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  • Deliberate, Directed, Positive ACTION!

  • Peter Aitken PARISS: Cool.

  • All right.

  • We're back.

  • Have everyone's attention?

  • Me and Peter were back there doing the power pose because we're both nervous when we get

  • up here so.

  • Can we clap on Peter Aitken?

  • [ Applause ] PETER: There we go.

  • How are you all doing, JSConf?

  • My name's Peter Aitken.

  • Today I'm going to be speaking about deliberate, direct positive action.

  • During the day, oops.

  • I'm a slide ahead.

  • I think I'll just start again.

  • So, during the day I work at litmus where we built something called email creative platform.

  • My day job involves looking after a team.

  • We build the app with JavaScript, Rails in an agile fashion.

  • We all work remotely.

  • Currently we're hiring.

  • If you would like toif this sounds interesting, please catch me later.

  • Previously I spent many years organizing Scotland CSS and Scotland JS.

  • And now I focus my community efforts on something called global diversity CFP day which is going

  • to be the focus of our talk today.

  • And what I learned throughputting this together.

  • Just to give you an idea what that is, on a single day we host a load of workshops all

  • around the world with the sole aim of supporting and encouraging people from underrepresented

  • and marginalized groups and putting together their first tech conference proposal.

  • The aim, thereby, being if more people from these groups apply, then you'll see more people

  • with differentcoming from different backgrounds with different experiences and different perspectives

  • and sharing that on stages like this.

  • So, to just I want to introduce some definitions here.

  • Because I get a whole lot of questions around two of the terms in the title of the event

  • name.

  • First up, diversity.

  • What we're talking about here is something that is contextually dependent on your location

  • in the world.

  • Andexcuse meit's usually easier to describe who diversity doesn't apply to.

  • And so, in the western part of the world, the people that make up the majority of the

  • workforce, the privileged group, as I would describe them, are the cis white hetero men

  • like myself.

  • And pretty much if all of those things, cis white, hetero, able bodied, man, if there's

  • any of those that don't apply to an individual, usually diversity refers to that individual.

  • Does that make sense?

  • And there's another question that I get.

  • Or variance of any time I'm involved in a diversity and inclusion initiative.

  • And these questions usually come from someone who presents, like myself, and are along the

  • lines of, can I participate in this event?

  • Because I think diversity applies to me because I work with this really, really obscure database

  • technology.

  • In case you're wondering, folks: No.

  • Next up, we've got the acronym CFP.

  • That stands for call for proposals.

  • This is effectively a process that a tech conference like this would open to encourage

  • the community to come forward to propose topics and share their knowledge and experience.

  • So, who is this talk for?

  • As I mentioned, this is a talk about the things that I've learned through organizing this

  • event.

  • And there's gonna be things that will be useful from a management perspective.

  • If you are bringing a diversity and inclusion initiative, perhaps in the workplace.

  • If you want to be a better member of the tech community, if you organize meetups, if you

  • organize conferences.

  • So, given that all of you are part of the JavaScript community, this talk is very much

  • for you.

  • So, the rough order of service, I suppose, today, is we'll be talking through where did

  • CFP Day come from?

  • What happens during a workshop?

  • What's involved in organizing a workshop?

  • And through that there will be the sort of things that I have learned.

  • So, where did global diversity CFP Day come from?

  • It won't surprise you to discover that this grew out of my experience running conferences.

  • And I think from 2013 to 2015 when the call for proposals process was open for those conferences,

  • to encourage and engage people to apply to speak.

  • I would host a number of, like, videopublic video call sessions.

  • And it was kind of like meet the organizer and some previous speakers.

  • If you have any questions, you know, let's try and address them and encourage you to

  • apply to speak.

  • And by 2015, I had really no idea how many people from those calls were actually applying

  • or making the final lineup.

  • So, was this worthwhile?

  • And in 2015 at the after party, after giving our talk, Katie Fenn and I were chatting at

  • the after party.

  • And Katie mentioned that the video calls that she attended was just the nudge that she needed

  • to finally put together that first talk proposal.

  • And if I remember correctly, Katie, kind of like myself, when it came to trying to

  • or to doing this kind of thing, procassomebody want to say it for me?

  • Procrastination was really getting in the way.

