[FOSS4G-Oceania] The Panel Session - It's Time...

Thu Oct 4 15:38:21 PDT 2018

I like the way you're coming at it Martin. I'm more interested in fostering
a diverse range of views, whether than comes from a diverse range of people
or not. Hopefully it does.

In terms of a theme, why not an industry specific them that people are
drawn to? Diversity could be woven in and we could make sure the panel
comes from a diverse range of backgrounds. I did not come up with any
concrete themes in the shower, but maybe I will before our meeting.

Bottom line: Definitely a balance here between moving the needle and giving
people what they want. Looking forward to discussing this more this
afternoon.

On Thu, 4 Oct 2018 at 21:58, Martin Tomko <tomkom at unimelb.edu.au> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I am +1 ( or many more) in a diversity + inclusiveness topic, but I also
> am happy to entertain a way to wrap it up under an unassuming title – and
> make sure the moderator is the right one, and sharp, to drive this.
>
>
>
> For me, diversity and inclusion is much more than underrepresented social
> groups in FOSS4G – it is the variety of ideas, or approaches, the openness
> to others, including exposing our own intellectual contributions to others
> for scrutiny. I think the time is ripe to discuss this. See the very recent
> scandal of Linus (Linux founder), finally having to step down from the
> Linux foundation due to rude statements and vulgar communication style (
> against all). The R community used to be also quite harsh on newbies, until
> the new wave of tidyverse, resulting in a huge uptake. Python has been –
> almost by desing by Guiodo – always very supportive.
>
>
>
> Can we discuss inclusiveness from this perspective?
>
>
>
> M.
>
>
>
> *From: *FOSS4G-Oceania <foss4g-oceania-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> on behalf
> of Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
> *Date: *Thursday, 4 October 2018 at 8:43 pm
> *To: *"foss4g-oceania at lists.osgeo.org" <foss4g-oceania at lists.osgeo.org>
> *Subject: *Re: [FOSS4G-Oceania] The Panel Session - It's Time...
>
>
>
> Alex, I put forward a presentation topic on diversity which I assume was
> put to the community to vote up/down. It would be interested to see where
> the community ranked it. (Don't worry about hurting my feelings - I'm
> totally ok if it was ranked very low).
>
> If it was ranked low, then it is a good indication that John's concern is
> right, and that people would prefer hearing OSGeo topics than Diversity
> topics at our conference.
>
> I think that dealing with this topic requires much deeper discussion than
> can be covered in a 30 minute plenary, which by definition limit's each
> person's contribution to mere minutes.
>
> The "diversity" topic lead to very strong opinions, and then to very
> personal accusations, and hence requires quite a bit of trust to work well.
> A room of 200+ people is not the right place to test trust.
>
> Maybe select a topic which is less threatening, like
>
> "What future would we like to see for OSGeo within Oceania within the
> years to decade?"
>
> This is broader, less threatening, can touch on diversity, but also cover
> community building in other ways, and hopefully will be something that
> everyone in the room could feel connected to.
>
>
>
> On 4/10/18 2:56 pm, John Bryant wrote:
>
> I have some concern about reaching the audience. The cited Atlassian
> report says:
>
>
>
> *People are tired of talking about diversity and inclusion, frustrated by
> talk not turning into impactful action, and overwhelmed by the number of
> issues.*
>
>
>
> We've scheduled the panel session as a plenary, so there's no other
> programming at that time. If the topic isn't of interest to a large part of
> our audience, they might feel let down that a significant part of the
> program isn't for them.
>
>
>
> I'm not suggesting we should try to be all things to all people, we'll
> never make everyone happy, and that's OK. But if a large part of the
> audience doesn't show up to the panel discussion, that feels like a problem.
>
>
>
> Or, from a more constructive angle, how can we frame this topic so that we
> can ignite interest?
>
>
>
> On Thu, 4 Oct 2018 at 13:42, Alex Leith <alexgleith at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Adam, I think you're on the money there.
>
>
>
> What I'm proposing is to have that discussion at our event. To be a bit
> more exciting than just 'what the future of tech' or 'lets look at
> ourselves'. It's about talking about the community and how we can improve
> it.
>
>
>
> I think we set the panel up so that it DOES have the people on it who need
> to discuss it. I think we open up to the floor and encourage the difficult
> questions. And I think we can have an impact.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, 4 Oct 2018 at 13:13 adam steer <adam.d.steer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> to add another perspective - we get to do something audacious here - and
> set the tone for how we roll as a community for years to come. What can the
> open community pull off that can’t be done in industry conferences? where
> can we lead the discussion?
>
>
>
> what really strikes to our hearts about what we want the open geo
