[DEFNA] Anna Ossowski's Interview

Speaker 1: So I was an attendee of the very first Django Girls workshop in 2014 in Berlin at EuroPython. Um and I started, I've organized several Django Girls events since then. We've done one in Budapest, we've done one in at PyCon Um the most recent ones I did last year were, no, this year, were in Omaha, Nebraska in February and also um in San Francisco as part of my work. So I've kind of organized workshops all over, just not in my hometown, funny enough. So I'm kind of, I guess, a serial organizer you could call it. And I've also been involved in the organization of DjangoCon US since 2015. I'm involved in the organization of PyCon Open Spaces

Speaker 1: and I help with the mobile guide a little bit. And I also am on the PSF board. So I have a non-traditional kind of IT background. I actually wanted to become a high school teacher, so I have an English degree. And so Django Girls was kind of my in into the IT world. As we all know, it's not difficult to get your foot in the door into like your first tech job. And so I just needed to do something that looked good on my resume as like bad as that may sound, but um getting I quickly realized that getting involved in the community was sort of the best way to kind of do good for the community, but also kind of help me find a job and meet people because When it comes down to it, I think the the best way to find jobs in tech is networking.

Speaker 1: Um it's knowing people. And so I kind of enjoyed the combination of doing something really fun. You can by organizing these workshops and events. It's such a joy because you see people succeed, you see them write their first applications and websites and you see them start their careers, but you know that you're also They are also benefiting you because they it's something that you can put on your resume. It's something that gets the word out about you. And I think that's totally fine because organizing these events is a lot of work. And so I think a lot of people shy away from doing them because they think, oh, why should I do that? Why should I put all my time into doing something for other people? Um, I can only say that like doing something for other people makes me happy.

Speaker 1: I think it's so cool to see others succeed. And if it also helps me with my career, then it's an additional benefit. So it's kind of A time investment that is well worth it, I would say So a lot of people always think I have to put the together this like whole workshop thing and that's not what you need to do. Like for example, as Joseway knows, I run PyLadies Remote. And so It's this organization that we already have set up. So if you don't want to start your own events, you can get involved in other people's organizations. That's also something that I would recommend is just start small. You don't have to pull um pull up the whole event on your own.

Speaker 1: You can build a team around it and you can just do one small task. So um if you don't want to start your own thing, there's so many Django Girls workshops on the website. If there's one in your town, ping the organizers, say, hey, I live in this city, I would like to help you and that way the whole like burden or load is not on you it's just on other people or um twitter is a good way there's so many people on twitter that constant continuously say hey I need help or um if you've um i if you have experience with speaking at conferences become a speaker mentor start taking on one little task at a conference, maybe become the sponsorship chair.

Speaker 1: I think what keeps people from it is that they think, oh my God, I'm gonna like have to do all of these things. It's really not as much it can be a lot of work if you want it to be, but I mean I do a ton of volunteer work in my free time, I think, and um you can just dedicate a couple of hours a week to it. So what I usually do is I will reserve two hours or so on a Thursday or Friday night when I have time and that's when I kind of do my volunteer thing and it's time in my calendar. That's kind of like going to the gym for two hours a week or um meeting a friend for two hours a week. As long as your as it's in your calendar, I think it gets done. So that's kind of what I would recommend. Start small, don't think you have to do all the things and if you

Speaker 1: I promise if you start with one thing then you can get to doing other things as we all know. I started with Django Girls and then Came to DjangoCon, now PyCon, now the PSF, so it kind of, you know, depends on what do you want to do. And also There's always the opportunity to step back. Like you don't have to do this like a lot of people do all the time. You can say I want to do this for two months out of the year or I have time once a month to do something. There are so many opportunities to get involved. You can teach a workshop. maybe once a quarter for your local meetup or something like that. So it kind of depends what do you want to do, what suits your personality, um, yeah, how much time do you want to invest.

