What conference t-shirts can tell you

You'd think--just once--they'd take part of the $2000 entrance fee and spend, oh, .1% extra to print up some shirts that sub-6-foot folks can wear. And it's not just Sun's JavaOne show, of course--practically every tech company out there is guilty. If I had a dime for every booth vendor who's smiled and said , "Here, you can sleep in it!", I'd be typing this from my ocean-front villa. (Pssst--tech companies: most of us women don't sleep in anything, but I digress...)

The point is showing us that you care about more than just saving a few bucks on a t-shirt print run. That you care about ALL your users, not just the Big Burly Men. And even if you do not care, you'd think the marketers would get a clue that people aren't going to be wearing your logo around giving you free advertising if the shirt doesn't fit.

The bar's been set pretty low on this, so even a MEN'S SMALL would make me happy. But Webstock went all the way to give the gals women's shirts. I actually wear mine all the time. I've even been photographed wearing it at another conference.

I so don't want a lecture on logistics or saving money by making shirts for the largest common denominator. And I don't want to hear that, after all, it IS mostly men at these things. So what if you have some leftover shirts? Give them out at other tech events. Send them to user groups. Donate them to a homeless shelter.

Yes, you could argue that as a web-focused show rather than a pure programming event, Webstock was likely to have more women than JavaOne, so it made sense. And that's true, but doesn't explain why I also got a fitted, flattering, rather sexy blue tee at GUADEC (the GNOME user's and developer's european conference) which was not expecting but a very few women attendees. But they treated us like we mattered too. Like we weren't the tacked-on not-really-target-audience people. Besides, this isn't even a gender thing... it's a SIZE thing. There are plenty of men who don't look that much better in an XXL Hanes Beefy T than I do.

This is partly tongue-in-cheek, but still...the t-shirts are a metaphor for--or at least a reflection of--the way the company feels about users as individual people. The shirts matter, and they speak volumes about your company.

And hey, tech companies, I AM available to beta test your freshly-minted women's T's (size small or x-small). In fact, for any tech company that tells me they'll be keeping plenty of women's shirts on hand for trade shows, user groups, etc., I'll post a picture of the shirt on this blog. But it better make me look good. :-)