  • So, if we fast forward to 2016.

  • Again, the CFP was open.

  • And I was trying to figure out a way of, you know, these video calls were useful.

  • But how could we amplify that?

  • How could we do something that was more direct, targeted, positive in terms of supporting

  • people from underrepresented and marginalized groups?

  • And that was a good question.

  • And how do we go about answering it?

  • Then three days later I just kind of sat up first thing in the morning and the idea just

  • had kind of came to me in any head.

  • And that was the idea of hosting a diversity CFP workshop.

  • And that was specifically to encourage people to apply to Scotland JS and Scotland CSS.

  • So, this idea of having a workshop, you know, it was like, what was I doing?

  • I already, you know, I've got a full time job.

  • I've got family to look after.

  • And, you know, tend to and spend time with.

  • We've gotwe had two dogs that were running wild.

  • I was organizing two conferences.

  • Let痴 lets run a workshop here, yeah, in a couple of weeks' time.

  • And then I sort of started chatting to people.

  • For instance, Katie, who said, you know, as soon as I shared this idea Katie said, can

  • I run one in Sheffield?

  • I was chatting to a friend in Dublin, oh, we'll run one too.

  • And this kind of snowballed from havingto effectively having a workshop in three

  • weeks' time in Glasgow in Scotland, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Dublin, London and Berlin.

  • I did literally get in touch with Robin from Berlin JS thinking, everybody was saying yes.

  • Just for a laugh, what do you think if we got this to happen in Berlin?

  • And Robin said, yes.

  • So, running those workshops I think it was about 60 people attended.

  • And it had a massive impact on the diversity of applicants to the conferences to speak.

  • And in terms of the lineup, particularly for Scotland JS, it had a massive, massive impact.

  • In terms, 60 people attended these workshops.

  • And there were 17 slots available for that conference.

  • And three people from those workshops were speakers that year.

  • And bear in mind there was like 200 applicants to speak.

  • So, that was justit just validated the idea.

  • But in terms of putting these workshops together, I wanted everybody to have a the attendees

  • at each workshop to get a consistent message and set of advice.

  • And to try to make that happen, I wanted to sort of provide that message.

  • But at the same time, you know, because I didn't want six different groups of people

  • trying to put together their own workshop on really short notice.

  • They're already running about looking for venues and mentors and team members and all

  • this kind of stuff.

  • And so, I thought, how can we sort of make this a whole lot simpler?

  • How can we boil this down to like a conversation?

  • So, I was thinking, could wehow could we make this happen?

  • And I got in touch with Raquel and Sarah Mei and asked, if there any chance that the two

  • of you could make some time to have a chat and share and discuss things like advice around

  • putting together a proposal?

  • What would you put in the title, in the abstract, the description fields?

  • And your experiences of that.

  • The highs and lows of being accepted, being rejected from events.

  • And on the flipside, you know, what's your experience with being in review committees.

  • Knowing that they both had done that kind of thing.

  • Oh, and can you get it to us in the next fortnight, please?

  • Two weeks?

  • And they said yes.

  • What's going on?

  • How can we put this burden on so many people and they just keep on saying yes?

  • And so, with those videos we were able to enable all of the workshops that were actual

  • material to get going a whole lot quicker.

  • And so, enable people is the first thing to call out there.

  • So, the event was, let's see, right about the June time in 2016.

  • And come about August time I had finally sort ofmy brain had reconstituted enough that

  • I'm sure the organizers say that's the same, running these types of events.

  • And given the huge impact we mentioned earlier on Scotland JS, how could wewell, it was

  • more like, there was nothing in the workshop, there was nothing that was JavaScript specific.

  • There was nothing CSS specific.

  • And there wasn't really anything even Scotland specific.

  • It kind of made me feel a little bit sad in that regard.

  • But let's turn the frown upside down.

  • You know, could this concept be shared with all tech communities and support all of the

  • people within those communities?

  • Could this be shared with all tech communities everywhere?

  • Which I still struggle with.

  • Just seems huge.

  • How does this all come to be?

  • So, next up, what happens during a workshop?

  • If you come along to attend a workshop, there's a whole host of people that haveare keen

  • to egg you on and make this happen for you.

