I also wonder if it's true that they can't find women to speak. They are not the only conference which claims this. I both hope this is true for their sake, and hope it is not true — because if it is true, we have a serious problem with qualified women speakers.

One odd thing I heard at TEDGlobal this year: speaker Laurie Santos, a cognitive researcher, was asked why none of the lab assistants in her slides were women. Didn't she have women students and assistants? Yes, she said she did. But they didn't want to be photographed.

I also agree that the website is easy to navigate and find talks, I am not disputing that point. These talks will therefore be accessible to internet users the same as the others. However, we are discussing the physical conference that is scheduled separately as TEDWomen.

Why not continue to feed the same ideas through the existing pipeline? The audience exposure will be more diverse, and therefore the impact should be greater.

And FYI – there are already a range of TED events that go on apart from the big one and so far, it seems like people are able to follow what they are interested in. I would never look at the huge range of talks on the TED website and say that it's bad because there is such a diverse range of them. I don't see why suddenly adding a special event that focuses on women will suddenly make this already huge confluence of talks and topics difficult to follow.

I feel bad for the organizers who are trying to do something good – the important word being trying – and everyone is so quick to judge the event's success before they've even had an opportunity to hold one. They already have some pretty amazing speakers lined up. I wish we could take a 'wait and see' approach and give them the benefit of the doubt. They seem to have a pretty good idea of what they're doing – otherwise we wouldn't all feel so connected to and passionate about the TED brand.

If we need new topics, let's have more frequent events, not different events, we won't all be able to follow all of the possible focus topics and still gain the benefits of all the ideas.

Let me begin by saying I'm also a die-hard TED fan and supporter. And, like everything else in the universe, TED is not perfect…

Do we need more women speakers, more powerful women role models in all disciplines, and more focus on issues that impact women and girls? Yes, absolutely.

In fact, I believe this so strongly that I've devoted most of the past two years to a not-for-profit website (http://www.amazingwomenrock.com/) designed to move that agenda forward.

Is a TEDWomen conference the best way for TED to support this agenda? In my opinion, no.

I've been on the more-women-speakers-at-TED-please bandwagon for quite some time. I blogged about it last November after TEDxDubai included only three women in its slate of 20 speakers. They had 12-, 10- and three-minute slots respectively, and one of the three was a 13-year-old girl.

The post, Speak Up, Speak Out, Take The Stage: The World Needs More TED Women, is here: http://www.amazingwomenrock.com/myblog/speak-up...

I responded to an interview with Chris Anderson (http://features.bizmore.com/interview/how-to-pr...), in which he said it's hard to find women speakers; my comment is still at the same link.

June Cohen does an AMAZING job, as does the whole TED team. I attended TED Global 2010 in Oxford – it was mind-blowingly awesome.

However, I question the statistic that there are 30 – 40% women speakers at TED conferences.

I researched the numbers before I blogged about the issue in November. I found then:

Of the 20 speakers highlighted on the TED “home” page at the time, only three (15%) were women (today, July 24, five of 19, or 25% are women).

Of the 120 speakers listed in the first 10 pages of alphabetic list of speakers on the TED website, only 33 (25%) are women.

Only six (less than 20%), of the 33 speakers at TED 2008 were women. Their numbers more than tripled (to 19) at TED 2009, but that was still far less than the number of men (33), with whom they shared the stage.

Sadly, the number of women on the stage at TED actually declined from 19 in 2009 to 13 in 2010, while the number of men increased to 39 from 33.

By my count, the percentage of women speakers at TEDGlobal was 29%. Yes, they were amazing, but still significantly fewer in number than the men.

If enough women speakers can be found to grace the stage at TEDWomen, why can't more be found to speak at TED and TEDGlobal?

I think TED Women would be a superb idea, IF there was already gender parity on other TED stages.

I'm delighted with the exchange and conversation that has been initiated around the TEDWomen conference. In my experience, dissenting opinions and discussion are critical to finding the best solutions to issues and challenges.

Finally, there 170+ TED Talks by amazing TED women on my website here: http://www.amazingwomenrock.com/ted-talks/index...

Susan Macaulay

Anyway, I wrote a post ages ago that women entrepreneurs weren't being fully appreciated online. There was this one blogger who interviewed 11 online “celebs” but included NO women. Which pissed me off. The fact that I was pissed off pissed me off some more.

In terms of TED, it annoys me that women still need separate groups to make sure we’re heard and supported. To that I say: NAY!

Seriously, look at what I’m doing RIGHT NOW. I’m expressing my extreme annoyance that women entrepreneurs aren’t appreciated unless they’re actively being recognized as women. WTF? Why does their need to be a separate category? Why wasn’t there a single woman in that rather large list of online entrepreneurs? WHY?! Honestly, someone answer me. I’m about to throw a temper tantrum.