 What a great day one and to make it even better. We have an amazing closing in order head Naomi is a leader specializing in Python and Linux and building developer team She's a make-it-work problem solver with over 15 years of experience and LPI to certification in managing dynamic system Naomi has been learning teaching writing about and using Python since 2001 an elected fellow of the Python software foundation Naomi is also a past year of its board of directors Naomi leads a team of Python programmers for the click-art material Naomi we welcome you and the stage is yours Thank you. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here And Yeah, I I want to talk to you today a little bit this will be An unusual talk for a picon I suppose But there are things that I think I think need to be said sometimes so I guess I'm I'm going to try and say them This is based a little bit on a talk I also gave at at euro python a few months ago somebody mentioned that on twitter and This sort of starts from the same point But I've been thinking about these issues a fair amount for the past six months and as I continue to think this is kind of where I'm at now and It's called inclusion in community in the face of crisis. I guess maybe It should have been called resilience inclusion and community in the face of crisis but that starts to get to be too long a title to fit on a slide And you know, of course speaking of the slides You will see a a bitly link to the slides On this page and it's at the bottom of every page. So if you want to go look at the slides for what they're worth You can do that at at any time So, um, yeah, well, let's let's go ahead. So as as mentioned, I I used to be chair of the psf and I stepped aside as of The end of june this year Before that I'd been chair of the psf for three years. I'd been on the board for five years and that certainly Seemed to me that was probably enough and I I also believe that organizations that are Sort of open and run by by volunteers Like like the psf But also like I know a lot of open source software projects If they're going to Be sustainable they need to actually practice changing leadership and the only way that could happen Would be if the leaders step aside. So I do want to say that I was I was very proud to be a part of the board Here we are at our last in person board meeting for who knows how long Which occurred in amsterdam last november so nearly a year ago And you know, it wasn't only that I had been planning to to step aside as as psf chair I I had a lot of plans About a year ago Of course, I was was looking forward to going to picon us There are many things that I helped create at picon us um the the poster session the education summit And the sprint's intro, you know, things like that the the charlas and the hatchery and all this So I was I was I was looking forward to going there and kind of like a a proud parent a proud grandparent Kind of looking on at some of that stuff um And you know, I was going to go to picon latem, which was going to be in part of a yard to mexico It's going to be be a great time. I I already had as of Late january. I had my plane ticket for picon spain Which happens this weekend. Uh, and in fact, I guess virtually I will be at picon spain tomorrow. So I guess in this in this crazy world of of the current current days It's at least possible that I now can be more or less in two places at one time um I'd even actually just I I had even Done a painting of pile ladies logos that I was going to give to the auction the pile ladies auction at picon us I I hand painted 45 of those little logos there. This is the the top half of the painting It's it's hanging behind me right above my head now as I speak Maybe someday I will get a chance to actually donate that to someone but To me and to everybody else then 2020 happened uh and along with it, uh, of course covet 19 and um This had um a lot of things. I think I was like a lot of people in that Late january early february. I thought okay. This this is going to be a bit of inconvenience But this is going to Going to go away. I you know, I wonder How much inconvenience it will be and how whatever? and Then as as we kept on moving through February it kept looking more and more serious. I think by By the late february. I was like, oh, this this might not be good. Um And then I was thinking or hoping that at least maybe we would be able to have picon us before The the virus got too bad uh, and I kept watching the numbers. I mean, this is the thing with us as programmers We can write little programs to figure out all sorts of things. I figured out probabilities of infection and things like that and by The beginning of march. It was like, oh, no, this is not going to work This is going to be much worse than we feared Uh, and certainly I would say by the end of the first week of march I pretty much knew that there was no way we were going to have picon us or much of any other um Much of any other picon's in person uh, and um, of course As as chair of the psf at the time this is kind of an awful position to be in because The psf the python software foundation relies on uh picon us profits to fund You know something in the neighborhood of 60 to 70 percent of its of its income. It's operating expenses You know the the the grants we were giving the support for the core development sprints just You know keeping the infrastructure of pi pi running paying our staff all of those things come from the money from picon and it looked like We were going to have to cancel and This is one of these things that I don't think people understood at the time We waited