I watched the video of your talk earlier this week and it really pushed my thinking. I believe in “doing” rather than “saying”, and I’ve approached diversity from the same perspective. I believe in building diverse communities because, well, the converse seems so totally absurd it’s hard to rationalize.

But, I liked what you had to say about the Dreamwidth diversity statement. If you believe it and practice it, why not proclaim it?

I just started a little technical training company and am trying to increase the diversity of our community, particularly the Ruby / Rails worlds where I spend most of my time. I put together my own diversity statement inspired by your talk here: http://jumpstartlab.com/resources/general/diversity/

Last weekend we held an all-women attendee Ruby workshop that was small but successful. It seems a little weird to achieve diversity through discrimination, but I think the ends justified the means.

If you have any feedback on my little diversity statement or tips on how to recruit more female developers, I’d love to hear ‘em.

It’s pretty amazing to see your talk have an impact, in that people are actually listening to your message and looking at their own community and trying to figure out how to improve their own situation. Most keynotes don’t have an impact anything at all like that. It almost gives me hope!