I find the sort of argument laid out here (by Rogers Cadenhead) mostly wrong-headed. Sure, there's a deficit of women in IT in general (and thus, in the ranks of speakers at conferences). The answer isn't to go out and purposely pick up a few tokens and pop them on stage to make people like Rogers feel better, though.

Here's the thing - pursuing intellectual diversity at a conference would be far more useful than worrying about gender/creed/race. Who cares whether you get a mix of those classifications, if they all come from the same Silicon Valley startup culture? Wow - I can listen to 10 different accents and pitches, and hear the same thing anyway. You want some diversity? Start looking beyond the same old set of people, companies, and parts of the country/world.