# Nest 2022: _5 lessons learned from 5 years of Fedora D.E.I. events_

Planning outline and notes for a 25-minute Nest 2022 session from the D.E.I. Team about our long history of running events and building awareness for D.E.I. at in-person and virtual events.

* _Owner(s)_: Justin (@jflory7) & Vipul (@siddharthvipul)
* _Link to session proposal_: https://pagure.io/flock/issue/365

## Abstract

The Fedora Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Team loves events! Over the last five years, our team has run both in-person and virtual events, workshops, and sessions to promote the diversity of the Fedora Community and build awareness of stories and challenges by our community members. This session gives five lessons learned from the last five years we have run events in the Fedora Community. We will take you through the in-person events we have run like unconscious bias workshops and privilege walks, to virtual events like Fedora Week of Diversity and Fedora Mentor Summit. You may be surprised to know the one thing that all of our outreach and events have in common!

## Outline

* **Five lessons**:
1. DEI work is not easily measured (i.e. not by commits).
3. DEI work changes its form in different geographies.
4. DEI work is fluid and dynamic. The work changes as the people involved also change and grow (i.e. Fedora Features/First).
* Examples: Fedora Women's Day => Week of Diversity evolution; Neurodiversity/Accessibility SIG focus.
5. DEI work is emotional/emotional labor. (i.e. Fedora Friends).
* Walking in someone else's shoes. Empathy skills needed.
6. DEI work is an important part of innovation, especially with inclusion (i.e. Fedora Features/First).
* **Common thread**: DEI work is listening.

## Brainstorming

This section can be used for the team to brainstorm on lessons learned to inform the outline. Approximately 3-5 minutes per lesson.

### In-person

* Imposter Syndrome Workshop and Unconscious Bias Training
* Unconscious bias workshop (bingo boards)
* Privilege walk
* Candy swap!!
* Fedora Women's Days (pre-2020)
* Fedora in Google Summer of Code and Outreachy - Project Showcase
* Fedora Appreciation Week and Fedora Happiness Packets

### Virtual

* Fedora Week of Diversity
* Tell your Fedora Story
* Fedora Mentor Summit

### Some Ideas

* Maybe let's divide the sub-topics based on different types of diversity in which areas we experienced the same kind of challenges and what we felt are the differences for example - Based on diverse event audiences  ( Age, Geographic, Gender, Occupation etc etc) what were the experiences. 
* What motivated the event participants the most, what did not work so well?
* How were the speaker's experiences?
* Was the audience interested more on technical topics, hands-on or they also enjoyed the non-technical themes as well?
* Can we also retrieve some data from event surveys to present?
* What were the major factors which influenced the events throughout these all years?

### Notes from DEI Meeting July 18th 2022

- Reflecting on the five key takeaways in first draft
- 1. DEI work is not easily measured (i.e. not by commits).
- Will you talk about ways to measure it?
- Storytelling is the big piece: social media, blog posts
- Word of mouth; DEI work is often having conversations and talking. Fostering connections between people.
- This is a reason why it is hard to capture
- FWD organizing is event coordination; not commits
- Looking towards the future: accessibility SIG could provide measurable changes in Documentation, Operating System, and Processes
- Mentioning commentary on discussion forums, negative towards LGBTQIA+.. overcoming those types of bigoted commentary.
- How to measure?
- Code of conduct report measures incidents by year, generalized
- How do we know where Fedora stands on tough DEI topics
- For the Nest session: a timeline of our history of events/activities?
- Diversity survey - can we do one in the future?
- Community survey: questions
- Historical: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/diversity-inclusion/survey/
- DEI perspective on community survey is something we can roll into our team's activities
- CHAOSS DEI badging for events
- Fedora Badges with Linux Foundation training/education sessions. Get a Fedora Badge for completing the course.
- 2. DEI work changes its form in different geographies.
- Different types of work, focus, concerns by each country
- As the world is evolving, we also need to change our approach as things evolve
- 3. DEI work is fluid and dynamic. The work changes as the people involved also change and grow.
- DEI in Fedora began as an advisor role, then became a team, then became coordinated events (e.g. first panel at Flock 2016)
- Burnout risk / mental health. Not as healthy growth as it could have been because of the challenge of pulling new folks in.
- Fedora Women Group (2006/2007??) -> Diversity Team (2015/2016) -> D&I Team (2018) -> DEI Team (2021)
- Don't want to exclude those who are allies, gender non conforming, with Women's events
- Depends on the community, and where each is in their evolution
- 4. DEI work is emotional/emotional labor. (i.e. Fedora Friends).
- Discussion forum comments, the FPL did a good job responding with a neutral and direct tone. Ashlyn sent a thank you note for that.
- To do it well, takes a LOT of effort, and we should recognize that.
- The burden of moderation? Who is doing that labor? DEI work can attract negativity just by doing things we enjoy doing.
- How do we address that? Different contexts, e.g. Discussion and Hopin events. Discussion threads can be addressed async but Hopin is more synchronous and demands quicker action.
- Depends on the forum and where it happens
- Code of Conduct response work.
- Moderators all over fedora are dealing with incidents, hate, rude behavior
- 5. DEI work is an important part of innovation, especially with inclusion (i.e. Fedora Features/First).
- Accessibility SIG will be addressing some of these things
- Fedora's Code of Conduct launch and overall process modelled by other communities wrestling with similar challenges.
- https://chelseatroy.com/2021/07/30/the-oxymoron-of-data-driven-innovation/

