
Seriously, stop with the booth babes - sciurus
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rt452e6onIcJ:www.standalone-sysadmin.com/blog/2011/09/seriously-stop-with-the-booth-babes/+http://www.standalone-sysadmin.com/blog/2011/09/seriously-stop-with-the-booth-babes/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
======
blahedo
I'm getting the impression from reading the other comments that most of the
commenters just skimmed the article (or perhaps didn't read it at all, and
drew assumptions from the title). If you need a tl;dr, or if you read it
quickly, this is the most important line in the post:

> _What you end up with is the situation where you, as a conference goer, walk
> up to a booth and, because you’re no stranger to how this works, ignore any
> attractive woman and talk directly to a male at the booth. You assume
> immediately that any attractive female is there simply for their physical
> appearance, not for the value that their knowledge brings._

This is not an abstract PC idea of feeling bad about objectifying the booth
babe, or wishing to avoid temptation, or whatever. This is a very specific
problem that is harmful to the industry and to all the _non-_ booth babes out
there. The OP goes on to make some suggestions on how to work towards fixing
the problem, but please, if you're going to comment on this, make sure you
understand the actual main point first.

~~~
dmor
Thanks for making the main point clear, I want to chime in here as a woman and
someone who has represented my company from very early on at trade shows (and
does to this day). In the telecom industry in particular these booth babes run
rampant, they literally provide you with a form when you register to exhibit
asking if you want to hire models.

At one event a couple years ago, a guy came over to talk with our CTO (a guy)
and I and said point blank to me, "do you have an ownership stake in the
company? if not, at least you've got one foot in the door to marry this guy?"
Nevermind that I'm wearing my wedding ring! All I could do was paint a "go
F&%$ yourself" smile on my face and wait for him to leave. The things I would
have liked to say, but it just wasn't worth it in that context.

The problem is, most people don't walk up to me expecting me to know about
APIs, building applications, solving problems specific to their industry or
use case, how supply chain works, or anything else important to their
business. This is perpetuated by booth babes. How do I know? If I dress in a
frumpy or slightly less feminine style, instead of my normal stylish heels and
a skirt suit, I get a different reaction. If I wear skinny jeans and flats and
a tshirt or hoodie, look my age (early 20s) and have a self-effacing air, they
think "oh she's a nerdy girl" and then they ask the real questions. PUH-LEASE.

</rant>

Oh - I should also mention that I DO think being a female works from the
standpoint of getting booth traffic (can't fight it - sex sells, and you don't
even need to be dressed in risque clothes to observe the difference). When I'm
at the booth versus a guy, I think we get more traffic. The problem is, its
less qualified and their intentions aren't easily converted to caring about
our product, they're distracted by some other impulse.

~~~
prodigal_erik
Apart from the brain-dead flirting efforts, that heels-and-skirt-suit effect
doesn't sound any different than my reaction to men in suits. If I want to
find a clue, I look past the guy whose job involves showing up in a costume
chosen in hopes I'm easily manipulated. But then I don't frequent trade shows,
so I don't know how many nerds have enough clout to show up dressed normally
but not enough to just stay home.

~~~
dmor
I wear a suit because it shows I give a damn, and occasionally to look a
little older.

Many people in startups wear costumes too, just a different sort for a
different purpose.

I realize that people in tech generally avoid "suits", but there is a time and
place for dressing up and there are certain industries where you need to wear
the uniform to play the game. Maybe it works to show up in flip flops as the
founder of Facebook, but if you're trying to sell someone a mission critical
product and they're going to spend tens of thousands of dollars...

...oh man, I digress, this thinking deserves a blog post of its own.

~~~
adw
I like wearing suits. I even like wearing ties.

I don't mean anything by it, I just like tailored stuff. It looks good! It's
highly evolved to maximise what men have got. But: if I wore one to most of my
meetings, or to work, people'd ask questions or make a bunch of unfounded
assumptions, so I don't.

