 Hello everybody, my name is David Stewart. I'm here today to talk about this inclusion topic that I've titled inclusion and open source allies outlaws and dinosaurs So let's begin First of all, let me tell you who I am I've actually been in the open source world in terms of a full-time occupation since 2007. I've really appreciated the opportunity to be involved with very popular open source projects I've actually had the chance to launch a few and a few are actually still doing very well Even though I'm not actively involved with them, which I consider to be tremendously Exciting and I've been in the industry a number of years as well just in a variety of different roles. So and Maybe it's sort of obvious maybe not I would consider myself to be a member of the majority because when I look around at open source conferences, I usually see a lot of folks that sort of look like me white men and Oftentimes, I think that would be pretty easy to see that we're part of the majority. So that's who I am and When we talk often about this area of inclusion, how do you include people who are not in the majority as part of your Your projects and it's part of the work that you're doing I hear the word allies used a lot and I think that's a opportunity to You know say, yeah, I'm really supportive of people who are not in the majority However, I often think that's better if somebody who's not in the majority says that you are an ally as opposed to sort of Nominating yourself. So I think it's important to hear from somebody. Hey, do you think I'm an ally for somebody who's not a majority? But if I'm hoping if you're here and you consider yourself an ally or you've been called one I hope there's something, you know useful here for you to apply in open source projects and work. I Think it's also True that some people are in the majority and they haven't really thought of this issue of how do I do a better job at Including people who are not in the majority and maybe they consider themselves to be sort of outsiders in this whole area of Inclusion and how can they do a better job and become more supportive? So maybe you're on a Journey in terms of learning about open source By the way, this photo is a Chap name dick little who was a member of the James Younger gang in American history, but he had a great Portrait as an outlaw. So maybe that's what you consider yourself to be and Frankly, there are people in open source projects who are not necessarily conscious of How they are speaking? They don't really seem to have maybe much of an interest in being allies Maybe in some cases they seem to opposed to that whole idea. I've had the Challenge sometimes of folks that I I get to work with who are Either unconscious or not, you know kind of opposing this whole idea of being more intentional about being inclusive So I think maybe if you have maybe you consider yourself to be in that group You know, if so, I hope there's some things that we have to say today that will be helpful as well Now as I introduce myself, I do consider myself to be part of the majority and What does that mean in terms of? You know, why do we think it's important to understand who the majority is and when I think about How a lot of people grew up? The kind of ethos that we use is often to say well You know majority rules if somebody is if we're trying to decide as a group where to go to lunch Maybe if the majority agrees with a particular direction, well, that's the direction we're going if we have a sense of a crowd I Think sometimes we talk about the wisdom of crowds I think sometimes I observe kind of a different behavior sometimes when I see a crowd maybe on a Narrow path coming towards me and often I I see people not sort of yielding The path when I see there's a group there often instead of the wisdom of crowds what I often see is it's kind of the the foolishness of crowds and So I think the whole idea of majority rules can really blind you to a lot of Tremendous value that can come from people who are not in the majority And I think this is kind of a challenge that we have and as I think about myself I think well, what do I have to say on this topic? After all as I said I identify myself as a white dude and so I've not been discriminated against because I'm a white dude in the areas of open source projects And so why do I think I have anything to say on the subject? This troubled me quite a lot actually in terms of my journey on this subject. I was at one point nominated for leading a group that we were Setting up at my company to help leaders become more inclusive. I was nominated as somebody who had Behaviors that were considered inclusive and I I asked the woman who nominated me. She was a senior manager who was who was Knew me and see me work and I asked her why do you why did you nominate me? And she said well, I've just seen in you behaviors Which are the kinds of things that leaders should have and in this area of inclusion and it really surprised me and I kept I guess in my journey thinking about this and thinking about well I guess it was unconscious, but I guess I better do a better job in terms of the kinds of things I'm intentionally doing to help people who are not the majority and When I I had at one point a boss who was you know an African American He was a vice president my company and one of the things I I said Well, why do I think I have anything to say? Why should I be involved in the subject when I? I'm not in the minority and he said well, and he brought up the the case of this particular guy Who is if you don't recognize him his name is John F. Kennedy He was a president of the United States in the 60s from a very Influential and powerful family. They were a very rich family and He was in a part of our history in the United States, which there were all there was a tremendous amount of unrest On the subject of people who were black feeling like they were not getting Enough power within society. They felt like they were being discriminated against in a lot of very specific ways Kennedy Responded to this by actually being involved and he had a reputation for having more care about Civil rights is where we use that term and so he had that great reputation What was interesting to me though when I read about the history of Kennedy is Even though he was You know powerful. He had this great reputation for being a very