Speaker 1: I think the problem is twofold. I think that a lot of people say I have time, I want to help, but they don't know where to start. So I think a lot of people just don't know where help is needed and I kind of always tell people, I mean, your help is always needed. And so many people say, yeah There's no Django Girls events in my town, there are no tech events in my town, then make it happen. The best thing to get what you want is just to make it happen yourself. And the The Django Girls, for example, they have really great organizer materials. So even if you are kind of clueless of where to even start, they have a great organizer manual which kind of walks you through the process step by step of what you need to do.

Speaker 1: Um and it also really helps to have someone to kinda help you um organize a workshop, right? Doing it by yourself is only kind of half the fun. So I would um recommend get together with like minded people um and just kind of Put yourself out there. The way I started organizing Django Girls is uh or Django Conest, I just got in touch with Jeff Triplett on Twitter and I said, Hey, I want to help and Back then I was the only person in Europe and I was helping organize Django Con US and it was a little bit odd maybe. Um but I helped I started out helping with the Twitter and communications. So there's so many things you can do and there's always help needed for Django Girls or the Py Ladies or Django Con.

Speaker 1: Just put yourself out there and help. And then in terms of what's the most difficult thing Um, well, I I think it can be a stretch to kind of juggle your personal life and your job and organizing these events because organizing a jingle girls event is going to take about three months out of your life and it's going to take up a lot of free time. I'm in the fortunate position that I can do it as kind of part of my job. So I can actually do it during work hours. I would just I know that a lot of employers are actually open to that. If you are interested in organizing a diversity related event, I would just like speak with your manager and say, hey This is what I'm doing. Can I maybe have three hours or two hours on a Friday to put my time towards this workshop that I'm organizing?

Speaker 1: And I'm sure they'd be willing to agree. Um, I think people can also sometimes be hard to work with. I I technology is easy, people are hard. So it's Yeah, well, you know, we all know that like sometimes you like put so much effort into something and then people just don't respond to your emails or people are being grumpy and not thankful, but I think you always kinda have to remember why you do it. And there are also a lot of like very grateful people. So don't let the haters kind of keep you from doing good. So for Piladies Remote, um I think it's a cool concept because it's all remote online classes, so you can't actually teach a class from the comfort of your home

Speaker 1: sitting on the c on your couch wearing your pajamas if you want to. And so we um ask people to teach classes from anywhere. like starting at 30 minutes to about three hours. So it kind of depends what do you want to do and it doesn't even have to be technical. For example, if you want to do a short 30 minute class or kind of like a short talk on writing conference proposals or how do I write a resume or I don't know something cool a cool feature you discovered in Django or so. You would reach out to us and you would give us your idea. We set up everything for you, we promote the class for you, we find attendees, and all you do is prep your class. I'm not sure how long that would take. Usually a presentation takes me couple of hours to prepare.

Speaker 1: Um maybe, but you also have to remember so if you put together a presentation like this, it's something you can reuse all the time, right? You can not only give it for Pilates remote, you might maybe give it at a conference one time, or you you might give a webinar on your own or something like that. We also record the video, so it's great self-promotion for you. It's not a ton of effort, maybe five hours or so And it's just an easy way to help others to get involved and to just get the word out. There's tons of meetups. There's Python user groups, PyLadies user groups, women in tech women tech makers. So just join your local meetup on meetup. com and um you will get email notifications and then

Speaker 1: You can see if they're organizing any workshops or sometimes they will look for teaching assistance or you can become a Django Girls coach, for example, if you don't want to organize the workshop. You can spend a Saturday teaching other people. So there are so many opportunities that are pretty low key or like low time investments. So a day here or there, I think that's totally manageable for most people. That's actually a different story. So um Audrey Greenfeld, the author of Two Scoobs of Django, she reached out to me on Twitter and she said, hey, um I'm trying to get to make the PSF board more diverse. Um, I think you're doing a lot of great things with Django Girls.

