Like many humans, I have a few topics about which I can become passionate. My hot topics include:
- Healthy, productive teams and their leaders.
- Open Space, Retrospectives, and other highly collaborative processes that help people think and build community together.
- Women as leaders.
- and some others
This month something came along that pokes at several of my hot topics at once. Business Week wrote an article on the growing popularity of "unconferences". At first, I was delighted to see collaborative processes getting more visibility in the press.
Then I read further and found a broader, underlying story. Chris Messina wrote a blog commenting on the interesting way that the women involved had disappeared from the reporting. Particularly Tara Hunt, a leader on the team that organized the conference.
It's curious how women (and, to be fair, minorities in general) and their contributions can disappear when those who create the histories can't or won't "see" them.