Off the Hoof

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While 140 characters may be the perfect length for many things, a nuanced discussion of racial and/or gender politics is NOT one of them.

If you Google a photo of me, you’ll see a “white guy.” My parents and I immigrated to the US from Portugal when I was 3. I grew up in Philadelphia, which was a pretty racist place in the 1970s. My parents, having come from a country that was 99% white at the time, moved into a small immigrant pocket of other Portuguese. Outside that circle, there were people who looked different. Once I started school, I got my ass kicked on a regular basis by kids of EVERY race. The black kids kicked my ass because I was white, the white kids kicked my ass because I spoke a different language. My face was the original meeting grounds for the rainbow coalition. (To be fair, I got my ass kicked a few times because of my smart mouth, and those I’ll take the blame for.) All of which can be very confusing when you’re in the middle of a culture that still defined itself along strict color lines.

I somehow ended up in art school where being different didn’t get you beat up; it got you looked up to (not to mention laid). I moved out of Philadelphia, first to Texas, where racism was a completely different animal; rather than a powder keg always in danger of exploding, it felt like it was baked into the culture. There was less visible animosity as long as everyone stayed in their part of town. I eventually settled down in San Francisco, because I wanted to raise my kid in a place where being yourself was tolerated. And defended.

I’m guessing you probably have a pretty good idea of what’s happening in America right now. Racism and hatred towards immigrants is on the rise. And it’s all being disguised as “patriotism” by Sarah Palin and her proudly misinformed ilk.

All of this leads me to look out for people who I think are being left out, beat up on, or not given a chance. Which leads me to the subject of conferences.

Can you have a conference with the speakers you want regardless of race, gender, etc? The answer is yes. You ABSOLUTELY can. You have that right. But since it’s happening in public, you need to be ready for a public debate about it. Is it fair? Doesn’t matter. It’s going to happen. And you need to be ready for it. And more often than not, the answer I hear is that it didn’t occur to organizers to try, it was hard, or the woman I called was busy, etc.

So rather than asking ourselves what our “rights” are, we should ask ourselves what our responsibilities are. Personally, as someone who showed up on the doorstep of this country with nothing but a passport (I’d like to be dramatic and say my parents showed up with $20 in their pockets, but the truth is I don’t know how much they showed up with. We grew up lower class, but we never went hungry.) and managed to find himself in somewhat of a position of authority, and in possession of a soapbox, I wholeheartedly believe it’s my responsibility to help others climb up. Not because I’m special, or have some gift, but because I believe the only reason I’ve made it this far is that someone before me cleared a trail for me to climb up, and I want to do the same for others.

This problem will not organically fix itself. A solution needs to be designed, and sometimes that’s messy. It leads to exclusionary conferences like Blogher, which while creating a “safe space for women,” also end up creating a safe space for the same white guys to keep doing what they do. Remember, it’s only diversity if you’re on the inside looking out. For those on the outside, it’s called inclusion.

So when I see the same white male faces for every conference, I speak out. Not so much to chastise them, but because I want the NEXT conference organizer to try harder. And it’s not so much for the people who are currently in our industry, but for those who come after them. They need someone to identify with.

Because the greatest impact that Barack Obama will ever have, is not health care reform, or fiscal reform, or telling Joe Biden to shut it; it’s standing behind a podium that says “President of the United States,” where millions of little kids can see him on TV and think “That could be me.”

Written by Mike Monteiro on May 21, 2010 with 4 comments |

Free Food for Thought

Better information leads to better design decisions. The more you know about the audience, the context, and the opportunities (and apply this knowledge) the more likely it is that you will meet a real need and do it well, even creatively.

Research can be very expensive, particularly quantitative research. For this reason, one of my very favorite resources is the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Their work “explores the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life.”

They produce some very useful reports based on phone surveys and qualitative methods that can balance out the hype and hysteria from news and media sources.

If you are designing an online product or service, particularly for an American audience, you will find something useful there. They cover everything from attitudes about health information to voter engagement and video games.

For a fun diversion, start with The Future of the Internet III, which is the output from a survey of “thought leaders.” Apparently everything online is going to get more awesome, but people will still be jerks.

Written by erika on January 5, 2009 with 0 comments |

Unicorns

I can see unicorns at play in easter-basket-grass fields surrounded by lollipop trees and marshmallow stones. (I’ll explain later.)