  • I've already mentioned Raquel and Sarah giving you CFP advice.

  • Danielle, will help you in crafting your biography.

  • Saran will help you put together your perfect tech talk.

  • Melinda will introduce you to slide design.

  • And Jess will take you through a whole host of things that are gonna happen on the day

  • of your talk and how to handle them.

  • Some tips and thing like that.

  • And the mentors in the workshop will be working with you to help identify what exactly it

  • is that you should be proposing a talk about.

  • And, you know, later on there'll be the opportunity to actually start writing that proposal.

  • And ideally we'll all have prizes if you get that applied to an actual event by the end

  • of the day.

  • Which may be a bit of a challenge and a stretch.

  • Okay.

  • And so, did anybody see Ariba's talk on Monday?

  • [ Applause ] Woohoo!

  • Ariba was talking about bullyingteenagers being bullied and the assumptions that her

  • team had made around trying to support the teenagers.

  • And through talking to the teenagers, they were able to sort of disprove some of those

  • assumptions and get a whole lot of better ideas.

  • So, this totally ties up with my experience at this point.

  • And to talk to people, you don't have all the answers.

  • And in this situation, in this examplewhere is it?

  • There we go.

  • Danielle on the top right there is the CEO of walk talk design.

  • They host a whole series of workshops related to encouraging women to be speaking and trying

  • to elevate and promote them.

  • So, we have very, very similar goals.

  • We were having a chat and Danielle was rapid fire going through all these things that they

  • have basically in their back pocket.

  • And to try to see where the holes were in the CFP Day curriculum.

  • Whether there was anything that we could add.

  • And when it comes to applying to speak, there's two things that you'll need to put together.

  • One being your proposal and the other one being your biography.

  • And, here I had completely forgotten about the biography.

  • That's why Danielle stepped in and put that workshop activity together.

  • Yeah.

  • So, given what you've heard about these workshops, if this is something you feel might be of

  • interest, you might want to dip your toe into the water, there's no commitment necessary.

  • We will be running CFP Day in January 2020.

  • And we have advice from Ramon from his talk as well, just go for it.

  • Next up.

  • What's involved in organizing a workshop?

  • So, the first thing that you need to do before you dive in that this event worldwide is 100%

  • free of charge.

  • We want to ensure that no attendee has to go through any sort of financial barrier that

  • may stop them from participating.

  • These are exactly the type of people we're hoping to support.

  • And also, you know, nobody gains financially in terms of the workshop organizers, the team

  • members, myself.

  • Nobody financially gains from this event.

  • So, what are the actual things that you need to do to bein terms of being an organizer?

  • And this is the sort of list of things that you need to do from a sort of logistical perspective.

  • You need to find a venue.

  • In terms of finding someone to pay for catering, that's kind of optional.

  • But it's really nice if you can take care of that and make that happen.

  • Because, you know, it's gonna keep everybody together in terms of the lunch and that sort

  • of thing.

  • And next up, you need to build an awesome team who share our values and mission.

  • You need to promote your workshop.

  • You're gonna know your location a whole lot better than me back in Scotland.

  • You're gonna know who all the different tech communities are.

  • You're gonna know the best people to reach out to, you're gonna know the best way to

  • get in touch with the communities, Slack, meetup.com, whatever it may be.

  • And finally, code of conduct training.

  • Everybody in your workshop team needs to go through this code of conduct training.

  • Attendees will potentially be bringing you issues to deal with.

  • And it's to you to handle those situations.

  • The idea of training is that you're in the best position possible to handle any eventuality.

  • And I suppose explain to you how we expect you to handle that situation.

  • So, at this point we've got a number of lessons learned.

  • All lined up.

  • First one, don't be shy.

  • And this is all around finding your venue and asking folks to pay for catering.

  • You know, it's like, reach out to companies to borrow their office at the weekend.

  • Andexcuse meideally, everybody, you know, if we look back at the original first

  • six workshops, everybody kept saying yes.

  • So, please, bear that in mind.

  • And, you know, sort of use that as encouragement to reach out if you're looking for sponsorship

  • or space.

  • Another thing to bear in mind is that when you're reaching out to these companies, there's

  • more than likely somebody in there who has like a line item and their list of value goes.

  • And it has empty check box, and it will say something like, support diversity and inclusion.

