Thank you so much for kicking off this convo, @Mike_Morita!
I’m going to share this thread in the closed facebook group that I’m aware was started for folks interested in this conversation, and I think it’s especially valuable to be able to have in public so more folks can find, contribute, and learn from it!
Personally, I’ve gone through my own experience learning my own blind spots and realizing how much work we can do. I wrote some of that learning process when we launched our code of conduct, but it’s something we continue to think about and work on every day.
For your questions, some initial thoughts!
What can individual space operators do?
- Figure out your own blind spots. Even if you are doing well in certain kinds of diversity, do the work to figure out who isn’t in the room, and why. This usually involves some conversations, potentially uncomfortable conversations. You have to meet people where they are.
- Be ready to do the work and research rather than expecting people or programs to do it for you. This can be frustrating, since you don’t know what you don’t know, but I think it’s part of the process.
- Small sustained actions are generally much more valuable than big, sweeping gestures. Communicating elements of how you work to include different kinds of people in every day conversations (tours, event planning, etc) will make a much bigger impact than having a single conversation.
- Be intentional about who you collaborate with. When you’re planning an event or project, instead of inviting the exact same people you always do, try to think outside of the low hanging fruit. I’ve gotten a LOT of milage out of asking our members explicitly for recommendations and introductions to people who often aren’t at the table when we’re putting together an invite list or planning a collab.
- Who and how you hire matters. In our last round of hiring, we intentionally decided to do the work to reach into communities beyond our usual contacts and make sure that a wider range of potential candidates were able to, and believed they could, apply. The result is crystal clear in the words of the candidate we hired. What you offer, and how you offer it, impacts who will apply.
What can the wider coworking movement do to incorporate diverse voices and perspectives into the movement?
- Ask fellow operators the same questions you’re asking yourself. Who isn’t in the room, and why/why not? There is no single correct answer.
- One of the biggest sets of voices I feel is missing from the movement are members. Operators (myself included) tend to dominate the conversation. When you’re doing an article, or invited to join a panel, or go to a local speaking event to talk about coworking, try getting at least one member involved.
- Rather than answering a reporters’ questions yourself, suggest that they speak to a member or two. I’ve even been so bold as to say that I won’t speak to the reporter unless the speak to a member.
- Ask a member to represent your coworking communtiy on a panel instead of yourself or a teammate. Trust them to represent your community and speak authentically about their experience.
- In all cases, be thoughtful about the members you invite. Mix it up. Encourage new voices to share their stories.
- I’d love to see more ways for non-english-speaking voices to contribute to the learning experience. There are some VERY smart people around the world doing amazing community building work, but you won’t hear from them because even if their english is perfectly understandable they aren’t fully comfortable or confident presenting in english. It’d be amazing if we started to see conferences invite non-english speakers to talk in their native language, and then either invest in have it translated live and/or pre-record the talks and have them transcribed and subtitled. In all cases, it’s not just about getting knowledge TO non-english speakers, it’s about having non-english-speakers able to contribute to the mainstage conversations.
What coworking organizations can we bring into this conversation? (e.g. this forum, the leadership slack, GCUC, service providers, regional alliances)
- I know that the European Coworking Assembly has been organizing conversations about these topics over the last year, perhaps @Jeannine can speak more to that.
- I wonder what it’d look like to have an event that exclusively focuses on these topics, and have it led by actual experts from outside of coworking. When we hosted the People at Work Summit, we invited someone who has a lot of experience doing D&I work within universities, which IMO has a lot of similarities to the kinds of work we do. I learned more from that 40 minute talk than hours and hours of conversing amongst ourselves, so I’m making that video public specifically for this conversation.
- I would like to launch some language specific sections of this forum, allowing conversations to happen in multiple languages. I could see that idea expanded in other ways, and warmly welcome ideas/suggestions.
Honestly, a lot of this is table stakes (or should be). I’m looking forward to seeing how this thread unfolds, and encourage others to add your own experiences and ideas, no matter how big or small they seem.
There’s literally endless work to be done here, and it’ll be a lot better for everyone if we do it together!