NERDSummit: Toward Building an Inclusive Community

This is the weekend of NERDSummit. What started as Western Mass Drupal Camp has grown up and become the New England Regional Developer's Summit. And what a transformation it's undergone.

At times the growth has been uncomfortable. The camp started when Kelly Albrecht said, "We should do a camp" and I said, "I think I can get us a place." We started with creating an event for what we perceived as our community: our colleagues and co-workers.

During our second year, I looked around and realized that our steering committee was almost entirely white male. And all our keynote speakers were white men. During the third year, I began trying to recruit more women to join the steering committee. I challenged Johanna Bates, who had objected to the graphical theme of the website (which prominently featured a white male) to help us find a female keynote speaker.

Around the same time, Kelly recognized that the Drupal community was just one part of an increasingly integrated web development community and began to propose a conference that could welcome people from across the entire community.

The first NERDSummit focused attention on women in technology. With outstanding keynotes by Susan Buck and Ashe Dryden, and a panel on women in technology (among other events). We've begun a discussion about how to change the culture, decrease barriers to entry, and recognize that creating an environment by-and-for the majority, may not serve minorities well or at all.

I was rather shocked during the panel discussion to hear what now sound to me like tired tropes emerge from the audience: defensiveness, "not all men", and "this isn't an IT issue". It was like lancing a boil: hard, painful, and ugly.

We're learning. I'm learning. And I'm grateful to my colleagues who've brought us so far.