until late march to cancel picon not because we didn't know we had to cancel people were tweeting at us What's wrong with you? Don't you care about your people? um, but the fact was if we would have canceled before The local and regional governments of pittsburgh made it impossible for us to hold the conference um We would have owed We would have lost More than half a million dollars, which would have been a serious problem for the python software foundation We have two years of reserve. We could have kept running, but that would have meant That that we would have taken a big hit on that reserve Which would have potentially particularly as things are unfolding now had had other implications down the road so we had to wait until the local government declared that we could not hold picon and They were very slow to do that and in the meantime We on the board couldn't even say this is what we were doing because if we were to do that Then that could be held against us as saying we we intended to cancel the conference no matter what and we would still have been on the hook So we were there unable to say anything about it, but we had to wait and and finally then in in the latter part of march we we got that word from From pittsburgh and pennsylvania officials and we closed down officially And and we were we were finally in the clear to go ahead and and do that and um It was I think That was probably one of the most stressful months of my life to be honest thinking about what this means for The psf for the community for the things that we try to do As well as just the whole experience of the conference so for so many people Having to go away But you know, I think if that was the worst that 2020 gave us Looking back now we would be okay In fact, of course as we all know it got worse We had outbreaks, you know outbreaks in europe outbreaks in the us And and then they continued to spread around the world from there That led to quarantines lockdowns travel bans You know, I I'm now getting Ads from from airlines asking me to to to fly. Where would I fly? There's no place I can go now without having a quarantine requirement um, and you know, if that weren't enough uh in um in minneapolis in in late may a a policeman killed a black man and That triggered racial and and social um protests Um throughout the united states, but that seemed to spill out and happen in a lot of other places around the world Uh, I think you know, that's not the only thing driving protests around the world either There there have been sort of a a fair amount of of unrest So he had all of that stuff that just sort of basically kept piling on we thought it was bad in march man It's it's certainly Managed to get worse So yeah, that's kind of my point. These are hard times Uh, these are times that that actually work to Pull us apart. They make it in some ways if you look at it harder to to You know bring our communities together to build our communities. We can't get together in person anymore There's there are lots of of things that are causing people fear. There are is is lots of of conflict in the world All of these things are kind of adding up in many ways to hard times and Yeah, it just gets worse. There are more hard times to come, of course Um, the virus will get worse. I think we're now starting to head into what looks like a second or third wave Uh here in the u.s. It's not really like we're heading into the second or third wave We're just continuing the first one only more so um we have Managed to see governments around the world demonstrate A shocking inability to manage this thing correctly If you're looking at the at the u.s. News that came in overnight You know don't know that um We have yet another piece of evidence of that here in the u.s. Um, and um I I don't wish anybody ill, but this is what's been going on um, and of course we have now had worldwide uh a million deaths You know 20 percent of those in the u.s. Alone It it's there's there's just a lot of of There's a lot of virus stuff That is is still ahead of us And you know that also has uh economic considerations It has economic considerations in general it has economic considerations for us as a python community globally and in in our various countries and regions Uh, we have always been Well, not always but for the past. I don't know 15 20 years. We have been kind of in a lucky position being Being programmers being coders understanding technology Uh, our skills have been increasingly in demand companies have been willing to spend increasing amounts of their budget to You know to to attract us as employees That includes not only you know a a a positive trend in salaries But also these companies have been been willing to spend to support our communities and our events To keep us happy So that we would consider working for them And now I think you know, we're seeing various degrees of recession and depression hitting and In spite of some misguided optimism Things aren't as bad maybe as they were a few months ago But the effects of this are going to be with us for for quite a while And again, I don't think that we've seen the end of the down part of this yet I think we will see more companies struggle That's going to mean that for us as a python community as well as other communities and other other things You know, wherever We're going to not have the resources available That we used to uh, and of course on a personal level I have known I know a lot of people who have been laid off or have had salary cuts Uh, that sort of thing. So on a personal level, this is going to be very serious For us, even though we're relatively privileged being