 Hey everyone, thank you so much for coming today. I'm going to talk right now, but largely not I'm going to be here moderating this Fantastic panel of humans who are going to tell you why? Or how they have managed to run really successful meetings that are super fun and welcoming to attend So I'll right away just ask if any of you would like to explain a little bit of what your aim is with this workshop panel to talk about I Would be happy to So I think tabby started this idea and it was largely inspired because The contributor comms team has weekly meetings Which we've luckily somehow roped in into attending recently There are a number of things that we do in our meetings to try to make them very welcoming and inclusive especially because our group is very a lot of our work is very welcoming to brand new contributors to kubernetes So we really want to be welcoming to folks who are totally new to the community And we put a lot of effort into making sure that we have processes in place to avoid accidentally causing someone to leave the project or something like that and Ian as a co-chair of SIG security Who also runs a lot of meetings for open source and also tries to be very welcoming Also had some suggestions for how we could improve our processes And so we've been making some changes to our group on how we run our meetings to make them more inclusive More welcoming and these things evolve over time So we wanted to get together here on stage for folks here at the contributor summit to talk about How we do that Hi, we didn't actually introduce ourselves Hi, my name is Ian. I am one of the co-chairs of kubernetes SIG security And I have been a community organizer for a very long time for for most of my life I would say my adult life, but actually for longer than that and One of the things that you learn and doing a lot of community organizing work is how to How to create space how to create space that is welcoming or Unwelcoming how to create space where people feel like they can contribute or don't feel like they can contribute and there are certain kinds of Practices and processes that you can put into place to make it feel easier for people to get involved and when we started SIG security One of the things that we did was makes we really wanted to create that culture on purpose and Everything that we do in SIG security is done on purpose in order to create that kind of space So Yeah, Tabby you want to talk about any of that? Yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of related like what you were saying Haslund about how you have work that is very welcoming to new contributors in SIG security, there's a Sheen that security is scary difficult only available for experts and so we have put quite a bit of effort into dispelling that and Making space for folks who may be very new or for folks who have experience that is somewhere else and so the Activities that we do within the meeting are a big part of that like people can come and Bring the ideas and experience that they have and match up with other folks who may be there and That's how things get done And hi everyone, my name is Natalie Vlatko. I'm one of the co-chairs of the Kubernetes special interest group for documentation Another very very proper SIG of where new contributors come in and want to make their impact on the project Much like everyone already on the panel has said Making it very purposeful to have inclusive meetings is something that we try to do one interesting thing that we Is a challenge all the time our time zones And so one thing that we're trying to concentrate on in docs is having more meetings at times that you the contributors that we're trying to make Sure we can help and mentor and and chat to Have them at times that are actually more great and useful for them But it does always mean that sometimes some of us in the in the leadership group group have to have a late meeting Now and then and eat that but it's a purposeful decision because we want to be inclusive for that for that audience And then on top of that we always have especially on the SIG docs bi-weekly call We have an area where we want to have folks introduce themselves if they're comfortable Either by unmuting or in the chat that we have a via the zoom platform to say hi Who are you? What would you like to achieve here? What do you what are you looking to learn? And do you want help now or later? How do you want to receive that help? We want to cater to you basically and we try and make that very very clear at the at the first meeting Contrary will come to and at the one hundredth meeting a contributor will come to as well So building off that a little bit Do you want to talk about rituals and patterns that you follow in your meetings to make people feel welcome? So one of the things that we always do in SIG security is we introduce ourselves every time I think it's common in a lot of SIGs and just in general for people to if they have Meetings that often have the same group of people come over and over to be like oh We don't need to introduce ourselves. We all know each other But what happens when a new person comes in to that meeting and then they don't they don't know all of those people If it is not standard practice for people to introduce themselves or almost worse If it is standard practice for if a new person shows up and they're like oh you're new Can you introduce yourself? Thanks And then they don't introduce themselves that it's like that the new person who is probably you know already at it sort of slightly You know maybe a little bit shy already a little bit of you know Information asymmetry on the other side of it. They don't know all of those people then that's scary You're being put on the spot you have to introduce yourself Everybody's looking at you and you don't really you know You don't get to know anybody else and so one of the things that we can do it's simple But it really matters is make sure that Everybody does it every time and that way we don't have to have the awkward debate if a new person walks in of like oh A new person and then put that person on the spot in that way. It just is that way and And then jumping off of that The way that we do it is Intentional to make it happen naturally so the person who is primarily