GitHub Universe 2017 - Featured Sessions, 25 Oct 2017

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From YouTube: Building Inclusion From The Inside Out - GitHub Universe 2017

Description

Hear from GitHub’s VP of EEE, Merritt Q. Anderson who will talk about how embedding inclusion and belonging into company culture improves the GitHub experience—both for employees and users. GitHub’s Jared Jones will introduce GitHub’s inaugural employee resource group (ERG), the blacktocats and application engineer, Danielle Leong, will discuss the work our community and safety team is doing to build inclusion into our platform.

About GitHub Universe:
GitHub Universe is a two-day conference dedicated to the creativity and curiosity of the largest software community in the world. Sessions cover topics from team culture to open source software across industries and technologies.

For more information on GitHub Universe, check the website:
https://githubuniverse.com

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♪ (music) ♪.

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My gosh! hello, universe!

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(audience cheering) oh,, my gosh! energy is amazing.

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hello,. My name is merritt quisumbing anderson,.

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And I have the distinct privilege of being a leader here at github.

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But, before I was a leader,, I was a hubber since 2014.

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I am beyond proud to be a part of this company.

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And to stand on this stage representing it.

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As a vp of employee experience, & engagement,.

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The concept of bringing your whole self to work.

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Is challengeable and very real to me.

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I was three months pregnant when I accepted the offer to join github's legal team.

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And saying that I was apprehensive is putting it mildly.

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I was apprehensive because I was unsure that what I brought to the table.

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Was going to be enough, enough to overcome what I perceived to be the barrier of needing to ask for maternity leave in three short months.

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I was leaving behind a comfortable, established career at kaiser, permanente.

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To join a 200-person, highly technical, company.

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I had no prior experience in tech,.

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Had no clue what a contribution graph was,.

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And didn't have any idea about the sheer power of the open source community.

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What I did know about github, then, is the same thing that I know today,.

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And that it's an incredible,, very special place.

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Special because it not only embraces,.

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But encourages the whimsy, the delight.

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A place where something that seems harebrained and unimaginable,.

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The well-thought-out and written well becomes real.

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Despite what I know now to be impostor syndrome at the time,.

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I wanted to be a part of all of it.

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And I'm so happy that I took the leap into what was totally unknown,.

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To realize that I absolutely belong here.

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I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to be with you all and to give you a glimpse into what we're doing inside of github, with our employees and our platform,.

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To create a culture of belonging.

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Our goal at github,, which I'm sure you've heard,, is to be the place where the world goes to code,.

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Where developers go to hone their skills, and where new developers are born.

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Whether you've just contributed your first line of code,.

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Or this is how you earn your living., whether it's a side hustle or a weekend, hobby,.

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Or you just attended your first hackathon,.

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We want github to be the platform where you can build, learn,, create,, explore, and grow.

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We take great pride in our platform, and recognize that we are in an incredibly unique position,.

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To not only set the standard but accelerate what inclusion should and must look like in software.

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(Applause), it is no secret that software needs to be more inclusive.

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Demographics are shifting in the world and we must be more aware and agile as we build,.

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Realizing that, in order to be the very best and most inclusive platform,.

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Serving developers all over the world,.

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We must first be the best,, most inclusive, workplace and workforce.

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Right here at home., our intention and our journey on both of these fronts has never been more aligned..

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We believe that diversity of experience,, background, and identity,.

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Not only makes us better colleagues to one another,.

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But amplifies our spirit, that spirit of innovation.

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That is so core to github, to make sure that our platform reflects it.

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We're empowering our employees to create, to tinker, to develop.

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And bring inspiration to the platform., we want everyone to not only feel welcome,.

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But had a strong sense of belonging on github.

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So, with that at the top of our mind, and in the way that github does, we went out and created a new function., it's called employee experience, & engagement.

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This is our purpose, and I'll. Let you all look at the words here.

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It's how we work, and it's how we weave it in everything that we do.

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Employee experience &, engagement-- or eee, as we like to call it--.

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Exists to focus on the experience of our employees,.

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Or our "hubbers", as we lovingly call ourselves.

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We are embedding belonging into all dimensions of our team's thinking and output,.

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From how we construct the spaces that we work, in,.

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To the learning and development programs, we design;.

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From how we communicate across miles and borders,.

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To how we foster organic support, systems,.

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So that we can all connect with each other in meaningful, ways.

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There is nothing that I want more than for every employee to wake up, in the morning or at night,. Whatever is good for you,.

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And do the very best work of their lives, work that gives them not only purpose,, but that sets the standard of excellence in the software industry,.

