 Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining today. I also want to thank the Linux Foundation and the conference organizers for putting together this diversity and power of its summit as part of open source summit this year. And thanks for venturing into this brave new world of online only conferencing. I know this is certainly my first time doing a talk like this virtually. Given the format, we will have questions at the end. You can type them into the Q&A box on your screen throughout the presentation. And then at the end, we'll take a look at those and see which ones we want to address as part of the conversation. Also, we can continue the conversation after the session in the diversity inclusion track channel and Slack. So I'll be around there if folks want to have further conversation later. So, creating a culture of inclusion. Obviously, in this time, diversity and inclusion are pretty hot topics. And there are lots of reasons that this is important to me personally. In my past lives, I've been a queer activist, a social justice educator, an out gay man, and someone who generally just cares about humanity. And then I became a father. Now, these two delightful little children drive everything that I do and have me constantly thinking about what I can be doing to make the world a better place and safer for them. Because, let's face it, we live in a world where people are treated differently because of who they are and how they look. And we've all seen the way that the country has been responding to the latest bevy of Black deaths in America, from Trayvon Martin to George Floyd, and all those who came before, between, and since. There is a systemic problem we all need to address. Even for me, someone who has taken a hard look at issues of diversity and inclusion in the past and who has a personal connection to racial inequality in America, I still feel the need to do more, to reframe my stance to be one of active anti-racism and recommit myself to fighting against all forms of inequality and exclusion. And that's part of the reason that I'm giving this talk today. Some people like to say that we live in a colorblind society or that we've moved beyond seeing race, but often the people who are saying that aren't the people who experience racism on a daily basis. We've all seen headlines about how tech has a diversity problem. Some of you attending this session may have felt it yourselves, whether you've personally experienced discrimination or just feeling left out. Or you've looked around your own organization and noticed, wow, everyone here looks just like me. Or conversely, no one here looks like me. According to research from Glassdoor, 67% of job seekers consider workplace diversity as an important factor when they're evaluating employment opportunities. And more than 50% of current employees want their workplace to do more to increase diversity. But what we know is that just getting more people into the room with different characteristics isn't enough. It's a start, don't get me wrong, but we need to take a hard look at the culture and what we're doing or not doing to be truly inclusive. Now when I talk about a culture of inclusion, I mean a place where the organizational customs, beliefs, and actions truly honor and welcome all individuals. Where factors like race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, mental health, body shape and size, religion, ethnic and cultural background, socio-economic status, none of these things prevent someone from being fully involved. It's a place where people are not just invited in, but truly made a part of the organization. It's about creating a sense of belonging. So today I want to suggest some things that you can do to help create that culture in your own organizations. The first thing is just to be yourself. You feel valuable and you bring a unique set of talents and perspectives to your organization. You should feel comfortable bringing all aspects of your identity to work with you. When we are our whole authentic selves, we make it easier for others around us to do the same. And if we're going to truly value difference, we need to make it visible. When our culture is truly inclusive, the parts of our identity that make us unique are common and ordinary rather than strange or exotic. For example, I talk about my husband and casual conversation just as much as my coworkers talk about their opposite sex partners. It should be completely normal to ask for an adjusted work schedule because you're fasting during Ramadan. Or to talk to your coworkers about the difficulty of finding the right caregiver for your type of hair. Not a problem for me, but for my kids. We all need to feel comfortable expressing ourselves to feel safe and included. Last year I attended Hashikov before they went all digital just like this conference. And there I heard a Hashikov engineer talk about how he unintentionally created a movement within the organization that led to the creation of pride stickers and other swag just by asking for it. He wanted to be able to be visible as a queer person in tech. And by doing so, he created a space that was easier for others to be visible as well. Now, it's not always easy, especially if you feel like you're the only person like you. But sometimes I think you'll be surprised what you find when you ask. If you work in an organization that doesn't respect you for who you are, try to find allies within the organization who can help you bring about the change necessary to create that culture. If that doesn't work, it might be time to look for a different organization that will show you the respect you deserve. Now for some of us, that's certainly easier said than done. I know that I'm speaking from