the 'I love mobile web awards but only if you're *not* a woman and only if your site is on a dotmobi URL'.
Informa Telecoms has organised the Mobile Web Europe conference and in its usual inimitable style has failed to recognise the other half of the sky (to quote John and Yoko). It's a 3-day conference covering all aspects of mobile web (and apparently the *only* mobile web event you'll ever need), sponsored by dotMobi and at the time of writing have only THREE women speaking during the whole event so that works out at one woman per day. That really is unacceptable in this day and age. There are plenty women out there worthy of participating at this conference. Informa really must try harder to find them and engage them. I'm not expecting half the panellists or speakers to be women, but I would expect more than a token one a day. Of course the male speakers are interesting and relevant, but to only have one woman per day is ridiculous.
And then there's the ilovemobileweb awards sponsored by dotmobi. In fact, dotmobi is sponsoring the whole thing. There are no female judges listed. (Haven't Informa and dotmobi seen this list of the Top 50 Women in Mobile Content from Mobile Entertainment Magazine? And that's just for starters).
Then this is compounded by only allowing entries if your site is a dotmobi site. So this rules out everything else that is mobile web. It doesn't seem right to me. The mobile web *isn't* all about dotmobi. And no matter how much money you throw at a conference or awards ceremony, being exclusive in an inclusive, connected world is just barmy. A different thing if it was billed as 'the dotMobi awards for dotMobi customers'.
dotMobi or Informa - care to comment?
