WordPress and problem of diversity with a case study of Artbees [EN] - Maziar Firuzmand

WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018

Ιρανός στην καταγωγή, είναι συνιδρυτής του Artbees, μιας εταιρείας που βασίζεται στο WordPress μαζί με τον αδελφό του και έναν άλλο φίλο στο Ιράν και αντιμετώπισε το πρόβλημα των παγκόσμιων κυρώσεων και εμπάργκο κατά της χώρας του ακριβώς στα όρια του ξεκινήματός του. Έπρεπε να βρουν έναν τρόπο να λύσουν αυτό το αυξανόμενο παγκόσμιο πρόβλημα εντός των ορίων του νόμου και να προχωρήσουν προς τα όνειρά τους. Θα μοιραστεί την ιστορία του για την αντιμετώπιση όλων των προβλημάτων που έχουν επιβληθεί στους πολίτες μιας συγκεκριμένης χώρας από τον εξωτερικό κόσμο και πώς κατόρθωσαν να τα αντιμετωπίσουν επιτυχώς ένα προς ένα και να ιδρύσουν μια νόμιμη και επιτυχημένη επιχείρηση με 30+ μέλη σε όλο τον κόσμο από διαφορετικές φυλές, χώρες και θρησκείες. Στο πρώτο τμήμα της παρουσίασής του θα ορίσει το πρόβλημα της διαφορετικότητας που επηρεάζει τον κόσμο της τεχνολογίας με διάφορες μορφές. Στο δεύτερο μέρος θα υπογραμμίσει τον τρόπο με τον οποίο το WordPress ως μια ανοιχτή κοινότητα τους βοήθησε να αντιμετωπίσουν αυτά τα προβλήματα με επίκεντρο την περιπτωσιολογική μελέτη της εξέλιξης του Artbees και στο τελευταίο τμήμα θα ολοκληρώσει με έναν κατάλογο αρχών και πρακτικών που εναγκαλίζόνται το WordPress και η Automattic για να ενθαρρύνουν την ποικιλομορφία και τον τρόπο με τον οποίο μπορούν να εμπνεύσουν τον κόσμο της τεχνολογίας για την επίλυση του σημερινού προβλήματος της πολυμορφίας.

Being an Iranian, he has co-founded Artbees as a WordPress-based company along with his brother and one other friend in Iran and was faced with the problem of global sanctions and embargoes against his country right in the verge of their startup. They had to find a way to solve this growing global problem within confines of law and move towards their dreams. He is gonna share his story of dealing with all the problems imposed to the citizens of a particular country from outer world and how they managed to successfully address them one by one and make a legal and successful business with 30+ members around the globe from different race, country, and religions. In the first section of his presentation, he will define the problem of diversity affecting the tech world in different forms. In the second part he will delineate how WordPress as an open community helped them address these problem with a focus on case study of the evolution of Artbees and in the last section he will conclude by a list of principles and practices WordPress and Automattic embrace to encourage diversity and how they can inspire the tech world to solve the current problem of diversity.