a place of privilege as a cis white male, pretty established in my career. And not everyone can take those kinds of risks. The second thing you can do is be mindful of the words that you use every day. Now, I'm not talking about political correctness, I'm talking about being aware of the language that you're using and how it's impacting the people around you. For starters, you can try using gender neutral terms. I have a co-worker from California who just calls everybody dude or bro. Basically, every sentence either starts with dude or ends with bro and sometimes both. He's trying really hard to change it, but just like any other habit, it's hard to break. Or take my husband as an example. And his father, and I'm sure many other fathers out there, taught him that the polite way to address a group of women is to call them ladies. But that can be perceived as diminutive or condescending, and you also don't know if everyone in the group actually self-identifies as a lady. And there are lots of alternatives, but it takes practice. I encourage you to give it a try, but you have to give yourself permission to make mistakes. Because what matters is the trying, not getting it right and being perfect all the time. And it's okay to stop and correct yourself, even mid-sentence, because just doing that even opens up the opportunity for further dialogue. And I can't talk about gender-inclusive language without mentioning pronouns. We need to respect how people choose to identify. And this is also another opportunity to make things more visible. I've started including my pronouns in my email signature, my Twitter bio, my Slack profile. When everyone is explicit about their pronouns, including people whose gender isn't typically called into question, it actually makes it more comfortable for someone who identifies as non-binary or someone whose presentation may not match their pronouns to self-identify and ask to be called what they want to be called. The third thing you can do is get to know people as individuals and treat them as such. You are a complete, complex person with a multifaceted identity, and so are all of your coworkers. Try not to rely on stereotypes based on someone's appearance or background and let those determine how you interact with them. At the end of the day, we're all individuals with our own unique blend of nature and nurture that governs how our personalities manifest. When we start treating some people differently or excluding them, we miss out on the value that they bring to our organizations. A good friend of mine, Vernon Wall, who is a diversity trainer, talks about the tape recorder that plays in our heads. Now for you young ins who don't know what this is, think a Spotify playlist. These are all the messages that we picked up as we were growing up, from our families, our school, our church, wherever. There are things that you noticed, even subconsciously. Maybe it was observing how people are treated differently based on how they looked or where they were from, or even explicit messages like being told that all people in a particular group are lazy or women belong in the kitchen. All these messages are recorded on the track in your head, and now it's constantly playing in the background. So when you see someone who looks a certain way, walking down the street, even without thinking about it, you're drawing on those messages and making assumptions about that person. That's unconscious bias. It's very hard to undo that programming. It's often rooted in fears, superstitions, and ignorance. And usually, the people that we receive those messages from as we were growing up are the people that we trusted and believed in more than anybody else. My husband talks about the messages he got from his mother about how people who don't like animals are all bad and men who wear pinky rings can't be trusted. Now, he knows that this is balderdash, but the unconscious bias is still there on some level. But this is something you can undo. It requires a lot of self-awareness. And it can be helpful to ask your colleagues and friends whom you trust what they think your biases are. Having open and honest conversations about the biases that other people see in us can help to reveal our bias blind spots and allow us to take those into considerations and make better decisions. So I encourage you to try to notice when you're making an assumption about someone you don't know and think about where that's coming from. What are those messages that are playing in your head? According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, about one in five adults in the U.S. experience mental illness in a given year. Some mental illnesses are more debilitating than others, but the reality is that most of us will be impacted by our mental health at some point or another. Now, this can include illnesses like depression and anxiety or neurodevelopmental disorders like learning disorders or autism. The fourth thing you can do is practice empathy and compassion with your coworkers who might be struggling with any of these issues. For most of us, our jobs are stressful, but it's usually a positive kind of stress that helps us improve and get better at our work. But we need to understand that we're all coming to work with different experiences and needs. For me, standing up here giving this presentation is stressful. I mean, I can check my heart rate monitor and tell you. But for someone with anxiety, it could be really hard. So educate yourselves about the signs that someone might be struggling. You don't need to be able to diagnose clinical depression to be able to notice when someone around you might be having a tough time and could benefit from someone just checking in on them and find ways that are