 Get a bigger room. So last year we had a room at seat at 80 and there was still a line out the door And we asked for a bigger room and here we are so please use the app people pay attention to the feedback inside it And it helps improve the conference overall so Once again, everyone. Thank you all for coming this morning We're going to be kicking off the community to everyone with our first presentation from sage sharp on countering imposter Imposter syndrome culture sage. Thank you very much for coming All right. Will you raise your hand if you cannot hear me? Or if you can hear me Okay, cool So I'm going to talk a little bit about how to Counter imposter syndrome culture just for a show of hands. How many people don't know what I mean by imposter syndrome? Okay, cool and for people a live stream will we'll cover it too So imposter syndrome is actually the term was first coined in 1978 It's a bit of a mouthful to break down But basically it is the internal feeling of feeling like you're fake like you're an imposter Even and and feeling like you're not intelligent. You're not creative. You're not competent even though you have evidence of Of high achievement of of being doing smart things of being competent of being creative So those those two pieces are very important that you must also you must feel Like you're an imposter like you're a fake and also have evidence of that high achievement So a lot of people in the room for the people who are watching the live stream There was not very many people that that raised their hand and said they hadn't heard of imposter syndrome before So if you've heard of imposter syndrome, some of you might be going Oh, no, not another imposter syndrome talk because it's been talked a lot about in tech however, this talk is about how our technical and free software culture really creates the feeling of imposter syndrome and what we as Technical people as free software people can do to change the culture that causes imposter syndrome So it's a little bit different One of the things that I want to cover is a bit about why we see especially that Marginalized people that people from groups under represented in free software really feel imposter syndrome they're more likely to feel imposter syndrome and part of that is based on Some of our assumptions So when people who are privileged to Attend a conference who have the financial means who can take time off to attend a conference when they look around They will see a particular majority and the people who are from groups under represented in tech They're not going to see themselves reflected in our community Reflected in the speakers reflected in the people who organize conferences And so part of imposter syndrome is looking around and going do I belong here? I don't know and also the fact that people who are are the part of the majority in free software May assume if they see someone that doesn't look like them that they aren't a real contributor And this is actually true if you start to look at things like American tech companies Because of hiring practices at tech companies if you are a person of color you're not as likely to get a Job as a developer you are much more likely to see people of color in a job like a janitor or Or the cleaning staff or security personnel and that means that privilege folks when they see a person walking through their building In a company who is a person of color? They may assume that that person is not a contributor. They're not a free software contributor. They're not a Technical contributor and that actually leads to people you know this person went to an award ceremony and They were a person of color and a white woman Assumed that they were part of the wait staff at this award ceremony and tried to like hand them her napkin And so if you are a person of color and you constantly receive these signals that say you don't belong here You're going to feel like you don't belong here The other thing is that a lot of times even when we try to get people who are from On groups underrepresented in free software into free software People of privilege white people are much more comfortable in them being a junior in a junior role than them being in a senior role So this is a person that's expressing that when they started to achieve more when they started to People started saying you don't deserve those achievements. You shouldn't talk about those achievements Why are you bragging? Why are you boasting and? part of imposter syndrome is feeling like all your accomplishments are due to luck and So if we tell people especially marginalized people in tech that they shouldn't brag about their accomplishments that they shouldn't boast about them That that's that they don't deserve those then they start feeling like it's just luck the other part of imposter syndrome is Feeling like your failure like you don't deserve What your accomplishments there's also a fear of not being seen as as smart and Feeling like everyone knows more than you Sorry So I personally experience imposter syndrome as a gender minority in tech. I have very high standards for myself But then when someone tries to Thank me for what I've done or talk about my achievements Then I can't internalize their praise and so that's how I experience imposter syndrome if you see Look at someone and you're trying to figure out whether they experience a posture syndrome often It shows up as them looking like they're humble or maybe they have low self-esteem or they're like a real perfectionist a lot of times people who have imposter syndrome because they have very high standards for themselves and They're afraid of being seen as a failure. They will often really polish their work before they