Speaker 1: I think you would be great on the board. I think you should put yourself up for a nomination. Um and I did, and I got voted in. That was a couple years ago. And then I took a break. And then this time I just felt like doing it again. I just felt like it was time for me to kind of I don't know, I just wanted a new challenge I guess. And that's why I put myself up for nomination again and I Also like have goals to kind of help the PSF with sponsorship and code of conduct and some other things. Yeah, and so I just gave it a shot and I got voted in again. That's kind of how it happened. That's also something you can do for the community. You can just encourage other people Um, as you see, like this one message by Audrey got me on the PSF board.

Speaker 1: So, or maybe you don't have a friend who's who wants to organize something or wants to speak at a conference, but they're just a little bit shy about it just like send people encouraging words or send people um a short email, it's a a little encouragement goes such a long way. So Um that's also something we don't think of, but that's a great opportunity to kind of help the community out. I think each different type of event has its own challenges. Um I think Django Con definitely is the biggest undertaking. We As you have seen, we spend about nine months out of the year planning DjangoCon and planning a conference for 300, 400 people

Speaker 1: is just a huge um undertaking, but also for JingoCon I was involved in a very small part. And so that on the other hand made it much more manageable for me. Um, I would say the Django Girls workshops are quite challenging because you have so many moving parts For example, Django Girls Omaha we put together with three people and all of us were working full time so we were kind of doing this in our free time, but you it's kind of manageable because you split up tasks. One person find sponsors and then one person does social media promotion and then one person is in charge of communicating with people. So it's you can kind of like split it up. I

Speaker 1: I would say you need a plan when you start. So Django Girls organizer manual is helpful. Think of sponsors you can contact, like Devna, for example. Also Elastic, we give diversity sponsorships too.

Speaker 2: Also

Speaker 1: find local sponsors. I think finding the money probably is the easiest thing. I think Just logistics can be a bit hard. Finding a venue can be a little bit hard. People are sometimes flaky, so people won't show up. So I have a backup plan for that. What I would recommend and what's been successful like in my so for my job I also organize events. Um I run all of our meetups in Europe. Um I think I would almost handle it like jobs, so like have different job descriptions. Um I know that the Django Girls in Kansas City, their workshop each year is super successful And the way they run it is they have actual

Speaker 1: like job positions. They have a sponsorship person. They have a volunteer coordinator They have an on-site coordinator. They have a food and beverage coordinator. So like define all these roles that you need, kind of like you would Like running an event is almost like running a business. It's kind of like you need different people that do different jobs. And so um list out all the things you need done and the rus responsibilities and then maybe think of the time it will take and then just approach people um with it because usually I think what scares people away is the unknown. So if you tell people this is the time commitment I'm going to need from you and these are the tasks you will do, people are usually much more open to helping you

Speaker 1: I wouldn't do it too big because once you get too many people involved, then you're almost spent more time managing people than actually organizing. So I would say do like start maybe with three, have one kind of main organizer and then two co-organizers. Um, because I think another thing we don't really talk about in open source is sustainability. So we have all these um great people who are engaged and want to organize things, but the reality is that people's living situations change or your priorities change and so people may say after a while, I can't do it anymore for whatever reason. And so we kind of need to help building the next generation of organizers. And so if you keep splitting the workload, but you also have

Speaker 1: like Co-organizers, for example, for PyCon, the way we do it is we have one chair and two co-chairs for each position. And then um The chair does it for two years at a time and then one of the co-chairs moves up and then we fill another co-chair position. So it kind of like keeps moving and like bringing in new people, sharing the knowledge Um and you also prevent that people get burned out that way. I kind of have a simple rule, if you don't think hell yes, say no. So if someone approaches me with an opportunity and I don't I don't really get excited about it, I I won't do it. Because I think, or like everyone, I have a problem saying no, but I know that if I keep saying yes, I just keep piling things on my plate and ultimately that's going to make me unhappy.

