Inclusivity
As one of sudo room's key missions is ACCESS, we are engaging in an ongoing discussion and attentiveness to issues of inclusivity, diversity, and access.
Notes from Inclusivity and Access Session at 1st Annual "State of the Room" Unconference 12/8/12:
participants: aestetix, vicky, matt, jordan, marina, emily, matt, jenny, praveen, troy
- what are the challenges
- what are some practical steps we can take (and encourage others to take) to ensure that sudo room is inclusive
- what are the long term investments, strategies, and initiatives we need to undertake to sustain an attentiveness to inclusivity at sudo room
current challenge to making sudo room inclusive: if you know about sudoroom/hackerspace, and you're a hacker, then you will come. we're not doing a great job at bringing new people in. how to reach out and welcome people who don't already self-identify as "hackers" or "good with technology" or "techie"? it's a leaky pipeline, it must be patched at different places.
1. identity: itches that you have can be scratched with technology and with spaces , that you are the kind of person that are capable of that 2. being aware of hackerspaces 3. knowing tha you can go there 4. when you go there, wanting to stay there
challenges: - communication, what is a hackerspace, language barriers - spanish accessibility at SR. spanish-based classes? spanish/english labels for things in SR. add spanish to the labelmaker ;) - beyond one spanish-language class...making everything spanish-inclusive.
- how many computers do we have here at sudoroom that people can use? TOMORROW. - how is the space open/available/accessible to disabled individuals. also crucial for older people. - ability: well-connected disability community in bay area - childcare and accessibility for parents and children. - important to continue to have this conversation. add to agenda? "exclusivity check" once a month. - guide for hackerspaces for inclusivity and accessibility - survey of problems? - human capital: lolspace has a problem recruiting spanish-language tech people. difficult to make strategic affiliations. tumis. - inclusivity and diversity is a human capital issue. look at hte people we could be building coalitions with and who we are not using. - reaching out to new people. how to foster a culture of that? 1) onboarding process 2) promote a culture where people are empowered and prepared to talk to new people. empower people to act as ambassadors. 3) designated ambassador or designated person who does outreach. - challenge in ambassadorial culture as the group scales. the role of the ambassador is to ensure that hte group is attentive to diversity and outreach.
- outreach to communities is really difficult. getting people in the door and getting them to understand why they belong there is hard. how do we do outreach? - hackerspace - problem of language (either not sure what it is or have preconception), solution to show people the space. alternate problem: how do we adequately explain what it is. - really communicating all the time what we're doing. being public about what we do. both in terms of broadcasting and in terms of our friends and community. - ex of aaron coming in off the street. - do we have a video about what this is? talk to rusty - not just the idea of hte hackerspace is new, consensus is new, non-commercial forms of interaction. - metaphors for talking to people about hackerspaces - a library? - when building things, attention to the users is key. - how to do partnerships with existing groups. how to partner with them to meet with them to meet on their terms. ex: we have space, but we don't have human resources to coordinate. what do we offer and what - monthly open house: first friday. maybe something else? ex: mitch's intro to circuits. open hack nights (how to do that without implying that the rest of the time is closed). "getting to know you" - marketing - how do we market ourselves? - how would you explain sudoroom to a stranger: a group of volunteers who come together and share resources, ideas, and work on projects together using technological equipment. tailor your explanation to the person that you're talking to. talk about what people do here, not what it is. space for hosting your group, a place to find resources (people, technological, etc.).
- future events: followup on mailing list, ongoing discussions within sudoer, with sudoers. jigsaw meeting style.