comfortable for you to check in and reach out. You don't need to be a therapist or have a degree in counseling just to ask someone how they're doing it, see if they need help. Just asking a simple question. Let someone know that you care about them. And it's probably best not to try to give advice yourself but rather help someone find the resources that they need. There's an organization called Open Sourcing Mental Illness. They have a great resource about mental health and tech. They have a lot of videos and resources on their website that I encourage you to check out. And along those lines, talking openly about mental health can help to reduce the stigma around it and contribute to a more inclusive culture. I tell pretty much anyone who will listen that between my husband and me we have two individual therapists and a couple therapists that we see every month. The CEO of my company talks openly about his and his wife's therapy and likings it to getting an oil change. Be sure to take the time for self-care too. We all know that burnout is a real thing. If your company allows for mental health days or offers unlimited PTO take advantage of those days when you need them and be as open as you feel comfortable with your supervisor about your needs. The fifth thing you can do is pay attention to the people in your organization whose voices and perspectives are being marginalized. It's likely not even intentional. How often have you been sitting in a meeting and a female colleague presents an idea? Two minutes later a male colleague says exactly the same thing. A lot of us have seen that. Or perhaps you've noticed that suggestions from your colleagues of color don't get as much attention as those coming from your white colleagues. Those of us with privilege have a responsibility to take notice and do something about it. So the next time that female colleague or colleague of color presents something chime in and say, hey, that sounds interesting. Tell us more. We can't expect someone who is being marginalized to always be able to advocate for themselves. If you have colleagues who you feel might not be feeling included check in with them and see how they're doing and think about ways that you can be an ally to them. It's important to have a working environment that is accessible to individuals with physical disabilities, but creating a welcoming space goes beyond that. Some day when we return to physical offices go beyond thinking about accommodation and instead look at inclusive design which focuses on making environments universally accessible and looks beyond disability. Think about what someone who has different needs from you might need and make that the norm rather than an exception they have to request. This not only helps a person who might need that accommodation it's also a clear sign of inclusion. Make slide decks and websites that are easy to read by people with low vision. Provide trainings in a variety of modes for people with different learning styles. And it's not just about disabilities. Encourage your company to have lactation rooms, nap rooms, prayer meditation rooms to make your space more welcoming for everyone. The goal is to make sure that everyone is able to fully participate. I attended another conference earlier this year and when they were announcing lunch we had this chicken sandwich on this delicious whole wheat wrap and the wonderful roast beef sandwich on Brioche and then there's some vegetarian thing. Later in the day one of the attendees was talking with me and she said she had had the vegetarian option and she should have known from the dismissive way they described it that it was an afterthought and she wished she'd gone out and bought something on her own. So I can tell you on that day she wasn't feeling very included in the space. Another thing you can do is take a critical look at your hiring process. If you're involved in hiring in some way or another whether you're a hiring manager or you're just asked to sit on interview panels how diverse are the candidates in your candidate pool? How can your organization actively reach out to candidates that have traditionally been underrepresented? Remember that unconscious bias we talked about before that tape player, that Spotify playlist? Be especially mindful of it in your interview process. We know from research that in Western countries individuals with more ethnic sounding names on their resumes are less likely to be selected for interviews than candidates with Western sign names. Pay attention to when you might be evaluating candidates differently based on their identity. If you see a female candidate and a male candidate exhibit the same behavior, do you view them differently? Make sure that your evaluation criteria are objective and consider having anti-bias training for your recruiting teams and hiring managers. And then after hiring, make sure that you have clear objectives and explicit criteria for promotions and reviews. A lack of clearly defined expectations make it really easy for that unconscious bias to sneak back in. Often at conferences like this we have codes of conduct that call out the behavior that's acceptable and what isn't. Encourage your organization to have a code of conduct for the company and be public with it. People who may experience harassment are more likely to join your organization if they feel it's going to be a safe place for them where harassment won't be tolerated. The 2018 Women in the Workplace Report found that only 27% of employees say they felt that managers regularly challenged bias language and behavior when they observed it. Only 40% say that disrespectful behavior toward women is often quickly addressed by their company. And just 32% think their company