Often I see execs/directors approach inclusion the same way they approach other business initiatives, and then they're surprised/frustrated when the initiatives don't produce the PR/retention/product quality outcomes they want.

Let's talk about what's happening.

A thread.

1/
Example:

I worked for a company that poured a lot of effort into inclusive hiring: skills rubric, ads in URM Tech spaces, all that. Fast forward two years, all the URMs they had carefully collected had left and they'd backfilled with almost exclusively CHWDs.

What happened?

2/
Another example:

Slack. Talks a massive game about how inclusive and great they are. Got DMing across Slack channels BUILT AND INTO PROD before anybody pointed out that this is, like, a PERFECT harassment and abuse vector.

What happened?

3/
Another example: Basecamp.

Just Google this one.

What happened?

4/
What happens is, companies are approaching inclusion the way they approach a business development effort. They do "research" and focus on the HIGHEST RANKED outcome or the MAJORITY outcome.

Examples below.

5/
"We can't justify that accessibility feature; too few customers asked for it."

"We think we're doing okay culturally because 75% of surveyed employees said they are comfortable expressing their ideas at work."

So, uh, here's the thing about marginalization:

6/
Marginalized people basically never amount to the highest-ranked or majority opinion on something. It's kinda...in the name. They're on the MARGINS. Not at the CENTER.

Keeping focus on the CENTER leads organizations to inclusion efforts that flat out do not work.

7/
Remember last fall when Americans protested the curtailment of the U.S. Postal Service in favor of private options like FedEx or USPS?

Wealthy folks in populous areas don't realize the difference between the USPS and the private options, BUT...

/8
...it's a great example of the difference between government policymaking and business decision-making.

The reason the USPS matters so much is that the USPS delivers everywhere. As in...

/9
...there are places where a postal worker mounts a mule to deliver letters to the most remote house in Montana.

Businesses focus on EFFICIENCIES—doing the things that net them the most money for the least effort.

/10
By contrast, taxpayer-funded public programs are designed and expected to cover everyone—including, and especially, the MOST marginalized. That's why they're taxpayer-funded; so they don't face existential risk be eschewing profit-driven decision-making.

/11
Does this work perfectly? No. But I think about it a lot when people shit on the bigness and slowness of government.

That bigness & slowness is supposed to create space and resources to account for the communities, that a "lean," fast approach deliberately ignores.

/12
Business decision-making tries to approach inclusion by citing data that centers majority opinion, which is not where ideas about inclusion come from.

"But Chelsea, businesses are profit-driven, so they HAVE to do things that way!"

I don't think so.

/13
I think execs are used to, and comfortable with, that kind of decision-making, so they default to it.

That doesn't mean they have to do it, and it doesn't even mean that that's the best approach for them to take.

To return to a previous example, Slack connect...

/14
...that product had to be delayed for redesign and might ultimately be RECALLED over not having valued a marginalized, abuse-informed opinion in the design process.

After what was likely a very expensive development effort. If this thing fails, Slack LOST money building it.

/15
Or take Google's treatment of Timnit Gebru's work on their Ethical AI team. The trust they lost comes with a massive price tag. They'll have to work harder to recruit and they'll have to compensate higher.

Google can pay that price, but most companies couldn't.

/16
So we've talked about a few failures. When has centering a marginalized perspective produced success and riches for a company?

The multi-touch screen that made the iPhone a market-breaking success? Apple didn't invent that.

/17
Instead, they acquired a company called FingerWorks, founded with the express purpose of creating computer input devices for folks who had compromised fine motor function.

In fact, most of the things you love about your smartphone started as accessibility features.

/18
So if garden variety Pareto Principle-style business thinking doesn't work for inclusive decisions, and companies can incur costly failures by mis-applying it, and companies can achieve momentous victories by approaching inclusion differently, then what SHOULD they be doing?

/19
Well, we have this idea in software engineering of starting our software design from the "happy path" (majority use case) versus designing from the edge cases.

As Michael Feathers has a favorite saying: "If you take care of the corners, the room takes care of itself."

/20
The consensus-ish around this among engineers is that focusing on the happy path gets you to market faster and focusing on the edge cases gets you a cleaner, better designed system that's more maintainable over time, probably more functional, and less buggy.

/21
Similarly designing for the edges CAN produce a better business, product, or organization for everyone.

The second most popular post I've ever written discusses five inclusion skills for employee evaluation.

The dirty secret?

/22


chelseatroy.com/2018/05/24/why…
The dirty secret of that post is that teams that have tried it ended up with a more productive, positive work environment for almost* EVERYONE.

*insecure narcissists who have already amassed a lot of institutional power don't like it. That's about it though.

/23
I think about this a fair amount in my classroom as well. When I teach, I focus on providing an accessible learning experience for the person in the class who is going to have the hardest time.

Who that is differs by quarter.

/24
I'm designing for the person whose learning style least matches typical academic pedagogy.

Or the person who has to wade through poor captions on instructional videos.

Or the person whose religious traditions mean they show up to my class having not eaten in 13 hours.

/25
The result? With the exception of 3 or 4 people in six quarters of teaching, just about everyone has been happy with the class.