submit it You'll see it has to be perfect Before they can contribute it They may downplay their accomplishments like if they're They may say things like I'm not a real developer. I'm not a real speaker Even though they do develop code and they do speak and if you You know, thank them for their work often times what you'll see is that they will say Yeah, but and start to criticize their work and so you may see them Tear down their own work when they're thanked for it The other thing that you may see is that they may be hesitant to ask questions in public and part of free software is Contributing in public is asking questions in public and so But because they're afraid to be seen as not smart they're hesitant to ask questions in public Which brings me to the next point. Why would you be hesitant to ask questions in free software? This is one of the myths that will tear down in this talk and Some of it is is some of our free software culture telling people RT FM. Go Google it Well, everyone knows this or even you know Pretending to be surprised when someone says that they don't know about something feigning surprise All of these singles tell people I shouldn't ask that question. I should you know hide that I don't know about this the other thing is that the basis of Free software technical writing Can also lead to imposter syndrome So I recently had someone actually is back in November someone submitted a pull request to my Repository, which is a jangle website and this wasn't a pull request that I wanted It wasn't an issue that was open They just submitted it and it turned out they were a technical writing student at a university and they were submitting pull requests to To projects to try to get some experience in and doing their technical writing and Their change log for their pull request was very interesting and I've highlighted specific words that I want you to think about The words that they're the stuff that they're trying to remove are they they're trying to remove? Ambiguity, they're trying to remove language that sounds unsure They're trying to make it more formal and clear and authoritative and That's exactly opposite of what we want for people to ask questions If we are encouraging people to ask questions, but we can't admit to ourselves When we're unsure when we're unsure of how our project works or whether it works correctly if We can't give up some of that authority to To be honest about when something might not work, right? Then we are perpetuating this myth of everyone is perfect the software is perfect and no one should ask questions If technical language basically turns us all into frauds We don't admit when our project is hard to use When's the last time you are reading through documentation and someone said this might take a while this part of the UI? Might be confusing to you. I'm sorry People don't admit those kind of things but if you're working with free software and you are running into trouble and The documentation doesn't admit that this might be a troublesome spot in your software You can internalize that it's your fault That you're stuck We we often when we submit our contributions. We're trying to get them in We're trying to make sure that they're right and convince the other person that they're right, but we don't admit Hey, this part of the code. I wrote at 1 a.m. Like this might not be correct, but it works for me We don't admit when our contributions could need a little bit more polish because we want to get them in we there's also a culture around in free software of you know trying to keep up with the latest trends Trying to understand the latest technologies and oftentimes we don't admit when we're not a subject expert We will just not along with someone else that's talking about something that we don't really understand We don't feel comfortable asking questions And if we don't feel comfortable asking questions, then we're also perpetuating imposter syndrome and others Because basically if we if we're not honest in our documentation about what works Where we're where we're unsure our code works We are making people feel Like when that when they're confused. It's their fault. It's a lie that we tell new comers to open source Because we don't want our project to be seen as less than perfect So the solution is to actually model when you're uncertain If you're unsure of how to make a technical decision if both pass or you know equally confused using or You know equally Find either way Model that say I don't know how to do this. This is something. I'm just picking one If you think that your contribution might be incorrect or that some of the code might be buggy Be honest about that, you know say I don't know if this part of the code works. I've tried it I've written some tests, but I'm still not sure if it's completely correct If you are writing some documentation for your free software project And there is a part of it that is hard to understand or hard to use be honest about that Because when someone finds a problem runs into a problem then that documentation may help them And if you don't understand a technical word or technical concept Please like speak up You can normalize asking questions You know you can do things like in your documentation Trying to make sure that there's a help form for folks to to try to get help if they have questions and I'm really if that's in that troublesome spot saying hey if you if you need help ask here Actually having people to answer questions about your software project is useful having a welcome committee And that it's Sometimes it's as simple as just changing how you phrase the question So if you're working with another peer you're maybe doing a peer review ask what questions