Re: IDCG ideas for consideration for building an action plan

Tzviya,

Yes, member recruitment was definitely some of what I was thinking about 
with regard to outreach, though the example I provided was more about 
recruiting individuals. But my observation has been that when we recruit 
mindful for also increasing diversity, and are sincere about supporting 
engagement, some people eventually bring their organizations with them. 
That has absolutely happened in the case of promoting participation from 
the accessibility field and also directly from disability organizations, 
which IMO has enriched W3C work in many ways.

There's a little bit more in that direction under "individuals, 
organizations and communities," but more from a mentoring or support 
perspective.

Jeff is raising the issue of geographic outreach to different 
communities around the world -- which I agree we could also improve. 
When I've participated in tech meetings in the "global south" there is 
all this incredible innovation and energy and I wonder why we haven't 
yet been able to draw that into the W3C community very much. In part, we 
haven't been hosting and attending as much in those geographies. To some 
extent I see virtual/remote meetings as an advantage when we try to be 
more inclusive -- it creates a more level playing field for outreach and 
participation not disadvantaged by geography -- *if* we deliberately 
broaden our outreach at the same time.

Last thought for now -- you mention that W3C does not necessarily have 
much say about which individuals from a member organization participate 
in groups -- but a while back W3C decided to try to do that to some 
extent, in encouraging members to think about diversity when nominating 
their employees for roles in W3C, and to think broadly in terms of the 
available roles at W3C as well -- not only WG participants, but TF 
facilitators, Chairs, AC reps, AB members, TAG reps, PWE participants, 
etc... I think sometimes it's a matter of just encouraging people to ask 
the question, internally, and to remember to mention to more diverse 
groups of employees that standards are a great think to work on to 
contribute to the web and to also further their careers. I think this 
approach -- even when incremental -- has helped improve W3C as an 
organization over the years.

Tzviya, please feel free to capture some new categories on the idea 
list, to highlight these possibilities more explicitly than I had in my 
quick note from overnight. And I hope that others also feel comfortable 
tossing other ideas onto the table for consideration.

