March 2, Friday
11AM California Time / 2PM New York Time for 1 hour
A conversation with August and me (and a few others too)
Summary post is here

“Designers in tech believe in inclusion and diversity. So what’s next?”
—August de los Reyes, Pinterest

Today I’m talking with August de los Reyes at Pinterest and he shared how there needs to be something done about design x diversity x inclusion, so we decided to just go and do it. If you’d like to participate in an online conversation on this topic, then sign up here and we’ll let you know how to participate. The event is over, and you can see and hear the summary here.

Update: August reached out to me this morning to share things he’s been feeling in Silicon Valley and knew others who felt similarly. “What should we do?” he asked me. So I figured — why not just start the conversation, NOW. So while he talked, I typed up notes. And with the magic of WordPress … voila! An event!

Signups are now over 100 people. If you’d like to be on the waiting list, please sign up below and I’ll figure out what to do — I figure some folks will drop off as we get closer to the date. Thank you! —JM

Key topics to address in our hour-long online conversation, according to August from his 1.5-year long adventure in Silicon Valley, are:

• Hiring a diverse design team. What works? Just start by measuring it. It’s a goal, but not based on a quota.
• Measuring how you’re doing. Some organizations think it’s important, and the reality is that in some countries it’s illegal.
• Diversity and inclusion terminology. Diversity is a starting point, and inclusion is an outcome. Or as Vernā Myers says,
  

  Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance.
  —Vernā Myers

• Hiring from talent that bring an ability difference. How do we go beyond looking for a broad range of college degrees to a broad range of ability differences. Some references: the work of Jenny Lay-Flurrie at Microsoft to tap into a talent pool with an ability difference with the recent announcement of a major milestone.
• Inclusion in the product experience and marketing experiences. What are folks doing? How are we doing? How can we do better?
• Bonus topic: What’s the range of the “Asian American” definition. It covers South Asian, East Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islanders, and …? Some references: Jason Shen’s Asian American Man Study and NYT (1994) “Asian American Women Struggling To Move past Cultural Expectations” and Next Shark’s article on Asian American Women and eating disorders.