do you have? Rather than do you have any questions because if you ask do you have any questions? Then that their instinctual answer is going to be no because they don't want their they're afraid to ask questions But if you ask what questions do you have that shows you're expecting questions that you're expecting feedback from folks the second part of imposter syndrome is that a lot of people who experience imposter syndrome feel the need to Not brag about their accomplishments. Sometimes they might feel like they're a failure and so they're more Humble about their accomplishments than others Oftentimes when people who experience imposter syndrome are thanked there's this reflex of This person thinks that I've so for example if someone came out to me and said afterwards and said thanks. That was a great talk You're a great speaker. I would as a person who has imposter syndrome think well this person thinks I'm awesome But like if they really knew how I struggled and how this morning I added my slides And it's still really not clear for English speakers non English speakers and and and and I can tear down my talk a lot and part of that is because Because of how things are worth it and These are hacks that I have learned myself that I've taught the people around me of how to get around my imposter syndrome And I'll teach you So when you're giving praise to someone instead of just saying thank you focus on your feelings say I Appreciate your talk. I found your talk insightful I felt Really excited about your talk because your feelings of excitement of joy of inspiration at my talk I can't argue with those I Can argue you down about how good a talk it is, but if you say you were excited about my talk I can't argue with your feelings The other part of imposter syndrome is that for people who experience imposter syndrome It often seems like everyone else does things effortlessly that it just shows up that it's just perfect and some of that is Because of how we praise people's characteristics So we pray tend to praise people's static characteristics We say a person is smart or intelligent now Someone doesn't really become unsmart the next day. It's it's smart is something that's sticky smart is something that lasts a long time and So these are static characteristics. These are characteristics that we we tend to think stick with people people don't Say, oh, you're a good developer one day, and you're a horrible developer the next day People don't change their mind about how great a talk is but these These particular static characteristics can actually trigger a flood of doubt and people who have imposter syndrome and that's because the impact of praising them is If you if someone completes a task quickly and and then you say, oh, you're so smart because you completed the task quickly The next time the person tries to complete another task and they complete it more slowly Then they'll think Maybe I'm not smart and that's because you're praising the static characteristic of being smart versus the effort that someone puts into something and This leads to people hiding when they're struggling So instead of praising static characteristics like a person is smart a person is good a person is great Praise how much effort they put into things, you know, how much time they spent researching things how much they you know read your Contribution guidelines and really try to make sure that it was up to your up to those guidelines The time they spent making good commit messages Documentation The time they spent trying to reach out to get help and review and feedback We often pretend that open source and free software contributions are effortless We all we see is a get commit message with the perfect commit and the perfect code We don't see all of those drafts that went back and forth in the discussion and so part of What we can do is to actually reference those if you've got You know a contribution that has gone through a lot of references even just adding a link to the discussion of Those references the the previous patch sets That acknowledges that the code didn't land perfect it went through several iterations of your contribution before It got in The other things you can do are things like credit the people you learn from if someone says, you know, hey you Really write good commit messages and you could say yeah, I really learned from this other person over here And maybe you could learn from them too Acknowledging that the effort of learning the effort of acquiring a skill takes time This is the kinds of things that can help People who have imposter syndrome so to wrap up Just some some smaller tips for for summarizing this For my first challenge to you is to think about When do you see a random person walking down the street? Do you assume they could be a free software contributor? Assume everyone could be a free software contributor Don't let your unconscious bias Limit you there think about it really try to work on it The other thing I would challenge you to do is to model when you're uncertain in your technical decisions in in the different contributions you make and really try to document when your project is hard to use Let leave people those little breadcrumbs that yes, maybe they won't be the only one that's struggling with this particular topic and my the just simple language changes like asking what questions do you have Versus do you have any questions? And talking about trying to praise the effort that someone puts into contributing and not static characteristics like smart or intelligent And really acknowledging how long it takes to do a contribution how long How much effort you have to put into it and if you're thanking someone Using I appreciate