facilitating the meeting just always starts that way Another another thing about like rituals at the beginning of meetings the sick security meeting traditionally starts Three or four minutes after the time slot that is on the calendar there starts because There are plenty of people that have you know back-to-back brick wall kind of kind of schedules And so having a little bit of time To come up to the population that we're going to have before we get started stops those people from getting cut off and it also provides a little bit of More casual time for people to say hello to each other or whatever But not so much that it Slows down and gets awkward and so then you know once it the clock ticks over to four after whatever then The person who is facilitating can say welcome to you know welcome to another Kubernetes sick security I'm so-and-so and introduce them so Another thing we do at six security every time and I promise I will pass the mic in a second is We have note-taking on a rotating basis We don't have one person or two people whose responsibility it is to always take notes And we have people volunteer to take notes every time and not necessarily the same people Because if you're a new contributor trying to figure out how to plug in that's the thing you can do immediately That's really important and that way you can already like be Doing something that's really like kind of central to what's going on there and you don't even have to have any experience for that Yeah, something that we always do as well going back to the topic around the introductions. We Just saying it very out loud. This is a very wide panel So what we do in sig docs is to make sure that from the introduction side if we're saying people's names I openly ask am I pronouncing your name correctly? Please correct me if I'm not And and that's something that I think is as someone whose name does get mispronounced a lot too It's something that I like to try and do as much as possible And we've actually asked if folks are comfortable doing so in in slack as their slack handles There's an area in the Kubernetes slack as part of your profile where you can add the pronunciation of your name And we've been trying to do that so that folks don't feel like they It can be a it be quite intimidating when you feel like you have to correct folks around the pronunciation of your name And so we want to share all the resources that makes that easier so that that inclusivity keeps happening That's something that is I'm still always tripping up on even with contributors that are sometimes not so new and I like that Hopefully folks can feel comfortable that even as a sig lead I can be corrected too And going back to what Ian was saying about having new contributors introduced themselves. I'd like to give you a Sample of perhaps doing things wrong So when we first started the contributor comms group we are a sub project of the special interest group for contributor experience and contributor experience has over the years run a wide variety of meetings both the Special interest group meetings which at this point happened by weekly We also used to run the community meetings, which were a monthly meeting anyone could come to and they could be very large audiences So a lot of the sig contributes meetings have very varied audiences Sometimes they are very experienced contributors and there's basically no one new and sometimes They are meetings where new people are encouraged to come and so with this wide variety of Meetings sometimes the process is at the beginning of the meetings changed So when comms started we had adopted a process that had been used in various other sig contributes meetings where New folks would introduce themselves Which I think probably developed from meetings where there were a lot of people who were always on the meetings Like a very large number where it would slow down the meeting if they introduced themselves every time And so they had developed this process And so we kind of adopted it too, but it didn't work well for our group because our group is very Oriented toward new contributors And it's not that large that it would take a whole lot of time for us to introduce Everyone on the call every time So when in joined they mentioned that this was something that they did in the security of introducing Everyone every time and we were like wow, you know, that's better for our group than the current process We can change that So it's very important to reassess as you move forward even silly things that you wouldn't normally think about Encouraging the group to speak up when they have a feeling about something that you're doing You might even notice that not notice that it's a process that you're following But you can always update them and make things more inclusive as your group changes And one of the really cool things about doing like cross sig collaborative work Is that we get to learn from each other About how different sigs do things and then we get to like if they're doing something that seems cool Then we get to adopt it one of the things I really like about the contributor comms meetings Sig security hasn't adopted this But not for any particular reason, but I really like it is that People hang out at the end And then spend time together and talk about whatever it is that they're working on and it Um It's really nice. It it's a time for people to get together and bond and talk about things that might not be Necessarily squarely fitting within the meeting agenda, but it's really good And I think like helps community cohesion and I like that a lot Yeah, 100% I think the other thing that I wanted to mention around the rituals is that we also as part of The Kubernetes governance we record all of our meetings to make sure that folks can watch them later And we always make sure that we turn off the recording at the end and ask Additionally, if folks have questions or things they want to discuss off the recording Making sure that there's that space just in case there could be something that they don't realize Could be useful and beneficial to be on the recording They don't want to be on the recording with this question or these concerns and so on That's something that is super important. We try to include in every meeting