It's a myth that technical communities don't care about clothes. They do -
it's just they send a very particular set of signals and, what's more, they're
the signals common to countercultures. That's fine: it's just another code, no
more or less than any other. It'd be discourteous to go against it. I'm still
going to be thinking wistfully of the ties in my wardrobe, though!

~~~
dkersten
A tailored well fitting suit is also extremely comfortable.

I bought a suit when I was in Syria two years ago and its probably the most
comfortable piece of clothing I own.

------
shawnee_
Learned this the hard way. Back when LinuxCon was still called LinuxCon, I
made the mistake of making a beeline to the first "booth" I saw that was
manned by a fellow female. I studied the setup, ascertained what kind of
hardware being shown off by this particular vendor, and proceeded to inquire
along the line of shop talk.

Although I don't remember exactly what I asked her, this was the gist of our
exchange.

BB: "It's 2X faster!" (Vanna White, preening the chipset)

Me: "Faster than what?"

She appears panicked and quickly reads over the spec sheet behind her booth.
Finally, after a minute, she looks up and says "It's just . . . faster."

Dear companies, giving the BBs a script isn't enough if they don't understand
what the metrics on the script actually mean.

~~~
dredmorbius
I also recall BSD staffing their booths (and the floor) with numerous women in
red devil outfits, most of whom were quite technical.

There's Linux Journal's Carlie Fairchild, who's intelligent, informed, and
beautiful, and has left a slew of broken hearts in her wake through no fault
of her own.

There are a handful of other women in the Linux / Free Software community
(it's overwhelmingly male), of whom Val Aurora and Erinn Clark come to mind
(both have been involved in women/tech movements and between LinuxChix and
Debian-Women there are numerous others).

But yeah, at trade shows, particularly those geared at suits and sales, the
ornamental variety tends to be more common.

That said: I've found plenty of booths staffed by men who had little to no
technical depth as well. To say nothing of, say, tech support lines.

------
aresant
What was once risque is now corporate and stale, such is the way of things.

Meanwhile innovators are shaking it up, take the Good Old Games parody on
booth babes at PAX - grandmas handing out cookies:

[http://geekfeminism.org/2011/08/28/booth-grandmas-at-pax-
pri...](http://geekfeminism.org/2011/08/28/booth-grandmas-at-pax-prime-2011/)

Good opportunity for startups to get attention - do something interesting and
different. That's probably where the "booth babes" concept started to begin
with.

------
wehriam
As the only representative of my company in the region I hired "booth babes"
to assist me at PyCon. It was a logistical necessity as we used several
thousand dollars of computer equipment at the display. I requested they wear
suits.

While I wouldn't characterize myself as shy, they were an order of magnitude
better at engaging the attendees.

They combed the floors to make introductions. They brought me lunch so I could
spend more time speaking with developers. They helped me identify potential
candidates and kept the people who were apparently bored at bay.

 _> Ask questions regarding the technology. Ask about planned life cycles of
the software, on use counts, and other things. Treat them exactly as you would
an equal._

Not bad advice.

------
rdl
I sort of accept booth babes as a given (I'd prefer to get rid of them, too,
but once one company uses them, everyone has to; at the very least companies
should commit to "no first use").

The thing that surprises me is when "booth babe" type people turn out to be
actually intelligent, informed, competent people who are knowledgeable about
the product. Sometimes they're full time staff, and sometimes they're
professional conference booth presenters, but there have been times when they
actually knew more about the overall market and sometimes about the specific
product than the company employees, mainly because they'd worked the same
conferences over and over for different firms.

~~~
blahedo
This is exactly the OP's point---the existence of booth babes has conditioned
us to be surprised when an attractive woman, or possibly any woman at all, is
"intelligent, informed, competent". This follow-on effect is even worse than
the already-bad first-order effect (namely objectifying the booth babe
herself).

~~~
mgkimsal
Take gender out of it, I'm surprised when anyone who is related to a 'sales'
dept at a conference booth is "intelligent, informed, competent". It's better
at tech conferences, but still not a 100% given.

~~~
dmor
That's really quite sad when you think of it. Maybe my experience is some
crazy outlier, but the sales people I've worked with both in shipping and in
tech have been some of the smartest people I've known. Maybe these companies
are sending the bottom of the barrel to conferences... I'm taking a note not
to do that with my company.

~~~
rdl
I've found sales engineers to be among the smartest people in most
(enterprise) companies -- definitely smarter than the dedicated salespeople
and absolutely smarter than the product engineers. They're basically the
equivalent of the "rainmakers" in professional services; i.e. the people you
bring in to convince the client that you're brilliant, but who don't actually
work on your account once you're signed.

------
thedjpetersen
Down for me, here is the google cache link:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rt452e6...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rt452e6onIcJ:www.standalone-
sysadmin.com/blog/2011/09/seriously-stop-with-the-booth-
babes/+http://www.standalone-sysadmin.com/blog/2011/09/seriously-stop-with-
the-booth-babes/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

------
biot

      > Ask why their company wastes everyone’s time and their investors’ money using
      > people who provide no value.
    

