twitter it means that the video is worth sharing because it is nice, no? Should I assume that one shares videos without watching them first?
I have been quite brutal by using the adjective “stupid”, but the sense is: why should we care about that? Most of the women there were professionals whose talent remains intact.
I agree that it’s not classy to put an ass on camera (which happens only once in the video, as far as I remember) but saying that it is pervy it’s a bit too much I guess.
That said, hope I have expressed myself better this time.
Thanks
Livia – thanks for your response. In understand your point, but you’ve misread me again. I didn’t say that Loic supported the video, but that by posting it and saying “Very Cool” people could construe that he (and by extension, the brand of Le Web) was condoning it. Funny or otherwise, it’s not really appropriate for the brand, is it?
Obviously, since it’s now been removed, that’s not the case, and I’m glad. Because while individuals have obviously every right to enjoy and share videos of whatever taste via social media tools like twitter and blogs, it’s quite another thing when someone directly involved with the event says in one post “I want more women at le web” and in another one posts a vide which seems to value women at the conference for one thing: their looks – including hostesses and attendees (and none of the speakers, I noticed).
What is a viewer supposed to conclude from this juxtaposition? That the Le Web team only want more women at next year’s event to provide something nice to look at? It’s an easy conclusion to come to, and those who weren’t at the event in Paris last week might be forgiven fr taking that as an official position rather than just a link to some UGC about the event.
I don’t really follow your logic about the video. You say Loic didn’t support it, but that he found it funny, and why else would someone share something unless they found it to be nice? These statements seem to cancel each other out, or at very least overlap significantly. You say the video isn’t just about women, yet it was called the Beauty of Le Web (and you yourself called it The Girls of Le Web) and is accompanied by a song about sexy girls, with a majority of shots of attractive women in it. I’m sorry to tell you it WAS about women. I don’t really care so much about the video itself – it’s not my taste, and I don’t think it’s funny or clever, but then I don’t expect that I’d find a lot of internet viral video particularly edifying either. It’s not to my taste, just as the thousands of photos on Flickr which you referred to as being dodgy aren’t to my taste either. People like different things, and have different thresholds for what they think of as acceptable in public or by public-facing individuals. I just thought that it was inappropriate from a brand/PR perspective (if nothing else) to be posting a potentially offensive thing as if it is sanctioned on the main Le Web site. I hope you can understand the difference between being offended by the video (I wasn’t, particularly, as I stated clearly above) and thinking that posting the video to the Le Web site was in poor taste (I did think this, and am glad it has been removed).
I’m sure that a lot of this comes down to obviously very different cultural attitudes to gender and voyeuristic behaviour. I’ve noticed a lot of mainland Europeans shrugging this off as only a bit of fun, and while I can see that perspective – and I’m glad you’re ok (even proud) to have appeared in the video – I’ve also talked to quite a few people both male and female, some of whom were at the conference and some who weren’t but saw Loic’s Twitter or site, and the majority of them were surprised at the apparent endorsement of something we in the UK and North America would perceive as inappropriate for a professional event. It might well be true, but it’s a bit weird.
Some aspects of cultural sensibilities don’t translate well in global contexts, which is a shame but ultimately important to bear in mind.
Dear Meg, by saying that Loic did not support the video I meant that he didn’t have any agreement with the guy who made it. It was a serendipitous discovery.
I tend to be more offended by words rather than images and I admit that this might be my limit and my strength in the same time.
My self esteem did not get any particular pleasure from that video but, on the other hand, it didn’t even make me angry.
Everything is related to our personal point s of view and I quote you when you say that certain aspects of cultural sensibilities don’t translate well in global contexts.
I would like to add that I don’t feel like that video decreased my professionalism and being the only woman that works in a video network has proven me that only women who like to be objectified are actually being objectified.
Many thanks and good night!
And please forgive my occasional grammar mistakes :)
I realized I’ve made quite a few, but ok.. it’s 2:25 am after all :)
intellectual masturbation…! welcome in Iran at the 16th century….! it’s just a funnny video… I’m happy to be french and happy to like pretty woman…it’s better than to make war in Irak…..
…because obviously those two things are directly comparable.
No-one is saying it’s bad to like pretty women (or be french for that matter). The point was that turning their attendance at a professional conference into being somehow about their looks is crass and uncouth, and a bit unevolved, frankly.
Imagine if a visitor to your workplace made a video of loads of your colleagues, with close-ups of attractive women’s bodies and slightly voyeuristic shots of them when they weren’t looking. And then imagine that the boss of your company said “great video!”
Wouldn’t that sort of undermine their professionalism? Like, it may well be true that women have nice arses, but that’s sort of not the context to talk about it.
In any case, the storm has blown over now, so I’m going to close comments on this post soon because it’s pretty clear that we’re only inches away from someone invoking Godwin’s Law.
[...] meish dot org: Reflections on Le Web 3 Meg on LeWeb 3, which was informative and great fun, plus bonus link to a vaguely creepy video about the event. And they wonder why more women don’t enter the tech biz. (tags: technology leweb) [...]
I know owner of this video, Romain aka Otto chauffeurdebuzz. He published this video to promote his blog. “Girls of the LeWeb3″ has been viewed 25 000 times and the first video on Youtube France.
Otto is a pitiful black markeeter ….
Yeah, moreover his blog has Adult content !!!!
@ Meg : Sorry, my english is limited… it’s difficult for me to write in English… My words was awkward …. I just think that it’s too much polemic for a video not serious…
“What is a viewer supposed to conclude from this juxtaposition? That the Le Web team only want more women at next year’s event to provide something nice to look at? It’s an easy conclusion to come to”
According to Occam’s razor, you just nailed down the #1 reason. Not just for Le Web team but for most of the male crowd gathering in such events and “talking” about female attendance.
(But what do I know? I’m gay, and I can’t complain at the amount of good-looking guys I could see there :p)