ashe dryden - Now with more snarcasm!

Taking it to the next level: hire me or help fund my projects

Ashe — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 06:55:46 +0000

tag:

Thanks to the attention my diversity work has received, I'm seeking a way to make it scalable and sustainable so I can devote more time toward these initiatives. But I need your help!

As many of you know, I've been working on a number of projects over the past year to improve diversity in the tech community. A handful of examples:

I did a two month long survey and round of interviews with groups and programs that aim to bring more people from a wider variety of backgrounds into tech through education, the forthcoming results of which will help more people start similar groups and programs.
Created resources for conference organizers to encourage them to make their events more friendly to a diverse group of people. While the project itself ended a couple months ago, every week I work with different organizers one-on-one to improve their conferences and attract more diverse speakers and attendees. I've also been honored to serve on the advisory board for a few others.
Interviewed nearly 100 companies and individuals for The Diverse Team, a book to help employers change their hiring, interviewing, and outreach practices to increase diversity within their organizations. A few times a week I speak with businesses on how to improve their culture and outreach to create positive change through hiring and community involvement.
Spoken about diversity, inclusivity, empathy, and education in podcasts, at conferences, on twitter, and have had numerous conversations with individuals to help them better understand both the problems and the solutions to the lack of diversity and empathy in our communities.
I speak with businesses, non-profits, and other organizations to help them with their own initiatives that aim to make our communities better for everyone.
On the local level, I run a women in tech group in Madison to help people feel more comfortable speaking in front of a group, presenting, and practicing before submitting to conferences and other events. The group fosters a safe environment for people to learn, be vulnerable, and make mistakes. With volunteers from this group, I also hope to create an after-school program for financially underprivileged kids to learn how to code.
I mentor people who are new to programming, which may be one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.

I do these things because I'm passionate about them. I love open source and I love our community. I want everyone to be able to experience the awesome things we're able to create together. It's work that's really important to me and has the potential to change tons of lives.

As a freelance developer over the past 4 years, I've been afforded a lot of opportunities to take on amazing projects as I dream them up. I've been able to educate, speak, and provide resources for people who need them while still having time to work on fun open source projects. Here's the thing: I've gotten to a point where my community work is starting to overtake the time I have for paying freelancing work.

This is where I need your help.

I want to fund these community-betterment projects and my open source work either through full-time employment or through the support of businesses and organizations.

If your company is passionate about open source, sees the value in increasing diversity, and wants to make the community a better place, I'd love to talk to you about what we can accomplish together. I'm especially interested in places that already have remote employees and are intentional about their culture.

Why Increase Diversity?

Diversity yields superior results for businesses and organizations. Research has shown that more diverse companies make better decisions, think outside the box more, and produce more innovate products than homogenous companies. A recent industry report estimates that by 2012, teams with gender diversity will double their chances of exceeding performance expectations when compared to all male teams. Companies with diverse boards and directors experience a significantly higher return on equity, higher sales increases, and return on invested capital. Diverse organizations are more able to compete in a global landscape when their workforce is representative of the market.

In short, your financial success and viability as a company are directly related to the makeup of your teams.

Resources

Ideal Job Description:

create and develop new tools for reaching technical audiences (books, documentation, podcasts, workshops, etc)
promote work through speaking engagements at conferences and other events
focus on increasing adoption of open source tools in diverse and emerging communities
help develop diversity-friendly hiring practices, outreach, and culture
organize and execute technical education programs that are inclusive and accessible
developer evangelism across online and in-person communities
contribute to open source projects

Experience:

developer, 12 years
freelance + contract developer, 4 years

consulting
team augmentation
project management

conference and community organizer, 10 years
speaker
writer
podcaster
open source advocate

Many people have asked me how they can help on an individual level and that means a lot to me. I have a gittip, which is the easiest way to fund my projects for as little as 25cents USD per week. If you want to contribute to any of my projects or would like help with your conference or other initiatives, email me and we'll set up some time to chat :)

Thank you <3

I'm in this amazing position today thanks to the outpouring of support I've received from businesses, organizations, and individuals who've helped lift up my voice and work. I couldn't have done this without you.

Taking it to the next level: hire me or help me fund my diversity projects bit.ly/Z2cEPH

— ashe dryden (@ashedryden) April 17, 2013

Featured on Ugtastic: Everyone's Technical Community

Ashe — Wed, 01 May 2013 19:07:01 +0000

tag:

I spoke with Michael at Ugtastic a couple months ago (with a cold, unfortunately; excuse the nasaliness!) about the diversity work I'm doing and the things we can all be aware of when it comes to create more inclusive communities.

Thanks for having me, Michael!

What You Need to Know About Speaking at Conferences

Ashe — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 00:20:19 +0000

tag:

Like many people, I've spent much of my life being terrified of public speaking.

My fears were stoked by anxiety-inducing experiences from middle and high school where I was thrust in front of an unkind class of my peers against my will, being told to read aloud from a book report I'd probably hastily written the night before. The teacher would ask for volunteers to speak and I'd slink down in my seat, doing my best impression of someone cooly bored (note: I am not, nor have I ever been cool). The second I heard my name, my hands would get shaky and a heavy weight would settle in somewhere deep in my stomach. After the dead man's walk to the front of the room, I'd stand in front of the class, red-faced, nervously rolling my feet outward onto the edges of my shoes and back in. How did my limbs work again? Everything felt like it was in the wrong place, not sitting right against my torso. And then I had to actually speak. My voice quavered, I quietly sped through what I'd written, tripping over words and pausing only when the last bit of air had been forced out of my lungs.