in technology And then for the greater communities, of course, it it has been varying degrees of devastating um, so Yeah, and I think actually with today's news the stock market is is looking like that again too I haven't really checked that that's what I've heard um And this kind of feeds into Something else that is is going on these days, which is this rising tide of a polarization of of an us versus them mentality And along with that feeding off of that, I think we've got um populist and and and I'll honestly repressive Uh governments around the world who will be trying to exploit um everything else the the virus and all of the other problems we're having Uh, and you know use that along with you know, sort of the the rising sort of current of xenophobia Uh, and and I think we will see all sorts of of marginalized groups be demonized be repressed have the rights taken away from um, you know anything from migrant workers to minorities, uh, I think there will probably be religious components certainly will will affect uh Women probably in a negative way um The lgbt population I think pretty much any marginalized group that you can think of Is likely to be a target as governments try to exploit Uh, this sort of current of of polarization populism and combine that with the problems caused by by the current crisis Um, it it's just has the potential in many many places to be a very bad scenario Uh, so yeah, these are scenes that we probably will see for a while And of course if that weren't enough, um We have climate change starting to make itself more and more known And this is everything from weather, uh catastrophes Um, you know again, for example, what I see a lot of here in the u.s We've run out of letters of the alphabet to name Hurricanes and tropical storms in the atlantic Which has only happened once or twice before and we're not even at the end of the season yet As well as kind of the creeping description we see from From drought and other things as well as Various spots around the world Suffering from from wildfires like never before And you know, I'm thinking, um, it's the west coast of the u.s It's the amazon in brazil It's australia It's many other places that that you know, I I don't even haven't heard of but it's it's again becoming a an increasing an increasing problem so I think even the final bit of bad news i've got for you and I promise i'm coming towards the end of the bad news Is that uh, even if we get a new normal and You know, there are there are glimmers of hope for vaccines and treatments for the virus Even if we get a new normal, I don't think the new normal is going to be very normal for a while I think we're looking at years of after effects Um, there will certainly be reduced travel Even if we were to cure every one of the virus tomorrow The the damage that the airline industry has undergone with layoffs everywhere with planes being shut down With the the losses and money all of that sort of thing I think it will Even under ideal conditions Take the travel industry years to recover. I think we're looking at years where Travel is going to be expensive. It's going to be difficult. And yeah, I think there just will be less of it Uh, similarly I wish I could tell you when I expected to see Uh large conferences in person. I love going to pikons. I I really wish I could say when but honestly, I think it's going to be It's going to be a while and I deliberately leave that big but It will probably be longer than than than we expect before we have Much of anything in the way of conferences. They will be smaller They may be online, uh, or they may be kind of a mixture of both, but I think things like, uh, you know picon us was 3500 people last year. It's going to be a while before we see that And you know as we move into the new normal as I've mentioned and and sort of try to live in our bubbles I think as I mentioned, we're going to see fewer resources for a lot of things including Tech communities and I've already mentioned the the strain that this will will put on the job market so It is no secret that I am I am quite old I uh am probably older than most of the people listening to this and um, I can remember um, the times of the 1960s and 1970s when there seemed to be a lot of conflict and a lot of problems in the world and You know, I think already we have we have gone well beyond anything that I can remember from the 60s and 70s uh, what this recalls to me more Is what I heard from my parents who? um Grew up and came of age in the 1930s and 40s during the great depression And world war two. I think that this is going to have Similar consequences and they're you know, this is like consequences. There will be obviously economic consequences Uh, there will be social consequences that I can't begin to speculate about Um, educational consequences. There will be all sorts of things Not not since the 30s and 40s. I think has there been an event like this and I think that this Uh, this event this this crisis will have an impact that will will have a generational impact We're talking not in terms of recovering in months or years, but probably decades honestly And so yeah, we're all In a position where we are put where we have to deal with loss of some sort And for for some people this could be a loss of friends and loved ones um Many others it will be a loss of employment Uh for virtually all of us losses of experiences and of doing things that we love and enjoy For virtually all of us, uh to some degree a loss of of our connections with others And and we all have to deal with those things like it or not So How how do we carry on? Uh, how do we how