Cat HicksI have been invited to but turned down 3 conferences talks already this year because they're told me it's new policy to not cover speaker travel under the assumption that your tech employer will cover it. I own my own small business as a researcher and my wife is an academic teaching professor, so I cannot ask my household to absorb that. I just want to generally observe that we are filtering the voices we're going to be able to hear from, with all this contraction
I will figure out a path to my own sharing of work, but it is sad to me to feel there is this intellectual community you need to have a FAANG credit card to be part of. That's just not how it should work and we will see the consequences of these structures quickly in who gets to be on stage. This isn't a call out of any single organization, I'm always really honored to be thought of, but it's hard for me to understand how you can sell $1000 tickets on our content and not support creators
I'm fine -- I more share this because I worry for the younger people around me who don't have my platform and audience but deserve it just as much.
NatalyaD@grimalkina I see a lot of very small not-for-profit organisations covering travel/costs and ensuring speakers get at least an honorarium payment. So if they can do it, so can the large corporates.
I work in professional services in a uni and the way we effectively piss and moan and obstruct to avoid paying for stuff appals me. We're always angling for freebies or trying to get free this or that from small people/orgs, but we'll pay the big people/orgs loadsa cash...
@grimalkina I remember being asked to speak at a pay-to-attend event on disability and they didn't want to pay my travel even when I explained I'd lost my paid-job for disablism reasons so I was unfunded.
It took a lot of pushing back to get them to give me £50 to pay for my trainfare and busfare and I stayed with a friend nearby...
Their tickets weren't expensive but could have been £10 more (or higher for corp rate) each and covered all speaker's costs properly too. Those are CHOICES.
Shadedlady@NatalyaD it's insulting tbh
@Shadedlady Yep and pretty much what I told them. I said being a deafness focused conference, ostensibly wanting to foreground deaf voices, they should be paying for people's travel and costs even if not paying for their time.
It was by professionals for professionals. It really showed. Shame cos it was a great event and most attenders could have paid a bit more via workplaces to attend and covered costs properly!