That is to say: it wasn't good.

Thankfully putting myself in these positions as an adult weren't nearly as bad. It takes a lot of practice to feel comfortable in front of a group of people and to leave people feeling educated/entertained, but I really believe that with enough practice everyone can be a great speaker.

Getting Started

The first couple times I spoke were at local user groups and barcamps. I was familiar with most of the people in my small audiences which added to the air of casualness. The open format made me feel less authoritarian standing in front of a group of people, which helped. My experiences with those first two talks served as good training wheels for the larger events that I wanted to speak at eventually.

Finding speaking opportunities

local user groups - sites like meetup.com have lists of local user groups
barcamps - there are barcamps all over the world, find one near you on barcamp.org
lightning talks/pecha kecha/ignite - many conferences have opportunities for very short (10mins or less) talks. These provide an excellent opportunity for new and first-time speakers to practice being in front of people.
lanyrd - you can find a list of conferences and other events near you through Lanyrd.
Calling All Papers
CallBackWomen
RubyThere

Talk Ideas

Pro tip: Nobody is really "qualified" to give tech talks.We're all exploring and figuring it out. Just share what you've learned.

— Jeremy Kahn (@jeremyckahn) April 11, 2013

"I don't know enough to speak, I'm not an expert on anything." I hear variations on this pretty regularly. I think everyone feels this way before they speak for the first time. Looking at conference lineups and seeing the people you respect speaking can make you feel out of place and lacking the expertise to present. Remember that everyone started somewhere: once upon a time they were first-time speakers, too. They weren't always perceived as experts.

Many conferences are going out of their way to let people know they're looking for speakers of all experience and knowledge levels, which is great.

Coming up with ideas

Most of my talk ideas stem from lively conversations over random observations I've made. A good rule of thumb is if a bunch of people have more questions than answers (or more feels than facts), it'll make an interesting talk. People want to learn something new from a talk, even if it's just a different perspective on a long-standing issue.

I've heard many people say that they'll choose something they want to learn to create a talk around. Then they'll spend the time learning it and have the advantage of having the fresh knowledge and experiences of a beginner so they know what might trip other people up. Take notes while you're learning something new. How did you expect something to work? Did it work differently? How would you compare it to something similar that you know well? Channel your learning into a story.

Expertise and Abstracts

An abstract is the information about your presentation that you'll send in during a call for proposals (CFP) for a conference. Some people also call these papers.

Abstracts are complicated beasts. No matter how amazing your talk actually is, your abstract is what will likely get you accepted or rejected. Most conferences I've been involved with (and from what I hear from other organizers) judge based on the following criteria in this order:

Talk title and abstract
Showcased knowledge of the subject (blog posts, open source work, on-the-job experience)
Previous speaking experience
Person's relationship to the community, conference, or organizers

So if you haven't spoken before or aren't well known for your involvement in this area, it's important to have a killer abstract and to start making your knowledge of the subject visible through blog posts, tweets, open source work, etc.

Titling your talk

As my friend Brad says, naming things is hard. The title of your talk is what should immediately grab people and get them interested. It should be short, memorable, and give them an idea of what they're in for. I tend to name my talks after I've written the abstract because the tone and language I use in the abstract colors the way it should be titled.

Writing the Abstract

Abstracts should give you the mile-high view of your talk. What are the interesting topics that will be covered? Why is it interesting or controversial? What will the take-aways be? The first couple sentences may be the only thing a reviewer will read, so you should start out with something compelling.

Every conference has a slightly different requirement for the format of an abstract. Some call for a couple paragraphs, some a full paper. Others call for an outline in addition to the abstract or a list of objectives that will be achieved through your talk. If you have a conference in mind while creating this abstract, check to see what format they are looking for before you begin.

Rejected abstracts

Your talk will likely get rejected at a bunch of conferences at first. Don't take this personally! Keep in mind that most conferences get between 4 and 5 times more proposals than they have speaking slots. Your talk won't be right for every conference or for every audience and that's just fine.

If your talk gets rejected, you may be able to reach out to the organizers to find out why so you can improve for next time. Thank them for reading your proposal and giving you an opportunity to submit, whether or not they are able to give you any feedback.

Additionally, ask friends who are in your potential audience how to improve it. Ask "would you be interested in seeing this talk? What would make this talk more interesting for you?". You may need to go through a few revisions before you find one that sticks.

Speaker Bio & Picture

Conferences will likely ask for your speaker bio and a picture at the same time you submit your proposal.

For many people, the bio is harder to write than the abstract. How do you write about yourself and make it sound interesting? I highly recommend having someone who knows you well either write this for you (offer to write theirs for them!) or give you ideas of what to include. Your bio should tell people what is unique about you: where do you work? What have you focused on in your career? What have you done that is unusual? Depending on the type of conference you may also want to include some personal details like unusual hobbies or a fun fact about you.

The picture is less difficult. It should be an unobscured shot of your face and be appropriate for the event. I personally like using the same picture I am using as my avatar on twitter + github because people are likely to recognize it. You should have access to the high resolution original (depending on the conference, they may be printing it in a program or projecting it onto a screen during the conference) as well as a few standard-use sizes. I like to keep a folder that includes the original along with various sizes (100x100, 200x200, 300x300) so I can send off whatever they prefer.

