 All right. Hi Everyone and welcome to the mental health in community caretaking panel My name is Monica A. Hens Madden. My pronouns are she her and I am here because It is so important for us to talk about how to take care of the people who take care of our Communities and it was wonderful to find other people who it was just as important to them, too So I want to introduce You'll notice that our lineup is a little bit different and smaller We had some panelists who were unable to come. This is still going to be a fantastic panel And thank you to all of you who are in attendance virtually in person and people who are watching this after the conference is done All right Yes Hi everyone I'm dr. K. Hickson, and I'm an interdisciplinary collaborator to this panel So I work outside of tech in mental health. So it's awesome to do this cross-pollination with you all My pronouns are they them and I'm really excited to be here and we're going to talk about community care and mental health Hi, everyone. I'm Amy Marish. My pronouns are she her I Am an open-source evangelist at Red Hat and I'm filling in for Leslie hot and thorn who is feeling under the weather today I'm involved in the open stack rdo and sent to us communities Excellent So we're going to start with an introduction from another of our panelists Ruth Ikega who she is in our virtual room and so she is going to give her Introduction and she is also going to bring us to our first we kind of have this broken into different Topics different aspects of what are some of the mental health? challenges and opportunities in this field and so Ruth is going to be Introducing us to herself her work and she is also going to be talking about burnouts everyone Good morning. I Couldn't make it in percent to Dublin, but thank you to my awesome panelist and also to Linux foundation They found a way for me to share my thoughts on this topic Virtually with you My name is Ruth Ikega and I'm here because I'm a community ketika and I care about my community But I also want to be healthy while I take care of my community Personally, I've experienced burnout earlier this year and it wasn't a great place to be because It took me away from what I care about open source and also my community and you also stayed up some self-esteem issues within myself that you know I had it took time for me to recover from and that's why I'm really very particularly sure my thoughts on how community Can set yourself up for a republic phase and also how employers can help in the process as well Community members are so awesome and are so great at their job that they want to care for every community member They want to respond immediately They want to respond to the messages to suggestions and trust me It's great and I'm giving it thumbs up to every community ketika in this room and community manager You are so awesome and you're a superhero But I want you to remind yourself that Regardless of caring for your community your mental health is your first priority and being healthy While doing your job is important so I want you to take your mental health as your first priority and Remember to take breaks Do not feel sad about taking breaks Do not feel worried that the community is not going to move forward or the community is not going to go on when you're not there Do not feel that we are all guilty and guilty any time I take a break. I feel like Everything is going to be chaotic. Nobody's going to know where this is. Nobody's going to know where that is So I'm going to be sharing some tips that have helped me over the couple of months You know, even in my recovery phase first documenting processes and keeping tracks of suggestions and issues in the community Open source communities are really very interesting because people come in a lot of times, you know members come in Contributors come in they make all some suggestions and as a community Manager you want to take it all you want to do it immediately want to implement this now because You know, those people are also the community members are also eager to get their contributions accepted But I always want you to remember that you cannot attend to everybody's suggestion at the same time Always remember that so one thing that has helped me is keeping track of Suggestions and issues in the community you can do this too. Maybe if you're more More comfortable with using Google Docs or you can use github issues or even the github discussion You can keep track of different suggestions that have been made in the community so that you can attend to them You can place them on a priority list, you know Paralyptize the levels and attend to them one after the other because trust me if you want to attend to all these Suggestions at the same time Burnout is calling So when you keep track of these suggestions The good part of it is that people different community members can you know come up and even volunteer to take off these stacks we had Sometime ago we had like issues on the chaos project where even after some months someone Eventually a community member took it up. It also helps you You know give priority to what is really important, you know move along that process Another part is Communication now community members will not know that you're going to burn out all your being overwhelmed So you have to communicate to them You have to communicate to your employers as well when you feel overwhelmed and when you need to take some step back I mean to take a break. You need to communicate to your community members You know, let them know that you know You're in a burnout phase or you're trying to take a break because you're overwhelmed so that they won't keep Reaching out and trying to get answer You know set it in your slack or in your discord or whatever platform you use about your break and take your break Seriously, that's one thing I also also faulted when I take a break I am still on the community. I still want to know what's happening. Just close your laptops take your break seriously and another part of this is, you know Educating your community members educating them about time zone issues about Partizing about partizing people's time zone or Respecting people's time zone because open source