too Also, I think it's super easy to forget that we're being recorded because every sig meeting is recorded So I try to make a special point in all of our meetings to say hey We're welcoming in our friends on youtube now And then at the end of the meeting we're going to say goodbye to our friends on youtube, but we can still hang out Incentive to join the meeting as well. Yeah the after hours hang out And and related to both introductions and the youtube recordings that Like within sig security we do the introductions even On the occasional meeting when there are four of us and we all know each other personally because Those meetings all get recorded and go on to youtube and so someone who is looking up information about something and However, they do stumbles on to a sig meeting recording and wants to learn something from it There is a lot of important context Like in a conversation about changing a feature or something There's a lot of important context contained in who are the people having that conversation And so even if you all know each other the person six months from now watching the recording Has no idea potentially who any of you are and so the introductions at the beginning are Are good for that and so that's That was another part there that I wanted to call out So getting beyond introductions. We've talked a little bit outside of being on the stage But about the balance of folks coming to these meetings who are quite busy And they're making time out of their day to come to the meetings and you also have new contributors Who might not have all of the context so how do you go about balancing providing enough information for the new attendees? Well maximizing the time spent by regular attendees A one thing that I we like to do in sig docs is that we have a very We have a very how to say this the agenda in terms of how it's structured is the same every time We try and make sure that people understand that who are new or who aren't or who are Long-time contributors in docs. They know if I join the meeting It's going to go like this this this this this and then we have the fun hangout time towards the end So that they know if I can only make it for the first 20 minutes I know that we discuss issues in PRs first and then we go into freeform discussion, which we how is how we structure it in docs And before that we also do always do an update on the release. That's currently ongoing because that's also something that's very important to docs to So we try and have a very It's consistent. Thank you. It's consistent and it's Something that people can always count on because they know what they can expect or how much time they need to give We think that's really important I would say that our meetings are significantly less structured, which is I don't know if it's good or bad, but another example of how different groups can operate differently So the beginning of our meetings are kind of Pretty freeform. We have a note section where we have new items And updates and big wins and we just ask for updates from everyone who's there on all of those things But then after that we have a more structured portion of the meeting where we go into a board that tracks the progress of specific action items So we have an element of structure and an element of loose discussion And that works well for our group I think that balance is really good like the security meeting has kind of an in-between thing there where The you know the notes document is open for writing You don't have to be a member of the mailing list or whatever to do that So people can put themselves on the attendance list and now they have the document open And so we have a we have a template that you know the first person copies and paste to start the notes for the new meeting And then we have regular updates from each of the sub projects and then after that there's The things that the attendees have brought and so you know sometimes folks will put an item on the agenda Four weeks in advance because they know this is going to be an important thing to talk about Other times folks will put a thing at the end of the agenda 20 minutes into the meeting because somebody said something and they said actually let's talk about this when we have time And that that mixture of having like a consistent overall structure with Adaptive parts in it has been really good I'd also like to highlight what I was Prompting for a little bit is how we handle sub sub project introductions now on sick security So sick security a lot of our work is done through our sub projects We've got four of them with four different leads And so the way security meetings are set up is we start out with Introductions finding a note taker and then go through Sub project by sub project report backs. So this is what this sub project does. Here's what we're up to Here's anything that we need help with right now Then we go to the next one next one next one and then the agenda opens up And people don't even have to put that in 20 minutes into the meeting We open it up. We open up the floor for discussion When all of the things that are already written out Um have already been said so if somebody has an idea or something occurs to them There's always time to do that And you know and we encourage people to do that in slack too because sick security doesn't really have a membership roster It's whoever shows up and what we do is often the ideas that those people bring So we try to keep it as open for people to be able to bring themselves and their ideas as possible We have also for sub projects And one of them is the website which everyone believes it's just all that docs does in terms of everything is there But we also have the localization sub project Which is a really important one to the point where they actually have their own monthly meetings because of those sub project leads Often have to deal with processes that aren't always applicable to only english documentation But then there are always processes that are applicable across all the languages of which we have 15 on the kubernetes website To be able to to to help kind of roll out. So we try and also make sure that We're noting that hey if we want to do sub project updates in the regular bi-weekly meeting Which is when sick docs has them