How Infectious Are We?

Lightning talk at RailsConf 2015 in Atlanta, GA

Transcript

1. Hsing-Hui Hsu @SoManyHs github.com/Elffers Hi, my name is Hsing-Hui Hsu. I’m SoManyHs on Twitter and wear a metahat. I work at a startup called CareZone and we’re hiring!
2. Hsing-Hui Hsu @SoManyHs github.com/Elffers we’re hiring! Hi, my name is Hsing-Hui Hsu. I’m SoManyHs on Twitter and wear a metahat. I work at a startup called CareZone and we’re hiring!
3. I’m a member of the first cohort of a coding school called ADA Developer’s Academy, based in Seattle. It’s a year long and involves a 6-month internship at a sponsoring company.
4. 6 months Real Devloper™ Everyone in my cohort was able to land a full-time position before the end of the program. So on top of my year at ADA, I’ve now been a Real Developer for about 6 months.
5. I’ve been lucky enough to attend a bunch of conferences in just under a year and a half. I’ve now been to 5 including this one. These conferences range pretty widely in terms of size, and it’s been great to see for the large ones—StrangeLoop, RubyConf, and RailsConf [transition]
6. …provide scholarships for newcomers, not-yet professionals, or folks who might not otherwise have an easy way to get their foot into the scene. And that’s awesome. So, just a show of hands—who here is an opportunity scholar? Who here has been an opportunity scholar in the past?
8. Measles Let’s talk about Measles. Earlier this year there was an uproar about kids who weren’t being vaccinated for measles. The Guardian posted a great visualization for populations with varying degrees of vaccinated members. http://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2015/feb/05/-sp-watch-how-measles-outbreak-spreads- when-kids-get-vaccinated
9. Here’s an example simulation of the likelihood of an outbreak in populations with 10% through over 99% vaccination rates, and the infection rates are as you might expect.
10. But there are edge cases in which populations that should have a higher chance of infection are not infected, and populations with even a 90% vaccination rate are.
11. But HHH, what do measles have to do with RailsConf? But what do measles have to do with RailsConf? It’s a loose analogy that has measurable stats, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the many really excellent talks at this conference, it’s that in order to talk meaningfully about anything…
12. Measure …we need to measure it.
13. 5 conferences 18 months As I mentioned before, I’ve been to 5 conferences in the past 18 months. For the most part I’ve been pretty happy—I love the Ruby community, and my overall experience at conferences has gotten better. But I know this is not true for everyone.
14. A colleague of mine did not have that experience in the 5 conferences she went to over the course of 8 months, and she chose not to attend any conferences this year as a result.
15. “Of course, that encouragement will now always come with the caveat that for [women] it is likely that the experience can be rough, can negatively affect what you understand your role in the dev community to be, or involve a lot more emotional work than anticipated.” — Liz Rush, http://lizmrush.com/conference-recap-2014-speaker-notes/ The TL;DR of Liz’s blog post is basically this quote: That more women should be encouraged to attend and speak at conferences, but with the caveat that it is likely that the experience can be rough, that it can negatively affect what you understand your role in the dev community to be, or involve a lot more emotional work than anticipated. Many, hopefully most of you, out there understand this reality.
16. There are a few people, however, who know about things like the Code of Conduct, but unfortunately, they still pee on the hamster (The hamster is metaphorical). You might be surprised to hear that last night, even here, a colleague of mine was given the advice to “auction herself off” to men to get a job. A little later, another conference attendee whom we did not know made a masturbation joke to both of us. Super awkward. Now, I am not shaming these people [transition title]—I want to help them, and raise awareness about how this situation affects our community as a whole.
17. shaming There are a few people, however, who know about things like the Code of Conduct, but unfortunately, they still pee on the hamster (The hamster is metaphorical). You might be surprised to hear that last night, even here, a colleague of mine was given the advice to “auction herself off” to men to get a job. A little later, another conference attendee whom we did not know made a masturbation joke to both of us. Super awkward. Now, I am not shaming these people [transition title]—I want to help them, and raise awareness about how this situation affects our community as a whole.
18. Because when things like this keep happening, you start to wonder what can be done. So let’s talk about what can be done.
19. 18 opportunity scholars Here at RailsConf, there are 18 opportunity scholars. There were actually enough resources for more scholars, but the problem was actually that there weren’t enough guides. Now, there are over 1500 people here [build title]—so perhaps there can be better ways to promote guide opportunities.
20. 18 opportunity scholars 1500+ attendees < 2% of attendees are scholars Here at RailsConf, there are 18 opportunity scholars. There were actually enough resources for more scholars, but the problem was actually that there weren’t enough guides. Now, there are over 1500 people here [build title]—so perhaps there can be better ways to promote guide opportunities.
21. Opportunity for what? And for who? Because the opportunity is not just theirs, it’s ours. It’s our chance to grow our community in many different ways, as much as it is an opportunity for the scholars — not to just gain technical skills, but to belong. So one thing we can do as conference attendees and organizers is to volunteer for things like this.
22. $ sleep 5 Another quick tip is that if you don’t know someone well or meet someone from a different background than you, pause and think about what you say before you do.
23. MINASWAN In the Ruby community we pride ourselves on a thing called MINASWAN = Matz Is Nice And So We Are Nice. And we are incredibly lucky that some of the leaders in the Ruby community set this kind of example and tone.
24. Throughout this conference, there have been a lot of talks about empathy and engaging our awareness when we interact with other people. As we saw from the measles simulation, if even a few people forget about empathy, it has wide reaching effects. When that happens at a conference or in the industry at large, it means those people who are affected…don’t come back. (Or, you know, die of measles.)
25. Throughout this conference, there have been a lot of talks about empathy and engaging our awareness when we interact with other people. As we saw from the measles simulation, if even a few people forget about empathy, it has wide reaching effects. When that happens at a conference or in the industry at large, it means those people who are affected…don’t come back. (Or, you know, die of measles.)
26. • http://lizmrush.com/conference-recap-2014-speaker-notes/ • http://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2015/feb/05/- sp-watch-how-measles-outbreak-spreads-when-kids-get- vaccinated • http://ncase.me/polygons/ • http://gladwell.com/the-tipping-point/ • http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/551/ good-guys-2015?act=2#play • http://erniemiller.org/2014/12/17/humane-development/ • http://www.dogshaming.com/ Here are a few resources (the most important of which is obviously the dogshaming.com link at the bottom). Many thanks to all the great women I’ve met here at RailsConf and especially my awesome coworker Katy Pedelty for helping me with this talk.
27. Hsing-Hui Hsu @SoManyHs github.com/Elffers