Speaker Rider

Before I'll agree to speaking at a conference, meetup, or event, I research to make sure that it aligns with my goals of inclusion and diversity in the tech community.

I love speaking at events, and am so grateful to organisers who ask me to participate! I feel so privileged to be considered, and want to use that privilege to help the tech community be as inclusive as possible, where everyone can feel represented.

If I say no to your event (even if you do all of the below), please don't take it personally! Because I speak often, it's likely because I have a conflict, or I need to back off because I speak too much.

Anyway, onwards:

Hosting accommodations

Speaker honorarium

• I ask for a speaker fee because I value my time (and hope you do too), I often have to take time off of work or projects to travel and attend, and because I want to normalize people getting paid for their work (especially underrepresented groups).
• For non-profit events, I may choose to waive this based on ticket pricing, scholarship programs, etc.
• I'm not putting a number here because it varies depending on the event. Please don't make it awkward and be like "uh, we don't normally pay speakers, but you get exposure," because I can't pay my bills with exposure. I understand that some events don't have budget to pay speakers, and I'll address this on a case-by-case basis (but also, you should have budget to pay your speakers).

Travel

• I ask that travel to and from the event is provided (assuming it is not local, I'm currently based in Vienna).
• I ask that if I'm booking my own travel/lodging, that I be reimbursed quickly. I've had poor experiences with this in the past, and this also provides a more inclusive model for those who can't front the cost of travel.

Lodging

• I ask that lodging is provided for the full length of the event, unless the event is local!
• For events outside of Europe, I ask for at least one full day of lodging before the event since I'll likely be flying in a day or two before.
• Same blurb as above, if I'm booking my own lodging!

Ticket

• I ask for a ticket to the full conference as a speaker. I love participating in conferences, engaging with other attendees, and attending talks!

Logistics

Code of Conduct

• Long story short, you gotta have one of these. And please don't make it be something like "don't be a jerk," and that's it!
• Here's a couple great CoC examples: JSConfEu and Rust Community

No white-majority, all-men lineups

• I feel like this is obvious, but including all voices is crucial.
• Also, underrepresented minorities shouldn't be exclusively invited to speak about their experiences as a minority.

Recordings/Intellectual Property

• I'm cool with being recorded, just let me know ahead of time.
• I guarantee that everything I do is rated "PG" with no swearing or inappropriate/explicit remarks.
• I regularly post my slides here

Virtual events

• I personally prefer live talks rather than pre-recording videos. Pre-recording involves a lot of editing time because of the nature of the medium. If you highly prefer pre-recording, please consider the time commitment with speaker honorariums, or have an editor on your team who can do those edits.

Bonus points I would love to see

• Live captioning is incredibly beneficial to those who are hard of hearing, struggle with focus, or prefer to process written information.
• Gender pronoun identification provided by some method for attendees to self-identify if they so choose is awesome.
• A scholarship program for those who can't otherwise afford to attend is huge!
• The ability to use my own computer/setup is preferred.

Final thoughts

Thank you so much for reading through all of this! I hope none of it is particularly surprising, and that it's reasonable for you. I want to speak at events that are inclusive, diverse, and accessible to everyone, and hope to contribute to the community surrounding them. If you disagree with parts of this, or want to discuss terms more, I am all ears and would love to speak further.

I hope this was helpful, and I hope you'll keep me updated on what you think of my talk!

forked from https://github.com/cassidoo/talks/blob/master/speaker-rider.md