Superfan

Description

In 2016, Sacha Judd delivered a popular talk, “How the Tech Sector Could Move in One Direction,” that explored how online fandom contains a solution for the pipeline problem in the tech industry by thinking differently about recruitment and qualifications. Since then, Sacha has regularly spoken and written about what we can learn from communities of fans online, making and sharing things that they love, writing fiction, creating art, organizing communities, building sites, and teaching each other the digital skills needed to do it.

In 2018, leaders of teams more than ever must wrestle with the ways in which the homogeneity of the tech sector produces flawed software products and services. When everyone in our team looks like us, has followed the same journey that we have, and is interested in the same things, we develop significant blindspots about the weaknesses in our products. These blindspots lead to problems with access, usability, and ethics. Using inventive examples like crowdsourced Norwegian television subtitles, distributed radio requests, and fair trade chocolate frogs, Sacha explains what the joy of being a fan can teach us about building excellent and ethical software.

Topics include:

• Why D&I is about more than filling quotas; it’s about finding people who’ve followed different journeys into tech and supporting them once they’re hired.
• How diverse teams identify and mitigate blindspots faster and more effectively.
• How celebrating what we love results in hiring more qualified, more diverse candidates, filling positions faster, and improving retention.
• Tools and techniques for recruiting differently, changing the way we view pathways into tech, and celebrating difference in team culture.