Re: What we need to do

Boriss,

huge +1 to everything that you’ve added here.

Thank you for your understanding and insight!!

Debbie

On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 5:47 PM Boriss Mejias <bmejias(at)dcc(dot)uchile(dot)cl> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> First of all, disclaimer, I'm a man trying to contribute here (but you
> obviously
> already deduced that from the name)
>
> Debra Cerda wrote on 11-04-18 17:53:
> > Defining the vision of the group is also important, in regards to the
> role and
> > contributions of men.
>
> Some years ago I helped founding a group in the Alfresco community with
> the
> mission to guarantee that the software would remain open source (Alfresco
> is
> commercial open source and at the time we had the fear it would go close
> source).
>
> One of the first steps was to identify the "vision", "mission" and
> "goals". In
> my understanding, a "vision" is what you want to be or become. It's better
> when
> it's inclusive because you want people involved and be part of it. A
> "goal" is
> something concrete, aligned with the vision, that can be achieved and
> divided
> into steps. The "mission" is also aligned with the vision and helps you
> define
> the next goal once you achieve them (or discard them). So, one vision, one
> mission, and several goals (but not too many, we want to achieve them one
> by one).
>
> Taking that into account, I think "encourage and support women to become
> active
> members of the PostgreSQL community" is a great mission, because it helps
> to
> define goals after goals. It's a constant activity. One never finishes
> encouraging and supporting. So, +1 to that as mission.
>
> Coming back to Debra's comment, what would be the "vision" of the
> organization?
>
> > [...]
> > On the other hand, when I had opened a dialogue last year about creating
> an
> > international group of women in Postgres, I was met with enthusiasm
> mostly from
> > men stating "OH! We can do this, and this, and..." Which was
> appreciated, but
> > why not let women be the catalysts and the leaders? IMO, we need allies
> and
> > supporters, not "white knights" -- give us guidance, but let us do the
> heavy
> > lifting.
>
> I agree on this. Women has to be the catalysts and leader of this. Men
> should be
> able to help and provide feedback, and most importantly, talk to other men
> about
> how women contribute to our Postgres community.
>
> In the next reply, Payal Signh wrote the following:
>
> "I would agree involving men is a good idea. The purpose of the group is
> to make
> women feel welcomed, and alienating men seems unnecessary in that regard,
> if not
> counter-productive. "
>
> I think excluding men from PostgresWomen as an organization can be
> counter-productive because it can create the feeling that it's a fight
> between
> two groups. I know it is not, but perception matters.
>
> I think excluding men from certain activities can be positive in the goal
> of
> making women feel welcomed. For instance: Women-only IRC/Slack channels
> can be a
> good thing. Women-only Hackathon can also help in making women feel
> welcomed.
>
> Those are my current thoughts.
> Cheers
> Boriss
>
> > As a female professional with a "portfolio" career in no less than 4
> > male-dominated industries -- Postgres, craft beer, water, and film! --
> I've
> > observed and been involved in a broad spectrum of approaches in creating
> > diversity, equity, and inclusion.
> >
> > Setting your goals and tactics are the first step to building a strong
> > foundation and achieving your overall mission.
> >
> > Respectfully,
> > Debbie
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 4:45 AM, Valeria Kaplan <vk(at)dataegret(dot)com
> > <mailto:vk(at)dataegret(dot)com>> wrote:
> >
> > Hi All,
> >
> > Here is my two-cents :)
> >
> > @Postgresmen is run by Nikolay Samokhvalov and his main focus is
> indeed tech
> > Pоstgres news. He also organises #RuPostgres meetups. I agree that
> purely
> > tech news is not exactly what we should focus on since there are
> many other
> > channels in place focusing on that. Agree on open source / women
> focus and
> > maybe we can do general tech news/women focus too.
> >
> > Partially, I think we need to do the last step (/Define goals and
> steps to
> > reach them/) first and then we will realise who exactly we need to
> follow,
> > how broad we should be and what to post overall.
> >
> > Here is my thinking and please feel free to feedback :)
> >
> > I am keeping in mind our already defined goal: Postgres Women is a
> > non-profit organization created to*encourage and support women to
> become
> > active members of the PostgreSQL community*and *foster recognition
> of their
> > contribution to PostgreSQL*development.
> >
> > 1. We want to *increase awareness of our initiative across tech
> industry
> > *(this is broad I know, but I think there is no harm in it) >>
> To do
> > this we could follow major women's initiatives in tech on
> > twitter/facebook in hope they will follow us and we will boost
> > each-other's content aka get a wider reach/awareness. Note: we
> could
> > also get ideas on what initiatives we could do from their pages.
> > 2. We would like to *raise awareness of contribution of women in
> > Postgres*>> @planetpostgres has a good flow of all news related
> to
> > Postgres development, ideally we would retweet women-led
> contributions
> > (blog posts, patch announcements etc.)
> > 3. We would like to *encourage women to become active members in the
> > community *>> any big conferences in north America, Europe and
> Asia have
> > their own twitter channels and announce relevant talks/blogs, we
> could
> > take that content and amplify women in it (retweet announcements
> about
> > women speakers, solicit content from those women for our
> channels e.g.
> > interviews, focus posts, opinion posts etc.)
> >
> > Reg face to face meeting, unfortunately I won't be there but if you
> will be
> > meeting there maybe others might join via skype/slack/whatsapp?
> >
> > thoughts?
> >
> >
> > Valeria
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:53 AM, Lætitia Avrot <
> laetitia(dot)avrot(at)gmail(dot)com
> > <mailto:laetitia(dot)avrot(at)gmail(dot)com>> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Dian,
> >
> > I don't think there's enough content under the heading of
> > women-focused Postgres stuff to keep this thing going without
> > branching out some. As far as Twitter/social media goes,
> > @postgresmen seem like a decent reference point: they publish
> > general news, showcase interesting projects and useful
> tools, boost
> > on-topic blog posts, and so forth. Doing that with an eye
> toward
> > emphasizing and advancing the work women do on+with Postgres
> and
> > developing a supportive community would be awesome.
> >
> > I might be wrong but I think Postgresmen is related to a russian
> > postgres meetup so their followers are interested in tech news
> whereas
> > our purpuse is quite different. But maybe I'm wrong...
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Lætitia
> >
> >
> >
>
>