2019 10 30

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Attendees

Announcements

Discussion

• review action items from last week Meeting notes
• Chair Election
• Survey promotion strategies
• Survey Finalization
• HLGF activity brainstorm/discussion
• Discuss moving to 'virtual meetings' vs. phone calls

Backlog

• CHAOSS discussion 
  • https://lists.hyperledger.org/g/dci-wg/message/14 
• Initiative Brainstorming (Dan Middleton / All)
  • Besides the community questionnaire, what more do we need for baselining the community?
  • How will we generate gender diversity and inclusion recommendations?
  • What other areas are people passionate about and can suggest actions for?
    • Are there technical recommendations? (Make first commits easier? Convert a one time contributor to a two-time contributor? ...?)
    • Outreach to member companies and other companies "staffing" Hyperledger projects?

Recording

dciwg_call_oct30_2019.m4a

Minutes

Welcome

World Forum:

Celia is here from the LF events team. 

David: In the last few meetings we discussed how this group would like to rally people on DCI efforts - at World Forum. Anticipating over 1,000 people attendees. In previous conversations, some of the asks may coordinate with the events team. Such as exclusive swag if you make a diversity commitment. Celia mentioned there are best practices from other events. 

Celia: Thanks for letting me join. All events include a diversity and inclusion page; standard practices and services offered: https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/events/hyperledger-global-forum-2020/attend/diversity-inclusion/

Always do a diversity scholarship, underway. Onsite resources such as a nursing room, complimentary childcare, accessible venues, communication stickers so attendees can designate if open to communication, also a sticker signifying not open to being videotaped or speaking. Pronoun stickers for name badges. All gender restrooms, quiet room, first aid, and medical assistance. Info on harassment reports, law enforcement in the local community. The code of conduct is in place for all events. Planning diversity happy hour, at other events we have done diversity lunches. GF on the cusp of attendee account to add the luncheon in. Open to ideas.

Dan: Timeline - if we want to give out stickers or other handouts? DCI branded.

Celia: Sooner the better, maybe three weeks in advance. Anything else, we need time to research products, get quotes, shipping.

Alissa: More substantial than pens, we would need to see pricing. Playing upon the 'all are welcome here', maybe a pen for someone who has taken the commitment to live the ethos of DCI. Or get a coin, give a coin. Chambers of Commerce often have coins. Want to acknowledge and incentivize. Accenture sponsoring happy hour, want to have people leave that room, don't just admire the community, be a part of the community we're aspiring to be. 

Dan: Y, wear a pin, or something that would continue on after the event, perhaps on GitHub or chat? Other items, materials between sessions to display, to keep positive imagery. 

David: Tracy shared Lego-style board or interactive ways to facilitate conversations in the hallways. 

Alissa: In Accenture NY office, charts with cards, chart has themes such as "I will be 'x'". Maybe what inclusion means or civility means. 

Mark: Part of this, we want to make people feel welcome. Also, a good opportunity to get feedback from people who might not complete the survey.

Alissa: The community speaks. 

Kelly: Slides between presentations. 

Celia: Yes, social engagement questions, etc. between presentations. In between rotating slides of Sponsor thank yous. 

Dan: Are you familiar with our Welcome Here graphic? Dan will send it to Celia. 

Action Items: 

Share a link to learn more about their biases - Swetha. As a recap. When at Grace Hopper, there was a bus, CEO action, show you your implicit bias. Activities, put the bus in the exhibition hall so people can go throughout the event. Session talking about collecting feedback and getting a data-driven approach to increasing inclusion. Not specific to GF. Swetha will follow up today.

Alissa: Response to Daniella on a happy hour venue (done). Updating the wiki with a new proposed document in reference to the survey. Alissa will post the survey, rather than going back and forth on the survey Tracy provided (roots in a different objective). Married with Accenture idea, more applicable to solely Hyperledger community-related. To make the survey shorter and try to get a win-win, we have a massive amount of research at Accenture on diversity and inclusion. We took what already existed in that area, to compare with how blockchain aligns with technology in general. Added sections applicable to Hyperledger and diversity and inclusion, in general. Offered something shorter that achieves both objectives. 

It still includes basic demographic questions. Includes definitions of D, C, I. Inclusion, in general, in blockchain. The DCI within Hyperledger. Community interactions. Community profile. Age range, gender, sexual orientation, race origin, and a question above it related to timezone. We can add something more specific from a geo or language perspective. Should add something about disability. Adding first language, would you consider yourself any of the following disabilities (list from social impact working group).

Dan: Timeline? Alissa will publish this week-ish. Start the conversation with these results before we arrive GF. Final draft out for a final review this week, get that review next week. Then we start machinery to get the survey advertised and posted. A couple of weeks to get that moving. Still inside of November when survey launches, latest December. 

Alissa: We've been working on this for a while. Has videos of people talking about the industry, interviews that speak to about describing their experiences. We can publish an interesting report. 

Swetha: Timeline - if we release a survey (our next meeting in Nov). Are we going to get low participation due to the holiday? Alissa: Still have time in Nov, Dec, can continue to blast out a request for input into January. 

Chair Election

One individual volunteered. Has not attended meetings previously. Or individual on this call? Did extend the nomination period once. 

Mark: Anticipate Thursday TSC will vote to abolish working groups and turn them into different things. Does this become a task force with a set day and time? Does it become a technical SIG?

Dan: Technical working groups had moved past their original charters. Has been an issue for working groups that have been around for more than a year. Chartered within the past 12 months are not in a position as some of the previous working group. We are still active on this original charter, a change of name would not stop us from progress. Should this be cause for holding off on the chair process? 

David: We can go back to volunteer, since we haven't engaged with you in the past, invite her to the next one. In two weeks, we would have more clarity. 

Others expressed interest, concern about availability. Postpone for a month to see how things shake out between the steering committee and the marketing committee? 

Virtual Meetings vs. Phone Calls

Timezone issues. May help once we have specific initiatives to charge toward. Action plan - assign tasks. A day we all decide something is due, live collaboration or quasi-live, allocating some portion of (ie every other Wednesday). Spend time on the chat channel or wiki page to take care of action items. Still using some sort of timeboxing, without needing people on at the exact same hour. Our group exists to model more inclusive behaviors. Experiment, for example, not have calls for three months, reconvene and see how that works? Share lessons learned with the community. DCI Action Day - not a meeting - Action items. Explore alternative ways to be an inclusive organization. Try different approaches. 

One immediate - two weeks, virtual meeting day. Asynchronous, the next day, how did it go? Shall we meet on the phone in the subsequent meeting? Or, keep the phone call for a debriefing on how the virtual meeting went. How are active are people on the mailing list? If we take this discussion to the mail list? If we get people who can't make the call to say, yes, I will participate. 

Or can still have meetings, no agenda items allowed unless mentioned on the mailing list first. 

Survey Review

Substantive review comments. Small things, let's stay away from those things we're okay with.