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And enables them to make impactful change.

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To who and what creates the future of technology.

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Say hello to the eee organization.

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It's an intentional coming together of established teams,.

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Learning and development and workplace operations, with newly forming teams,, hubber, experience,, employee, advocacy, and diversity, and inclusion, and belonging..

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It's brought under one umbrella so that we can intentionally amplify our commitment to belonging.

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And create the best employee experience possible.

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Learning & development is an amazing team.

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They're passionate about creating meaningful connections.

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While building a community of continuous learning.

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Designed and facilitated by our team, manager learning labs helped to support our leaders of tomorrow,.

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To help them build the skills necessary to lead our growing teams.

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And to support one another, to put them into practice,.

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To make them actionable.

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we've also partnered, with everwise, to provide mentorship opportunities,, both inside and outside of github,.

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And we're really proud that we've been able to create a learning portal for curated resources.

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And sharing, though, our partnership with degree.

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We recognize that most learning happens organically on the job,.

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As well, it should., but we also want to provide hubbers with the pathway, to learn.

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What and how they want to.

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and we're able to do this with our annual l&d benefit statement.

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≫From, the minute one decides to become a hubber,.

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We want those inspirational pillars of support to build them up.

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To do the best work of their lives,, whether it's onboarding, new hubbers, or helping bring brilliant students from all backgrounds.

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Into tech, through our internship program., we always want to leave them at the end of the day. Saying,.

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"I want 100% made the right choice in joining github.".

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Welcoming new employees into github is really important,.

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But it's equally as important to show our present and our future hubbers the love through our rewards program,, celebrating major milestones,, both in work and life,.

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Whether it's shipping, a big project, or welcoming a new "octokitten" into the family.

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The magic ignited on day, one should never stop.

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The hubber experience team harnesses its passion.

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And its enthusiasm for our employees, and to creating experiences in programs.

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That recognize, empathize with,.

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Support and celebrate all of us.

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In doing this,, we are far bigger than ourselves,.

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Far bigger than our individual selves, and become a connected community of belonging.

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I'm so excited to see what this team is going to bring us.

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Our workplace operations team has been at the forefront of our scale and our growth, from home offices all over the world, to co-working spaces. In burgeoning cities like atlanta and new york,.

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To our offices in boulder,, amsterdam, and tokyo,.

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And our headquarters here in san francisco., they are masters of brick and mortar, of design,, of architecture, and of ensuring that all of our spaces are warm,. Welcoming,.

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Consistent, and enhance the overall employee experience.

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I love that our new office space in sf was designed in the true github fashion,.

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Collaboratively, and with the lens of inclusion,.

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Inclusion of thought,, of ideas, and of a growing workforce.

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That is increasingly a reflection of the backgrounds from which we come,.

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And the communities of which we operate, in.

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We have gender-inclusive bathrooms, and dedicated spaces throughout.

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That foster organic connection and conversation.

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We also know a little bit about the pace of growth that has started up, of the burnout that is so real for so many,.

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And that oftentimes we just need to press "pause.".

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So, with that in mind,, we designed and constructed a prayer and meditation room.

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For reflection, for spiritual, fulfillment, and quiet.

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In these spaces,, we hope that hubbers can think, refresh,.

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And go back to their big ideas.

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How many of you have ever had somebody speak up for you,.

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Or you have spoken up on behalf of someone else?

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how many of you have ever had something happen in your life,.

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And in hindsight you really wished that you'd had an additional pair of ears.

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To help you navigate through it?.

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That is what the employee advocate is,, and I am personally so proud to serve in this capacity at github..

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The employee experience is multi-layered,, it's complex and it's very dynamic.

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As the advocate, I'm one of the many layers,.

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An additional channel,, an open space for feedback,.

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And complimentary,, I should say, to my incredible colleagues in hr,.

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Whether it's about decision making, or ensuring that an element of identity is considered,.

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Hubbers have a [sounding] board and a thought partner.

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To ensure they are heard,, engaged, and aligned.

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With how we're making decisions at the company, and that they're aligned with our values and our business objectives.

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This function is a work in progress.

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we're shaping it, literally, as the needs of our employees. Arise.

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But there's one thing: that's really clear to me, crystal clear really, and that is, this role is critical to our future success.

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It's critical to our success because it embodies and amplifies the voice of our people,.

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The people that work daily to build and foster.

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An inclusive, github, experience.

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Finally, think of a time when you really didn't know.

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If you belonged somewhere., it may have been on the playground on your first day at school, when you didn't know who to play with.

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Maybe you walked into a room and questioned why you were the only one.