do we process these feelings of loss and grief and and then How do we move forward? Um Or Another way of putting it is how do we find that resilience to? Keep going and recover And to be honest, I I have seen things of of people I know occasionally and and and comments and things like that of people who seem to be struggling To find that resilience How how do we do that? Well, there are some things That that can be done and this is kind of My synthesis of some things that I've I've I've I've read over the years About this subject of resilience For me having gone through some various changes in my life This subject of Resilience and carrying on has always has always been of interest so, um That's partly why in fact I went through all of the bad news in gory detail to get to this point. Um one thing that It seems is is important in being able to to get through a tough situation Is being able to acknowledge it? Uh, and and this, um Calls to mind something called the stockdale paradox and, um, I'm not Really a huge fan of of war stories and war heroes, but uh, the stockdale paradox is named after James Stockdale who was a navy pilot for the us Who was shot down in the vietnam war and then spent eight years as a prisoner of war? And was was tortured pretty brutally But still managed to organize sort of the resistance of the prisoners of war and all of that And he went through what was arguably one of the one of the more grueling one of the more, uh, horrible experiences, uh of a lot of those people And he got through it And in fact, there were other people that were shot down with him in a similar situation who did not And and after the fact, uh, he was asked, you know, if there was anything that he could identify That that would explain why some people made it and some people didn't through this horrible horrible experience And his answer was yeah, it was really pretty easy to tell Uh, the ones who didn't make it were mostly the ones who were unrealistically optimistic Uh, they would say oh, yeah, we're going to be home by Christmas uh, and Then christmas would come and they were still there And then say oh, well we'll be home by Easter and then Easter would come and they would still be there And so it would go and that that eventually broke their spirit So the first thing that you need to do in order to get through a crisis is to understand thoroughly What you're up against and to be aware Of you know, not to have false optimism I should say to be aware that things are not just going to magically get better Uh, and and that's the situation we face as well. We're not going to be out of this by Christmas Uh, so we need to be aware of that But the flip side of this and that's why they call it the stock deal paradox Is that you need to also Have the faith the optimism In even even the certainty that you're going to be able to find a way to handle this that you will get through it Or uh, I think going along with this is this quote from chomsky that I like Optimism is a strategy for making a better future because unless you believe that the future can be better You're unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it. So So that's that's kind of the the thing we we need to Acknowledge that we're in a tough situation and it's going to be a while before things materially get better uh, but we need to Have that faith that confidence that optimism that things will get better and act to make that happen And that's hard Because I think at this point Everybody who's listening to me has at some point in the past few months Uh felt, you know, I've been afraid been exhausted Hopeless felt grief for the things that have been lost some combination of those at some point I think we have all we have all felt So we need to we need to think about what it is that can help us get past that and deal with that and act To to go ahead and keep building Uh the future outcome and in fact There are I think Three things. I mean you could you can split it up. You can make more you can make fewer whatever this is kind of my categorization Of three things that that we can look to to help us through this and The good news is that so many of us are already doing these things. They're not things that we cannot do And and these things then are Uh around sort of three things one of them is a sense of belonging And research on resilience say that if you have social connections, this does make you more resilient Uh, and so here we are in the face of an event that that pulls us apart We need to work perhaps we need to work more intentionally to maintain our social connections But in fact, we are Uh as as a python community as individuals We are finding ways to maintain those social connections Certainly, I check in on friends that I've met from various python events Uh and see how you know, how are you doing? Are you okay? More than I would have before but also we've got more events. So like here, uh, this slide this is A a social meeting that pie ladies in el alto bolivia had six weeks ago We had just uh seen a demonstration from lube of the moronada a a bolivian Dance And and it was just a chance to connect and to make those social connections And you know, honestly for me In the before time, I wouldn't probably have had the chance to to go to a meeting of pie ladies bolivia, but at Under these conditions I could uh, I encourage everybody we all need to look for those chances and sort of seize upon that and of course Meeting meetups and conferences like that online are thriving everywhere. That was not a kind of unusual one-off thing um From everywhere people are moving meetups and conferences online