### 2022-07-13 (Justin/Vipul)

* The more diverse people come, it brings in more diversity
* Chain reaction: As it grows, it goes even wider/deeper
* Neurodiversity as a new area of focus
* Fedora Linux accessibility SIG
* The semantics of grammatical gender: A cross-cultural study
* Racial Diversity Improves Group Decision Making In Unexpected Ways, According To Tufts University Research
* Ethnic diversity deflates price bubbles
* Growing diversity can improve decision-making (with careful inclusion).

### Marie/Justin chat (2022-07-05)

* Virtual events and accessibility
* Opportunity for more people to connect and participate with Fedora
* More messages and notes of appreciation from people who share feedback about events post-event
* FWD 2020 was a great event and brought a lot of people together
* Smaller events means more interaction among participants; more intimate/personalized setting
* Exploring different formats for mini virtual summits
* a.k.a. more individualized or personalized
* Thank-you gifts were helpful for smaller events
* Not for things like Nest; we already have swag packs for attendees
* Mentor Summit, release parties, FWD, etc.
* Something they can hold onto and be appreciated for their contributions
* At last release party: 900 registered participants (grown from 300 participants in first release party)
* Virtual events reach more people and more people know they are happening
* Twitter sentiments about virtual events going away, but we can still provide that
* Community survey responses: 800 responses last year; 1700 responses this year
* Sentiment analysis: Different categories of feedback. I love Fedora; Fedora is great, but here is how to improve it; I had a bad experience in Fedora; trolls be trolling
* Some people using it to talk about specific people; not great
* Fedora Week of Diversity:
* A week of content; provide something for people to consume async
* Went okay but not a huge success; took a lot of effort for little pay-off
* Aiming to run a virtual event again
* Publishing stuff async not as powerful as connecting real-time
* Virtual event struggle:
* Balance of not spamming people and making sure you are hitting the right channels
* People will always come and say "I didn't know that was happening"; always the case but virtual events should be open for people to join
* For the session:
* We could frame each lesson as past, present, future: what we did, what we learned from it, where we can go with that knowledge

## 2022-07-31 (Justin/Vipul prep for Nest)

* Agenda:
* Introduction: Who are we?
* 5 lessons: What we learned.
* Common thread: What our efforts have in common.
* What next: Where we are looking now.
* Intro
* 5 lessons
* Lesson 1: Not easily measured.
* Main idea: We don't know how many things can be measured. Often DEI work cannotbe measured in a single number. The work is also multi-dimensional / intersectional.
* Example 1: Event organizing, e.g. FWD.
* Example 2: Representation in leadership.
* Example 3: Fedora Badges for furthering education, e.g. Inclusive Open Source Community Orientation Foundation training.
* Lesson 2: Scope changes in different geographies.
* Main idea: As we grow our geographic diversity in new countries and cultures, events will need different approaches based on the unique context.
* Example 1:
* Example 2:
* Lesson 3: Focus evolves as the community grows.
* Main idea: As our team has grown, the range of our work has grown/evolved.
* Example 1:
* Example 2:
* Lesson 4: Emotional labor.
* Main idea:
* Example 1:
* Example 2:
* Lesson 5: Enables innovation.
* Main idea:
* Example 1:
* Example 2:
* Common thread
* Main idea:
* Supporting detail 1:
* Supporting detail 2:
* What next
* Main idea:
* Supporting detail 1:
* Supporting detail 2: