1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,960 Bobby, what is your goal for being on the show? 2 00:00:06,400 --> 00:00:15,760 Um, as I think I said this earlier, but my goal overall is to help women get more comfortable 3 00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:24,080 with public speaking, to understand that the visibility that public speaking drives 4 00:00:24,080 --> 00:00:32,720 is important to their careers and their businesses, and to also help event managers understand 5 00:00:33,200 --> 00:00:44,080 the power of diverse and inclusive speaking slates for the, basically the success of their events. 6 00:00:44,080 --> 00:00:55,680 The more diverse speakers they have at an event, the more diverse and inclusive their entire audience is. 7 00:00:58,240 --> 00:00:59,280 Thank you for sharing that. 8 00:01:01,360 --> 00:01:05,120 If I were to go and ask you a little deeper about this topic, 9 00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:09,760 do you have a story behind why? 10 00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:19,920 So there are a lot of different events that I went to earlier in my career that did not have 11 00:01:21,200 --> 00:01:28,400 women on stage. We actually have a word for this. We call it a manel. It's generally the all-male panel. 12 00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:38,160 And as a woman sitting in the audience and looking on stage and seeing what we think of as, frankly, 13 00:01:38,160 --> 00:01:46,880 the male, pale, and stale panels, the same four old white guys, it really speaks volume that, 14 00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:53,360 you know, there's no expectation of thought leadership or expertise 15 00:01:53,360 --> 00:02:01,280 from women when you see something like that. It really says to women, you're not expected to be here. 16 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:09,360 We don't want you here. That's another message that's given. So I've been to numerous events 17 00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:16,400 over the years where I sat in the audience alongside amazing women who had considerably 18 00:02:16,400 --> 00:02:22,560 more expertise than people who were on stage. And they would always ask me the same question, 19 00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:31,920 oh my gosh, why did they pick him and not me or my friend or my colleague who knows so much more 20 00:02:31,920 --> 00:02:39,680 about that topic? And having some of those conversations, it really did make me realize, 21 00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:46,720 you know what, there needs to be education for women, for other underrepresented voices, 22 00:02:46,720 --> 00:02:52,720 to let them know how they get there because it's an active thing. You need to raise your hand. 23 00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:59,760 You need to say yes when people ask you. But sometimes it's just this tiny little understanding 24 00:02:59,760 --> 00:03:07,840 gap. Oh, there's a thing called call for speakers that we're going to be able to get to. And so 25 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:14,800 that's called call for speakers that would allow me to just apply. Yeah, it's not that hard. 26 00:03:14,800 --> 00:03:24,000 Right? So just my knowledge, my background, early on in my career, I had been the head of Global PR 27 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:31,520 to a couple of big enterprise software companies. And that role made me responsible for getting 28 00:03:31,520 --> 00:03:38,320 the right perspectives on stage at conferences and events. So I knew the path. I was just sharing 29 00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:39,520 what I know. 30 00:03:45,760 --> 00:03:49,840 If I were to ask you, how did you get started? 31 00:03:49,840 --> 00:04:01,520 So how I got started, it can be started in terms of the initial point in time, number of different 32 00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:12,160 ways. I got started specifically with Innovation Women in 2014, where I just got fed up. I had been 33 00:04:12,160 --> 00:04:18,320 to a couple of conferences, kind of one right on top of another, where there were no women. 34 00:04:18,320 --> 00:04:25,360 Speakers or a very small number of women speakers. And I was starting to get annoyed and incensed 35 00:04:25,360 --> 00:04:33,760 about it. And I said, you know what, I own the domain Innovation Women, I work with 36 00:04:35,600 --> 00:04:43,360 founders, I work with technical women, I could just create a platform that allows event managers 37 00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:52,960 and female speakers to directly connect. So in the summer of 2014, I sat down and kind of looked at 38 00:04:52,960 --> 00:05:00,640 things like Kickstarter and said, I could crowdfund the money to hire a developer to create this 39 00:05:00,640 --> 00:05:10,160 platform. And so I did in the fall of 2014, I kicked off a crowdfunding project, brought in I 40 00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:17,200 think it was about $22,000 that enabled me to hire a development team to create the platform. 41 00:05:17,200 --> 00:05:24,800 And we launched in 2015. And really talked at that point about the mission of getting more women 42 00:05:25,120 --> 00:05:31,520 on stage at conferences and events, and how two thirds of all conference speakers are men. 43 00:05:32,080 --> 00:05:38,080 And that kind of kicked off where we are today. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy 44 00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:43,600 that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes 45 00:05:43,600 --> 00:05:47,440 continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more 46 00:05:47,440 --> 00:05:51,600 engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for 47 00:05:51,600 --> 00:05:55,680 giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and 48 00:05:55,680 --> 00:06:08,560 becoming a Vision Pro yourself.