 Hi, welcome to the OpenJS Foundation Conference. My name is Michael Jennings. I currently serve as an inclusion strategy partner for product at Netflix. I'll be honest with you, I never knew how connected the world was until I began to work at Netflix. An early morning meeting with my colleagues from different countries on the African continent, a lunch chat with a leader in New York, meetings with my team in Los Angeles and ending the day with a spirited debate with my buddy Akito in Tokyo. Inclusion and diversity is an essential part of each of our businesses. The products, software, infrastructure and futuristic innovations we make impact a vast variety of people. And now more than ever, customers are holding organizations responsible for their inclusion footprint. We all know inclusion is good for business, but I'll take it a step further and say that inclusion is a value that is conducive to business. Members of our organizations, both small and big are not just workers, but human extensions of the places they work, which means the spaces organizations create are marketed unintentionally and intentionally by the folks that work there. So it's important that we create spaces that are inclusive, psychologically safe and reduce the boundaries of the world. The greatest innovations we can make is the empowerment of people. The people power the ideas, the people make the organizations come alive, the people at your organizations are what connect people like me who have no idea what you talk about at this conference to the technology that I use. You're my bridge. So I ask questions like, how diverse is your staff? What countries are you targeting? What does inclusion really mean to you? And can your automated technology say my sister's name right? Because most don't. When you say there's homogeneity in your field, I ask, where are you doing about it? Because it's important for me as a user of the technology or somebody who is marketing the technology to see myself embedded in the technology. Now, my job is inclusion. So I'm paid to talk about this stuff. But I also see the best and worst parts of the workplace every day. I'm even faced with the challenges of my own biases, the challenges of the things that I've been taught. I'm reminded of all of my flaws. But in this work, I've grown a greater appreciation for the humanness and the dignity of people. The most rewarding thing is seeing people recognize that maybe there are some biases in their processes or maybe they are looking at the bar from a really weird perspective. Looking at people and them realizing that systems do and at times exclude people. I've learned that inclusion is what is often missing in conflict or when we make societal mistakes in business. Look, inclusion is hard. Imagine having to tell engineers and scientists that there really isn't a fix, it's just a journey. The look that most of y'all give me could shrink a mountain. So what really is conclusion? I see inclusion as a complex piece of art that looks different through different lenses. I've realized that it's not necessarily the art, it's the conversation about the perspectives of what is being seen and what's the problem that the art is solving for or displaying in the world. So the question is, what's the problem you are solving for? And do you have the eyes and the ears that you need to solve it? Then ask yourself, what's over as it represented on my team or in my group? And don't just focus on the visible. It's not a check mark exercise, but an opportunity for you to ask how can we create space for minds that are different? I want you to think about experience, demeanor, voice, thinking style, cultural origins, education, and background. Then ask yourself, how can these different identities and experience elevate this work? I tend to think of hiring or moving people into your team as puzzle work. It's easy to find all of the corners, but it's even harder to signal in on some of the identities and experiences that you need to elevate your projects or your products. I want you to be innovative in the work that you do, not just around technology, but around the people. Now, this is where it gets hard. I want you to think about you. Who are you comfortable with? What makes a good partner? What makes them good at their job? What does talent density mean now? And what will it mean the same thing in the future? Who do you dislike? Who do you not like to be around on your team? And when someone is different at the table, what do your instincts say? Now, ask yourself why? Questioning the actions, the questions and perceptions we have helps us understand us. Metacognition is the basis for our inclusion journey, no matter where you are. Oftentimes we rush into interpersonal and organizational work so fast that we don't uncover the biases that we possess at the individual level. And if we don't do that, then how can we create space for each other? It's hard to look in the mirror, but each one of us has a unique identity and experiences that carry bias with them. Understand my shock when a former principal called me out for having a bias against my black male students. Not true, I responded. I'm a black male. Then that moment happened. And I realized what she called me out on was true. It hit me hard, but through lots of conversation with her and thinking about my past, I found that it was rooted in my parents' divorce. And my desire to protect my mother was now being played out in my classroom. As much as many of us would prefer to keep the personal and the professional separated, it's difficult because our workspaces are a microcosm of the world. So that means we bring stuff to work. It means that I bring the fears of being a mod arboree to work. It means that my wife has to take a deep breath when she's the only in a room. It means that my work is important to me and I hope that you see me because I will make every attempt to see you. We may not understand or agree, but we can respect each other's dignity in humanity. I depend on organizations like yours to be my bridge to the technology we use. So I asked the question, what is your inclusion blueprint? Don't just be innovative with the technology. Be innovative with the people, the processes, the space in the business. I think of inclusion as a pyramid. At the base is the individual work, then the interpersonal work, then the organizational, and the last is the community or world work. Each piece is essential and probably can be done by themselves, but when you stack them up, they reach higher. So I encourage anybody who has talk of being inclusive or wanting to engage more in inclusion to do self-work. So here are five things that I think is conducive to doing self-work. Number one, reflection. Inclusion is reflection in so many ways. Asking yourself about your processes, where was communication, getting feedback from other folks, understanding where bias may lay. The second is exploring your own bias. Now, I think the Harvard implicit bias test is pretty good, but there are a lot of things that I encourage folks to do. Why do you live in the place that you live? Why do you shop at the stores you shop at? Why is your friendship group the way that they are? Why would you prefer your kids to hang around this person versus this person? Asking yourself questions about why you have a visceral reaction to certain things helps with you exploring what your biases are and then thinking about how they translate into the work space. The next is why is inclusion important to you? Think about your why is vitally important because organizations say it's important to them, but it's important for the organizational members to say why it's important for them. And they don't want you to aim for excellence, not perfection, because in perfection, sometimes we get froze when we wanna ask a question or say something, but with excellence, we're exploring the opportunity to be better. With excellence, there's a humility that says, I don't know. Thank you so much for this opportunity to speak to you. I hope you've had a wonderful conference and you take away not only information, but virtual friendships. And inclusion isn't just the responsibility of leaders. It's all of ours. The biggest impact is the space that we create for one another. Jesse Jackson said, our premise is that inclusion leads to growth. So for those who are locked out, they lose development and those who are in power lose market and growth. So inclusion is conducive to the business. The greatest asset of any company is its ability to create a space where diverse minds and identities can flourish. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful conference.