If you don't have any recent or appropriate pictures, ask a friend to take a few for you. Natural lighting is best, but an indoor area with good lighting works, too.

Before Creating Your Talk

Once your talk has been accepted, get as much information from the conference organizers/track chairs as possible. Here is a list of basic questions I ask for every talk:

Audience

How many people will be in the audience?
What is the experience level of the audience?
Will there be a sign language or foreign language interpreter? Do I need to keep anything in mind for that?

Room

What kind of room is it?
What is the configuration of the room?
Is there a stage? How big is it?
What is on the stage (podium, table, stool)?
If the talk is being video recorded, am I discouraged from moving around the stage?
Will water be provided for me on stage or should I bring a bottle up with me?
Will the room be well lit or dark?

Technology

What resolution is the projector?
Are there any color issues with the projector?
Will a power adapter for my laptop be provided?
Will a projector dongle for my laptop be provided?
Will there be wifi? Is there a separate access point for presenters?
What kind of mic will I have (handheld wired/wireless, podium, lapel)? Have you had issues in the past with people being unable to hear a speaker?
Will there be a monitor for me to view my slides, or just my computer on a podium?
Will there be a timer?

Content

Have you had any issues with speakers in the past? Anything I should keep in mind?
Can I see a copy of your code of conduct and speaker guidelines?
Is swearing allowed in my talk or slides?
What day and time is my talk?

Preparing Your Talk

Before I start preparing my talk, I look at the conference's past presentation videos to get a feel for what they're expecting. I sometimes give the same talk at different conferences, but I'll tweak it to fit the audience.

Additionally, if I'm not familiar with the audience I'll talk to the organizers to get a better idea of the knowledge level and demographic make-up. This is especially important if you are giving a talk to an audience that may not share your language or culture. You want to make sure that your talk is appropriate for the audience and that nothing you do or say will be in violation of the conference's code of conduct.

If you're giving a talk in a place whose dominant language or culture is not your own, I would also recommend finding someone who fits into that group to review your talk and slides to avoid things that would be inappropriate or not understood by the audience.

Outline

I start by opening up my abstract and starting an outline. I want to make sure that I'm going to cover everything that's mentioned in my abstract so people feel like they learned everything they expected to from my talk. I divide the outline into three areas.

1. Intro

The intro should cover a little bit about yourself (less than 30 seconds, don't be obnoxious). After that, speak to why this topic is important, why you are the right person to speak about it, and give a short teaser of the points you'll be covering.

2. Exposition

The exposition is the meat of your talk. Each major point in your talk should have supporting information to prove or demonstrate that point. If I have a list of points, I will try to make sure that I am covering information in the same structure. For instance, if the first two points have a description of the point, a story, and a demonstration, I will try to make the third point fit the same format if appropriate.

3. Conclusion

The conclusion should quickly recap what was covered in the exposition, any calls to action (what you expect the audience to do with this newly learned information), and a thank you.

Draft

After I have a solid outline, I begin writing my talk as if it's a blog post. This helps me make sure that the talk will have a story arc, enough supporting information to get my points across, and I will know what I'll be saying in each section within the exposition. Additionally, this helps me make sure that things are in a logical order with smooth transitions between them.

Note: many people try to add humor into their talks, which is very hard to do well. If you want to do this, be sure to avoid self-deprecation (nothing is more uncomfortable than wathing someone you don't know put themselves down) as well as inside jokes or obscure references. Don't leave your audience feeling like they missed something.

Slide Deck Content

As soon as I am comfortable with my draft, I start breaking it down into slides. I err on the side of a ton of slides with very few words on each. Each slide should be able to read in a second or two by the audience, so avoid walls of text or bullet points. The slides are just there to support what you're saying, not the convey the message itself - that's your job!

For major points of interest, I may put more words on the slide to reinforce what I'm saying. The ideas on these slides should also be short enough to be tweetable.

If you're using an application like Keynote, it'll allow you to nest slides which I highly recommend. Nesting them for each major point in my exposition just like I would if they were an outline allows me to quickly and easily see the structure of my talk via my slides as well as rearrange groups as needed.

Slide Deck Design

I would highly recommend not using one of the default Keynote/PowerPoint themes. Sure, some of them aren't super terrible, but everyone uses them. Your slides should be unique to your talk and you don't want any part of it to come off as boring.

You can create your own Keynote theme very easily, and I highly recommend it. While you're at it, be sure to take some time and configure your presenter display for Keynote. You'll probably end up tweaking this a few times before you have it set up the way that works best for you.

Zack Holman is known for his awesome slide decks, especially in that he's a developer, not a designer. It goes to show that following some basic design principles, anyone can have interesting, eye-catching slides that add something to their talk. He wrote a post with some basic guidelines that I highly recommend. My favorite tip he suggests is to make text bigger. Like, gigantic. Make it as big as possible, at least 90pt.

Slide Design galleries:

Typefaces and type inspiration:

I Font You - gallery of font combinations
Font Squirrel - fonts free for commercial use
Fontspace - freeware/shareware fonts

Color and palette ideas:

Practicing

The last talk I gave, I practiced sitting alone in front of my computer a few times a week. I practiced walking home from work. I recited my talk in my head twice on the bus from Madison to Chicago. I practiced in my hotel room the few nights before the talk. I even gave the talk to my cats.