Written by Mike Monteiro on July 9, 2008 |

A simple guide to sharing

The Beacon debate continues. In today’s NY Times Zuckerberg and Co. claim that users will learn to love Beacon once they give it time.

There’s lots of mentions of “sharing” and “volunteering” of information in that article. Enough so that I thought we might need a primer. Here’s my favorite:

“Isn’t this community getting a little hypocritical?” said Chad Stoller, director of emerging platforms at Organic, a digital advertising agency. “Now, all of a sudden, they don’t want to share something?”

Somebody didn’t watch enough Sesame Street. Let’s review:

My mom packs me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. I see that the kid across from me in the cafeteria has no sandwich. Because I watched enough Sesame Street I offer him half my sandwich. We both get enough to eat, and as Cookie Monster would say “I’ve built a relationship based on shared trust.”

Now let’s say I get up to buy a half-pint of orange drink to go with my sandwich and in my absence the kid without a sandwich says “Can I have half your sandwich?” and I, being out of range, don’t hear him ask. I haven’t said “No.” so he decides that’s permission enough and he eats my sandwich. As Bert and Ernie would say; “You’re building a brand relationship based on mistrust, hostility and deception.”

So you see Chad, it’s not hypocritical at all. The former act is “sharing”, the latter is “stealing”. Whether we’re talking about a PB&J or personal info the effect is the same. Something that was once exclusively mine is now yours. And I never told you it was ok.

Written by Mike Monteiro on November 30, 2007 with 0 comments |

Moral Pygmy-Go-Round

“I do not believe that America’s best and brightest companies should be playing integral roles in China’s notorious and brutal political repression apparatus.”

Yahoo! certainly deserves the ass kicking, but the government that granted China ‘Most Favored Nation’ status hasn’t earned the right to give it.

Written by Mike Monteiro on November 7, 2007 |

Duty.

…when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.

It is their DUTY.

Find your own reasons.

Written by Mike Monteiro on July 4, 2007 with 0 comments |

Rotate them 90 degrees and these are STILL the End Times.

What with the recent outrage over the Supreme Court reinstating segregation and President Bush declaring that white people will no longer go to jail for anything; some of you may have missed that Apple introduced a new product. Looks shiny.

Written by Mike Monteiro on July 3, 2007 |

The Web STILL hates women

Last year we spoke about the ridiculous disparity between the amount of women and men speaking at industry events. After writing that post I had the pleasure of speaking to some of the people men who organized a few of those events.

Their defense was that basically, gee, they just don’t know any girls. That’s fair. Girls are intimidating and they smell pretty. So, I pointed them to a list that Jen Bekman put together for just this kind of thing, hoping that the next year’s set of events would be a little more gender diverse.

They’re not.

Jason Kottke has a great run-down of this year’s events. He did math and everything.

Since I’m much more childish than Jason, and he’s already done the smart work, I’ll merely point out, in my charming Eddie Haskel-like manner that this year the ‘Future of Web Apps’ Conference (26 men, 1 woman) went as far as incorporating a penis into its logo. At least there’s truth in advertising.

Written by Mike Monteiro on February 22, 2007 with 14 comments |

Thumb Drives for Africa

Mule, along with long-time cohort Jeff Wishnie, is doing some probono work for a great organization called Inveneo. We're currently working on a redesign of their site.

Inveneo brings information and communication technology to the remote and rural third world by setting up low-wattage solar powered computers and networks with telephones (using voip) so that neighboring villages can communicate with each other. This means that that medicine that's needed from a town 40 kilometers away can be requested over the phone, instead of driving there and back.

Inveneo is also training local IT teams to install and maintain the networks; thereby creating local jobs and helping to stimulate the economy.

On a recent trip to Uganda, a local organization that is bringing computers to schools in rural areas asked Jeff to help supply them with USB sticks for data transfer and storage in the school labs.

Now that we live in the era of 2gb USB sticks, I bet you have some (a whole bunch?) of 16, 32, 64, and 128mb sticks lying around your desk, drawers, and in between your sofa cushions.

Why not donate them for a tax deduction and help out some African computer labs?

Also, cause I love you but I know you're lazy: We've set up an Amazon Wish List for Inveneo chock full of thumb drives. Help is one-click away.