More importantly, what do the 3 or 4 people say? "I could have learned this on my own."

Great. You don't need me. I teach for those that do.

/26
I cannot encourage any business, team, or org MORE HIGHLY to think about the corners/edges of the problem and START THERE to ideate solutions, rather than starting with the happy-path minimum viable case. And if you don't see any edges/corners, FIND SOMEONE WHO DOES.

/27
The outcome of this approach, done thoughtfully and taken seriously, just might exceed your wildest dreams for a successful outcome.

28/28
For engineers and space nerds: I wrote about some concrete examples of edge consideration in launchpad design and software design.

(For organizational examples, the rubric post linked above is prob the best I got.)

29/28 (yes, a BONUS tweet!)

chelseatroy.com/2020/05/28/les…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Chelsea Troy

Chelsea Troy Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @HeyChelseaTroy

21 May
Dear heterosexuals:

For LGBTQ people, it's Pride Month.

But when YOU hear that term, practice replacing it in your mind with "Heteronormativity Awareness Month."

That points you in a much more productive direction with respect to what the LGBTQ community needs you to do.
Questions for heterosexuals to ask themselves in the month of June: a thread

- When a person who presents femme or masc tells a story about their partner but doesn't mention their gender, do I assume the partner's pronouns?
- How often do I see het people displaying affection in public?

- How often do I see het people calling their partners cutesy, or even slightly suggestive, pet names on public social channels?

What sorts of questions do I think a queer person has to ask before doing this?
Read 21 tweets
19 May
I once wrote a blog series about how I level up as a programmer. Now I'm also a teacher in a CS program.

My advice in that series and my practices as a teacher both differ from what the "top" programmers say they did to learn.

Let's talk about why. 1/

chelseatroy.com/category/level…
The first oft-mentioned plot hole in "asking top people how they did it" is survivorship bias.

I.e., for every person who succeeded by doing X, there are 999 people who failed while ALSO doing X. The secret sauce wasn't X. This is true. There's another thing at play though.

2/
Here it is: the things that people at level n of advancement do to get to level n+1 might be different—and in fact, even the exact opposite—of the things that people at level n-k need to do.

I think about this a fair amount at athletic competitions. When I'm competing...

3/
Read 13 tweets
9 May
I'm thinking about something teacher-y today.

As teachers, how do we approach the first day of class?

The approach I've found myself trying to emulate, lately, is an immersion one—inspired by a few teachers I've had who approached Lesson 1 with the absolute audacity.

/1
In college I took my first Arabic class. The teacher opened class by saying some stuff to us, presumably in Arabic.

"Ismi Muhammad, w ma ismok?" he asked of someone in class.

Now clearly, that person had no f'n idea what was going on. So the teacher pointed to himself.

/2
"Ismi Muhammad." Then he wrote "muhammad" on the board.

"wa", gestures towards student. "Ma ismok?"

Eventually the student took a guess: "Uh, Bryan?"

"BRYAN!" Teacher drew a map on the board and, above the square that corresponded to Bryan's seat, wrote "Bryan."

/3
Read 14 tweets
8 May
This morning I saw @Dixie3Flatline's tweet about how you can dislike a tool without writing a mean blog post.

I remembered a conversation with @KentBeck about critique: art students explicitly learn to critique the work of others. Engineers...don't, and it shows.

What do?

/1
I trained in arts schools for years before becoming an engineer, and it has definitely impacted the way that I handle both giving and receiving critique.

So what constitutes a sophisticated, useful critique?

/2
BEFORE I BEGIN, two things.

1. I'm about to discuss critiquing a PIECE (like code, software, a product, or a book).

This is not about feedback for a PERSON. You can read about that below. Or, if you're light on time, check out the 20 minute talk.

/3


chelseatroy.com/tag/feedback/?…
Read 27 tweets
29 Apr
We have a pandemic, a reckoning about police brutality, late-stage capitalism, and more.

And consecutively, I'm supposed to be teaching a class about mobile software development.

I wanna talk for a second about why and how I address tough topics like these in the classroom.

1/
So first, why talk about tough stuff in the classroom?

1. These things affect my students lives and, therefore, ability to learn. Acknowledging the events makes it easier for students to come to me with questions and concerns related to their studies.

2/
2. I look like a tool if I teach 20 min after the Derek Chauvin trial concludes and I act like nothing just happened.

Computer scientists already have a reputation for living in their own little nerd world. I don't wanna feed that beast.

3/
Read 18 tweets
18 Apr
I have been watching several online lectures and lecture playlists from different instructors lately.

I'm starting to have some aggregate thoughts about what makes a lecture work—or, more specifically, NOT work.

1/
Before I begin, two things

1. I'm a graduate school instructor. I have given lectures. I'm not the peanut gallery.

2. My sample is "Lectures that got to YouTube," so their quality probably outstrips the average.

In particular...

2/
I have seen very few cases where the instructor didn't prepare or didn't care.

So this thread is really "What can STILL make a lecture not work, even if the instructor cared about the quality of instruction and prepared for class."

3/
Read 40 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(