[OpenStack Foundation] First diversity working group notes

Roland Chan roland at aptira.com
Fri Jun 26 15:12:27 UTC 2015


An ideal result has business hours meetings for everyone on a rotating
basis.

This is probably unrealistic, so rotating meetings that provide business
hours +/- 2 hours for everyone will probably suffice.

I think the vote will provide this capability, but the key point I want to
make is that we need to throw out the thinking that assumes that a popular
vote of the engaged people is going to encourage diversity. It will not.

Matt's email seems to espouse the entirely wrong approach. Do not discard
the contributions of a group because they cannot conform to your arbitrary
choices. Instead make choices that lower barriers or at least equalise them.

Hence: where the popular vote raises barriers to participation, dump the
results. We know what the objective is, it is to promote participation from
diverse groups. Any choice that limits participation is a wrong choice,
particularly for a diversity group.

Whilst I'm making a big fuss about this even when we're likely to get a
good outcome, I'm doing so because I'm seeing attitudes and thinking that
are entirely opposite to the charter of this group. Regardless of whether
these problem are unconsciuous, they need to be challenged and to deploy
and Australianism: we all need to go into the hall of mirrors and take a
good hard look at ourselves.

Having done that, make choices that equalise the cost of participation
across the potential community. Anyone participating in a diversity
community that has trouble with proactive inclusiveness probably need a
longer spelling the hall of mirrors.

Roland

On 26/06/2015 9:41 PM, "Egle Sigler" <egle.sigler at rackspace.com> wrote:

>  Hello Roland,
>
>  While we want to be as inclusive as possible, we need to make we do not
> alienate people that are already participating and voted for best times.
> The times we will select will not be set in stone- they can be reviewed and
> changed as the number of people participating grows and changes.
>
>  Based on the discussion at the last meeting, we will have two meeting
> times: North America oriented time and Asia oriented meeting time. If you
> do not think this is sufficient, please present a proposal that you think
> would be better.
>
>  Thank you,
> Egle
>
>   From: Roland Chan <roland at aptira.com>
> Date: Thursday, June 25, 2015 at 9:15 PM
> To: Egle Sigler <ushnishtha at hotmail.com>
> Cc: "Foundation at lists.openstack.org" <foundation at lists.openstack.org>
> Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] First diversity working group notes
>
>    What about people we miss, or join the community later? Setting up the
> meetings purely on the basis who wants to participate now does not
> necessarily cater for everyone.
>
>  The meetings should be set up to ensure that participants anywhere in
> the world can participate without undue inconvenience. Democracy has the
> potential to be exclusionary in this situation (as it normally is when
> there's a dominant grouping).
>
>     *​*​
> Roland
>
> On 25 June 2015 at 07:20, Egle Sigler <ushnishtha at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  Rather than ignoring poll results I would suggest encouraging people to
>> participate by filling out doodle and then attending the meetings. What is
>> the point of having multiple time options if people do not participate?
>> Please spread awareness of this group and let people know how they can get
>> involved.
>>
>>  Thank you,
>>
>>  Egle
>>
>>
>>
>>  ------------------------------
>> Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 01:18:35 +1000
>> Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] First diversity working group notes
>> From: roland at aptira.com
>> To: carol.l.barrett at intel.com; ushnishtha at hotmail.com
>> CC: foundation at lists.openstack.org
>>
>>
>> I got it.  It looks like the voting will give a reasonable outcome. If it
>> doesn't we'll have to ignore the results.
>>
>> Roland
>>
>> On Thu, 25 Jun 2015 1:12 AM Barrett, Carol L <carol.l.barrett at intel.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Roland – I hope you saw the notes that Egle sent out from the initial
>> team meeting and the follow-up Doodle link I sent to identify times for
>> alternating team meetings that will allow everyone who wants to participate
>> to join in the meetings. If you didn’t get it, pls let me know and I’ll
>> forward it.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Thanks
>> > Carik
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > From: Roland Chan [mailto:roland at aptira.com]
>> > Sent: Friday, June 19, 2015 3:38 PM
>> > To: Egle Sigler
>> > Cc: Foundation at lists.openstack.org
>> >
>> >
>> > Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] First diversity working group notes
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Sorry I couldn't make it. I woke up, turned off my alarm and promptly
>> fell asleep again.
>> >
>> > I notice the only Asian attendees were from Aptira. We're already
>> heavily invested in OpenStack Foundation workings and Kavit and Tristan are
>> used to these overnight meetings (and I clearly have some catching up to
>> do) through their participation in the board, which has similar scheduling.
>> >
>> > I wonder how many people simply didn't bother because of the unfriendly
>> timeslot (4am in Australia, 2am in China).
>> >
>> > I must re-iterate my earlier email: timeslots that are convenient for
>> any single geography are exclusionary. Meetings must be scheduled so that
>> all regions have a reasonable opportunity to participate and
>> discussions/decisions at meetings must remain open until a full cycle of
>> meetings has had a chance to process them.
>> >
>> > I'll also re-iterate a point I made at the last board meeting: taking a
>> poll of people who showed up to something is a really poor way of working
>> out what the general population want or need. The results will only reflect
>> the needs of those who are engaged, whereas the point of the diversity
>> group is to foster engagement from those who may be excluded for some
>> reason.
>> >
>> > Don't make this group an echo chamber.
>> >
>> > Good morning!
>> >
>> > Roland
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On 20/06/2015 5:11 AM, "Egle Sigler" <ushnishtha at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > Thank you everyone for attending today's meeting. We had lots of great
>> discussion, and some concrete action items.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Etherpad: https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/OpenStackDiversity.1
>> >
>> > IRC notes:
>> http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/meetings/diversity_working_group/2015/diversity_working_group.2015-06-19-18.00.html
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Notes from etherpad:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Info on OpenStack IRC: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/IRC
>> >
>> > Web IRC link if you are not using IRC client:
>> http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=openstack-meeting
>> >
>> > Meetbot quick reference guide:
>> http://meetbot.debian.net/Manual.html#user-reference
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Next meeting etherpad:
>> https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/OpenStackDiversity.2
>> >
>> > Minutes:
>> http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/meetings/diversity_working_group/2015/diversity_working_group.2015-06-19-18.00.html
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > The initial meeting for this work group will be: Friday, June 19, 2015
>> at 18:00 UTC, on IRC: #openstack-meeting
>> >
>> > The Agenda is:
>> >
>> > ·         Introductions
>> >
>> > <nikiacosta> Niki Acosta, Cloud Evangelist, Cisco
>> >
>> > jfleet> jfleet Cloud304 EST
>> >
>> >  <imadsousou> Imad Sousou - Intel
>> >
>> >  * kavit Kavit Munshi - Aptira IST
>> >
>> >  <rainya> Rainya Mosher, Product Manager, Rackspace
>> >
>> >  <ninag> Nina Goradia, IBM, CST
>> >
>> >  <ShillaSaebi> OpenStack Operations Engineer, Comcast EDT
>> >
>> >  <AlanClark> Alan Clark SUSE
>> >
>> >  <eglute> Egle Sigler, Principal Architect at Rackspace CST
>> >
>> >  * jbryce works at OpenStack Foundation
>> >
>> >  <arcee2> Val Wanjura, Technical Ops Mgr, Rackspace
>> >
>> >  <gpruessmann> Gerd Pruessmann, Deutsche Telekom AG
>> >
>> >  <lsell> Lauren Sell, OpenStack Foundation
>> >
>> >  <electrocucaracha> Victor Morales - Intel
>> >
>> >  <cmassey> Claire Massey, OpenStack Foundation CST
>> >
>> >  <wznoinsk> Waldemar Znoinski - Intel
>> >
>> >  <TamaraJohnston> Tamara Johnston, EMC Global Services - Cloud PST
>> >
>> >  <barrett> Carol Barrett, Intel
>> >
>> >  <Rockyg> Rocky Grober, Huawei, PDT
>> >
>> > <Mauri> Mauri Whalen - Intel
>> >
>> > <MeganR>         Megan Rossetti - Comcast, EDT
>> >
>> > <vince_> Vince Brunssen - IBM
>> >
>> > <amandap> Amanda Plimpton - SwiftStack PT
>> >
>> > [13:50:49]  <ozstacker> AEST
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > ·         Mission Discussion and definition of Diversity -
>> https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Diversity
>> >
>> > Charter discussion: feedback from Vancouver was that the operational
>> scope was too broad
>> > Possible Definitions
>> >
>> > §  [13:13:47]  <nikiacosta>         diversity - eliminate bias on the
>> basis of age, race, creed, color, sex, national origin, religion, sexual
>> orientation, gender identity, disability, marital status, and socioeconomic
>> status.
>> >
>> > §  [13:13:54]  <rainya>         M-W.com: diversity, noun, : the quality
>> or state of having many different forms, types, ideas, etc. : the state of
>> having people who are different races or who have different cultures in a
>> group or organization
>> >
>> > §  [13:14:54]  <rainya>         for me diversity is really about
>> getting a variety of *thought* more than anything; so that any problem has
>> lots of diferent viewpoints and experiences coloring the outcome;
>> [13:16:04]  <rainya>         and that variety comes from different
>> disciplines (engineers, devs, qa, ux, ops, product managers) as well as
>> cultural and gender backgrounds
>> >
>> > §  Top areas of focus for diversity: GENDER (male to female ratio);
>> GEOGRAPHIC (downloads, contribution, and attendance by country; what
>> countries / regions have low or NO representation?); CULTURE
>> >
>> > §  Other areas of future exploration: religion, age, disability
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Discuss proposal to engage a Consultant/Coach to assist this work group
>> >
>> > ·         Review proposed work plan, gather feedback, and owners
>> >
>> > ·         Next Steps
>> >
>> > ·         Meeting Frequency
>> >
>> > [13:45:09]  <ozstacker>         And next step is have a meeting that is
>> 12 hours different to this one, and include others before deciding on
>> _anything_
>> > [13:48:30]  <barrett>         I wonder if we want to have weekly
>> meetings, given the interest, and alternate them between US/EMEA-friendly
>> and APAC/Japan-friendly?
>> > [13:52:21]  <nikiacosta>         @eglute - hard to meet everyone's
>> needs, but if we had 3 or 4 people in a core group for geographies who
>> could serve as delegates, it might make it easier to get stuff done
>> > [13:52:59]  <eglute>         #action barrett to start 1-2 doodles to
>> find the best times for us to meet?
>> >
>> >
>> > ·         Interest/Need for alternating times to make the meetings
>> globally accessible. Moving forward we’ll use the
>> foundation at lists.openstack.org mail list for work group discussions and
>> meeting communications.
>>
>
>
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