strong advocate for civil rights It was actually his successor the next resident this guy Lyndon Baines Johnson somebody were we referred to in history as LBJ Here is somebody who actually not only had a priority to address civil rights issues his actual Leadership helped laws being put into effect and so what's again surprising is is a lot of these civil rights laws Winner to effect from as led by LBJ even though he was from a Texas He was from a state in the United States, Texas Which was not considered to be a very good place where people had very good civil rights so he not only Was a great civil rights leader, but he also came from a place where his power Derived from being in the majority and so I think this is a great example of saying Well, what can I do if I'm not a member of you know, if I'm if I'm a member of the majority Let me give you one other really good example If you don't recognize him This is Guido van Rossum who is known as the benevolent dictator for life for Python for many years and he was the originator of Python and Was interesting for me to listen to him Particularly the first time I heard him give a keynote at PyCon. He was It was great because in his keynote. He said hey, I'm gonna alternate questions in my keynote from the audience and I want to have alternate between a woman and a man and that was very interesting to To watch him do that and how he promoted a group called Pyle 80s, which was a he wore a Pyle 80s shirt at the conference and I heard him a number of times really have the goal of I want to see core developers who are women and This is something which I think was a goal. He that was finally Accomplished there finally are core developers in Python who are women, but it really took his active involvement and encouraging people to mentor women so they could become core developers and I once had dinner with Guido and I asked him, you know, it seems like you're as I observe you Your Priorities appear to me to be to make sure Python language remains Pythonic and I think also to make sure women have great opportunities In the Python community and I see these these seem to be your priorities I said, well, I yeah, I guess those are so here's somebody again a great example of a Somebody with power in an open-source community and what he did with his power was is tremendously impactful Now along those lines a question certainly Well, what can I do if you no matter whether you consider yourself to be, you know an ally or an outlaw or maybe you think of yourself as a dinosaur? I think this is an opportunity to think about some things that you can actually do in open-source community work to help In the whole area of inclusion giving a voice to people who maybe don't have a voice By the way, this is a photo of me on a bridge in a particularly national park And that bridge was incredibly shaky and you know moving all around. I thought it was kind of appropriate Because sometimes it may feel uncomfortable to be in this space Maybe you feel like it's a little bit like that bridge that's sort of wobbling around a lot and and what specifically can you do? And so I have a few suggestions You know one of the things that you can really do to help in this area of inclusion and is to listen and a couple of Specific things I want to talk about one is you know, I come from a culture corporate culture where it's very common for People have very strong opinions and you know talk over each other and feeling like you can't really get your opinions across unless you're You know you're interrupting and and that you know kind of behavior and and I find when I catch myself doing that it's like Disturbing to me because it's like this is not what I aspire to do in terms of Dealing with people. So just the act of listening by the way I was one of the teams I one of the most recent teams that I hired From scratch. I was really so pleased with the team that it was really great people but we had a balance of genders and people from different underrepresented underrepresented minority groups people who are black Hispanic etc and But one thing I noticed at one time in a meeting where there was a problem We were trying to solve it in the open-source project. We were working on and I remember one of the the women engineers gave an idea for how to solve the problem and Honestly today, I don't even remember what the specific issue was a problem We were trying to solve but what I remember is I didn't actually really care about the solution I'd whichever way we go But one of the things I noticed is after she gave her idea There were various of the guys who were starting to you know talk down of that idea. No, it's not a good idea They don't you know these reasons or whatever, but as I observed I saw wow This is playing out exactly as people say it does which is a woman will often give an idea Because she is a woman And I think it's unconscious, but the idea is often talked down And in fact some of the guys kind of talking down our idea consider themselves to be you know really Supporting women and and trying to have better inclusion kinds of skills So it was really surprising to me to see this and so even though by the way what I did even though Like I said, I didn't really care which solution we chose What I decided you speak up in the situation and actually say something about the idea and what I says You know, I think actually this is maybe a really good idea let's let's talk a little bit more about it and I I think you can be cool about that sort of thing and not and Bear somebody like saying oh you guys are only saying it, but you don't like it because she's a woman I don't think that kind of thing is as constructive Although sometimes you might want to point this out to people so that they can you know be thinking about this more realizing Oh, maybe I need to listen a little bit more a little bit more carefully as to the things that are going on and observe these behaviors and others so The first suggestion I'd have is to listen Another really powerful thing in my own journey has been when I have had people who would have the authority from me to to speak back to me things they observe in my behavior, which may be considered to be hurtful or You know not being you know conscious of what I'm doing right and so This has been super powerful in my my own Life is what I've empowered some days