Speaker 1: And with Django Con, I just kind of had this like inner feeling, it's almost coming up to three years. I'm actually moving cities, so I also kind of want to prioritize my personal life a little more Um, I've served the community a lot and now it's kind of like time to look after myself a little more. I'm I also took on this uh PSF thing, um, which is a huge job and so I needed to um get rid of something else on my plate and I do love the Django Con people, but there were it's just a feeling that told me it's time to pass it on to someone else. So if you feel like you're not totally enjoying yourself anymore, I think then it's a good time to quit with it. A lot of my work also

Speaker 1: was just kind of doing CFP outreach. So to be quite honest with you, I will probably do that again next year when the time comes, just not under the official title Diversity Chair. And I think Things like diversity work should not fall back on one person. It's kind of a team effort. We all need to reach out to people. So I'm not sure if we do actually need a dedicated diversity chair again. I think the team can probably fill in and help How bad with what I did. Just make a list of like people that you um think might be willing to help and just approach them personally. I mean putting it on social media is one thing. It's usually pretty successful if you have a good following or if you can

Speaker 1: get people to retweet you. Um but I think it's it usually pays off to reach out to people personally. And um you also want to pick people that you get along with, right? Because this is something you do in your free time so you don't Like whereas at work I sometimes need to work with people that I might not like, but they're my coworkers, so I kind of have to get along with them. But for volunteer things, I think if you do have a choice, choose people that you enjoy working with. your friends or people you've met at conferences or um I don't know like sometimes I will just look through my Twitter list and just message random people that I think might be interested in helping me and Asking for help is hard because we are all scared of getting rejected, right?

Speaker 1: But if you you don't ask for help, the answer is automatically no. If you do ask for help, then the answer might actually be yes. Yeah, there's there's a great book by Amanda Palmer, The Art The Art of Asking. I recently read it and I would recommend it to anyone. It's really It's really cool. I think it actually applies to organizing events and asking for help in a lot of ways. So yeah, just ask. people that's that's what I would recommend just like pick random people even the ones you think might maybe not help usually those are the ones who will say yes um So or I don't know put it on LinkedIn, put it on Facebook. But the best way is just um reach out to me.

Speaker 1: people you know. Also there's a ton of um different Slack groups. The Django girls have a Slack group, the Pie Ladies have one. We have one for Django Con. There's a women in tech one. Yeah, it also depends. Are you organizing an event in your town? Then you obviously want local people. If you're organizing an event online or in a different town, then it really doesn't matter where people live My job I'm currently in the position that I can give away elastics money, which is really nice, but um asking for money is really hard. So I totally would encourage people to approach folks like Detna where you almost know the answer is going via

Speaker 1: yes um or the yes after whereas um corporate sponsors sometimes might say no. Um but um you kind of have to remember that like even so I used to do fundraising uh kind of professionally for Django Rest framework. And the rule of thumb is kind of like for one for each ten emails you send out, you might get one person to respond to you Um, but you have to remember, first of all, you're doing it for the greater good. So you're not asking for money for yourself to pay for rent or something. You're asking for an event you're putting on for other people. And also, um, if people say no, they're not rejecting you as a person, they might just it might not fit into their sponsorship profile, they might be out of budget

Speaker 1: My thoughts on that are kind of complex. Um so the problem is that the most diverse people usually are probably the ones that don't have the time and Time can also be money to um to make these efforts. Um because in a way being able to have free time to organize events for other people is a privilege. There are other people who do not have the free time that I have because they actually have to work because otherwise they can't make a living and But the problem is that usually those people who actually you shouldn't be asking because they don't, they can't really spare time, they are usually the ones who like kind of will move everything to help you Um if you ask me, um, and this goes against all diversity principles, I think we should ask like the white tech bros to help us more

Speaker 1: because they're the ones who have the good Silicon Valley jobs, they make the money, they have the time. Um so I think Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how to solve this problem. I think diversity is something that everyone should be concerned with, and I think that um Everyone kind of needs to help, not just not just women, not just LGBT folks, not just people of color. I think we all need to help. And so just approach everyone. Even there are so many people that don't get diversity yet because they they don't have problems. They never get harassed. They don't have tr trouble finding a job. And so approach these people, maybe like specifically these people, to kind of like teach them a lesson how hard it can be.