um, you know here pike on india um It looks to be a a massive conference online great evidence that this is working and it is actually um In a way it's liberating our current conditions in that when everybody has to be online then both the organizers and the speakers can go wherever in the world they want And and that that I think is is a cool thing as I say I I get to uh be at pike on india here today and at um pike on spain tomorrow Without ever leaving my house actually i'm ready to leave my house, but that's a different story So and and you know as we do this we're actually sort of probing and experimenting with all of these tools and techniques So I think in the in the many Meetup and and conference appearances. I've had in the past six months I think I've had a chance to try out nearly every conferencing tool out there We're really sort of working through and doing what we can to make this work And you know in addition and this is something that I have mentioned in other contexts as well There is a need we all have a need for a sense of purpose We all like to be able to make meaningful Contributions, this is what drives the open source world. This is what drives the python community We would not have those things without this desire on all of our parts We want to be able to help out to make a contribution and again people who've looked at the subject of resilience and getting through crises say that this is a key key factor in making it through and We are doing that also as a python community as individuals we have had At least as far as I can tell a An explosion of people offering training Of one kind or another online There are tons of twitch streams I know I did a twitch stream on python fundamentals a while back at the beginning of of quarantine There are people doing online workshops. There are tons of videos out Everybody is is trying to To contribute in that way to do what they can Here my my example here is truck ting hoes twitch stream I just chose it because she's been so busy in doing all of these things She's got python classes. She's got data classes With her friend lace. She's got a video an interview show There's this this feeling that we can contribute by helping other people learn That I don't recall seeing before and it it truly is a a a wonderful thing to see And then we also have We also benefit from having I call it a sense of responsibility It's some people call it a sense of obligation. Some people call it a sense of altruism This feeling that we need to Help others in our community This is one of the keys Towards groups making it through a crisis Is this willingness to put aside differences to help those people who need it most and to leave no one behind and I see this in a lot of ways I see a lot of people who are contributing and trying to do this Through things that they can do with code Which of course makes sense because code is what we know, right? And they're doing data analysis or teaching people how to do data analysis Or they're setting up sites to share data In fact, one of the best sources for data on the virus in brazil Is a site that is run by people in the python in the python community in brazil And we're also writing applications. This one is is one that I like a lot. This is a utapai.org Which is in paraguai And it was created By a member of the python community there on his own And it's a way to match up people who Need help. They need some sort of specific support with people in their area That can give them that support and we're talking about things that are really basic like food diapers medicine Eggs milk sugar things like that And they use the this app actually lets people connect by way of whatsapp so that they can Find each other and make the exchange without having a lot of other things there And you can see on the map where the requests are coming from and and all of that it's just like A a a very cool idea But the thing is this was somebody stepping in to help the community Because that was what he felt he needed to do So All of this that i've been talking about of course Is just another way of saying what is it that helps people get through crisis It's community. That's that's what I have been describing. I have been describing The python community communities in general And for this to work What i'm talking about is community in the fullest sense The most we can get from connections and contributions from putting aside our difference The most we can do in helping those who need it most and in leaving no one behind And this is where I get to The inclusion part you may have seen i'm sort of sneaking around to this When we think of connections and contributing and all of those things We need to think of everyone's connections and contributions I can tell you social connections are even more important for those who are marginalized And and the you know the support of being part of a community is is important for everybody But I could also tell you That the people who have been sort of who have lived who have dealt with being in marginalized groups, whether that's migrants or or By gender or whatever tend to have Insights and strengths and abilities to contribute in a crisis that are useful a Susan striker who is a researcher in transgender history Said not long ago that there is an amazing Wisdom and strength that comes from knowing just how badly the world can crap all over you And I think that's true actually So, you know It is to the benefit of the community to keep that in mind And to make sure that we bring everybody in as we get through this Um the same thing um in terms of putting aside differences