  • And it maybe possibly will have a check mark after it.

  • Reach out to them.

  • Think of it like this.

  • But maybe not put it in these terms.

  • That, you know, you're helping them by taking up their office space as a venue.

  • By accepting funding for catering.

  • You're enabling them to tick that box when it comes to the end of the year for those

  • in review.

  • You're helping them.

  • Bear that in mind.

  • Ideally, I'm hoping that will encourage you to take these steps forward.

  • Next up, we've got visibility.

  • So, this, again, is very much in relation to your venue.

  • Once you've found a venue and you're going add all the details to the website, there's

  • quite a few questions and the access information section.

  • There's about 35 questions in there.

  • And covering things like, does your venue supportor have gender neutral bathrooms?

  • Does it have a nursing room?

  • Is there a quiet room?

  • Is there parking nearby?

  • Is it well lit?

  • There's quite a lot.

  • So, I'll hold off just there.

  • But the idea is that we're sharing the information about what your venue has available.

  • Ideally, if it's in an office, it's gonna be quite accessible.

  • I doubt that it's gonna support all the things that we've got questions about.

  • But the whole purpose here is to convey to the potential attendees what is available

  • and supported so that they can look at this and decide, does this venue support my access

  • requirements.

  • If it doesn't, ideally then we'll reach out.

  • And hopefully the organizer will be able to do something to remedy that.

  • Which might not be possible.

  • But they can bear it in mind for doing something better that would support people with that

  • particular requirement in an upcoming year.

  • I would like to give a huge shoutout to Aisha Blake who looks after our Detroit workshop

  • and has started a whole community around supporting newbies and public speaking all year round.

  • And from here, the events that she has been previously involved in organizing has a list

  • of access questions.

  • About 20 questions.

  • And passed them over and that was a huge start for getting us going.

  • And we're continually adding to them and be we're continually refining the language to

  • make it as inclusive as possible.

  • Thank you, Aisha.

  • Next up, representation matters.

  • So, this feels like something that shouldn't need called out to organizers.

  • Because really this is what the whole event is about.

  • We want to have more people from different background on the tech stage.

  • And ideally, you know, when people from similar backgrounds who generally up to that point

  • haven't participated in events like this, when they see people like themselves on the

  • speaking lineup, if they're comfortable enough, hopefully they will step forward and start

  • to participate in these communities.

  • As an organizer when putting together your workshop team, please remember, representation

  • matters in your team.

  • There have been cases where there's a group of men, very well intended, making workshops

  • happen.

  • Which is great.

  • However, there arehave been women that have got in touch and said, I'm not gonna

  • participate.

  • If anybody is unsure as to why that might be, catch me later for a chat, okay?

  • Next up, promote autonomy.

  • So, earlier we were talking about enabling workshop organizers by providing as much materials

  • and a schedule to get everybody going.

  • When you're putting together your workshop team, you will be pulling in people that are

  • that have public speaking experience.

  • You will be pulling in people that have gone through these CFP processes and been accepted

  • and rejected.

  • And they will have a whole lot of advice and experience to share around that.

  • If they have time and availability, could they put together a talk or a workshop activity?

  • If they have the time to do that and give the attendees in your workshop something that's

  • even more engaging and memorable as an experience and like an educational experience.

  • You are fully empowered to do that.

  • In terms of the materials we supply, you can use as much, all, as little or none as you

  • see fit.

  • As long as we're all driving towards the same goal.

  • If we've piqued your interest and this is something that you would like to participate

  • in, would you like to organize an event if there isn't one in your area?

  • We will be opening the call for workshop areas and teams between September/October time.

  • We would love to have you.

  • If there are any questions, grab me after this.

  • And if there isn't, if there is already a workshop organizingbeing organized

  • the team's details will be on that workshop page.

  • You will be able to get in touch with them and reach out and offer to join in.

  • And everything has always been very welcome and keen to just bring everybody in.

  • Code of conduct.

  • Let's see.

  • Todaythis section I'm gonna talk about a very specific aspect around the CFP Day

  • code of conduct.

  • So, in 2018, this is what the pageor a section of the page looked like.

  • And at the bottom you see we have the code of conduct team which is myself and Kim.