swiftly acts on claims of sexual harassment. We can do better. And it's not just sexual harassment we need to be aware of. Don't tolerate jokes about mental disorders or bias language about women, racial groups, LGBTQ people, anything. When you see behavior that is inappropriate or disrespectful, speak up. Change will not come if we are all silent. Finally, take the time to learn about the experiences of people who are different from you. Look for books, podcasts, blog posts from a variety of perspectives. The uploaded slides in this presentation that I'll link out to later include links to suggested resources that you can use as a starting point to educate yourself more. I was recently reading a thread on Twitter about how to make yourself less of a clueless white person without asking people of color to do the work for you. And one of the great suggestions was follow 50 people of color on social media and just listen. Don't comment, don't necessarily retweet, just listen. And you can do this with any identity that's different from your own. So that's it, right? We've solved the problem. Seriously, these are my ideas of things that you can do to help make your organization and yourself more inclusive. I encourage you to think about things that you can do that fit in for yourself and what you feel comfortable and maybe a little bit uncomfortable doing. And remember, this is a journey that we're all on together. None of us are perfect or have all of the answers. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today. Please check out this link to give me your feedback and download the slides. If you don't get the Pearl Jam reference, I can't help you. Now, let's take a look at the Q&A and see what questions have come in. So Yitzav asks, could you brief about the code of conduct that you mentioned a moment ago? So I think we've probably all seen conference codes of conduct, right? Like we have for this conference that spell out this is acceptable behavior or this is not acceptable behavior and what to do if you experience something or if you see something and usually it's, you know, reach out to the conference staff and they've usually been trained to deal with any incidents that might come up. So how I think that can translate to an organization is do the same thing. Have written down what is acceptable what isn't acceptable. We don't tolerate any harassment. We don't tolerate any, you know, violent language. List out the things that are true to your organization's core values and then put it out there. Like have it on your website as part of your, you know, the recruiting area of your website or just general about us. Make sure that everyone in the company understands it and knows what to do if they see something that makes them feel uncomfortable. So thank you. It's out for that question. Let's see. Claudia asks about how do you counter the meritocracy agreement, argument in hiring? Such as, you know, we hire the best people regardless of gender or race, et cetera. So I think for me, yes, we all want to hire the best people. I think what often gets missed in that is if we're not actively seeking out individuals from populations that have historically been underrepresented in our field, then we're going to miss out on those people who could well be the best person, the best candidate for that role, but we haven't seen them because we don't know how to reach out to those populations. There are, at least in a lot of places, I've been a lot of really great organizations that are doing mentoring and coaching, for example, for people of color who want to get into tech. That's a great resource for your organization to reach out to when you're hiring and say, hey, can you share this job posting with all of the people who've been through your boot camp as a way to diversify your candidate pool so that you have a broader scope of candidates to look at, and then you probably will find the best candidate who may or may not be a percent of color, but if you're not seeing the people of color, you won't know. Thank you, Claudia. Jefferson asks if your manager is the one who's behaving this way, how would you talk to them about it? So that can be a challenging conversation, obviously. I think one thing you have to think about is how comfortable are you having that conversation directly with the manager, or do you feel like you need to go talk to someone above that person? That really depends on your relationship with that manager. If it's someone that you have the kind of relationship where you can call them out on something and say, hey, this thing that you did made me feel uncomfortable. I think the important thing in any of these kinds of conversations is to talk about yourself and from your perspective. Hey, when I observed this, I felt this way because of this. You did this thing and that was bad. I felt this, and this is the impact that it had on me. And that tends to be, in my experience, a more effective way to get the point across and to have the person actually hear what you're saying. But again, if you don't have that level of comfort with the manager, you might need to go above that person or even directly to HR and have the conversation and have them help guide you through that. Or find an ally outside of the organization who can help coach you on how to deal with the situation. So thank you, Jefferson. It looks like that's all the questions that have come in so far. Again, I want to thank you all for taking the time to attend the session today. Please again, check out that link. You can get the slides that have all the additional resources. I'll also post it in the Slack channel. If folks want to continue the conversation there, I will be happy to join you there. Thank you again.