Re: What we need to do

>
>
>>> 1.
>>> Define goals and steps to reach them
>>>
>>> Since this is smack in the middle of the conference season, was
>> wondering how many of us will be at pgCon or one of the other conferences?
>> Maybe if enough of us will be attending one of these conferences, we can
>> have an in-person meeting do discuss the steps and goals.
>>
>
> I'll be at pgCon. I was wondering if we could give a lightning talk about
> Postgres Women as we did at PgDay Paris.
>

I think that's a good idea. We should definitely do that.

>> We will have several women not only in attendance and speaking at
>> PostgresConf US 2018 next week, but also the majority of our volunteer base
>> is the local Women Who Code NYC chapter. I suggest prioritizing reaching
>> out and engaging women in other open source and coding spaces as well, to
>> foster more interest and growth in Postgres community as a whole and at
>> large.
>>
>>
> Great idea!
>

+1

Getting more women interested and exposed to Postgres should be our top
priority, closely followed by the need for a welcoming and warm community
to make sure those women choose to stay :) Never one to complain, BUT I
can't say I haven't felt isolated and lonely at times especially when at a
postgres conference surrounded by all men. I have also been told I'm not
the only one who feels this way by other women I've spoken to. These two
goals - 1. Attracting more women to Postgres and 2. Making a healthy
community where women feel represented should be our starting goal to focus
on.

For example, Women Who Code membership is restricted to women and people
> who identify as women, with men excluded from the majority of gatherings.
> This approach provides women with a comfortable space to empower one
> another and foster growth, but in my opinion alienates potential allies and
> supporters.

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.

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.

+1

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.)
>
>
Yes, I was thinking on slightly similar lines - the easiest way to start is
to try to collect postgres blog posts written by women and post them on our
twitter feeds. And from there, once we can get our own webpage, we can
probably have a subset of planet postgresql feeds publishing women authored
posts. Same goes for conference talks.

I also think that little things like anyone asking on slack channel "who's
attending <blah> conference?" will be helpful. Probably not something we
can do right off the bat, but having swag such a postgres_women stickers to
have at the postgres booth in conferences will go a long way in getting the
name out and making new women feel welcomed (I like PyWomen initiatives).

PyLadies also has an extra day at the end of some python conferences to
hold official meetups and workshops for women, of course I don't expect us
to do this right away, but just laying out the possibilities and the need
for such a community. ( http://www.pyladies.com/ )

I am also interested in tech news though! And there is no women-focused
> coverage of Postgres news & discussion at the moment, at least that I'm
> aware of. Stepping into that gap may not be directly what this group is
> about, but like Valeria says it helps maintain and expand our presence,
> which we need in order to accomplish our overall goal.

Fair point. My initial concern regarding other similar postgres twitter
accounts was mainly so we're not just left replicating their tweets the
whole time. I think we can start slow, that is, tweet selective articles,
and guage the response (retweets, views, etc.) and go from there.

One last thing, I believe if we want new women to approach postgres through
this community, we can't reply on them subscribing to mailing lists or even
the postgres wiki page. For daily interaction with newcomers, I think the
most accessible way to get them in is via slack, so I propose we put our
slack channel in our postgres_women mentions as the first way to become a
member. Just putting myself in the shoes of a fresh college grad, I'd be
much more inclined to check out a community if I can just sign up on a
popular chat tool (slack) as opposed to subscribing to a mailing list. Once
they're in Slack, I'm sure we can get them to become 'real' community
members by making a postgres account :)

I am speaking at a couple of upcoming conferences and was thinking of
adding a mention of postgres_women in my last thank you slide to get the
word out. Yay or nay? Maybe other speakers can do the same.

Thanks,
Payal

Payal Singh,
Database Administrator,
OmniTI Computer Consulting Inc.
Phone: 240.646.0770 x 253

On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 11:53 AM, Debra Cerda <dcerda(at)postgresql(dot)us> wrote:

> Defining the vision of the group is also important, in regards to the role
> and contributions of men.
>
> How do you envision a typical Postgres Women meetup to go?
>
> For example, Women Who Code membership is restricted to women and people
> who identify as women, with men excluded from the majority of gatherings.
> This approach provides women with a comfortable space to empower one
> another and foster growth, but in my opinion alienates potential allies and
> supporters.
>
> 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.
>
> 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> 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>
>> 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
>>>
>>
>>
>