Event Information
SAP Community Call: Why Diversity and Inclusion is Important to SAP and Our Community @SAPMentors
SAP Mentor Chris Kernaghan kicked off today’s call. Watch the replay here
Source: SAP
Speakers today are shown above
Stephanie covered why “D&I” matters – Diversity & Inclusion matters
Source: SAP
Anka Wittenberg leads the team based in Germany
Source: SAP
Know the feeling when included and know feeling when you are not.
Psychological safety is when innovation happens
Source: SAP
D&I is a “journey” said Stephanie
Source: SAP
The eight powerful truths are shown above
How embed in day to day operations, change mindset takes years
Source: SAP
Inclusive behaviors
Source: SAP
10 people over the age of 70 at SAP
Source: SAP
D&I program was formed in 2013
30% women in leadership by 2022
5 generations working together, cross-mentoring
Source: SAP
EDGE certification – Stephanie suggested Googling it
There’s a lot of focus on interns; what about showing leadership/opportunities for those who have been there
120 people in Autism at Work
Moya Watson, SAP Cloud Platform Product Manager
Source: SAP
Leads SAP Lesbians Who Tech Summit
25 people from SAP were at the event
Source:SAP
Speakers are shown above
Top takeaway – diversity in tech (bias is opposite) is a technology issue; technologists can do something about it, per Moya
Source:SAP
150 female speakers, 50% speakers of color
Source:SAP
Check out Camille’s presentation
What happens when any segment of the population is invisible to technology we use?
AI – look at who teaches the machine
“We’re prejudiced, and AI gets to learn it”
Source:SAP
Facebook is working on benevolent AI
Source:SAP
Left LWT summit; right is counting females at conferences
Question our bias; test for it too
Use technology to test for bias
Be inclusive with code, and design with intent, said Moya Watson
Hana Nagel, SAP
Source: SAP
Design complexity in user research; products that work for everyone
Source:
Where the wild things are (movie)
Max acts out anger
Max’s mother sends him to his room
Max experiences isolation
Escapes to world to conquer wild beasts; conquering his beasts/emotions
Returns home to hot dinner (foundation represents supper)
Hana suggests to first define complexity; the secret to communicate complexity
Imposed complexity includes regulation, not manageable
Designed complexity – results from the choices we made with the system
Reduce design complexity; get to the heart of what user is trying to do
Lesson 1 is “complexity is hard to understand”
“House held up by Trees” book
Need to know who our users are, what perspective they have
Source: SAP
Source: SAP
Storytelling helps with solution
Need to understand diversity and the benefits
Look for similarities
Source: Graham Robinson
MasteringSAP at Melbourne last month
Discussion/Comments
Moya Watson: exactly! our CTO Bjoern Goerke recently
gave a d&i session in which he said “we’ve got the tech
down — it’s the people, the people changing, that’s the
hardest” <paraphrase>Marilyn Pratt: 2011 – for the event:
https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/events/Embracing
+Inclusion+Driving+Innovation+in+Las+Vegas with HeikeMoya Watson: WWMD!
(g) Marilyn Pratt: http://doyoutrustthiscomputer.org/watch
(g) Marilyn Pratt: available free for a few days: https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/do-you-trust-this-computer-documentary-elon-musk
g) Karin Tillotson: I wrote a blog in 2016 Gender Diversity in Tech – Why Do Some Companies Have Difficulty Finding Women For Technology Jobs https://blogs.sap.com/2016/02/22/gender-diversity-in-tech-why-do-some-companies-have-difficulty-finding-women-for-technology-jobs/
Moya Watson: I think the fear of the word quota is real — but — frankly — a red herring.
(g) Graham Robbo: I am no fan of the concept of “affirmative action” but the reality is that these types of initiatives have moved the needle when so many attempts before have failed
Moya Watson: If we know it could help us achieve our goals, we need to use the tools we can. check this out — https://work.qz.com/1237723/silicon-valley-needs-to-set-quotas-to-solve-its-diversity-crisis/
Amina Anderson: only way to be intentional is to set the goal – otherwise it doesn’t happen
Moya Watson: + amina. “if it can be measured, it can be improved”
Tammy you never cease to amaze -- you're everywhere, and today I was really glad you spent some time here too! thanks for getting these perfect notes out.
cc Former Member Stephanie
Thanks for finding Former Member for me, Moya!
Was great to connect! Thanks for this fantastic meeting summary!
I really enjoyed the Community call session and also this blog post. Thank you, Tammy, for kindly writing and sharing it.
I have a great appreciation for gender diversity maybe because I am married to a highly successful woman who is a scientist and researcher who teaches and leads other amazingly intelligent women. So I know that women can make a huge impact on technology and we clearly need more of them!
Besides that, I have had amazing experiences in the SAP world with people from other diversity groups and I know that the world must be more diverse and more inclusive because there are plenty of capable people who deserve more space to make their work.
Additionally, I am now working to bring another kind of diversity to the SAP Community: people who never had contact with SAP’s technologies. I am currently working on an initiative to make entrepreneurs and startup founders aware of how to use SAP technologies to build their next product or next company. On the next few days, I plan to make it public when I open the registrations for upcoming events related to this.
I hope to see this diversity and inclusion movement going bigger and wider!
Congratulations and thank you to the organizers and speakers.
Regards,
Douglas