Transcript

1. WordPress & Problem of Diversity With A Case-Study of Artbees Maziar Firuzmand Co-founder & Product Designer at Artbees WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018
2. Maziar Firuzmand WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Co-founder & Product Designer at Artbees @antialiasfactry
3. What are we not going to talk about today? WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Promote a company or its products
4. What are we going to talk about today? WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 A Contemporary Common Creepy Callous problem!
5. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Diversiwhat?!
6. Otherness WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Let’s talk about first.
7. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Simone de Beauvoir 1 The Second Sex (1975)
8. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Man is the subject, woman is the Other “ ” The Second Sex (1975)
9. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Whereas man’s experience is central and absolute, woman’s is perceived as inessential, alien and negative.
10. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 De Beauvoir believed the Other to be a fundamental category of human thought.
11. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 The human mind bears an innate hostility to other consciousnesses.
12. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Friedrich Hegel 2 Phenomenology of Spirit (1807)
13. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 The Self characterizes anything which is not identical with itself as ‘an inessential, negatively characterized object’.
14. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Jacques Lacan 3 The Ego in Freud’s Theory (1954)
15. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Sometime between the age of 6 and 18 months, the infant is able to recognize its own image in a mirror...
16. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 “That image is me..” https://www.flickr.com/photos/crimfants/
17. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 That is as an external relation.
18. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Thus, the formation of an I concept, the ego occurs.
19. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 where subject becomes object.
20. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 In other words in order for the ego to be a subject, it must internalize a principle of otherness as a consequence of its own desire to be a desiring subject.
21. Self WordPress & Problem of WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Other
22. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Because of the self/other binary all of our knowledge and actions are rooted in some set of interests that cause the subjects of class, gender, ethnicity & race.
23. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Fascism Author: Voice of America: Learning English / 1992 And this is what causes
24. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Gender Inequality https://unsplash.com/photos/eY7ioRbk2sY
25. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Patriarchy https://unsplash.com/photos/eY7ioRbk2sY
26. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 and this.. https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/
27. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 So with ‘Otherness’ defined, what is diversity?
28. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Diversity dismantles the self/other binary and its products. https://unsplash.com/photos/WNXujnXfK7I
29. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Diversity includes everything that we are and that we are not. https://unsplash.com/photos/Tn224epst1E
30. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Gender https://unsplash.com/photos/pMW4jzELQCw Religion Race Age Disability Languages Socio-economic Status Cultural Backgrounds
31. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 A few remarks on WordPress & Diversity
32. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 69 countries Distributed Company 821 employees 84 Languages
33. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 “We see inclusion as the ongoing, conscious effort to celebrate difference and welcome people of differing backgrounds and life experiences, whether they’re current or prospective employees, partners, or users of our software.” From Diversity and Inclusion page Automattic website:
34. “Educate yourself about diversity. Help make accessible and localized products and projects”. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018
35. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 In 2014, Automattic started to work on facilitating spaces for discussions about diversity at Automattic.
36. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Automattic Supports
37. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Andrea Middleton Community organizer on the WordPress Open Source Project “When WordPress events are more diverse, the WordPress project gets more diverse which makes WordPress better for more people.” wordpress.tv
38. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Jill Binder founder & leader of Diversity Outreach Speaker Training Workshop. > Held in 17 cities > 32 have been trained > 53 have expressed interest in 24 countries. jillbinder.com
39. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 WordPress is on the right track pursuing a world without ‘Others’.
40. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 This is more important on the context of 2018 where you see waves of nationalism, ethnic and religious hate and sexualized discourses are creeping across almost all countries in the world.
41. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 What’s missing!?
42. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 An independent diversity team in Make WordPress
43. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Yoast Diversity Fund Program pledges a minimum of €25,000 each year to support diversity of speakers at a given conference. A round of applause!
44. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 How does this all relate to Artbees?
45. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Artbees was founded in 2010 by 3 non-American non- White non-techies!
46. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Icon Designer & Performing Arts Graduate Graphic Designer & Cartoonist Web Developer & Medical School Dropout
47. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 kicked off our work from an abandoned apartment Garage
48. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 We began with massive freebie contribution to Deviantart. Graphic design assets, actions, icons, you name it.
49. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Our contributions quickly gained momentum landing spots in several designs blogs such as. Smashing Magazine.
50. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Our first WordPress attempts were all failed. Rejected one after the other by Themeforest.
51. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 In July 2013 after months of work and barely a pizza a day we could finally submit Jupiter WP to Themeforest.
52. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 and hit the top-sellers chart.
53. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 During years we have been subject to different levels of discrimination and prejudice
54. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 because of factors such as nationality, religion and non-tech backgrounds of its founders.
55. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Nevertheless we survived.
56. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 We grew & thrived.
57. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Jupiter is 5 years old now.
58. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Artbees now has about 120000 users and offices in Turkey, Germany and US.
59. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Our 25 team members are from different countries across the globe. Turkey, Iran, Canada, Russia, Morocco, Columbia, US, Ukraine, India, Philippines & more.
60. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 We have 7 female members from development to support to HR and marketing.
61. Artbees evolved as a product of diversity in a world where diversity is not much tolerated. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018
62. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 A place for people of different colors, genders, religions, tastes & backgrounds
63. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 We emerged in a world where we were ‘Others’ and tried to make a company where ‘Other’ does not exist.
64. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 It’s only Us and We.
65. WordPress & Problem of Diversity | WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018 Thank you!