Written by Mike Monteiro on December 12, 2006 |

The Cock-Tipping Point

A couple of weeks ago I pointed out the all-male lineup of the "Future of Web Apps" Conference. I mentioned that they weren't an isolated case, and I was using them as an example of what I see as a remarkable under-representation of women at conferences.

Then last week Tokion did it again. "Creativity Now" announced their lineup last week without ONE SINGLE WOMAN in it.

This unique symposium will bring together top figures in art, design, fashion, photography, film, new media, publishing and marketing.

...by 'top figures' they meant men.

Our friends at the Wooster Collective, who are boycotting the Tokion event, put it this way:

We don't give a shit what their excuse will be (no woman were available?) - How the fuck can you put together a group of speakers that are (according to Tokion) "shaping today's popular culture" and not one of of them be a woman?

Tokion's excuses are bullshit. Basically, they contacted some women and they couldn't come. Lame. Contact more until you get some.

My friend Jen Bekman was livid and decided to do something about it. She has a great conversation about it going on on her blog, which you should go read. After Design Observer linked to it Jen started to get some traction, and has started coming up with a solution by compiling a list of potential women speakers. Go Jen.

Tokion, responded by adding more men to the list. They've since added ONE woman. Tokenism rocks.

Written by Mike Monteiro on October 9, 2006 with 3 comments |

The Future of Our White Male Industry

(This post first took hold over on VOX; and after it inspired some pretty active discourse I've decided to throw it here as well; but it's worth going over there and reading through the comments. I'll repost it here with a little extra gained insight, but no less conviction.)

The preceding image was taken from the front page of "The Future of Web Apps" Conference which recently took place in SF. Fourteen speakers; fourteen white guys. Now, I don't mean to single Carson Workshops out, but they're a good recent example, however they're far from the only ones. I know some of these white guys. They're talented guys, sure, and I don't mean to denigrate them. But there are also some fucking talented women in this industry (I work with FOUR of them!) and I'm tired of them getting the short end of the stick. It's becoming a fucking embarassment.

The industry as a whole will suffer from this exclusion. People generally solve the problems they are most familiar with; i.e. white guys tend to solve white guy problems. I'm sure that by the time Web 2.0 is done with there will probably be a way for my medicine cabinet to realize I am low on Rogaine, call in the order to Walgreen's and send me and SMS when it's ready for pickup. But where does that leave the rest of the world?

The way I see it, design is at the service of culture, it's here to solve problems, and that means problems for everyone. In order to do that it probably helps to get a look at who that "everyone" is, and not JUST give them access, but PULL them into the industry so that they may in turn have access to that problem solving.

Some of my colleagues have stated that there simply aren't enough women to put on these panels; or that they make a token attempt at inviting the two or three they've heard of and they don't come. That's a case of looking at the effect and calling it the cause.

My friend and incredibly brilliant colleague Judith Zissman (who you should invite to speak on your panels) who has organized panels herself, put it very well:

...the people we asked for recommendations of who to invite had not necessarily seen prominent women speakers at other conferences, had not schmoozed and networked and drank with them, let alone actually heard what they had to say about technology. This, of course, is the classic affirmative action argument - an open door is not enough. You actually have to bring people into the door. And an open door that isn't well-publicized beyond an already skewed audience isn't an open door at all.

Yes, this is hard. It's easy to ignore if you're one of the select few. But we stand at an interesting period in history, and it would be in everyone's best interest to open the scope of our discussion to the brightest minds possible. And we should do this BECAUSE it's hard.

From now on anyone speaking at a conference WITHOUT any women speakers will be held JUST as liable to abuse as the organizers. Be the role models the situation calls for.

Written by Mike Monteiro on September 18, 2006 with 5 comments |

To understand and protect our home planet…

Now, I'm not one for mission statemtents in general, but in accordance with President Bush's wishes NASA has altered it's mission statement, which previous read: “To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers ... as only NASA can.”

The new statement omits the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet."

But the change comes as an unwelcome surprise to many NASA scientists, who say the “understand and protect” phrase was not merely window dressing but actively influenced the shaping and execution of research priorities. Without it, these scientists say, there will be far less incentive to pursue projects to improve understanding of terrestrial problems like climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

On September 12, 1962 JFK kicked off the space race with this immortal phrase "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

Not so many presidents later it seems that we deal with the hard things by deleting them from the mission statement. It's embarassing really.

Written by Mike Monteiro on July 21, 2006 |