or I feel rather than thank you can can help people get over that So I think I have a little bit of time for questions. How are we doing on time? Okay, oh, and I would also like to Acknowledge that this talk took I said 25 hours, but it's really closer to 30 and five months of like these ideas Noodling around in my head So I just want to acknowledge the effort that I put into this talk All right, so questions Or do we have a mic? So from your experience how often do you meet someone with imposter syndrome like if I'm part of an open source project How often am I to expect? Okay, this might be it so From my experience is a little different because I help run The outreach the internship program and we're all about trying to improve diversity and open source So I work with a lot of people from groups underrepresented in tech And I would say at least 80% of those have imposter syndrome So it really depends It also depends on like your your your community makeup Hi, I mean, I think that that you can really look at some of those signs the external signs I talked about of like people being perfectionist and And and also having had achievement but also like tearing their achievements down and like and start to look at those and figure out Yeah, just first of all want to say thank you. I appreciated your lecture. I found it quite interesting. I Recognize a lot of stuff in myself in it One of the things I find is when my imposter syndrome strikes and I can't reach that level of perfection is because sometimes You have to incorporate other people's Efforts that kind of immobilizes me Have you found any smart hacks for getting around to immobilizing factor that comes with imposter syndrome? right so So there have been times when I'm I'm like I Don't I can't get something to the point that I really want it to be apps And what I have to do is I have to convince myself. I I need others input to improve This is a draft and I just have to keep telling myself. This is a draft. I'm going to improve it And I'm going to get feedback. So for example for this talk I expect I'm probably going to give this talk at another Venue and so I'm like, okay. This is the first draft. I just have to do it So that was that was how I I don't know if that helps I I very much enjoyed your talk I I have been thinking about How to kind of introduce new people and for a long time I have just said like do it verbosely But it occurs to me that that could probably also use some improvement like, you know, it's like it's not enough like Oh, this is my friend Sally who? You know is working on media goblin like but I could probably do a little more and I wonder if you had any thoughts on that Yeah, I think I I have actually had my imposter syndrome triggered by people like introducing me as like hey This is sage and they were a great Linux kernel developer and did this thing And I and I think that there's that we we still want to like Acknowledge the work that people do and and talk about that But I think that there is a way I'm trying to think that there's a way we can turn that around You can talk about the number of years that they've contributed to that you can say they did this great feature I Feel like there are ways we can talk about people's effort people's work without adding those static characteristics to it, so Yeah, thank you so much how creating a Thank you culture helps people like that. And do you have any concrete advice to create this kind of praise? environment I I think so I I think there's a couple things The the recurse center has some very good social rules One of the social rules is don't feign surprise Don't pretend to be surprised when someone doesn't know something and I think that really created a culture where people could ask questions Another thing that they did at recurse center when I was there was they had daily stand-ups where people just said Hey, this is what I'm working on and that allowed people to be like and I'm also stuck on this, right? And so that helped for the for the praise part what I've tried to do is I Have tried to praise the people that do the most Unenjoyable things so like when someone that submits a bug to my my project I'm like, thank you so much for like finding this bug I'm I'm so glad that you you know were able to help me notice this because this is something. I didn't notice, right? And I think that there is also a way to thank someone for their contributions without like talking about the perfectionism of it but saying like Especially when someone submits a draft of saying like I can really you know I can tell that you you know put a lot of effort into like this part You know, I think that this part couldn't use a little bit more polish, but basically like balancing it out, right? Yeah, okay. We have time for two more questions. So I'm gonna start here Just want to say and this really resonates with myself And so I'm very very grateful for such a great subject So my question kind of falls on the previous and where let's say we have a community of hundreds thousands How do we break that down because I assume there's lots and lots of imposter syndrome people in that Section, how do we break it down to encourage them to take that first step? So for example would be set up events where this isolated event The disclaimer would be everyone is welcome. There's no Limitations, there's no restrictions on what you can provide. Do you have any suggestions of any other way of trying to? Isolate and get them more involved, right? I think that I think that especially when it comes to events People who have imposter syndrome are afraid to speak Because they they feel like they don't first of all have the experience to do so but even if they do