There's a few statements there which aren't backed up by references. Which is
cheaper: hiring extra people to staff a conference or flying out a bunch of
$100/hr engineers, putting them up in hotels, and so on? I would think it's a
waste of money to bring out the engineers. Not only in terms of expenses but
also the opportunity cost of them not working for an entire week.

Of course, this depends on the audience. For something like CES, the average
conference-goer will maybe pick up pamphlets and enter a draw. For that,
hiring models who are experienced in trade shows and are comfortable
interacting with people all day long are the better choice. For a conference
which is far more technical and the audience will be interested in the nitty-
gritty details of a technology, then only hiring models is likely a poorer
choice. A hybrid approach might be worthwhile.

~~~
acdha
Also note that there are intermediate levels: we used to send tech support &
systems engineers out rather than the core developers. They were used to
talking to customers, knew enough to answer most questions and when they
didn't could generate ensure that the question going back was well formed and
went to the right person.

------
Udo
When I walk by a booth and some stunning girl - who in real life would never
even look at me - comes out and says "hiiii!" in the most fake display of
flirtyness imaginable, I instantly get the feeling that I'm being conned and
I'll do my best to stay away from that place.

But there is a distinct difference in having BBs do actual presentations and
having them answer real customer questions. I see nothing wrong with that as
long as it doesn't get tacky. As a rule of thumb, I would advise tech
companies that target nerdy types like me to get rid of generic BBs but to
continue using good-looking but knowledgeable women to present stuff.

------
darksaga
I've had similar experiences with booth babes not knowing what the company
products are, specs or anything remotely useful to me. One of the points which
jumped out at me in the article was this:

"You assume immediately that any attractive female is there simply for their
physical appearance, not for the value that their knowledge brings."

This only due to my experience in expecting the eye candy to be something
beyond just eye candy. Once you've conditioned me to only expect them to be
that - then I'm going to skip them and seek out someone who knows something
beyond the glossy pictures and swag their handing out.

------
xradionut
Please get rid of the recruiter "babes" too!

I'd rather hold a conversation with a knowledgeable technical person than yet
another clueless plastic barbie doll!

~~~
atomicdog
But she knows all about the C Sharps!

------
corin_
My experience lies in consumer events, and there are two simple reasons why
booth babes are used.

1.) Visitors like them. 2.) Exhibitors themselves like them.

And reason 2 is the biggest. While number 1 would be enough to justify it in
either case, most people base it purely on "hey, I love seeing booth babes,
clearly they're a good idea". And it's hard to argue with the success they
have.

~~~
d5tryr
You're forgetting 3.)

Both these groups of people are happy to be, and be perceived as, creepy.

------
freddealmeida
I'm not sure why there is such a push against this in the states. Its very
simplistic marketing, yes, and it does shift behavior (ignoring the women or
overbearing attention to them) but them it seems all sectors use sex and
sexuality to build attention.

I don't think the authors attempt to embarrass companies will work. Because it
worked. You showed up at the booth. And any marketer will tell you that even a
bad interaction is worthwhile. Attention is at the heart of this strategy.

If you want to reduce booth babes, avoid the booths completely. Treat them
like kids with ADHD. Berating them wont work. Ignore them and they fall in
line. (of course, that is a simplification)

~~~
bluedanieru
Because it's crass. Because of that asshole at the Skyrim demo who screamed
out "rape her" as soon as a female character appeared on the screen, and that
this kind of advertising, if you can call it that, appeals to exactly that
demographic.

Other cultures can handle sexuality better. Americans, male and female, toggle
between acting like a a pack of feral dogs and a congregation of calvinists
whenever the subject comes up.

~~~
dmoney
_Other cultures can handle sexuality better._

Which ones? And how do they do that?

~~~
burgerbrain
In my personal experience, the Scandinavian cultures do it better by simply
not making a big deal out of it.

When you teach all your children from a young age that nudity is naughty and
sexuality doesn't exist, you shouldn't be surprised when they grow up ill
equipped to handle such things maturely.

~~~
tomjen3
I am from Scandinavia and that's not really true. We like naked females as
much as everybody else and will do as many stupid things to get them. What we
don't have is a bunch of extremely religious people with power so the contrast
makes it seem more easy going.

~~~
burgerbrain
Fair enough. Still a huge improvement though if you ask me ;)

------
trustfundbaby
It's a nice idea, but I don't think I could muster up all the self-
righteousness necessary to go through with it.