communities, you know Projects are global and different people contributing to get from all parts of the world So we have to educate your community members to use pictures on your on your slack platform or discord to respect Time zone time zone differences and for employers I want to Inform you that it is our community and not the community managers community So please give support to your community managers Help them make their job easier with access to technologies you know, there are different technologies these days with boards and Different features on slack that's or different communication platforms that help community managers do their job better and also these days I've also been seeing a mental support some companies and some Projects that we give you that mental professional mental support. You can you know Ask for how you can get mental support to your community Managers because they hold your community together. I'm so happy. I got to share my thoughts with you I hope you enjoyed the rest of the panel. Thank you Yay, Ruth. Thank you so much. We oh Oh Sorry about that if that overwhelmed people in watching virtue what Ellie Is is there any way we can kill these lines here? So they're not on Okay, so I just wanted to ask Kay and wanted to ask Amy Do you have any kind of comments or things that you would want to add to the really good advice and Things that Ruth had to say. I love when Ruth just said close your laptop Amy that got that got you I Will talk about this a little bit When I speak but I'm noticing I was at a keynote this morning. How many of you were there a bunch was anyone there? Okay, it was super interesting because Linus and Emilio both mentioned the people challenges as well as Burnout and one of the things that's interesting I think is to think about what is contributing to burnout, right? Because that's the complicated question We use that as a sort of filler phrase for I think a lot of complex Layers that I'm going to talk about. So I think one of my ads is just asking us to think Just more curiously about what is actually Causing the burnout and trying to identify that Yes, I am guilty of working on my PTO with my communities But at the same time a lot of those communities. I am also a contributor too so keeping track of things and everything is My way of showing love because I want to make sure I know what's going on in my different roles within communities So it is important to say I'm gonna be away for a couple weeks I'll check in when I can't just letting them know that you're not going to respond to everything immediately But that you are keeping an eye on things is Important now on things that are more my job function. Yeah, I'll set PTO in you know I'll try my best to ignore those but it's okay to say you're not going to be around And I think that's the important part of what Ruth was saying is Let people know you're not going to be there. You're not going to be responding within five minutes And if you get to it within a week, you know the new why You're not going to get to it within a week in that communication part is what makes it important any points is there any Are there any kind of comments from the audience here if we'd like to make this it's nice that we have a nice small crowd We're not as if you've been in this in this track, you know, we've been packed in pretty tight in a Couple rooms. So if anybody has any points at which, you know, we are going to have time at the end But if you if there's something about any of these topics that you want to bring up Please feel free to just put your hand up and I am watching this live So I am watching the virtual chat too. So we'll try to bring that in as Well, so if there aren't any more kind of points on burnout, I know okay We it's interesting because burnout is not only about things that are happening in our communities and with ourselves, but there's also, you know the much larger structures at play and Kay who is a mental health professional? You had some comments you wanted to make about How how does that affect the mental health of community caretakers when there's everything that's going on in our local communities and the world Thank You Monica. Um, I Was lucky enough to be just a small content contributor to the open source way So I'm gonna start with a little quick quote from that Community managers understand the challenges and difficulties associated with encouraging stable safe and inclusive online communities Places where people demonstrate compassion and empathy Sounds easy. No, not so much So I want you to take a couple seconds to just think through What are all of the things that have occurred that you've noticed in your social cultural or political context as a Community manager or community manager adjacent person What has impacted your work or your experience as being part of community caretaking in? Let's say the last few years. So what comes to mind? As you sit there and think about what impacts has impacted your work or your role Or your experience in community. Anyone want to shout anything out? Right, right Right Right Right and you're speaking to those layers eloquently. Thank you and we're not done with the impact of covid on our psyches or our workplaces Um, there's lots of transitions still so you might have been thinking about covid as our wonderful um Visitor just mentioned you might be thinking about the economic impacts I was at a restaurant yesterday and and they were talking about how nice it is to have people be out again um disparate health impacts from covid The economy overall might be challenging to yourself your family or your sectors climate change I just had a weekend of terrible air quality out in portland, or again in the us before I got here So climate change military culture wars and racism AAPI violence all of these have been impacting community caretaking Spaces um in the us the 2020 uprising And challenges to various democracies like what do these have in common with the mental health? and community caretaking overlap Well, one of your roles as a community caretaker is like monitoring Moderating and engaging and supporting users, which I know you're all very committed to And that work isn't done in isolation So each um