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The only one that was the introvert,, the only person with a visible disability,.

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The only woman,, the only person of color.

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Now, think about a time when you felt that you were absolutely in the right place from go.

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No question that you belonged, no question.

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No question that you were in a place where you could thrive,.

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Where you felt the support;, it was oozing out of the people around you, that you knew you were going to be challenged,. You were working on cool things,. The opportunities were rich,.

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And you knew that you were going to be able to grow.

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That's what we're creating right here at github,, both in our offices and on our platform.

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We believe- and we have seen that when people can show up, bring their whole self to work,.

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And contribute their best work,.

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We all benefit.

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we're integrating inclusion and belonging into how we work together,.

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How we build our product and how we grow our communities.

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But real talk,, we don't always get it right, we don't.

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We don't have it all figured out.

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We want to do it well,, and it is that commitment to do it well,.

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And knowing that we all come to this from a different place,.

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From a different depth of understanding,,.

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And from different experiences.

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But doing it well means that we must be committed.

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To having conversations that are not always going to be comfortable,.

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To acknowledging when we miss the mark- and we know that we're going to.

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But, in the spirit of github, to iterating, to ensure that we're making good on the promise,.

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And that's the promise of diversity, inclusion, and belonging,.

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On github,, at github, and in the tech ecosystem.

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(Laughing) I'll take a clap. (applause) oh,, my goodness., because we really do know the costs. If we don't,- and we know the endless potential, if we do it and get this right.

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So the opportunity is now..

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We can set the universe all standard for the software industry.

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So let us all, together, go forth and focus on the employee, experience,.

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Focus on engagement, on really making sure that people feel like they're included in the conversation,.

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And that they belong here, in our internal communities, in our products.

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And on our platforms, and,, as I said, in the entire tech ecosystem.

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Next,, I'm honored to introduce you to two of our hubbers.

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Who are infusing inclusion and belonging into their day-to-day.?.

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First, you'll hear from jared jones, who will share the story of our inaugural employee resource group,.

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The blacktocats. and then you'll hear from software engineer, danielle leong, about how we're building inclusion into our product.

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For us here at github,, diversity,, inclusion, and belonging,.

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If you can take one thing: away,, it's that this is more than just a numbers: game.

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This is about how we're building our product with all of our communities in mind., the open source community hails from across the globe,.

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And we need to reflect this both within our walls.

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And on our platform.

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So, before I welcome jared to the stage,, I also want to share that. We've opened a gofundme page.

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Is support of those affected by the fires to the north of us.

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Please check the monitors around the venue over the next few days.

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For more information about how you can participate and contribute.

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Thank you all for your time, and please help me in welcoming jared jones to the stage.

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(applause and cheering) ♪ (music) ♪.

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Good afternoon, universe!, my name is jared jones,, I'm a business developer manager at github,, but I'm also a proud member of github's. First ever employee resource group,, the blacktocats. (cheering and applause).

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Hopefully, by now,, you know about most of the awesome things we're building here at github., but we're also building something. That's incredibly important to our future:.

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A diverse and inclusive workplace.

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that work ties directly into the blacktocats' purpose:.

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To attract and empower black lives in tech.

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Before the blacktocats existed in 2016,, github published its first ever diversity report.

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In that report, 2% of hubbers identified as black were african american.

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Shortly after that,, a few self-organized, motivated hubbers decided.

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We were more than just black employees.

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With the help and support of a few-- actually,, quite a few employees at github,, including our executive staff,,.

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We came together, and the blacktocats were formed.

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Now,, we still have a lot of work to do,.

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But I'm proud to say that in 2017, github has doubled its percentage of black employees, from 2% to 4%, and I'm even more proud to say that the blacktocats directly contributed to that success..

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Now, as blacktocats,, our work is really focused on four primary areas:.

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We're supporting github to attract and find the best black talent;.

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We're promoting blacktocat leaderships at all levels within github;.

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And we're facilitating the black community to come together.

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And participate in open source development and software development, projects;.

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And we're building internal systems here at github to help connect the external world to our positive work.

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Today,, the blacktocats are 26 members, strong.

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We are from ten different states, and we even have two international blacktocats.

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Since many of us are so far apart,, it's always really special when we have the chance to come together in person.

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Last night, we got to do just that.

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at github hq,. We got to come together with some of our black tech contemporaries..

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We heard from lo tony of gv about what he's investing in outside of tech.

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And we heard from a panel about some of the most pressing and important issues.

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That are facing our industry today., and we learned how we could collaborate together to start to change the narrative.

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Now,, the blacktocats are extremely geographically diverse,.

