I’ve just joined the Open Organization community and find value in the work and focus. My question is how is THIS community tracking membership and ensuring that underrepresented technologists feel welcomed and included? I dig the idea of neurodiversity - an underrepresented community for sure; however, there is still a disparity re: healthy representation of the underrepresented within the technology industry. I notice this has not been discussed within recent community meetings and am curious why this is.
Welcome, @rayvnm! I’m delighted you found your way to this community.
We’ve been planning a special series or publication on neurodiversity in open organizations for some time, and as I scan the forum I see you’ve already found your way there. Excellent! @samknuth is leading that effort and I’m sure he’d be more than happy to speak with you and hear your feedback on what the planning has furnished so far.
We don’t consider ourselves a community of technologists as much as others might. That’s because we’re much less interested in open tools than we are open processes, practices, and principles as they apply specifically to organizational culture and design. So many other communities and efforts are already doing great work advancing the conversation about neurodivergence in technology communities (@lsward can likely connect you!), so rather than be redundant or duplicative, we’ve been noodling on work that helps us add a new dimension to the conversation (here again, @samknuth’s work may interest you). That might be why you’ve seen little discussions about neurodiversity in the technology industry here; we’re largely interested in extending discussions and explorations of openness beyond or outside that industry.
Hope that’s useful context! Again, welcome!