each of you have a personal context to the work you're doing You have a professional context to the work you're doing and you have a political context that your life exists in And those layers um impact your roles your duties and your experience of yourselves as community managers Um and I in emphasizing of course the impacts of your personal life, right? Like things happened and it feels like Since covid those things hit a little harder when things are happening in these parts of our lives And you're also negotiating vast contexts um across culture a language time distance space Um, and I know you've all felt the strain of some of those things I spoke with a community manager in 2021 who said quote. I love my job This year has been the most difficult directly related to the horrible condition of the world unquote So, you know, we wanted to bring some light to these issues Today so these can impact us um And especially when it comes to moderating perhaps or Keeping the community healthy, right? There can be division discord anger grief conflict never ending debates about codes of conduct which might come up today um In community standards, um as well. So what do we do? Um if we're trying to deal with all of these layers, um I have just three kind of quick suggestions. Um, one of the things I'm doing right now is contextualizing and not um considering our selves in these roles in isolation. So considering the layers facing them and, um contextualizing them together and maintaining our buoyancy that way and Helping us make sense of our experience and when someone comes to you and says hey, I'm struggling um being able to Um attune to that and not minimize it, right and not just blow it off or not just say, uh, it's not so bad or Let's look on the bright side, but to be able to attune to each other is important. Um, I just read an article about there's sort of a global Dip in empathy and so we have to figure out how to address that as a community Um, and the second suggestion is building relationships and community care. I mean relationships connection communities Um, this is vital to us. We can't do all of this tech stuff without the people part Linus said that this morning, you know when he was talking And so those relationships with each other help us formulate new ideas. Um Maintain our values, which I think are incredibly important and allow us to form communities together that are enriching rewarding and energizing most importantly And um as a as a counselor, um, I'm here and one of the things one of the main philosophies That I you know work with as a clinician Talks about relational zest. So you might not have heard that before it's a Little nerdy term from my field that I bring to you But this is that energetic sense you have when you're being deeply understood by someone Or you're having a synergistic collaboration and you're on fire and you're like, oh my gosh We're doing something right now. We're making something right now, but we're not just making something. We're connecting Through it. Um, and then I think the third thing is is lead with curiosity So we live in a world that often tells us How we're supposed to feel before we even get a chance to feel what we're supposed to feel or what we can feel for ourselves So taking time to ask questions of each other And be curious open up conversations and to wonder together And to wonder together often And of course you could go to therapy too That's not necessary because there's all these other things we can do All right. Thank you. Those were some really and I that that relational zest term I just and I think we all kind of think of moments either in person or sometimes even online where we've had that And it's just that's I'm gonna be using that lit Early, I'll make sure to credit you. So no, it's not mine. It's from relational cultural theory, which is a phenomenal Just psychological theory that is the nerd nerd factor in my field, right? Um, when I was listening to linus and emilo this morning I was like you all have your own acronyms similar to my field. So I have a lot to look up later Excellent. So amy any points Oh, um So if so those were really good We want to kind of keep this going because we want to be sure amy and again. Thank you for stepping in for Leslie And all of this, you know, kind of balancing kind of the self the community and the world um, is also existing with this balancing act between kind of our career development And um, as we all kind of know community managers and professionals Kind of do have this very public persona and it's almost kind of personal brand that we For better or for worse have to manage But then there's also our employer expectations because if we're getting paid to do these things We do have, you know, performance reviews a few times per year that we need to live up to um, so can you talk about Uh, what what is what is some of the advice that you have or the challenges that you faced in balancing these or any other related things So there's two different ways you can Move up through a community and become a community manager There's you're a contributor and you keep taking on more in leadership And then an opportunity comes around and you become the official community manager And to the when you go through that process You are developing your brand the entire way so that people know who you are in the community And it's an easy transition to take over a leadership position The other way is to say hey, I see you have a position open in community management And you just apply and then you're starting from scratch within a community And you have to introduce yourself and build the trust that you don't have that community to then take the leadership position Within it and have people confident to come up with you take your suggestions And so on and so forth. So there's two different ways you can come up within a community organically Or just putting yourself in that position and I've done in both ways Um, it's definitely easier If you do it organically because then people already know you Versus when you're just coming in and you're making suggestions and people are like, what are you talking about? Um, especially if some of a project is more downstream