Thanks,

- Judy

On 6/11/2020 9:49 AM, Jeff Jaffe wrote:
> On 6/11/2020 9:35 AM, Siegman, Tzviya wrote:
>>
>> Thanks, Judy
>>
>> This is an excellent list.
>>
>> I think another area for W3C to explore is member recruitment. This 
>> may be what you intended with outreach. W3C does not necessarily have 
>> much say about which individuals from a member organization 
>> participate in groups, but W3C does a lot of active recruitment. Is 
>> there active recruitment in Africa? South and Central America?
>>
> The short answer is not enough.
>
> In Africa we have had Offices in Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal, and South 
> Africa.  But we have not had much activity on recruitment - either 
> directly or through the Offices.
>
> We have a fairly active Office in Brazil.  In the last year, we have 
> worked with our Spanish Office to have them facilitate more active 
> recruitment in the balance of Latin America.
>
>> Are we reaching out to organizations that promote diversity within 
>> their organizations?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Tzviya
>>
>> *Tzviya Siegman*
>>
>> Information Standards Lead
>>
>> Wiley
>>
>> 201-748-6884
>>
>> tsiegman@wiley.com <mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com>
>>
>> *From:* Judy Brewer <jbrewer@w3.org>
>> *Sent:* Thursday, June 11, 2020 2:18 AM
>> *To:* public-idcg@w3.org
>> *Subject:* IDCG ideas for consideration for building an action plan
>>
>> Leonie, thanks for pulling together a meeting of the Inclusion and 
>> Diversity Community Group.
>>
>> All, I'm particularly hoping we can discuss elements of a multi-point 
>> plan of action, even if part of our discussion is focused on a 
>> possible W3C statement.
>>
>> It may seem hard at first to figure out what W3C can do for an action 
>> plan given that we're an international technology consortium. But on 
>> other aspects of diversity, including disability and gender, W3C has 
>> made some progress over the years, even though we often questioned 
>> whether any particular step would have an impact, and even though 
>> there's lots more to do. On racial justice issues I'm hoping that we 
>> can think broadly when considering possible actions across the W3C 
>> community. Here are some possible ideas to brainstorm on, mostly 
>> phrased as questions. I'd welcome discussion on these on the IDCG 
>> list, in meetings, and in any other W3C fora, and also an expansion 
>> of an ideas list that might provide us good options to turn into an 
>> action plan. Some of these repeat a few things already mentioned on 
>> the list, and I also haven't captured them all.
>>
>> 1. *_Principles and practices_*: W3C has the TAG's *Ethical Web 
>> Principles* [1]; does anything in that that need updating to better 
>> capture current issues? W3C also has a proposed new version of the 
>> *Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct* (CEPC) [2] currently under 
>> Advisory Committee review, which goes into more detail on racism than 
>> the previous version.
>>
>> 2. *_Learning_*: There are many reading lists which have useful 
>> resources for learning about racism. It can also be useful to look 
>> specifically at the intersection of racism and technology, such as 
>> this list from Venture Beat [3]. Are there other reading lists on 
>> racism and technology that we could pull together, and perhaps curate 
>> a list that could serve as a resource for the web community?
>>
>> 3. *_Discussion_*: We can let W3C colleagues know about discussions 
>> within the Inclusion and Diversity Community Group  [4], and also 
>> encourage discussions in other W3C settings. For instance, do we want 
>> to promote this as a discussion topic for our upcoming TPAC? Other 
>> events?
>>
>> 4. *_Participation_*: W3C doesn't do a lot of hiring, but 
>> occasionally does, and many of our member organizations do. Do hiring 
>> managers know where to reach out to to increase the diversity of 
>> candidate pools, and could that information be shared?
>>
>> 5. *_Outreach_*: What conferences and events do we all show up to, 
>> and with what messages? Early on a few women in standards 
>> organizations started showing up to conferences such as the Grace 
>> Hopper Conference on Women and Computing, and talking to women 
>> engineers about what's so compelling about working in standards 
>> organizations. They had not heard of these opportunities from their 
>> managers or colleagues, and it took some spreading the word. Maybe 
>> finding different venues and talking about participation in standards 
>> organizations would be relevant around race as well.
>>
>> 6. *_Work areas_*: Are there any particular topics or issues that 
>> we're missing work on, such as AI bias around race? And looking at 
>> intersectional issues may be useful as well -- for instance, the 
>> intersection of racial and cultural issues with disability can doubly 
>> disenfranchise people from the training and mentoring opportunities 
>> that help bring people into the field. Are there intersections 
>> between race and other areas of W3C work that we could explore?
>>
>> 7. *_Individuals_*, *_organizations and communities_*: People have 
>> already raised ideas around diversity scholarships, and/or equipment 
>> support, for individuals. Could we broaden this approach to 
>> encouraging the web community to look for coaching, mentoring, 
>> partnering and support opportunities with local community 
>> organizations that could help feed a pipeline of engagement?
>>
>> 8. *_International context_*: Anti-black racism is an issue in many 
>> countries especially at this moment, and needs focused attention. But 
>> we should probably also continue to work on how this fits within 
>> braoder diversity issues that that W3C has worked on worldwide.
>>
>> 9. *_Action Plan?_* Some of these ideas may not be a good fit for 
>> W3C, and a lot of other good ideas may be missing. If we think ahead 
>> a year, what kind of progress would we want to be able report, and 
>> what among these possibilities -- or other possibilities -- might 
>> help get us there? Anyone interested in starting to build an action 
>> plan from these or similar ideas?
>>
>> - Judy
>>
>> *_Refs_*
>>
>>  1. W3C TAG Ethical Web Principles:
>>     https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/ethical-web-principles-20191204
>>  2. Proposed new version of Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct:
>>     https://www.w3.org/2020/05/CEPC <https://www.w3.org/2020/05/CEPC>
>>  3. Some essential reading and research on race and technology:
>>     https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/02/some-essential-reading-and-research-on-race-and-technology/
>>  4. Inclusion and Diversity Community Group (IDCG):
>>     https://www.w3.org/community/idcg
>>     <https://www.w3.org/community/idcg/>
>>
>> -- 
>> Judy Brewer
>> Director, Web Accessibility Initiative
>> at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
>> 105 Broadway, Room 7-128, MIT/CSAIL
>> Cambridge MA 02142 USA
>> www.w3.org/WAI/  <http://www.w3.org/WAI/>

-- 
Judy Brewer
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative
at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
105 Broadway, Room 7-128, MIT/CSAIL
Cambridge MA 02142 USA
www.w3.org/WAI/