My first night at SXSW (South By South West) was filled with parties and receptions. Great conversations with Jessi Hempel (Fortune Magazine), Kara Swisher (Wall Street Journal), Caroline McCarthy (CNET), Maya Baratz (Wall Street Journal), Stacey Higginbotham (GigaOm), and Katie Boehret (Wall Street Journal). I also ran into Alexia Tsotsis (Techcrunch), Megan McCarthy (Techmeme), and others.
It didn't occur to me until the end of the night that I spent most of my time with female journalists. Hmmm...where are all the male journalists? I am sure the guys are around somewhere...but I didn't see them. Then I started thinking about other prominent female tech writers like Sarah Lacy, Mary Jo Foley, Jolie O'Dell, Ina Fried, Leena Rao, Xeni Jardin, Gina Trapani, and many more. I only have room for three pictures in this short post, and I'm sure you know who they are. More photos are on my Twitter stream.
Why are there so many great female tech writers? Because they are great communicators. In both directions. They express themselves well, and they listen carefully. We testosterone controlled males sometimes have trouble listening. That can be a problem if your job is learning about new things.
One other thing I noticed, the night was very comfortable and fun because they weren't pitching me...and I wasn't pitching them. Most time at conferences is spent being pitched new ideas by startups, or me pitching them on the awesomeness of working with Google technologies. It was a relaxing respite to just talk with these people about tech trends, issues, and interesting topics.
I have no deep insights today, just an observation that women make great writers and conversationalists. And, women are dominating the scene at SXSW. I think that is great!
BTW, if you want to follow some awesome women on Twitter you can subscribe to my Top Women In Tech list. Get a daily feed of tech insights from women who are making it happen.
Mike Arrington, MG Siegler, Om Malik, Rafe Needleman, Ben Parr, Pete Cashmore, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Matt Marshall, Anthony Ha, Clint Boulton, Jon Brodkin, and others are great tech writers too. I just haven't seen them yet at SXSW.
Observation #2: SXSW is like Spring Break for older kids like me. Non stop parties with a conference on the side. It is a great way to catch up with your 1,000 closest friends and meet new people doing new things. Come join the fun.
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