first versus upstream first You know, and you're saying we really shouldn't have all our code in the development branch How about moving into master so everyone knows we're an active project Um for people who are upstream first, that's a no-brainer But when you do everything with internally first not quite inner source But you do everything internally first and then put it out there They don't understand how important it is that when someone goes to your github and sees that you have commits every day how that grows a community um as far as It being your career and metricing and so on and so forth. There's different ways companies do it It could be how many people attended your event How many people make a contribution to the code? You know, so that very does vary between different companies But I think your own version of what is successful Is how many people interact how many people help other people how many people volunteer to be a mentor Because that's how you organically grow your community Um as we've talked about there is burnout where you notice that you know during covet we had less contributors But at the same time a lot of students who couldn't go out couldn't do other things We're joining communities Outreachy google summer of code google summer of docs those programs were very very popular during covet Not that they weren't popular before but I think with people not being able to go to an internship physically They were looking for virtual ways of doing it So how your community adapted and was able to provide support for those new incoming community members So you also have to balance of you now have more work because the virtual aspects of it But you need to step back a little bit because as already mentioned time zones Other things and pto was very hard. A lot of people didn't take it during covet You had nowhere to go And I'm one of those people if I don't have somewhere to go I don't want to take the pto So I ended up taking all of december off, which was really weird um And yes, I opened my laptop and I checked on my communities every day But that but that isn't what you should do and the you also hear that companies that have the unlimited pto A lot of people don't take it Because they don't want to be applying for it and taking it so it As a community manager as a community person Take your pto Don't be like me um And manage your burnout if you know, you're just like I can't do this today I need to skip this meeting And you have a reason i'm burnt out Let your management know they will support you And it will not damage your career. Just no say I have to take a step back. I need to take pto this week. I need the day off and I think in some degree as A previous remote worker covet has actually helped Because people are more understanding of the dog barking in the background You need to run to the you'll be five minutes late. I got to grab a coffee out of the kitchen Where there's noise. There's people in your house But previously those type of things added more to the stress because you had to have a pristine environment I used to record training software And god forbid the wind chime went off in the background I'm re-reporting and now it's like You know, your dog shows up in the screaming your dog's barking. Oh, look at the dog. We want to see it Now it's great I've got four dogs. If you ever want to see them, they'll come on screen You know, so In that way covet actually kind of helped burn out Because it made your life more relational excellent, so We have 10 more Minutes and so I want to be sure that we have time to open this up to everyone here and so Um, if we have questions if one of you wouldn't mind kind of bringing the mic To anyone with questions that we can be sure and also we had some great points Dirt in the virtual chat. We have Marie and Ruth there. Hi. We miss you. We wish you were here We're so glad we can kind of we we can have you here in the chat but A re-mentioned that isolation also made people more irritable And whereas previously if you'd been able to see each other in person You know a few times per year or at least once per year and all of a sudden you were never seen each other It was easy to jump to the wrong Conclusion and that was I think a really good point and then um and then Amy has for your point Ruth mentioned that Your story of coming up organically through a community really resonated with her Because she just started doing leadership in the community and then became became a More formal parts and let me just add one thing That is also the opposite sort of avoid Marie said about yes. We got more irritable Now as we come back to events some people are comfortable being here other people aren't and you need to accept whether They feel open enough to come to an event don't ostracize them because they're not attending They will start attending when they are ready if they are ready Yeah, so your numbers out of in-person events might be lower for a while Either through visa issues or just comfort level. So just keep that in mind and accept that Yeah, and so I think you know trying to have you know kind of keeping Keeping your hybrid options open and also ways to integrate and that's what we're trying to do here You know to watch kind of the virtual chat and bring those into the chat with everyone Um, but it's but I think that that's a really good point and maybe it makes us see success In a different way because are those connections still being made? And and if that's what matters and it's the quality of those connections So last year in seattle, we had one panelist who couldn't come to our talk We set up a laptop on one of the stools and put a microphone on it So he was able to participate live, but his company wouldn't let him travel yet So there are ways that you know, even if it's an in-person event If you've got an internet connection and one person can't make it you can still include them exactly Yep Similar things I've already done 15 years ago to get someone off of my open pointing team Colleagues who could not get to a ubuntu developer summit I've used my cell phone and connected it with pc speakers And so he called in and he participated simply by phone Nice Yes, nice 22 22 years experience