> community to look like? how should it flower/mature/fruit? this
> first-event-in-a-long-time might be a once in a decade shot at exploring
> some hard issues there.
>
>
>
> Yes, we can do it again next year and the year after and so on - but by
> then there is momentum and expectation. Right *now* I see a chance to be
> outrageous in our ambitions/direction setting/discussion...
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Adam
>
>
>
> On Thu, 4 Oct 2018 at 11:49, adam steer <adam.d.steer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Alex
>
>
>
> Based on a discussion in the program committee (thanks Emma Hain) I think
> a panel discussion on ’strength in diversity' might not reach the audience
> who *needs* to hear it. It also might not get the people on the panel we
> really *need* to discuss the topic.
>
>
>
> This sounds weird from someone who has pushed really hard on diversity and
> inclusion topics, right? Bear with me… and also caution - some of these
> thoughts really need more developing.
>
>
>
> I took a lot from a talk titled ‘Open communities - we love to hate’ in
> Dar Es Salaam - by Steven Feldman. It struck me that, in order to really
> discuss diversity we need to look at it in a ground up way. What are the
> things about our community that make it approachable or not? Why, where and
> how can the open source community lead? What can we do better?
>
>
>
> Again, in the program committee I proposed ‘what does community mean in
> the open geo-space?’; and the more abstract ’spatial futures..’ - from my
> view, they let us as a community explore diversity and inclusion as
> fundamental components of what we do. We can certainly head into
> controversial territory, I would expect the session chair to take the
> conversation there, and the panelists to expect some really curly topics :D
>
>
>
> What do you all think?  We need to talk about diversity and inclusion, and
> keep talking about it ad nauseum, especially if we are old-ish blokes
> talking to other old-ish blokes and challenging some old ideas.
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
>
>
> Adam
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, 4 Oct 2018 at 10:18, Alex Leith <alexgleith at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hey Folks
>
>
>
> It is now time to get stuck into the details of the panel session.
>
>
>
> Three things need to happen:
>
>    1. Establish a topic
>    2. Find a moderator
>    3. Bring together 4-6 panelists.
>
> As you may be aware, I'm very enthusiastic about running the topic on
> Diversity and Inclusion. The reason I want to do a topic on D&I is that
> it's something that everyone is talking about now, and it's particularly
> important in the spatial industry. Gaby, the past president of SSSI, pointed
> out recently
> <https://sssi.org.au/knowledge-hub/president-s-message/president-s-message-september-2018>
> that our industry has gone backwards, in terms of female representation.
> Atlassian are doing great things in this space, and their latest effort has
> rebranded to 'Balance and Belonging <https://www.atlassian.com/diversity>'.
> And we know that some of the stalwarts
> <https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-takes-a-break-from-linux/>
> in the open source community are recognising the need for change.
>
>
>
> Really, in brief, I think the topic should be 'Strength in Diversity' and
> that we should talk abut the human aspects of our community. I think it
> will be a very interesting discussion, and perhaps controversial in places,
> and I think that this is exactly what we need in order to make our even
> stand out from others. I think that by taking a bit of a risk, and being
> open to discussing difficult issues, we can make sure that voices are heard
> and that we can have an impact (even if it's modest).
>
>
>
> Ok, so, how do we feel about the suggested topic here?
>
>
>
> And if you have an alternative, now's the time to raise it.
>
>
>
> Once we have a topic, we can pick a moderator and start forming the panel.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
> Alex
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
>
>
> Alex Leith
>
> 0419 189 050
>
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>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Adam Steer
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Adam_Steer
> http://au.linkedin.com/in/adamsteer
>
> http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0046-7236
> +61 427 091 712 <+61%20427%20091%20712>
> skype: adam.d.steer
>
> tweet: @adamdsteer
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Adam Steer
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Adam_Steer
> http://au.linkedin.com/in/adamsteer
>
> http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0046-7236
> +61 427 091 712 <+61%20427%20091%20712>
> skype: adam.d.steer
>
> tweet: @adamdsteer
>
> --
>
>
>
> Alex Leith
>
> 0419 189 050
>
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>
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>
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>
>
> --
>
> Cameron Shorter
>
> Technology Demystifier
>
> Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
>
>
>
> M +61 (0) 419 142 254
>
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