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But we're also solving an incredibly broad set of problems here at github.

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We're deeply embedded into every element of this business.

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We are the software engineers building your favorite github features.

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We're the project managers building marketplace for world-class developer, tools.

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we're the lawyers defending open source policy.

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And we're the leaders ensuring that github continues to be a world-class company,.

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And all the ways that transcend code.

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Earlier this year we came together in miami for the first time as a group.

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For a three-day mini-summit,, where we initiated the blacktocats charter,.

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We defined our roadmap, and we started our journey.

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As github's first executively sponsored employee resource group.

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While we were there,, we had the distinct privilege to serve breakfast to the chapman partnership,.

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The full service, a comprehensive support, center,.

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Serving the homeless population of miami.

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In may,, we partnered with a fantastic, employment training, opportunity organization called [inaudible].

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it skills for returning citizens.

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To make sure that they have the skills they need to find employment once they return home from incarceration.

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And in june, four blacktocats traveled to baltimore, maryland,.

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To do a half-day workshop to teach participants about software, development, text editors, and the power of automation? Software development.-.

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Since then, github has committed to a partnership with [inaudible],.

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And we're going to give ongoing support and resources and training to this organization.

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But, we've only just begun.

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>from here, we'll be participating and partnering with other black tech affinity, groups and employee resource groups., we'll be hosting black tech events focused primarily on black engineers.

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We'll be at career, fairs, and we'll be working with the employment experience. &Amp; engagement group.

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To build an inclusive employee pipeline here at github.

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That's us, and that's what we're doing.

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This is how you can find us.

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everywhere on social media,, we're blacktocats,, and you can reach us on email at blacktocats@github.com..

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If you're thinking about starting an employee resource group at your company.

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But you don't know where to start,. Just let us know, we're happy to help..

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If you're already serving the black tech community,, then we want to hear from you.

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The formation of the blacktocats is just one way that github is making sure.

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That we're working towards an inclusive software development, world.

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To talk about how we're bringing software more accessibility into github,.

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I'd like to introduce danielle leong., (applause), ♪, (music), ♪.

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Hello, [we all have the code today]. cool!

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everybody,. My name is danielle leong, and I am an engineer on the community and safety team.

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And from what we've heard from merritt and jared,.

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Diversity and inclusion is more than just a buzzword.

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I mean, living in san francisco, buzzwords are kind of just what you hear on a daily basis..

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You go and get an expensive coffee,. You get your expensive avocado toast--.

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I'm a millennial,, so it's okay,, I can do this.

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And then you hear everybody talking about different kinds of jobs in different frameworks,. That's just kind of what happens., but unfortunately, diversity and inclusion, and belonging has become one of those buzzwords,, and I hate that,.

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Because it's actually really important, not only for the people who work here at github,.

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But for everybody else who uses github as a platform.

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It also needs to be more than just reports and graphs.

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It needs to be more than just a survey that we send out,.

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And we're like, "did, we hire more than like two women. This year?.

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Do we have like brown people,, like your kind of tan-- okay,, we'll count you as [in spite]."?

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It needs to be more than just that.

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Inclusion and user safety needs to be built into the product itself,.

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Because if you hire diverse people,, then they bring their backgrounds into the product and they make it a lot. Better. they're able to catch those edge cases so that, if something catastrophic could happen,.

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They know ahead of time before it actually happens.

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Because biases in products can make life miserable for marginalized people.

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If you don't understand what it's like to experience, something.

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Because you just don't have that background,, then how could you build the best product in order to protect certain people?.

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And it's also not enough to assume that people are going to be nice.

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In today's world, on the internet,, we all know that toxic communities do exist,.

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And it's an unfortunate reality that we need to do something about.

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In offline communities,, such as a conference here,.

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We have social norms and moderation to make sure that people are on their best behavior.

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for example,. If I were to punch someone in the face,.

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Many things would happen., I would definitely get rejected from this conference, I would probably get fired. Immediately, and the internet would never. Let me forget,.

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And so these are very, very strong motivations for me to not punch somebody in the face.

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It should be the same online as well.

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79% of americans-- apologies for the international crowd,. This study was only done on americans--.

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Believed that online platforms have a responsibility to step in.

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When harassment happens.

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34% of americans believe that our policies and tools.

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Are the most effective way to curb online harassment.

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So platforms,, like github,, have a responsibility to build moderation and safety to features.

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In order to have more inclusive, products.

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Now, most of tech does look like this,.

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And there's nothing wrong with that.

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but, the reality is,.

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Marginalized people do face more harassment on the internet.