That is to say, I practiced a lot.

I like to know my material forward and backward. I practice and practice until I need very little in the way of presenter notes at all. It's important to me to not worry about forgetting something key to my point on stage.

Alone

Practicing alone will help eliminate as many problems as possible before you're ready to practice in front of people.

Try recording yourself (audio as well as video) so you can find the places that you say "um", "like", or otherwise uncomfortably pause. Those are the areas you'll need to focus on most.

You can always speak slower. Take a full breath between thoughts and think about your talk as if it's a conversation. You want to give people a moment to let a thought sink in before proceeding to the next.

Practice your talk all the way through. If you screw up halfway in, just keep going. You don't want to have practiced the beginning half of your presentation more than the end.

Once you start feeling comfortable with your delivery, start focusing on your pacing. Make sure you are within a couple minutes of your talk time.

Rehearsing with an audience

This is when things start to feel real. Schedule time with friends, colleagues, and coworkers to give your presentation to them. Before the last talk I gave, I practiced with a group of friends that were in the same demographic as my audience over a Google Hangout.

Let people know that you are giving a talk at a conference and you want help improving the presentation.

Write down questions that people ask at the end of your presentation; this will give you an idea of areas you didn't go into enough detail for the audience so you can go back and flesh out those areas.

Make sure you ask them for constructive feedback. For many, it's easier to get this anonymously. Setup a google form and ask people to tell you three good things about your talk as well as three things you could improve upon.

Dry run

If you're able to give your talk to a user group or similar-sized audience before you have to give your talk "for real", do it. User groups are almost always looking for speakers. Try to schedule speaking at a user group as soon as your talk has been accepted so you can give it preferably a couple weeks before the conference. This gives you a deadline to have a solid talk completed by while still providing you time to make changes based on their suggestions and your experience giving the talk live.

Remember that this is a dress rehearsal, so try to replicate the circumstances you'll have at the conference as much as possible. Ask people to hold their questions until the end if the conference talk is structured that way. Use the same laptop and any other presentation tools you'll be using. You want to find all of the bugs now and not when you're at the conference.

When you've finished, let people know that you are giving this talk at a conference and you'd like constructive feedback to make it better. Provide them the link to your anonymized google form from earlier.

Where to put everything

For the Talk

If your laptop dies before your talk, what will you do? If you have a backup copy of your talk in a few places (such as a flash drive, Dropbox, or your email), you can recover pretty quickly with the help of a loaned machine. Similarly, if you use written notes, make sure you have a backup of those stored in a different place than your master copy. It'd be terrible if you lost your bag with *both* sets of your notes in it.

For the Audience

I try to make it easy for people to find all of the info related to my talks, so I generally create a post for each talk that includes any pertinent information, plus tweets, audio/video, the abstract, and any other related stuff. This way I can give people one link to everything. It also serves as a nice history that I might not have access to otherwise.

SpeakerDeck - export your slides as PDF and upload them. Include any links in the notes section so people don't have to copy them by hand from your slides.
SpeakerRate - allows people to rate your talk and give you feedback.
Lanyrd - tracks what conferences you are attending and speaking at.

Other Resources

A lot of other speakers have put together information on getting started and improving yourself as a speaker. Here's a random smattering of things I and some friends have found useful.

Blog posts and Articles

Books

Video, Audio

The Secret Structure of Great Talks, by Nancy Duarte
Presenting at Conferences (audio with transcript), by the Ruby Rogues
Speaking Hacks (video, $18), by Scott Hanselman

Mailing Lists, irc, and Other Speaker Support

Speak Up! - a mailing list and irc channel for new speakers
We Are All Awesome - new speaker resources, including mentoring via irc once a week

What you need to know about speaking at conferences: bit.ly/XXnMyJ

— ashe dryden (@ashedryden) April 21, 2013

Featured on Ruby Rogues: Diversity with Ashe Dryden

Ashe — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 06:00:00 +0000

tag:

Last week I got the chance to sit down with the Ruby Rogues to discuss diversity in the ruby community. We covered why diversity is important, how we can increase the amount of diversity, dealing with our own subconscious biases, how to be an ally, and a lot more. I was really pleased with the amount of things we were able to cover and how respectful and productive the conversation was.

You can listen to the podcast here.

New @rubyrogues ep 101 with @ashedryden discussing diversity in tech. If I could make everyone listen to just one episode, this would be it.

— Josh Susser (@joshsusser) April 17, 2013

@ashedryden amazing job on the RubyRogues podcast.

— Aaron Kalin (@martinisoft) April 17, 2013

This week's @ashedryden@rubyrookies re diversity has terrific links in abundance. Posts, books, talks, even comics. rubyrogues.com/101-rr-diversi…

— Carina C. Zona (@cczona) April 17, 2013

The latest @rubyrogues with @ashedryden is one of my favorites. I usually hate the "non-tech" episodes.

— Dermot Harris (@dermotharris) April 18, 2013

Featured on the Ruby Freelancers Podcast: Red Flags with Potential or Current Clients

Ashe — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:50:07 +0000

tag:

I was asked on to the RubyFreelancers podcast to discuss client red flags with potential and current clients. There was a lot of conversation around my contract, which I put up here (can also be found on github).