that look can you as you hear me talk Can you please tell me if you hear me saying something and I'm embarrassed I don't even want to repeat some of the things that he said to me because I just get a little embarrassed with how I'm not necessarily You know thinking Clearly about some things that I say things unconsciously sometimes things that are you know funny. I'm trying to be humorous and it doesn't really You know it can be considered hurtful So I think it's a super power to and you know empower somebody say look Can you share with me anything you see me saying or doing or writing they would consider to be you know hurtful to somebody who's not the majority and this is something by the way, I think is is I Hope that they can do it in a way. That's not public. That doesn't publicly embarrass me But there's this is incredibly powerful because we may have the best intentions of the world and another example as I was leading a group of Managers at my company who are trying to learn how to be more inclusive and include people and the who are not in the majority And one of the guys was sharing experience and talked about an engineer that worked for him that in and even though she's a girl I just you know and so-and-so and You know it kind of caught me off-guard because in the United States when you refer to a woman as a girl It's often, you know viewed pretty negatively because it's it's like well You don't consider me to be a mature person by calling me a girl, right and I Used the opportunity to talk to this particular manager and I said And I just said you know Are you open to some coaching? It's one of the first things I hear you open to some feedback on that and I want to ask for permission for that sort of thing to give feedback on somebody if They are not aware of these things and I said You know this can be you know viewed as being insulting. He's so beside himself He just didn't know his unconscious part of it was where in the culture he came from which is India This is not considered to be an insult. I'm just an observation of gender. So and and in the next, you know meeting of people Together he was so apologetic. He said I just wanted to say I'm really sorry about this I did not you know want to imply that I was insulting about this engineer case for gender so I think empowering people and when you're when you have Feedback to give that maybe someone hasn't empowered you That becomes a little bit more tricky and I think if I You know observe something which are behaviors which are can be considered insensitive or insulting something of that sort It's a responsibility now I feel like I have just to speak out about it and it's try to say something about the subject and What I try to do by the way is I try and ask if My coaching is appreciated in this situation. I remember one of the best examples I saw this was a conference. I was sitting in it was that an inclusion conference and so there are a couple hundred people in this ballroom and We had just talked about the example of if you have a group of people and you see men Talking down a particular idea that was given by a woman just the example. I was talking about and One of the women in the room said yeah, you know, it's terrible when men will act like a bunch of adolescents and the the You know the moderator Stopped everything at that point. He says and he says to her. Do you mind if I would give you some coaching on that? And she said yeah, and he said when you talk about you know in this sort of way when I hear when I hear Men acting like adolescents oftentimes when you say something like that men will Considered it to be Pretty insulting and not achieve what you were looking for in terms of of a response and she took it really well I loved that not only his boldness to step out and give feedback on the subject But ask permission and to be cool about it as opposed to I guess Blind-sighting somebody or giving them feedback that you know, it'll be uncomfortable by the way likely it will be uncomfortable and so Asking you know speak out of it ask, you know some way for permission to to give that coaching and Finally, I think it's important to look at hey If you're learning something about inclusion, maybe something you've heard from this talk or some of the other terrific Inclusion talks here at the conference Try and share what you're learning to others it may be in a in a group situation or a one-on-one situation maybe in situations where You're you're sitting socially with other people maybe in the majority or maybe not. I think this is Tremendously powerful because one of the things I'll try and do when I attend a conference and I maybe I'm reading a book or Learning some things I try and share this with others to try and get their You know attention and focus on it as well And I think again This is a great way in an open-source situation particular in a project I think that you can share some of the wisdom that you're learning and help the entire open-source community that you deal with to grow and to Be better at this whole area So in summary I think listening to others really listening and trying to understand what's going on Empowering people to give you feedback Try and talk about the kinds of things that you're learning and and speaking out when the situation is appropriate to do I have a couple of resources here one of the conference One of the conferences I'm really supportive of by the way there's a conference called the better man conference That really helps has helped me to to learn new things. So I Like what the founder and the group is trying to do so Encourage you to check that one out and then as I said Guido is a terrific Example setter in the area of open-source. In fact, he's got a One of his keynotes of Python in 2015's on YouTube that you can go Google that one and you know roughly 13 minutes I'm on the feet on the video he talks about His goals about what he wants to do to try and encourage more women who are core developers and and Some of his behaviors that I think are great to emulate. So anyway, I hope that these are are helpful for you Thank you very much, and I hope that You'd give me You know any questions or feedback? I'm empowering you to give me feedback as well here And if there are things that I can do to be better in this area as well, I would really appreciate hearing it Thank you very much