DjangoCon Empathy Duty
A couple of days ago I came back from Budapest. I feel exhausted, even though I spent whole Monday soaking in thermal baths and catching more sun than I was exposed to in last two months.
After every conference I co-organize, I feel the same mixture of happiness and sadness, tiredness and excitement. Everything seems bitter-sweet. There is also a huge relief. It’s done, everything worked out in the end and it’s time to relax and slowly move on to another exciting project.
I already learnt how to deal with post-conference blues… and there is no reason to feel down - the organisers machine for Django Under the Hood was started and ideas for new exciting projects set in motion.
What I didn’t expected after the DjangoCon is that - apart from a big sense of achievement and doing something good - I would end up feeling emotionally drained and the time to recover will be much, much longer than usually.
But let’s first take a look what we managed to achieve this year. I’m super proud how much this amazing team managed to create.
DjangoCon Europe 2016 in a nutshell
I don’t even know where to start. There were so many amazing things about this conference.
Speakers & programme
DjangoCon Europe 2016 was a first DjangoCon in history where there was 54% female speakers. We still have loads to improve - there are other underrepresented groups who still had no sufficient exposure at DjangoCon, but we believe we are on a good track.
We made sure that programme is very diverse. Everyone could find something interesting. Topics varied from Django channels, service workers and HTTP 2.0, through microservices, translations, Java Script, debugging, mocking, Internet of Things to emojis, building Django ORM backend, GIS, security and migrations.
I’m super proud of Mikey and Erik, who stepped up and tackled very important topic of mental health. I loved that talk! If you haven’t seen it - go watch it now!
On top of that - following the main theme of the conference: intersectionality - we invited people from others communities to give amazing and inspiring keynotes. Because we believe that we need to go outside our Python bubble and learn from others, too.
Mentors, scholarships and inclusivity
Thanks to help of volunteers, we could offer help in writing a proposal and then preparing the talk.
We also had a scholarship programme - together with DSF we secured 10000€ for this purpose - the record for any Django event in Europe! We also collaborated with Django Girls Budapest chapter offering free tickets for the workshop attendees.
We tried to find many different ways to include as many people as possible: we offered a childcare, prayer room, quiet room and speakers room. We started a Slack channel where attendees could meet each other, find a roommate or just talk about the conference. We made sure there is a clear etiquette stated there, too.
Following the example of DjangoCon Cardiff we invited stenographers, who flew from UK to do live captioning for us. It was not only a way to include people with hearing impariment, but it was important thing for people who are not native English speakers.
It’s all about details
We had many small things that were meant to make a life of attendees easier and nicer: in each bathroom we had a basket containing various things: toothbrushes, deodorants, toothpastes, antibacterial gels, tampons, painkillers and so on. We had posters: “Yay! You made it!” and “You look nice today”. Small things, but they make a difference.
We also had a posters about bathrooms:
We prepared special badge, too: cassette that contained a podcast created by people from Django & Python community. Instead of t-shirts, we decided to have something perfectly gender neutral: socks.
We prepared a booklet with some amazing things inside: regex crossword or cookie recipe by Adrienne. We had pins with our official emoji (🎷) and temporary tattoos.
We tried to organise the party in such a way that everyone could feel welcome and safe. We made sure there are non-alcoholic drinks available, there is a space for people who does not feel well with bigger gatherings and had a board games upstairs. We also had a jazz concert during the party.
Thanks to Opbeat, DjangoCon had also a live streaming, allowing many people to join the conference remotely. It also made it possible to watch the talks on other floors in conference venue avoiding a crowd in a main room.
Code of Conduct
And finally I’m reaching the Code of Conduct, which pretty much defines this year’s DjangoCon for me.
Almost all the things listed above are a logical result of our Code of Conduct. Because it is not only a try-except clause for any unpleasant things that happen during the conference.
Code of Conduct is about care. It’s about an effort we put to make people feel welcome. Effort that we belive should always be included when organizing a community event. It’s covering your back if you forgot your toothpaste or you have a headache. It’s making sure you feel safe and welcome. That you feel included.
Code of Conduct is there, so you could speak freely, without worrying that someone will make fun of you, because you ask newbie question. It’s about respecting each other. No matter if you just started coding a day before or you are an expert in the field - we want you to to be part of the community.
Ups and down
I must admit - even though it’s not the first conference I was a part of the Code of Conduct team (or CoC Active Response Ensurers - CARE) - this year’s DjangoCon was the hardest one for me. Me, Ola, Rob and Baptiste literally spent at least half of the conference dealing with Code of Conduct issues. It was hard, emotionally draining and stressful (hello shaky hands!).
Process
After Django Under the Hood 2015, Ola drafted a Code of Conduct process based on the experiences from the conference. At DjangoCon we used it as a base for our actions - a formal process that helped us do better job when dealing with different situations. It also made sure we were treating all the issues with the same care and fairness.
Code of Conduct was everywhere. There were posters about it - even in the elevator. We reminded about Code of Conduct in e-mails and opening/closing talks. Accepting it was necessary to buy the ticket for the conference.
We had two Code of Conduct phones and dedicated conduct@djangocon.eu email address. We also monitored #djangocon hashtag on Twitter.
Basically, we tried every single thing we could think of to make it easy to reach us in case something was not right.
Difficulty
Even though it was the first time we followed a formal process, we had to improvise many times - every issue was different and had something unexpected we had to deal with. There were oversights on our account and we made sure to publicly apologise for them.
I’m really glad our team contained four people - I have no idea how we would survive it and stay sane with only two of us. It’s too big responsibility and huge amount of stress.
I missed loads of conference fun sitting in organisers room discussing next steps and trying to figure out the way to handle each situation. But I think it’s ok. Because I believe the work we did matters.
I don’t think there is any more awkward and uncomfortable role you could have during the conference than being in Code of Conduct team. But I also think it’s something that is essential for the feeling of inclusion and safety we tried to achieve at DjangoCon. We had the creditability of DjangoCon and the Django community on our shoulders and I hope we did not let anyone down.
Improvement
We noticed that a number of Code of Conduct reports slowly goes up with ever event we organize. Even though that means an extra work for us, it also shows that people start to feel more comfortable to react and report things that are not right. That is a huge step forward to achieve a supporting and welcoming community. I am grateful for every single report and trust people put on us.
Now it’s time to take all the new things we learnt and add them to our process. It will make it easier on us next time we will need to deal with something similar. We believe we are on a good track.
Recovery
In general if I have to sum up what I was doing most of the time at DjangoCon, I would say that I was on Empathy Duty. It was incredibly exhausting and hard and I feel I need a time off from it for a day or two.
I already knew that being mentally tired is harder on me than physical fatigue. But now I discovered that empathy-tiredness created the most exhausted version of me.
If you organize the conference and you will be in a Code of Conduct team, my advice for you is to make sure you are well rested, you have loads of energy, you are not burned out or overwhelmed by anything - you will need all your empathy and stamina.
Make sure to not take any other important responsiblities, because you should be ready to drop everything you are doing to go and handle Code of Conduct reports.
And finally, make sure to give yourself time to recover after the event. Your mental health and wellbeing is very important. And remember: you are making a positive difference! Be proud of that!