with open pointing and being community manager Engineering manager product manager and technical lead in one at one in in one person Oh, I think wait Thanks, um, okay, so I have a minute. Hi. Nice to see you in person. Nice to see you in person. Yeah I So I have many comments and I'm not gonna make a comment. I'm gonna I found a question The We There were things brought a few things were brought up us here is sort of the Things to be grateful for and we talked about things to have compassion or things that are difficult for So it seems like there's a number of these both and ones Like I heard the like the accessibility of people being able to come to conferences for the first time and now We're doing virtual Blending is becoming a common part of conferences. Um, there was a few other ones before so how would you and this was I think really The question for Karen, but how do you how? How would you foster that sense for people of that both and that that that You know that we can have and we can be a limited amount of gratitude a limited amount of great compassion for things What are we going to do and how do we foster that? Carsten, I think you're speaking to um holding complexity and not Getting too binary and our thinking at all and and There might be certain things we're more comfortable with or we're more excited about or that are things that get us stoked, but then Always considering that there's that inclusivity. I think so I think that's that's holding the both and I think you said it quite well when you asked your question um It is a both and world and You know social media will tell you different Social media will tell you there's one way to do or say or feel about anything. So um, I think it's just being able to be together and remind ourselves of some of these points is helpful Hi, uh, Carol Chen from red hat. Um Uh, I I totally get what you know, Amy and some of you are saying like We are in this role because we care, right? So I'm guilty of you know, being on pto and still checking my laptop Totally totally Right. Yeah It's like yes guilty But um, I think one important thing I learned I've learned is of course the communication is important Say, you know, I'm on pto for two weeks um, you know, try not to check my laptop, but another thing is What we call the bus factor like if I'm the only one responding to other messages usually or whatever taking care of certain forums Try to you know, even before taking pto identify people that can help you in your team or even in the community I'm sure people are willing to help if you just ask and a lot of times we feel that oh, we shouldn't ask or you know Like burdening other people but likewise when when they have We if you ask in the in the future when they have no similar um The requirements that they'll they'll ask you as well because they feel comfortable doing so So I think it's a it's a two-way thing and something that we we should keep in mind that You know, we are not all you know superheroes We need each other for support. So I think um, I'm thankful for people in my team And my community who can help that and I'm sure you can find that around you as well And I think it's hard because a lot of us we're not we're not only these caretaking Types of people who have I think really cared about relationships and people our whole lives But we're also perfectionist who don't want to admit wins like wait But if this is what I do if I'm a caretaker And I'm struggling What's wrong with me and I've been reading a great book called How to keep house while drowning and I'm reading this I'm like this if you modify this This could be how to take care of a community while drowning Because we see just the chaos and it's hard because when it's like when We see this role not just as a job But as a sense of who we are as people And then when we struggle it's just it becomes this spiral of Oh my gosh, am I just a horrible person? So we're not just like oh that was a hard day But it's like I am a I am an awful human being and I think it just we we go down that slope really fast And so this book is more like seen like she uses the analogy of like a sink full of Dishes and we could think of like a whole bunch of things piled up and it's not like oh my gosh I'm so disorganized. This is awful. I'm not taking care of my community. It's more like wow My community is very active and thriving. And so just trying to be gentle with ourselves. So Yeah Yes Exactly, but but I think that carol had a really good point that if you ask them You'll find that there's people who are More than happy not only to wash the dishes but to dry and put them away too Yeah, and just to add on that as well if someone does Or you yourself have to say, you know, I'm really swamped I can't That's okay, too So don't because that'll add to your burnout too if you're just trying to cover for everyone else in your community You're on your team as well. So don't be afraid to say I wish I could but I've got these three things that I need to get done this week I can cover for you maybe next week, but this week I'm not going to be able to do it Yeah, and and I think that you know one of the things of Kind of the boundaries that that we set that say no can be just the best gift And it's hard because I get again, we're these caretaking perfectionist types and it's and it's hard for us to say that But we can just practice saying so we say as to everything which is why we don't turn off our laptops during pto And this is why mental health counselors have so much in common with you all. So that's why we're collaborating I think we have one minute left So any last comments? anything from online Arie mentioned that she's also reading how to um How to keep housewife um how to keep house while drowning excellent book so and We do have tips. We have a link tree and Leslie we were going to have handouts, but those were with Leslie if you go to the sketch page You will find the link. We have a doc x. We have it. We have an opt And so you can go to and see find our tips and find some resources which includes the open source way All right, thank you Thank you everyone for coming. Thank you virtual audience. Thank you audience in the future. Thank you real audience