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
   

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2. An Intro to
   Encouraging & Exemplifying
   Empathy
   

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4. Who Am I?
   

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5. Who Am I?
   Nick Hehr
   Empathetic Community Member
   Hoodie Maintainer
   Tessel Team Member
   ManhattanJS Organizer
   

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7. Why Do I Care?
   

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8. Why Do I Care?
   I Community
   

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10. Who Should Care?
    

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11. Everybody
    

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13. What Is Empathy?
    

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14. What Is Empathy?
    Seeing the world through
    the eyes of someone else.
    

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15. What Is Empathy?
    The ability to understand and share
    the feelings of another.
    

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16. Where Did
    The Other Side of Empathy
    Come From?
    

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17. Where Did It Come From?
    • Using Twitter
    • Snap Judgements
    • Mob Mentality
    

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18. Breakdown
    

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19. Breakdown
    • Context
    • Constructive Feedback
    • Communication
    • Caring
    

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20. Context
    

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21. The internal and external factors that
    influence the decisions we make
    and actions we take.
    

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22. How It Relates
    • No One is Un-Opinionated
    • We All Have Biases
    • Listening is Key
    • “Why?”
    

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24. Set The Example
    

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25. Example
    Code Comments
    

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26. “What the heck was I thinking while writing
    this bit of code?”
    

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27. https://github.com/tessel/t2-cli/blob/
    24fdd7d28c58f5183c900f5f8258dcd76dcc57a0/lib/tessel/
    

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28. Remembering Context
    • Take A Deep Breath
    • Clear Your Mind
    • Ask “Why?” (sincerely)
    • Listen
    

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29. Constructive Feedback
    

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30. The return of information that
    helps to develop or improve.
    

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31. How It Relates
    “If you don’t have anything nice to say,
    then don’t say anything at all.”
    

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33. How It Relates
    “If you don’t have anything nice to say,
    then don’t say anything at all.”
    

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34. How It Relates
    “If you don’t have anything nice to say,
    then don’t say anything at all.”
    

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35. How It Relates
    “If you don’t have anything constructive
    to say, then don’t say anything at all.”
    

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36. What about negative feedback?
    

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38. Good Feedback > 140 characters
    

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40. • Mutually Agreed Upon
    • Set Up With Expectations
    • In An Open Space
    • Shared With Context
    Constructive Feedback is…
    

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41. Example
    Code Reviews
    

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42. It is intended to find and fix mistakes overlooked,
    improving both the overall quality of software
    and developers' skills.
    

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43. Encouraging
    Constructive Feedback
    

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45. https://github.com/atom/atom/blob/master/
    CONTRIBUTING.md
    

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46. https://github.com/hoodiehq/hoodie/blob/master/
    CONTRIBUTING.md
    

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47. https://help.github.com/articles/creating-an-issue-
    template-for-your-repository/
    

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48. Communication
    

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49. The successful sharing of
    ideas and feelings between people.
    

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50. Communication is how we interact
    with each other.
    

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51. How It Relates
    • What We Say
    • How We Say It
    • Where We Say It
    

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52. “I” Statements
    For Giving Constructive Feedback
    For Getting Context
    

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53. “You” Statements
    For Getting Context
    For Giving Constructive Feedback
    

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54. Example
    Switching Platforms
    

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55. How We Communicate
    • General = Slack
    • Standups = Hangouts / In-Person
    • Recorded Discussions = GitHub Issues
    • Long-Form / Async = Email
    

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56. Creating
    Communication
    

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60. https://.slack.com/
    customize/slackbot
    

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61. Caring
    

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62. To provide the needs of something
    and show interest in it.
    

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63. How It Relates
    • Sharing
    • Listening
    • Understanding
    

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64. How Much Do You Care?
    

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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?
    

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66. – Yoda
    “Don’t give in to hate. It leads to the Dark Side.”
    

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67. Example
    Documentation
    

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68. Documentation Matters
    • Wikis
    • Code Comments
    • Styleguides
    • Pattern Libraries
    • README.md
    

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69. Exemplifying Caring
    

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70. http://meow.noopkat.com/the-avrgirl-project-manual-
    testing/
    

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71. http://meow.noopkat.com/the-avrgirl-project-manual-
    testing/
    

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72. http://meow.noopkat.com/the-avrgirl-project-manual-
    testing/
    

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73. Mentoring Matters
    • Remember Starting Out?
    • Did You Have A Mentor?
    • Did You Want A Mentor?
    • Do You Want To Learn?
    

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74. Be aware of how we care.
    

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75. Contributing
    • Just Listen For A Day
    • Apply The Examples
    • Start Off Small
    • Remain Open to Sharing
    

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76. “It still sounds like too much work.”
    

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78. By applying empathy
    to connect with others professionally,
    we can begin
    to connect with others personally.
    

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79. Resources
    

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80. http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/practical-empathy/
    

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81. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nonviolent-Communication-Language-
    Marshall-Rosenberg/dp/1892005034/277-4832642-4055434?
    

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82. http://www.creativityincbook.com
    

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83. http://more-empathy.online
    

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84. https://github.com/HipsterBrown/the-other-side-of-
    empathy
    

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85. Thank You
    

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