  • And I suppose the TL;DR, for the purples of this section that you need to be aware of

  • in terms of the code of conduct, is that if there's an tissue that happens within the

  • workshop, ideally the team will be remedying that within the workshop.

  • With one exception.

  • And that's if there's an issue reported with the organizer.

  • In that instance, the reporter should bewhere is it going?

  • See that lovely big orange button there?

  • If the person wanting to report the issue presses that button and sends an email to

  • the team, we then handle that and address the issue with the organizer.

  • And so, there was something I should explain a little bit first.

  • So, there was no incidents of this kind during the event.

  • However, in the latter half of 2018, we received a number of complaints about a small handful

  • of organizers.

  • And I'm not really gonna go into that too much.

  • But it's more about how the people got in touch.

  • So, we put this shared inbox together.

  • And nobody used it.

  • Everybody got in touch privately through Kim's DMs.

  • Which suggested to me that everybody either had some sort of affinity with Kim or trusted

  • her.

  • And in that situation, it was that they trusted Kim and didn't trust me.

  • Or just that they trusted her more than they trusted me.

  • I don't know.

  • And in 2018, we were very much trying to make the team bigger.

  • And more representative.

  • But that didn't quite work out as we'd hoped.

  • Because we're keeping on asking people to do more and more things and adding to people's

  • workload.

  • So, by 2019, we had more people involved and engaged.

  • That picture down at the bottom is right off the bottom of everybody's screen when they

  • come to visit the page.

  • And any issues that we've received since they have come through that shared inbox.

  • So, the thing that I would call out there is that a cisis that as a cis white hetero

  • able bodied man, the most marginalized communities may not trust me.

  • If you're an event organizer, or you're running some sort of initiative in the workplace,

  • please bear in mind that as a cis white hetero able bodied man, the most marginalized in

  • our communities may not trust you.

  • We hear the term "People from underrepresented and marginalized groups" a lot.

  • These two things go hand in hand.

  • What's the difference?

  • White women are underrepresented in tech.

  • They're not marginalized.

  • People of color, particularly women of color are marginalized.

  • Members of the trans community are marginalized.

  • With that in mind, as a cis white hetero able bodied person, the most marginalized in our

  • communities may not trust you.

  • If this is something that you would like to learn more about, I would recommend following

  • Kim Crayton.

  • Kim will be sharing her lived experience online and does.

  • And I would highlyif anything I have said in the last few minutes has made you perhaps

  • uncomfortable, I would suggest just sitting with that rather than having perhaps emotional

  • or defensive reaction to that.

  • And just try and figure out why.

  • And so, Kim shares her perspective and continually makes everybody aware that she will be making

  • you feel uncomfortable by, I suppose, yeah.

  • Sharing her experience as a black woman.

  • I would also like to point you to Julien's talk from Monday.

  • I thought that was an amazing talk.

  • Introducing us to a whole load of scenarios and terminology that we might not have been

  • aware of.

  • If you haven't seen Julien's talk, please catch the video.

  • And so, bearing all of this in mind, there are people who have raised issues and sent

  • them into our shared global code of conduct email account.

  • If I go back just a little bit.

  • What if there's people that haven't got in touch because that picture's on there?

  • We want to support the most marginalized in our communities because we know that they

  • are actively harmed every day in big and small ways.

  • Intentionally and not.

  • And for that reason, I am gonna be stepping out of this team to let the people who have

  • similar lived experiences to the people we are aiming to support handle those.

  • And ideally, just by trying to be transparent and list all the people there, if I'm going

  • to be a barrier to that, I am gonna step out of that.

  • So, the next thing to call outyou hear lots of people with lots of good intentions.

  • There's people writing lots of blog posts about diversity and inclusion in the community

  • and the workplace, in companies.

  • That's lovely.

  • But for change to happen, there needs to be action.

  • If there is no action, good intentions and talk, it just really doesn't count for anything.

  • So, just in summary, it's to give you some stats around the events themselves.

  • In February 2018, we had 53 workshops all around the world supporting over a thousand

  • people who attended.

  • In 2019, we had over 80 well, we had 81 workshops.

  • Over 360 volunteers making this happen for over 2,000 attendees.