Thanks to Chuck, Jeff, Evan, and Eric for having me :)

Listen to the RubyFreelancers episode.

How to not make a bad situation worse

Ashe — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:05:02 +0000

tag:

Welcome to the internet, my pretties. You're probably reading this because some shit just went down. Whoa, totally makes you lose your faith in humanity right? Declare the equivalent of moving to Canada via rage quit? I'm with ya.

So, take a deep breath and let the rage subside a little. What can we do so this incident repeats itself with less frequency?

Step one: check yourself before you wreck yourself

The hardest part about this whole process is that many people that are on the receiving end of this kind of stuff know it isn't an isolated incident - this isn't the first time it's happened, this is maybe just the first time you've noticed it. Additionally, the people who are on the receiving end of this kind of behavior on a regular basis are frustrated because people don't learn when other people make these mistakes. Think of it like a conveyor belt: you explain to one person why what they did was wrong, but there is an infinite line of people behind them ready to make the same mistake. It's tiring.

Let's get into personal responsibility. Take a seat and buckle up, we're expecting a little turbulence.

You've fucked up

Maybe someone couldn't handle speaking up to you about it (this is not an uncommon thing, considering the average reaction), but it's likely you've made this mistake in the past. Recognize it, own it. Realize that everyone makes mistakes and it isn't the end of the world. I consider myself pretty versed in a lot of issues and I've gotten rightly called out on twitter and in conversations for saying things that I shouldn't have. It happens to all of us.

This is hard for a lot of people (myself included) because the vast majority of us don't want to hurt others, we don't want to create an atmosphere where someone feels unwelcome or even physically threatened. Coming to terms with the fact that you may have done that sucks, there's no better way to put it.

Pro tip!

Yeah, your pride is probably a little bruised, but you'll recover. Don't make it worse by calling people names, being verbally or physically threatening, or publicly harassing the person you've wronged. There's no coming back from that.

You have an opportunity to right the ship before you lose your shit, though. Oh man, I really hurt this person is on a different continent from OMFG NO U! So choose your next steps wisely.

Take a deep breath.

Learn how to apologize

Acknowledge it.

If confronted: You're right, that was out of line.
If you realize it first: Actually, lemme stop for a second. What I just did was wrong.

Apologize.

I'm sorry. (Yup, it's totes that easy.)

Make amends.

What can I do to make it up to you?

Learn

Take time to fully understand why what you did was wrong.

Apologizing is more an art than a science. Sure, it has specific ingredients, but there are subtleties that the recipe misses. Mainly sincerity, which means all apologies should lack excuses. If you say the word "but" anywhere in your attempt, it is not an apology; stop yourself and start over again.

Everyone has received an apology that they didn't believe. Be mindful of your tone, your volume, your words, and the setting.

Step two: if you see something, say something

The person on the receiving end of poor or dangerous behavior can't always speak up for themselves without worrying about things like being treated worse, being ganged up on, or retribution. When you step in, say "hey, not cool", and employ your best mega-frown a la Grumpy Cat, you're saying other people recognize what they're doing and it's not acceptable. This takes the pressure off of the victim (for lack of a better term) who is already having to deal with a flood of their own emotions (insecurity, fear, anger, anxiety, panic, etc). Everyone is responsible for helping to uphold the Golden Rule.

The level of "call them out on that" varies depending on the person, relationship, context, and the situation. Use your best judgement according to this handy dandy escalation list:

Pull them aside privately or email them and explain the situation to them.
Stop them immediately and tell 'em what's up.
Get an authority figure involved (boss, conference organizer, business owner, a respected third party - whatever is situationally appropriate).
Take it to the the streets. If all other avenues have failed you or if the situation is severe enough, get help from wherever you can.
Get the cops involved. If someone has done something illegal or has become physically, verbally, or emotionally threatening, drop everything and call the cops immediately.

Pro tip!

If someone accuses you of White Knighting, remind them that you're a human that expects other humans to be treated with respect, full stop. Feel free to use this totally scientific equation:

When you did/said ________, I felt __________.

Letting bad behavior slide shows everyone in the community that it's acceptable to do those things. It's not. You don't want that in your community and I don't want it in mine.

Step three: dftba - don't forget to be awesome

You've graduated and are ready to go out into the world planting flowers everywhere you go and high fiving everyone you see. So what's next?

Encourage people to get to know people who aren't like them. This is what I like to call the Empathy Trojan Horse. You're more likely to see a situation from someone else's perspective when you can put yourself or someone you know in their shoes.
Proactively discuss community issues with friends and help them to see why it's an issue in the first place. The more we talk about these problems, the more we can start modeling good behavior and eradicating the bad stuff.
Talk to conferences and companies about putting in a code of conduct. And offer to help!
Make the world a better place. Volunteer to help with community-based organizations that aim to either help bring more people into the community or help support the people that are already here.
Speak out publicly about these issues, explain how to combat them, and urge people to help you.

Freelance contracts that anyone can understand

Ashe — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:53:11 +0000

tag:

I was invited to speak on an episode of the Ruby Freelancers podcast today about client red flags and a lot of conversation seemed to center around what was in my contract.

I have a different contract style than most people: mine is in plain language (no legalese) and I consider it to be a living document. Whenever I have an issue with a certain process or client, I am sure to add language to my contract to insure that the issue won't come up again. I'm a big fan of being up-front with clients so they know what to expect from working with me. What better way to do this in a contract they can read and understand? No surprises makes for happy everyone.