on tuesdays That's absolutely possible But if folks want to only for the 45 minutes of time that they have speak about their sub project specific Concerns or challenges or things that they're trying to solve They've got that space to do that. We're also recently encouraging that the smaller sub project Localization teams have their own meeting if they wish and we are offering those smaller teams Do they want this recorded to youtube so that they can hopefully Broadcast a new possible contributors. I want to then come to their meetings and contribute to their docs So that's something now that we're also opening up on the meeting roster so as as an inspiring Aspiring leader and i'm sure there are more people in the audience that have this conundrum I find often you get new voices new faces in a meeting And you want to give them the opportunity to speak often these these quiet folks have some of the best ideas How do you manage making space for? Anyone to speak and encouraging people who might not Naturally want to speak without applying that pressure or force or putting them on this spot One thing that is very Precious to me in that area But that Seems very low-key when it's happening is during introductions first off If everyone or almost everyone is introducing themselves then A new person who is shy they Nobody gets called out for not introducing themselves, but If everybody else is doing it, it's easier for someone to do it too and then As the person who is facilitating the meeting it's very powerful to Have some positive thing to say to people when they introduce themselves And that might be it's great to see you again You know I know you haven't been here for six months or it might be it's wonderful to meet you. Thank you so much for coming And like even starting there by giving especially new people a positive Response to their presence Helps with that one thing that I try to do as somebody who Who facilitates meetings is explicitly make space for people. So if somebody You know if we say do we have any questions? We count Very slowly she counts to ten. I count very slowly to seven, but I think roughly the same amount of time and You know, make sure that that's that that space is there for people who are Interverts a little bit quieter whose second language might not be Whose first language might not be english who needs an extra little bit of time to process They get that extra little bit of time to do that and also And you know when we notice People who speak more and people who speak less one thing that you could do and this is an ancient community organizer trick is be like, okay, so Can we hear from somebody? You know does anybody who hasn't spoken as much Want to say anything, you know like okay, so we've heard a lot from you know We've heard a lot from Ian now Ian does a lot of talking to somebody who isn't Ian want to say anything about this You know and then it that doesn't necessarily put the new people on the spot It might put the loud people on the spot But but it helps open up space so that everybody has space to speak one thing we do in docs is we as as co-chairs who are doing the meeting we kind of we tag team on notes, but we also tag team on on Staffing the the chat that is happening and when we ask for introductions We say if you don't want to speak up feel free to just put it in the chat and in that chat that chat is also they're going Hi, welcome tabby to the meeting and there's a lot of we we encourage like emoji reactions and those kind of things because Not everyone wants to communicate by going off mute So that's something that we always try and use the chat as well Of course sometimes that can be hard to then keep up with both, but it's one thing that we know that we have to Just try and help that kind of communication communication happen by meeting the people where they want to communicate Whether it's public speaking on a stage or running a meeting always pause for longer than you think you should Yeah, quite a bit longer than you think you should Okay, so we're getting close to the end And we've talked a lot about all of the things to do. Are there any major to not do points that any of you have to share Can can I get excited about this one the my absolute least favorite meeting running thing is You have an agenda you get done with the agenda Okay, I'll give you all back six minutes because like The implication of that is All of us would much rather be somewhere else and it is a gift to be able to leave early And like when I am facilitating the sick security meeting I lean strongly into the opposite of that The sick security meeting takes as long as it takes sometimes it runs over time and we have to cut it off Sometimes it's done in 15 minutes Whenever it is done I always close it with After we do one last long count. Is there anything else that anyone would like to bring up while we are all assembled here? Wait for it. No one responds Well, that indicates that we have accomplished the things that we came together for Thank you all so much for coming and I'll see you next time Uh, in my big no-no is don't cancel a meeting when it's supposed to be happening right now and give a lot of ample Notice if a meeting needs to be cancelled and over communicate at the amount of times I've turned up to a meeting and no one's there because I didn't know it was cancelled Don't cancel at the last minute Don't underestimate the new people. I'm so serious like new people have so much valuable Like experience and things to teach us the newer you are often the more valuable that is They know what the pain points in the docs are they know what's confusing about the things that we're saying They're the ones who don't understand the acronyms that we insist on not spelling out Like the new people have really valuable feedback and things to say and ideas to bring so like It's not all about the people who have been there forever Like really create space and like and let the new people know that you value them because we do And so that's time. Um, definitely if you have any more questions hop into any of the groups We've got sick doc sick sick contra back x and sick security and I'm sure you can find any of us around here Over the rest of the week. Thanks so much for coming. Thank you