  • At this point I would like to ask anybody in the room who is involved in organizing

  • or mentoring or facilitating at one of these events, could you come up and join me, please.

  • Come on, Ramon.

  • And while folks are making their way here, I would like to introduce you to our Boston

  • workshop this year.

  • This is the folks from our workshop in Nablus in Palestine.

  • Glasgow, Scotland.

  • And a very enthusiastic bunch in Johannesburg in South Africa.

  • Whoops.

  • At this point, could you please give all of these people a huge, huge round of applause

  • for making this happen.

  • [ Applause ] And I'm gonna keep you here for a bit longer,

  • sorry.

  • It's just for effect.

  • So, the people that we've not really heard from or talked specifically about are the

  • people who have come through this event and went on to become speakers.

  • And this is just a small group of the people that have done that.

  • And when we look at social media, we hear things when we're talking about diversity

  • and inclusion is we hear things like: Diversity will bring uswill help make our products

  • better.

  • Our teams better.

  • Our events better.

  • By bringing a whole lot of new experiences and, yeah.

  • Experiences and perspectives.

  • But we never really hear of sort of like concrete examples of how that's happened.

  • So, I would like to introduce you to Suz.

  • Suz attended our London workshop this year.

  • About a month later gave a talk which was all about her experience of changing career

  • from working in the metropolitan police force to becoming a programmer.

  • And I know I haven't looked at YouTube, this is the thousands upon thousands of views already.

  • And the thing that I want to say there is that, as a cis white hetero able bodied man,

  • that's not a talk that I could give.

  • I'm sure there's some men that could.

  • And I'm sure there's some that may attempt to bluff their way through it.

  • If that's the case, let's see how you might feel about Benedict's talk.

  • Benedict is at the top right here and she attended our Oslo workshop.

  • Talking about her side project which is a web based privacy first media tracker.

  • This is something that I am in no way qualified to talk about.

  • I'm not even gonna I could not attemptyeah.

  • Thislet's see.

  • Tech has come a long way in the last couple of years in terms of diversity and inclusion.

  • But it has such a long way to go.

  • Our society, our world, to achieve any levelserious level of equality, really needs to

  • change.

  • These are just some of the people taking that step forward a very brave step forward

  • putting themselves out there to make that change happen.

  • They are the real models for the people that come after them.

  • Yes, by becoming a tech speaker, there will be the benefits to each of these people individually.

  • There will be opportunities for travel.

  • There will be better networking opportunities which can lead to, you know, better career

  • opportunities.

  • Yes, it benefits them individually.

  • However, collectively, they are all enriching all of us.

  • And it only seems appropriate for someone who has been through this process to close

  • out this talk.

  • I would like to welcome Ariba Jahan.

  • [ Applause ] ARIBA: Hi.

  • I think some of you might have seen me here yesterday.

  • So, as an immigrant woman of color with a disability who switched careers from biomechanical

  • engineering to product and tech, there's not a lot of rooms where I can just watch in and

  • automatically feel a sense of belonging.

  • But I did at Global CFP Day.

  • When I first became interested or curious about speaking, there weren't many resources

  • available that easily walked through how did people figure this out?

  • Where did they find the opportunity?

  • How did they craft an idea?

  • How did they design a talk?

  • How did they show up on stage?

  • It somehow felt like there was a group of people that just knew how to do all the things.

  • And then there was the rest of us.

  • Andand I think Global CFP Day was the first resource and community that I discovered

  • that felt very accessible and made for people like me.

  • Where it was okay to just not know what to do and know that we could all collectively

  • figure it out together.

  • So, that experience started a journey in mejourney for methat eventually got me to

  • this stage yesterday.

  • That was my first talk.

  • And I couldn't have done it without having that community to show up to feel like, I

  • don't know what I'm doing.

  • But I'm hoping someone can help me.

  • So, if you're in the audience today and you think that you don't have anything to share,

  • I want you to know, someone needs to hear your story.

  • You know?

  • Even if the talk subject has been shared before, your lens and your experience with that has

  • to be shared.

  • So, find your local CFP chapter and learn with them.

  • Thank you.

  • [ Applause ] PETER: Thank you.

  • Thank you.

  • Cheers.

  • [ Applause ]

Deliberate, Directed, Positive ACTION!

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