I based my contract off of Andy Clarke's Contract Killer from 24 Ways from a few years ago. As you can see, mine has evolved a quite a bit from its original state, but I definitely recommend taking a look at his and reading his reasoning behind using a plain language contract.

Edit: I forgot to mention: I charge more if a client would prefer I sign their contract instead of signing mine. This allows me to get a lawyer to go over their contract as well as adjust to working more within their boundaries and constraints.

Note: I've removed any personal details and made it as easy for you to copy and paste to use for your own contracts. It is also available on github.

[LOGO]

[ADDRESS]

[PHONE]

[CONTACT EMAIL]

[DATE]

Summary:

We will always do our best to fulfill your needs and meet your goals, but sometimes it is best to have a few simple things written down so that we both know what is what, who should do what and what happens if stuff goes wrong. In this contract you won't find complicated legal terms or large passages of unreadable text. We have no desire to trick you into signing something that you might later regret. We do want what's best for the safety of both parties, now and in the future.

In short:

You ([CLIENT COMPANY]) are hiring us ([MY COMPANY]) to [PROJECT NAME OR DESCRIPTION] at the hourly rate of [HOURLY RATE] per hour. Of course it's a little more complicated, but we'll get to that.

What do both parties agree to do?

As our customer, you have the power and ability to enter into this contract on behalf of your company or organization. You agree to provide us with everything that we need to complete the project including text, images and other information as and when we need it, and in the format that we ask for. You agree to review our work, provide feedback and sign-off approval in a timely manner. Deadlines work two ways and you will also be bound by any dates that we set together. You also agree to stick to the payment schedule set out at the end of this contract.

We have the experience and ability to perform the services you need from us and we will carry them out in a professional and timely manner. Along the way we will endeavor to meet all the deadlines set but we can't be responsible for a missed launch date or a deadline if you have been late in supplying materials or have not approved or signed off our work on-time at any stage. On top of this we will also maintain the confidentiality of any information that you give us.

Getting down to the nitty gritty

What we need from you
Below is a list of items we’ll need up front from you. Every project is slightly different, so there may be things we’ve missed from this list, but we will let you know as soon as we’re able if we’ve forgotten something we need.

[LIST OF NEEDS] (includes credentials, access to any necessary services or assets, etc)

Browser Compatibility
We have agreed to test our code in IE7+ as well as the latest releases of Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. Additionally we test on mobile Safari and mobile Chrome (iOS devices, Android devices). If you need browsers other than those listed tested, please provide us with a list of the browsers and devices. Testing additional browsers requires more testing time as well as potentially needing to code for that specific browser.
We code everything with progressive enhancement in mind. This means that modern browsers may show slight differences to older browsers (such as text and box shadows, rounded corners, etc) based on what a browser is able to render. Any changes will not affect the user experience.

Testing
We write tests before we write our code, which allows us to make sure that all required functionality is not only present, but works no matter how often we change things around. If your employees or other contractors will be working on the project along side us, we require that they also write tests for all code they produce to make sure we are all on the same page and not stepping on each others toes.

Version Control
Git allows us to keep track of all changes that happen in your application. This way, if a bug is introduced we can quickly find where it was added and roll back to the previous bug-free state while we fix things up! We require code be under version control so we can work on your application with your employees or other contractors without worrying that we may be undoing or overwriting each others changes.

Timeline
This project is scheduled to begin [START DATE] and will last a [PROJECT DURATION].
Below is the milestone schedule:

[MILESTONE NAME, # DAYS REQUIRED]

This contract will be declared complete when all work completed has been paid in full.

Additional development
Any additional development needed above and beyond what we have agreed to here must be accompanied by an additional contract which we will be happy to provide upon request. We retain the right to refuse additional work that is not specifically outlined in this document.

Contact
All communications will be made during regular business hours (Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm CST, excluding holidays) and we will return any contact requests within one business day unless we notify you ahead of time that we will be out of the office. Of course we understand that emergencies do arise, so in the case of one know that our hours will be billed at time and a half. We appreciate communication in a text-based medium, but understand that not all discussions are easily done this way. We’re happy to speak to you on the phone, over Skype/Google Hangout, or in person if you are in the [MY CITY] area, keeping in mind that any decisions that are made will be written down and require your written approval.

As we value your time as well as our own, we ask that all meetings be scheduled a minimum of two business days in advance and be accompanied by an agenda so that we can be fully prepared. If we are unable to attend a meeting at your suggested time, we will be happy to provide two times that will work for us. Meetings must start and end on or before the time allotted and will be charged for whether you attend or not.

Project Management
If you do not have a preferred project management tool, we will provide you with a login for ours where you will be able to see the status of the project down to the specific task, so you will always be kept up to date. We’ll be relying on you to participate by answering our questions, stating your approval, requesting changes, and verifying completeness through the tool as well. We ask for a one business day turnaround time on responses so we can keep things moving along at a pace that will allow us to hit the milestones we decided on together.
To keep the project organized and the management of it easier, we prefer not to communicate any of the information stated above over ordinary email.

Legal stuff

Although we test extensively, we can't guarantee that the functions contained in any application will always be error-free and so we can't be liable to you or any third party for damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages arising out of the operation of or inability to operate this application and any other web pages, even if you have advised us of the possibilities of such damages.

