Some useful links on diversity in tech
I moderated a discussion on diversity with Joelle Emerson this week at Draper University. She’s the founder of Paradigm, an agency that uses data and social science techniques to help companies improve their diversity. Clients include Slack, Airbnb, and others.
Here’s a short video of our chat from DraperTV. I’m also publishing a few links from our discussion (and from the pre- and post-discussion conversation) because so many of them are so useful.
Draper was a great venue for this chat. Every time I’ve visited Draper University I’ve been impressed by the diversity of the students (they are truly a global, multiethnic, mixed-gender group) as well as their infectious enthusiasm, curiosity, and seriousness of purpose. They ask great questions, too, and they are unfailingly welcoming and polite, which is something you don’t always encounter in Silicon Valley. Say what you will about Draper’s goofy “hero” iconography, they are doing something seriously right.
Several startups came up during the discussion that aim to help with diversity efforts:
- Jopwell: helps connect Black, Latino, and Native American job candidates with companies
- Gapjumpers: Helps companies conduct “blind auditions” for more objective recruiting.
- Textio: Uses AI and natural language analysis to improve the text of job listings, removing words that might discourage women or other diverse applicants.
Joelle talked about the paradox of meritocracy, a concept I found particularly interesting, which is this: People that think they’re making “meritocratic” decisions actually produce less meritocratic decisions. Go figure! It’s based on social science research by Emilio Castilla at the MIT Sloan School.
She also referenced research showing that diversity makes work teams more innovative and better at problem-solving.
Here are some useful articles by Joelle and her company.
- Why diversity matters to your tech company
- Diversity: tech companies need new strategies
- Want to hire more diverse people? Raise your bar
- Raising the bar: How to be a less biased interviewer
- It’s just not that simple: Understanding gendered workplace behavior
- Prioritizing Diversity in 2015
- An interview with Joelle Emerson on Inflection Point on KALW
- Paradigm has published a free (and no BS registration required) white paper on Managing Unconscious Bias
Also, here are a couple of recent news stories on Paradigm’s work:
On Twitter after our chat, Joelle recommended looking up videos from the following powerful voices on this topic:
- @techinclusionco
- Laura Weidman-Powers (@laurawp)
- Kimberly Bryant (@6Gems)
Diversity is a topic I’ve written about a lot as well, and I’ve tried to use “blind audition” techniques in hiring writers. Here’s some of my columns on the topic:
- You think women in tech have a problem? We all have a problem
- How Reddit’s fixed-salary policy is diversifying its workforce
- Why I’m using blind auditions to recruit journalists at VentureBeat
- How to improve diversity without compromising on excellence
- What you need to do to get more women at your conference or company
- How the tech industry can remedy its race problem
Finally, there are two things I am particularly proud of having facilitated during my time as the editor of VentureBeat, and those are the following story collections. Both include lots of work by Jolie O’Dell, Christina Farr, Dean Takahashi, and others for whom these topics were too important to leave out of a major tech publication. I think these pages are a useful resource that shows how these topics keep coming up again and again, and how the discussion in the tech industry has evolved (at least a little bit) since 2011.