this this seems obvious to me But obviously it's not not always clear to everybody The more people we can get with the more different experiences to pull together It's the better we're likely to be And you know if we really do want to help those who need it most If that is part of our our spirit of altruism and obligation It is clearly people in marginalized groups who have been and will continue to be hit the hardest um women and minor minorities Always lose their jobs first in a crisis Uh, and it's groups like that that also tend to have the fewest resources to rely on By bringing them into our communities we can help them. Uh, and that is is part of this altruistic Responsibility And again, this is just kind of to sum it up if we if we believe in leaving no one behind that means leave no one behind So that that brings me to this why why am I saying this and that's because again as I alluded to earlier on I think we will find that there are people who are saying This is a crisis we can worry about inclusion later Or they can even use the crisis to make things worse as an excuse for that And that is not the right answer. It is not the right answer for anybody. It's not the right answer for a community Now is in fact A good time to act on the subject of of inclusion and diversity and things like that And and that's why I was I was so happy to see that that here at pike on india There is a diversity and inclusion track well done and You know, I I expect that As you continue doing this you will find You'll maybe find more aspects to think about and to include in the future But starting out with with the focus on gender as you have it is is fine. And as I say Making the decision to have a diversity and inclusion track In in in this year of crisis speaks well of you. So again, well done for that So I know that that it is likely that that people will want to ask Oh, so what do you recommend we do? And this is not because I know anything. It's just people always ask things like that and I can't I can't really answer that for everybody Every community every person has to in a way I answer that for themselves What I will say is that you should do what you can okay and I have I have a few thoughts on that but You know, there are other things too So one thing that I hope we continue to do because as I say we have been doing it is we continue to Discover ways to use our technology more fully to support our communities in every way You know, it's interesting. We've been able to do things like have a conference online We've been able to do that for a few years And but we've never really had a reason to to try it and to figure it out and get the most that we can Now we are now we're trying everything out And I think that's That's great. We can we can take what we have learned and use it in some ways to grow our communities Technology is for us as as a python community technology is our superpower And it's important for us to to figure out how to use it to to care for the community to Maintain and build our connections We need to do that We certainly should continue to do the things we have done to contribute the education stuff It's it's I It's great that we do that we we need to keep on doing that I think particularly as we go through The COVID crisis there will be negative impacts On education at all levels If we can do things that help alleviate that in any way I think that is is definitely to the good and If we can manage to share data And I think we've seen in more than one case governments have not been entirely honest with their data If we can manage to share data and make sure that people are informed I think that is useful and of course if we can Create more services more ways to help people connect To the resources that they need and provide even ways for people to communicate Those are all things that as a python community a community of python programmers worldwide We can think about doing Um, and again clearly obviously we can uh take care of each other Um, and again restating we can we can help those who need it most We can as a as a global community of pythonistas We can put aside our differences and make sure that we take care of everyone And Finally, let's let's not leave this out. Uh, we can We can lead We have the resources to be informed Citizens we can be advocates for community. We can be positive examples We know What community is like what it can mean we can help show others that as well So I I I want us to not back away From any chance we may have in that regard to lead And Where i've been going We can build we can keep building Our community we do not have to let this stop us or slow us down as we Work to build community. We can continue to organize and volunteer We can continue to work to bring people in We can continue to work to figure out how to do things better We can and i'm sure we will do all of those things to make sure that our communities continue to grow so Yeah, I I know this was was an unusual talk, but these times These times will will reshape the world. I think that that this is hard to argue about and again We in the global python community. We know the value of community We know how to make community It is up to us to step up and shape the world that will come And There's one more thing that I think needs to be said and I've been saying it at the close of every time I've given these talks. So please take this in the spirit. It's intended Wear the damn masks. Okay. I don't want to lose a single one of you So that's what I've got for you. Thank you very much for having me here in paikan, india It's been an honor and a privilege Bye. Bye