If any provision of this agreement shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from this agreement and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

Phew.

Copyrights

You guarantee to us that any elements of text, graphics, photos, designs, trademarks, or other artwork that you provide us for inclusion in the application are either owned by your good selves, or that you have permission to use them.

When we receive your final payment, copyright is automatically assigned as follows:

You own the graphics and other visual elements that we create for you for this project. We will give you a copy of all files and you should store them safely as we are not required to keep them or provide any native source files that we used in making them.

You also own text content, photographs and other data you provided, unless someone else owns them. We own the code we produced and we retain the rights to license it how we choose or to contribute it back to the open source project which it is based on.
We love to show off our work and share what we have learned with other people, so we also reserve the right to display and link to your completed project as part of our portfolio and to write about the project on web sites, in magazine articles and in books as well as speak about them publicly at conferences. Of course we’re happy to keep this information to ourselves until your project goes live or 6 months from the handover date, whichever is sooner.

Payments

We are sure you understand how important it is as a small business that you pay the invoices that we send you promptly. As we're also sure you'll want to stay friends, you agree to stick tightly to the following payment schedule.

Payment Schedule

We bill every other week on Friday and all invoices are payable upon receipt.

A deposit of [DEPOSIT AMOUNT] is due up front and will be subtracted from the last invoice.
Any payments not received within 7 days will halt work until the payment is received. If payment is late twice during the project, we retain the right to ask for prepayment of hours or to end the project, whichever is deemed more fitting for the situation.

If either party chooses to end the project, it must be done in writing. Please keep in mind that the deposit will be forfeited and any work that has been paid for up to that point will be turned over to you.

But where is all the horrible small print?

Just like a parking ticket, you cannot transfer this contract to anyone else without our permission. This contract stays in place and need not be renewed. If for some reason one part of this contract becomes invalid or unenforceable, the remaining parts of it remain in place.

Although the language is simple, the intentions are serious and this contract is a legal document under exclusive jurisdiction of [MY STATE] courts.

The dotted line

Signed by [MY NAME] and on behalf of [MY COMPANY]

Signed by [DECISION MAKER] and on behalf of [CLIENT COMPANY]

Dated [DATE]

The Diverse Team

Ashe — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:24:27 +0000

tag:

I've been doing lots of interviews and hangouts and chats with people for my Diverse Hiring project. After the first couple interviews it was clear I was going to end up with a ton of content. Currently my notes sit at over 30 pages. I sat for a few days, thinking about how I'd trim things down to be digestable, but a couple people suggested I turn it into a book.

So I am.

It's called The Diverse Team: Healthy Companies, Progressive Practices and I am releasing it through LeanPub. If you're interested in the book, please sign up on the landing page and let me know. I start working on it this weekend!

Note: If you participated in any of the hangouts or interviews, you will be receiving a coupon for a free copy. Thanks for all of your help!

Growing Developers Podcast: Surviving a Bad Project

Ashe — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:59:00 +0000

tag:

"We’ve all been there. We’ve been asked to do the impossible, work with the impossible, or finish before anything is possible. In this episode, we talk about how to make the most out of those situations!"

Watch the podcast.

Migrating Google Accounts

Ashe — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 06:07:48 +0000

tag:

I signed up for gmail a few months after they released it, back when I was using a different name. Since then, I've added another google account using my present name but have been struggling with the fact that some things are in one place and others are in another place. I finally decided this past week to figure out how to move data from one into the other.

It wasn't important for me to be able to move absolutely everything over. I won't be deleting or disabling the old account, so I will still have access to everything as long as google allows me to keep that account. If you are losing access to your old account (if you are leaving an organization or business, for example), not all of this information will be relevant to you.

I focused on moving my email archive, contacts, calendars, documents, groups, reader, and related settings for each of those things.

Gmail: Email

Email was the biggest beast I was worried about. Having nearly 10 years of mail and needing to be able to search all of that pretty regularly meant that I couldn't just back them up and keep them as an archive somewhere, I needed them available with the rest of my mail.

In doing research on migrating mail, I found many people that said you couldn't export or migrate your labels. As someone with near a hundred labels, I was not looking forward to moving them over manually. I asked about it on twitter and someone was kind enough to point me at Gmvault.

@ashedryden I just merged one gmail account into another with gmvault a few days ago. Labels were kept fine.

— Deon Garrett (@deong) March 7, 2013

Gmvault is pretty neat. It's a command line utility that basically grabs and backups all of your email (labels included!) locally, then allows you to push it to another gmail account.

Download Gmvault
Install and start syncing your emails. This was a big process and took about 10hrs to complete, so start it when you're able to leave your computer running overnight without interuption.
Push the emails to a new account. Note: they call this "restoring" in the documentation. Google throttles this which makes it take longer than the download, so allow this one to run at least overnight, too. It took me about 16hrs for 44K emails. You may get frequent status messages like "Cannot reach Gmail server, wait 4 seconds and retrying." It will keep trying until it gets through again, so don't worry about that.

As some people may still email you at your old address, don't forget to set up forwarding to your new address.

EDIT: It was brought to my attention that POP3 may be the easier/faster/more foolproof way to do this. I don't know if this will preserve labels or read status.

@ashedryden, just for the record: the POP3 migration for me is way better than gmvault. Essentially because all happens "in the cloud".