Speaker 1: I think what you always have to remember is like sometimes you get really stressed. I think what I would tell my past self is it's going to work out just fine. Like in the end, no one is going to notice if your cupcakes are missing or if the decorations didn't turn out exactly the way you'd plan it to be. So um It's going to end up just fine. You are always your hardest critic, but people will still really enjoy your workshop no matter how much swag that you have and how good the food is Volunteering has taught me a lot. So I think that volunteering probably has taught me more than any job I've ever had because you kind of get thrown into like the ocean and you have to figure out how and learn how to swim, but it's going to kind of like give you so many skills

Speaker 1: which you can also learn, which you can transfer to a job. Like fundraising. It's is a skill that I've acquired by organizing events that a lot of people don't have and it benefits me at my job but also at other volunteer initiatives or networking. I used to be a really shy person. I would have never gotten on a video call like this. And kind of organizing events has taught me to like be more open-minded with people or just yeah asking for help or just organizational skills, logistics. uh money management, just like all like people skills, just like all these different kind of like soft skills. that you might not acquire otherwise. So I think that's a huge benefit and that's why I would recommend to anyone that even if it's a bit scary,

Speaker 1: I can tell you it's going to be fine and you will learn a lot and you won't regret it. Will, if you ask me, I think the future is smaller local events. Um I think we're already seeing the trend kind of going there. And I think we've um we recently had a Django day in Copenhagen, for example, or I think there's several Django days or Django conferences popping up in Asia. So I think um we also have to consider that um by bringing the events, so I'm a big fan of bringing to the events to the people and not asking the people to travel to the event because since we're talking diversity, um there's visa issues. um of the current political

Speaker 1: you're dealing with visas, so you know. Um there's a lot of people don't have the finances. I mean Traveling a Django Con if you from Europe if my employer wouldn't pay for it would easily cost me two thousand euro out of pocket Um that's that's money that people don't have. And so you can um I think the our future is just organizing smaller one-day events in where the people are. If you work for a Django shop or you work for a Python shop or so, then your employee, I mean it's great marketing for your employer, right? And um Maybe they'll be able to sponsor a little bit, give you like $2,000 or something. Maybe they can't even provide a space

Speaker 1: and then give you a little bit of time to organize it. So I mean worst case your manager or employer says says no, best case they say yes. So I definitely would feel it out and ask them. I think it's It's great marketing. I kind of work in like developer marketing a little bit. So I know that if I asked my employer, they'd say yes. So So one thing I wanted to mention, and it's something you could bring up with your employer with Elastic, we get something it's called volunteer time off. So each employee gets five days a year to volunteer for a cause of their choice. So I actually used mine last year to organize the Django Girls Omaha workshop.

Speaker 1: Um, so that's really awesome if you think about it. So um maybe don't ask your employer for five whole days, but maybe bring up the concept of like asking for a day. Hey, can we start doing or like one day a quarter or or something like that. We also have something called space-time for the engineering team where you can take up to a week per quarter to work on something you don't have time for during work. if you say, hey, I want to learn this new programming language, then you would take space-time for it or so. But that's yeah, I realize that that's not a standard thing to do. So as I already mentioned Um, don't fill up your plate too full. So um kind of like

Speaker 1: listen to yourself, like try to have a good work-life balance. Like Don't don't do all volunteer stuff because in the end um it's not gonna make you happy because you'll burn out. So you need to kind of find a schedule that's sustainable for you. So as I said, I have in my calendar like every week for an hour or two I work on PSF things or um Pie Ladies Remote is super um easy because we are three people and we do one class a month so I do it every three months and they have that in my calendar. We also have Trello boards. I'm a huge fan of Trello, so I have for almost all my volunteer things I have a Trello board where I just collect my ideas Yeah, my tips are just use your calendar, put it in your calendar.

