Video Interview: Deborah Schultz

Written on 11th January 2008                                                                                                              0 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur

When we started this blog we quickly decided that we wanted to do more than just blog posts. One thing we came up with was the concept of VideoFridays. Every Friday we are going to post a video interview with someone where we talk, informally, about the next web. This week I invited Deborah Schultz who also spoke at The Next Web Conference 2007.

In theory this sounds great and if you have ever watched a keynote with Steve Jobs demonstrating iChat you would think that this couldn’t go wrong. In reality however iChat stinks. It works, sometimes, and sometimes it doesn’t. You need a broadband connection that works flawlessly and you can just forget about using Wi-Fi. And then you both have to have the exact same settings and then sometimes it sort of works.

Anyway, enough excuses. After working with Deborah for about 2 hours we finally got to do the interview I wanted to do. Only to be interupted by an uninvited extra guest. Enjoy the interview.

Next weeks guest: Chris Saad from Dataportability.org about the new developments.

deborah schultz, social, Video Interview, weaving

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Where are the female speakers on web conferences?

Written on 30th December 2007                                                                                                              17 COMMENTS
Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of The Next Web Conference. Twitter: @patrick

After the post about the need for a female Steve Jobs and in search for a female role model I thought it might be a good idea to take a look at technology conferences.

Go to any web conference (LeWeb3, TechCrunch40, The Next Web, FOWA, you name it..) and one thing that cannot go by unnoticed is that almost all speakers are men. There are a few simple explanations for this (apart from the standard explanations), one of them is that men tend to be more passionate about technology and the web then women do. Another can be that men are at higher or at least more ‘visible’ positions. Also it may be that men are more experienced speakers. But the web is new, it transforms things, it changes the way we do business and it shouldn’t make any difference between men and women. As it is a fairly new sector, it exists only 5000 days, this is THE opportunity for talented women to take the lead over men (not that it should be like a kind of war).

I believe there is a huge opportunity for talented women to become the most wanted speakers in the tech scene. Conferences are more then willing to invite women to their stage (they have to be really good though). So who are the women we all should watch? Some of the women I’m following are:

• Leah Culver
• Deborah Schultz
• Kathy Sierra
• Anne Wojcicki (Co-founder of 23andme.com)
• Esther Dyson
• Caterina Fake

To get Web 2.0 to the next level we need a female Steve Jobs. A woman with passion for the web, amazing presentation skills and humor.

I’m looking forward to see more women speaking at events (also at The Next Web conference, to write about startups founded by women, to know what is going on on the female side of the web (so if there are women who like to write for The Next Web, please let us know).

Anne Wojciki, conferences, deborah schultz, Esther Dyson, Kathy Sierra, women

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Deborah Schultz Presentation online

Written on 6th June 2007                                                                                                              1 COMMENT
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur

If you missed Deborah Schultz presentation or would like to see it again you can. She posted it on SlideShare:

deborah schultz, presentation

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