— Ignacio Bauer (@ignaces) March 10, 2013

In your old account, go to settings, then Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab. Under POP Download, select Enable POP for all mail. Save changes.
In your new account, go to settings, then the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab. Under Check mail from other accounts (using POP3):, select Add a POP3 mail account of your own.
Enter your old email address and credentials (note: if you are using two-step authentication, you will have to get an application specific password by going to your old account's main account settings and then to Security, and then to Connected Applications and Sites). Make sure pop.gmail.com and port 995 are selected.
Depending on the number of emails you have this may take a while.

If you are using a desktop or phone email client, make sure set those up with your new credentials.

Gmail: Filters

Filters make dealing with the massive amounts of email I receive manageable. Over the years I've built up close to 60 of them and wanted to make sure that I preserved all of that information so switching accounts would be seamless. Thankfully google makes it easy to export and import these.

From your old gmail account, click the gear to go into settings.
Click the Filters tab.
Scroll to the bottom and click the Select: All link and then the export button.
Save the file to your computer.
From your new gmail account, click the gear to go into settings.
Click the Filters tab.
Scroll to the borrom and click the Import Filters link.
Select the file from your computer and click Open File.

If any of your filters were email address specific, you may need to change them. This is a good time to go through and cull the herd anyway, right? :}

Gmail: Settings and Configuration

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to export your settings. I just put two browser windows side by side and replicated the settings, including Labs.

Contacts

Contacts are another easily exportable set of data. Before you do the export, though, let's clean up them up a little. Because I sync my contacts from google to my iPhone address book and back, sometimes I get things that are out of sync or end up with duplicates.

From within the contacts page in Gmail, click the More menu and select Find & Merge Duplicates.
If there are any contacts to merge, you'll be presented with a dialog guiding you through what you'd like to merge. Make your selections.

Next we can do the actual exporting and importing.

From the More menu, choose Export.
Choose which contacts you'd like to export. I chose All Contacts.
Choose the Google CSV format.
Click Export.
Save the file to your computer.
From your new gmail account, navigate to the Contacts page.
Choose Import from the More menu and select the file from your computer.

If you are syncing your contacts with your computer or phone, make sure to set those up with your new credentials.

Calendar: Calendars

Calendar data doesn't seem to be easily exportable, but if you aren't going to be losing access to your old account you can get around this by sharing the calendars and read/write access to them with your new account.

From Google Calendar with your old account, click the gear and choose Settings.
Select the Calendars tab.
For each calendar, click the Sharing link.
Enter the email address of your new account, choose Make changes AND manage sharing and click Add person.
Save.
Repeat for each calendar.

If others have shared calendars with you, you will need to ask them to reshare them with your new account.

If you are syncing calendars with your computer or phone, make sure you set those up with your new credentials.

Calendar:Settings and Configuration

Same thing here as with Gmail. You'll need to manual move this information over. Don't forget your reminders and notifications!

Documents

There are a couple ways you can migrate your documents over.

If you are using Google Drive and aren't worried about preserving the sharing/editing information of your documents (this works if you don't share documents with others for collaboration), you can use the desktop app (it works the same way as Dropbox, syncing a local folder to drive.google.com) to make a copy of the documents and add them into the new account's Google Drive folder.

If you do want to preserve the sharing/editing information and you will not be losing access to the old account, you can just share your documents with your new account.

Select all documents.
Click the Sharing button in the toolbar.
Add your new email address as someone that can edit the document and click Done.

If others have shared documents with you, you will need to ask them to reshare them with your new account. Additionally, if people share documents with your old account, Google provides you with a handy link to request access using the currently logged in account.

Groups

Groups are probably the easiest to migrate.

If you are not the group owner or administrator, contact the owner/administrator and ask them to add your new account to the group.

If you do own or administrate the group:

From the group's main page, click the Manage link in the upper right.
Click the green Manage button.
From the left sidebar under the Members section, click Direct Add Members.
Enter your new email address, a welcome message, and your email subscription options. Click Add.
From the Manage page, check the box next to your new account's name.
From the Actions menu, choose Add to role: owner.

You will also need to manually migrate your settings for each group. You can do this, again, by just using two browser windows next to each other. You can find these settings under the My Settings menu and then choose Membership and Email Settings.

Reader

I still use an RSS reader (I know, I know) and I have years of subscriptions built up in there. The process of migrating your subscriptions is very easy, although it isn't very obvious.

From your old account, open up Reader and navigate into settings through the gear icon.
Select the Import/Export tab and click Down your data through Takeout. Note: make sure you aren't logged into your new account, because this will confuse the redirect. It took me a while to figure that one out.
Click the Create Archive button and download your data.
Unzip the file.
From your new account, open up Reader and navigate into settings through the gear icon.
Select the Import/Export tab and click the Browse/Choose File button. Select the subscriptions.xml file from the Reader directory within the takeout directory that you downloaded and unzipped.
Click Upload.

Other Things to Keep in Mind

You can see an overheard view of the things that are associated with your google account through the Google Dashboard.
If you are using two-step authentication or have connected applications or sites for your old account, make sure you set that up for your new account.
If you are using your email address for logging into sites and services, consider having your email address changed on those sites. If you use a password manager like 1password, it should be easy to search and find which sites are using your old email address.
Start this process knowing that you'll spend a week or so in both accounts making sure you didn't forget anything. There will always be accounts connected that you'll have forgotten about.