Speaker 1: I think if it's not in your calendar, it won't get done, whether that's going to the gym or learning a new language or volunteering for a thing. Also be organized. um and pick the things that you enjoy. So if you if it's something um there's one thing about like, you know, like we all know working out is good and so we force ourselves to the gym sometimes And but that's different than forcing yourself to volunteer. So when it comes to volunteering, um there's something you don't like, take a take a break or um just don't don't commit to something you don't enjoy doing. Um yeah, I don't think I have any other secrets. Also, um yeah, pick something with fun people.

Speaker 1: So Usually like I really enjoy DjangoCon because of all you coop cool people, um Jeff Triplett, Lacey, um yeah, just like pick cool people, um, but also try to do things that are non-tech related. I think in um in tech we we all sort of have the problem that tech kind of takes over our whole life. I'm definitely guilty of that. So I'm kind of like actively saying no, I'm moving to London. I want to like live life outside of tech. So maybe force yourself also to pick up a hobby that's non-tech related. For example, I picked up um cross stitching last winter because I wanted to do something different.

Speaker 1: So um don't make your whole life about tech also find friends outside of tech. It's not really healthy to only surround yourself with tech people because tech is this bubble and then when you talk to like non-tech people about it you kind of like catch yourself sometimes like sounding really stupid or they don't really understand your issues or so and then you kinda start realizing okay life is really about something else. So Um yeah, kind of see it as a hobby that you dedicate a couple of hours a week to, but don't overdo it. Like if you think about it, when you like organize a jingle growth workshop, for example, you need a room, you need coaches, and you need participants.

Speaker 1: Um people can go and get lunch if you can't provide the food. You don't really need decorations. They're fun. You don't need swag. I mean swag's also fun, but we're like we get like overloaded with so much swag. So does it really matter if you have stickers at your events or or not. So I think you can I think we stress out too much and that's why so many people shy away from that because what it really comes down to are those three th three things. Um and that like mentioning that, I think you can also run a joint Django Girls event at very low cost. So Like even if you say I'm gonna provide sandwiches for like you don't need fancy food. I mean get Subway sandwiches for thirty people or so and you will spend, I don't know, three hundred dollars on it. So

Speaker 1: Um, I think you could totally run a workshop with very low cost and very low effort. Um and yeah, people might be a little bit disappointed that you don't have fancy cupcakes, fancy decorations, but In the end, they will still write their um first application and that's what really matters and that's what they'll remember. Like when I when I think of conferences that I've attended, honestly, what I remember most is the people. Like I don't remember what kind of logo did PyCon have three years ago or like what kind of fancy food did they have, but I remember, oh, I met this person there and they became my friend or so. So focus on the people. Tycon.

Speaker 1: Tycon is kind of my family reunion every year. Um and Thai, Tennessee is kind of special to me because I gave my first ever conference talk there. I usually don't miss DjangoCon. I am going to miss it this year. Yeah, I mean I I I think I saw one talk besides mine because I wanted to support the speaker. But if I think about it, like really like most of my time is like spent talking to people. And so as I said, like PyCon is my big family or you and the end But I think also my opinion on this has evolved. Like if I look back three years to my three years ago to my first PyCon, I was like stressing myself out because I wanted to like go to all the talks and do all the happy hours and so on

Speaker 1: Um and now I just say skip all the talks and just focus on the people because the talks you can watch on YouTube, but you can't take the people home and the people are what brings me happiness and what's also helped me in my career. Trey and I, that's actually a funny story. So I met Trey at PyCon a couple of years ago and he just came up to me in the hallway and he was like I know you're from Twitter. You're friends with this other friend of mine. So I thought you must be a friendly person. And so we started hanging out. And now Trey is like one of my best friends. Like I talk to him every week. And Yeah, he's awesome. So like you can kind of see that you can actually make like really like meaningful connections by just like

Speaker 1: attending events, organizing events, and so on.