------
prodigal_erik
I want coworkers who were irresistibly drawn to making software as soon as
they saw a computer. I don't much care who we could lure in adulthood by
merely making the incidentals look more pleasant. If anything, I'd like to
find a way to deflect the horde of male dilettantes we're saddled with,
because they're showing up just shockingly unqualified and I'm past tired of
interviewing them.

Besides, how many developers even get sent to trade shows other than staffing
their employers' booths? Isn't that more a PM and marketing thing?

------
joshfraser
From my experience, "booth babes" are often just the girls from the marketing
department. They're usually not clueless, but you do get handed off quickly to
sales or tech.

~~~
Gayle
The correct term is "women," not "girls." Unless, of course, your company is
regularly in the habit of hiring children for marketing position...

------
matusz13
The author only reinforces the fact that booth babes work. His argument that
he hates them because he falls for them would probably only get me to consider
using booth babes in the future. Sure, the approach is kind of 'Don Draper'
but considering the audience... it's probably a viable marketing approach.

There's probably an argument there about looking for original marketing
approaches, as booth babes are an old and one "might" say overdone idea.

but meh, bring on the booth babes.

~~~
MostAwesomeDude
Yes. I will remember your product. I will remember that you had a pair of very
polite models wearing baby-doll tees with your logos on them, and that they
were completely clueless about your product. I will never buy your product and
actively recommend against it. I remember all the booth babes I saw at OSCON
and LinuxCon this year, and I will not forget.

~~~
matusz13
Did you all shun Apple when Foxconn employees started jumping to their deaths?
I'm guessing not.

Is it possible that you'd be letting your bias get in the way of your business
sense? What if those products could have significantly helped your business?

~~~
sunahsuh
Yes. Because it's not called bias, it's called ethics and they help me sleep
at night. And while the Apple issue was not applicable to me (I can't remember
the last dollar I spent on an Apple product), I do, for instance, make a
conscious effort to try and buy electronics that are made with conflict-free
coltan (which is difficult due to the paucity of information on the subject).

I find your nonchalant suggestion sell out morally on this topic appalling,
particularly as a woman myself.

------
dotBen
I think the author is doing a little bit of disservice to "marketing folk"
(women AND men), who I think he is really referring to here as "booth babes".

"Booth Babes" tend to refer to models who dress provocatively purely to entice
people into the booth - seen more at b2c conferences and lower-order, less
sales-driven b2b conferences like game conferences and CES.

Engineers > Sales people > PR/Marketing people > Booth babes

------
Gayle
As a (female) software engineer at Google, I once staffed a booth at CES. CES
doesn't, to my knowledge, have many booth babes, and there certainly weren't
any at the Google booth. Despite this, I had a number of people DIRECTLY ask
if I was a booth babe. And who knows how many more people just assumed I was
and avoided talking to me entirely...

It wasn't a big deal. I mean, I'd seen this my whole life. And that's just the
thing. It's every job, every conference, every meetup, every event, and every
single conversation. It's constantly having to prove that you're technical.

And even once you've offered up a bunch of credentials, you still aren't
perceived as being as technical as a man with the same credentials.

It's exhausting. And I'm so, so tired of it.

Changing how people think is hard; changing company policy is much easier.
Ending "booth babes" is one of many steps to ending sexism, but every step
counts.

------
Joakal
Sounds like a good prank to send female representatives and booth dudes just
to confuse people's preconceived notions. Pretty useful if the company wants
to come across as non-hetero-male.

I think that's better than just male/female representatives behind a desk
trying to make a passive statement.

------
drivebyacct2
'Our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network. Please
try your request again later. Why did this happen?'

I got this earlier when I tried to open several cached links at once. An hour
or two later and I'm still getting it for no reason. Wireshark confirms and I
have a public IP address.

------
gavanwoolery
Let's speculate.

Let us say that we were to end all booth babe jobs tomorrow.

Result: 1000s of women lose a job that brings them some extra (and perhaps
needed) cash. But we all get to feel better about ourselves. Except for the
women, because they have one less source of income.

Alternative: we embrace the fact that we are sexual beings. Maybe sex appeal
does not work on everyone, but it is a tried and true form of advertising. I
do not think it is demeaning to women - I think it is empowering. What is
demeaning is treating women like they should not have the choice to take these
jobs.

~~~
sp332
The main problem is using them at a trade conference. They are basically dead
weight if they don't know anything about the products. This article isn't
about being demeaning, but about encouraging anti-women bias in tech circles.
BBs are hurting our society.

------
geoffbp
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