Star Trek: Voyager A Model for a More Inclusive

Community2014 Fox Valley Drupal Camp

September 20, 2014 bit.ly/voyager-inclusive

@fredricmitchell

Fredric

• Unabashedly an engineer

• Efficiency over everything

• Senior Dev @Phase2

• Continuously striving to do better

@fredricmitchell

What

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What We’re Talking About

• Journey to a better experience (User and Developer)

• The allegory of Star Trek: Voyager and it’s characters

• Context and Blind Spots

• The Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem

@fredricmitchell

Talent hits a target that no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.

German Philosopher

Arthur Schopenhauer

“ ”

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Superheroes love the journey@fredricmitchell

Software is Hard@fredricmitchell

Star Trek: Voyager@fredricmitchell

Photo Credit: http://bit.ly/Ujnm5g

[A great show] has to teach you how to watch it.

TV Critic

Alan Sepinwall

“ ”

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Captain Janeway• First female captain

• Bullheaded, simultaneously

dogmatic and impulsive

• Melded together a dynamic crew,

including Maquis rebels

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Photo Credit: http://bit.ly/1pxAYEL

The Janeway

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“Keep your shirt tucked in; go down with the ship; and never abandon a member of your crew.”

Am I open to unorthodoxy?

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Tuvok

• Black Vulcan

• Calm, logical, and expert botanist

• Keeps the peace through his

wisdom, experience, and vitality

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Photo Credit: http://bit.ly/1mrGYLB

It’s not easy“On the contrary, the demands on a Vulcan's character are extraordinarily difficult. Do not mistake composure

for ease.”

Is logic guiding my decisions?

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B’Elanna Torres

• Half Hispanic Human and Klingon

• Chief Engineer

• Tough, knowledgeable and

independent

• Brash, bold, and extremely complex

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Photo Credit: http://bit.ly/1sDE4ct

Hidden Potential“If I sprain my ankle, at least I feel something […] I'm not

trying to kill myself! I'm trying to see if I'm still alive.”

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How am I evaluating talent?

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Seven-of-Nine

• Former assimilated Borg

• Forced to adapt after separating

from the collective

• Logical, pensive, and extremely

blunt

• Lightning rod

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Photo Credit: http://bit.ly/1AZrhVT

Signal to Noise“But that is irrelevant.”

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What are the facts?

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Math. Science.

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Emotional Intelligence of Groups

• Source (HBR): bit.ly/ei-hbr-2001

• Teams who develop greater emotional intelligence (EQ) boost

their overall performance

• EQ: Trust among members, a sense of group identity, and a

sense of group efficacy

• At the heart of these three conditions are emotions, like the

ability to listen

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Women are Key to Smart Teams

• Published in HBR 2011: bit.ly/women-hbr-2011

• Little correlation between a group’s collective intelligence and the IQs of its individual members

• If a group includes more women, its collective intelligence rises.

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What do you hear about great groups? Not that the members are all really

smart, but that they listen to each other.

Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon

Anita Wooley

“ ”

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Points of Clarification

• Emotional Intelligence != Being Emotional

• Men can have high EQ

• Correlation and Probability are implied

• Gender is not limited to two choices

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The Difference

• Scott Page

• Professor of Complex Systems,

Political Science, and Economics

• Published 2007

• bit.ly/scottpage-difference

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Perspective, Heuristics

• Perspective

• How one looks at a problem

• Heuristic

• Tells a person where to search for a solution

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Diversity Trumps AbilityConditions

1. The problem must be hard

2. Each solver has a local optima to the problem

3. An improvement can be made to a non-optimal solution

4. Large pool of solvers to form a decent-size collection

Proof

The context of perspective and heuristics are key

http://bit.ly/div-v-ability

@fredricmitchell

Problem solvers with diverse perspectives may have trouble

understanding solutions identified by other agents.

Professor at Univ. of Michigan

Scott Page

“ ”

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And thus, EQ comes full circle

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Star Trek: Voyager@fredricmitchell

Photo Credit: http://bit.ly/Ujnm5g

So, what can I do?

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Get off the ‘its a pipeline

problem’

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Who is the the ‘most qualified’

candidate?

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Keys to Live By

• Be an ally

• Recognize my privilege

• Remember the science!!

• Stay bold in the compound interest of action

• Strive for maximum group collective intelligence

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How great can our community be?

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How will I help get us ‘home’?

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SourcesDiversity Articles

Groups are smarter with women - http://hbr.org/2011/06/defend-your-research-what-makes-a-team-smarter-more-women/ar/1

EQ (HBR link) - http://www.mindsetmatters.com.au/Portals/0/dox/building%20emotional%20intelligence%20of%20groups.pdf

Group Intelligence Correlates More with Social Aptitude than IQ - http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/10/collective-intelligence-and-th/

Being an Ally as a Person with Privilege - http://www.scn.org/friends/ally.html

Risk of Speaking Up - http://www.ashedryden.com/the-risk-in-speaking-up

21st Century Talent Spotting: Potential Trumps Brains, experience, and competencies - http://www.egonzehnder.com/files/_b_77ddd4d.pdf

Mathematical Model of Diversity - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/science/08conv.html

Scott Page: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Schools, Societies - http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~spage/

thedifference_content.html

Diversity Trumps Ability - http://www.crowdsourcing.com/cs/2008/05/chapter-6-the-m.html

Scott Page Research - http://www.pnas.org/content/101/46/16385.full

Voyager Articles

http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/now-voyager-the-least-beloved-star-trek-offered-some-of-the-franchises-strongest-feminist-

messages

http://www.startrek.com/page/star-trek-voyager

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Thanks for Listening

@fredricmitchell

bit.ly/voyager-inclusive !

2014 Fox Valley Drupal Camp September 20, 2014