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Women are more than twice as likely to have their pull requests merged.

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If they hide their gender.

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46% of black folks experience online harassment on a regular basis.

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Women receive twice as many death and rape threats as men.

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These are all very depressing statistics, but this is part of everyday life..

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And that's why our team looks like this..

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We are 85%, not men.

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That's pretty good, right. can I have an applause for it?, yeah!, (applause and cheering) thank you, thank you.

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and we're also two of those women of color.

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Yeah, yeah, come on., yeah,, yeah!

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(applause), and this is no accident.. It's because our lived experiences help us improve the product,.

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So that when somebody comes to us and says, "hey,, my deadname is still on my commits,.

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Is there any way we can do something about it?" and we're like, "yes,? Your concerns are valid and we would like to work with you to fix this.".

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So, as an engineering team,, our job is to build systems.

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That empower inclusive and healthy communities and encourage good online citizenship..

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We also want to make sure that we discourage behavior.

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That is destructive or threatens personal safety.

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I was actually speaking to someone this morning, and they asked me,. "Why are the two together?

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I've never heard of this,? Why the two together?"? That was an excellent question..

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The reason why is because we don't want to just play whac-a-mole.

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And say you can't do this,, you can't do this,, you can't do this., that's not sustainable.! Also, just because the internet is kind of like an adolescent, like a teenager, and we are like, "well,. I wasn't technically doing anything, so like,, it's fine, right?".

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We also want to make sure that we build inclusive communities.

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And encourage good behavior, so that the community then becomes self-serving, and that we reward good behavior and not just punish bad behavior..

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And how we do this is one way through tiered moderation, tools.

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Now,, I love being a good banhammer..

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You know, somebody's acting up, and you're like, "ahh! get out of here!.

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Never see you again, hopefully.", probably they don't come back., but the thing about this is that it's not nuanced enough..

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What if somebody uses a word and they don't know the context behind it?.

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You can't just ban them for life. they're, never going to have a learning experience from that.

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So we want to make sure that it's as nuanced as possible so that we can handle a multitude of different types of interactions..

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Apologies for those of you who went to the keynote earlier today,, it's kind of a rehash of all the fab products that we've released,.

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But released temporarily in our action tools..

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So if there is a flame war,, because I know these things do happen on the internet,, I've read studies on this., so you can limit your interaction tools to help limit the amount of toxicity. That's coming. In,.

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So that everybody can take a break,, everyone got to snack,.

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And then we come back and we have a civilized conversation.

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We also want to make sure that it's easier to grow communities,.

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Because open source is fantastic,, but it's also really, really scary. To get started.

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And so we introduce first-time contributor badges.

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To help welcome new people into communities.

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So that community moderators know that this is somebody who's brand new, and they could use a little bit of extra love and guidance..

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We also want to make sure that it's as easy as possible to add a code of conduct to your project,.

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If you add it in early and if you add it in quickly.

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Then it's a lot easier to make sure that everybody knows what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

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User safety is also very important for all of our users.

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Our blocked user badge is something that we added fairly recently,.

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Which is if you block somebody because you've had a history with them before in the past,, and you would like a heads-up,, then you have an idea if they are a contributor to your project,.

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And you can make that decision if you want to continue working on that project or not.

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This is also something near and dear to my heart,, which is the idea of consensual software,, which goes beyond european consent laws..

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We want to make sure that every feature that we build asks for your consent..

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We want to make sure that you are aware of what kind of data we have on you, and we also want to make sure you want to interact with this feature,.

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Because this way everybody knows what's going on,.

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And everybody's excited about a feature.

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If you have time today, at four o'clock,, my teammate lindsay is doing an excellent talk on balancing identity and privacy..

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I highly recommend it,. It's a really fascinating talk on some of work that we did regarding email, addresses.,.

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So our vision for the future is that communities on github are safe and inclusive,.

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And composed of diverse users acting as model online citizens.

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Sounds like a great place to me.

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But we can't do it: alone.

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we,, as employees on the community and safety team,.

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Need the backup of teams, like merritt and jared,.

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In order to be our own, authentic selves at work,.

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So that we can build the best product for you.

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And they're helping make sure that we are growing and we are challenging.

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And that we can bring our whole selves to work.

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We're here to put in the hard work to make that happen.

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we're not here just to throw buzzwords at you, and graphs and numbers.

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we're here to actually do the hard work to make sure that you have the best experience. Possible.

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So,, I hope you enjoyed our talk today and how we are building inclusion.

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Into not only github the company, but github the platform for you.

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Thank you., ♪, (music), ♪.