The Other Side of Empathy - JSConf Budapest

Empathy is a skill that is sorely lacking in the tech industry, as folks tend to care more about code and tools than the people with whom they're working. Empathy is something that can be learned and applied to our everyday work and beyond. This is an intro to encouraging and exemplifying empathy.

This is an iteration on my previous presentation for JSConf Budapest. I've updated it to include more examples from various projects.

Transcript

1. The Other Side of Empathy
2. An Intro to Encouraging & Exemplifying Empathy
4. Who Am I?
5. Who Am I? Nick Hehr Empathetic Community Member Hoodie Maintainer Tessel Team Member ManhattanJS Organizer
7. Why Do I Care?
8. Why Do I Care? I Community
10. Who Should Care?
11. Everybody
13. What Is Empathy?
14. What Is Empathy? Seeing the world through the eyes of someone else.
15. What Is Empathy? The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
16. Where Did The Other Side of Empathy Come From?
17. Where Did It Come From? • Using Twitter • Snap Judgements • Mob Mentality
18. Breakdown
19. Breakdown • Context • Constructive Feedback • Communication • Caring
20. Context
21. The internal and external factors that influence the decisions we make and actions we take.
22. How It Relates • No One is Un-Opinionated • We All Have Biases • Listening is Key • “Why?”
24. Set The Example
25. Example Code Comments
26. “What the heck was I thinking while writing this bit of code?”
27. https://github.com/tessel/t2-cli/blob/ 24fdd7d28c58f5183c900f5f8258dcd76dcc57a0/lib/tessel/
28. Remembering Context • Take A Deep Breath • Clear Your Mind • Ask “Why?” (sincerely) • Listen
29. Constructive Feedback
30. The return of information that helps to develop or improve.
31. How It Relates “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.”
33. How It Relates “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.”
34. How It Relates “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.”
35. How It Relates “If you don’t have anything constructive to say, then don’t say anything at all.”
36. What about negative feedback?
38. Good Feedback > 140 characters
40. • Mutually Agreed Upon • Set Up With Expectations • In An Open Space • Shared With Context Constructive Feedback is…
41. Example Code Reviews
42. It is intended to find and fix mistakes overlooked, improving both the overall quality of software and developers' skills.
43. Encouraging Constructive Feedback
45. https://github.com/atom/atom/blob/master/ CONTRIBUTING.md
46. https://github.com/hoodiehq/hoodie/blob/master/ CONTRIBUTING.md
47. https://help.github.com/articles/creating-an-issue- template-for-your-repository/
48. Communication
49. The successful sharing of ideas and feelings between people.
50. Communication is how we interact with each other.
51. How It Relates • What We Say • How We Say It • Where We Say It
52. “I” Statements For Giving Constructive Feedback For Getting Context
53. “You” Statements For Getting Context For Giving Constructive Feedback
54. Example Switching Platforms
55. How We Communicate • General = Slack • Standups = Hangouts / In-Person • Recorded Discussions = GitHub Issues • Long-Form / Async = Email
56. Creating Communication
60. https://<your-team>.slack.com/ customize/slackbot
61. Caring
62. To provide the needs of something and show interest in it.
63. How It Relates • Sharing • Listening • Understanding
64. How Much Do You Care?
65. Do You Care Enough… • To Write A Blog Post? • To File An Issue? • To Send An Email? • To Record A Screencast? • To Submit A Pull Request?
66. – Yoda “Don’t give in to hate. It leads to the Dark Side.”
67. Example Documentation
68. Documentation Matters • Wikis • Code Comments • Styleguides • Pattern Libraries • README.md
69. Exemplifying Caring
70. http://meow.noopkat.com/the-avrgirl-project-manual- testing/
71. http://meow.noopkat.com/the-avrgirl-project-manual- testing/
72. http://meow.noopkat.com/the-avrgirl-project-manual- testing/
73. Mentoring Matters • Remember Starting Out? • Did You Have A Mentor? • Did You Want A Mentor? • Do You Want To Learn?
74. Be aware of how we care.
75. Contributing • Just Listen For A Day • Apply The Examples • Start Off Small • Remain Open to Sharing
76. “It still sounds like too much work.”
78. By applying empathy to connect with others professionally, we can begin to connect with others personally.
79. Resources
80. http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/practical-empathy/
81. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nonviolent-Communication-Language- Marshall-Rosenberg/dp/1892005034/277-4832642-4055434?
82. http://www.creativityincbook.com
83. http://more-empathy.online
84. https://github.com/HipsterBrown/the-other-side-of- empathy
85. Thank You