Inclusion is the new normal.

In my professional tribes, we hew to these codes of conduct.

We are committed to making participation in this project a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of level of experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, or nationality.

Source: Contributor Covenants & Codes of Conduct

Inclusion is the new normal. Diversity and inclusion are how we build the teams that build the future.

LGBTQ+ folks are well represented at my company, Automattic. We hold events for our 500+ person company all over the world–but not at venues that discriminate against our own.

The norms of professional collaboration are not the norms of the Texas legislature, alas. Here in Texas, we are fighting bathroom bills that threaten inclusion in public schools. Public education should be free, life-changing, and available to everyone. Schools with transmisic bathroom policies break the codes of collaboration and the promise of an education available to all of our kids. Such schools don’t meet the standards for hosting WordCamps, WordPress Meetups, or Automattic sponsored events. They eliminate themselves from hosting meetups for many open source communities, something schools should be doing more of, not less. Phobic policies distance public education from the creative commons and the engines of modernity.

Automattic and the industries we inhabit reject the transphobic values @txvalues and many Texas politicians champion in Texas schools. They are incompatible with our collaborative cultures. The future of work is diversity and inclusion.

Howdy! We are an international company with employees who come from a wide variety of backgrounds. We believe that the more perspectives we embrace, the better we are at engaging our global community of users and developers. We want to build Automattic as an environment where people love their work and show respect and empathy to those with whom we interact.

Diversity typically includes, but is not limited to, differences in race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, political and religious affiliation, socioeconomic background, cultural background, geographic location, physical disabilities and abilities, relationship status, veteran status, and age. To work on diversity means that we welcome these differences, and strive to increase the visibility of traditionally underrepresented groups. We see inclusion as the ongoing, conscious effort to celebrate difference and welcome people of differing backgrounds and life experiences, whether they’re current or prospective employees, partners, or users of our software.

In 2014 we started to work, as a company, on facilitating spaces for discussions about diversity at Automattic. And at the 2016 annual gathering of all of our employees from over 50 countries, we decided to share with the rest of the world what we are doing about diversity and inclusion here. Because we want you to think about working with us.

Source: Diversity and Inclusion —  Automattic

More diverse companies, we believe, are better able to win top talent and improve their customer orientation, employee satisfaction, and decision making, and all that leads to a virtuous cycle of increasing returns. This in turn suggests that other kinds of diversity—for example, in age, sexual orientation, and experience (such as a global mind-set and cultural fluency)—are also likely to bring some level of competitive advantage for companies that can attract and retain such diverse talent.

• Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.
• Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.
• Companies in the bottom quartile both for gender and for ethnicity and race are statistically less likely to achieve above-average financial returns than the average companies in the data set (that is, bottom-quartile companies are lagging rather than merely not leading).
• In the United States, there is a linear relationship between racial and ethnic diversity and better financial performance: for every 10 percent increase in racial and ethnic diversity on the senior-executive team, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) rise 0.8 percent.

Source: Why diversity matters | McKinsey & Company

Simply put, diversity increases the likelihood of a tech company’s survival.

Source: Biased by Design

The business community, by and large, has consistently communicated to lawmakers at every level that such laws are bad for our employees and bad for business. This is not a direction in which states move when they are seeking to provide successful, thriving hubs for business and economic development.

Source: Silicon Valley CEOs Sign Letter Against North Carolina Transgender Law « CBS San Francisco

The results are in. They’ve been in for so long, so consistently, that they’ve become old news: diverse teams outperform. Across industries and organization sizes, teams with more gender and racial diversity return stronger results to investors, retain top performers longer, and make better decisions. It’s not even a close call.

Unconscious bias isn’t a bleeding-heart liberal codeword, it’s a real threat to your business and your ability to find top talent.

Source: Your Diversity Problem isn’t the Pipeline’s Fault

Open Source, at its fundamental levels, is all about inclusion—it’s about always asking the question, “Who am I excluding?” or “Who have I excluded, and need to go back and include.” And then setting forth to make things right by thinking, and acting, as inclusively as possible.

Source: John Maeda: Enlisting With The Next Generation | Design.blog

As American entrepreneurs and business leaders, we believe that the historical commitment to civil liberties as set forth in the United States Constitution is a unique advantage for U.S. businesses — one that is inextricably linked with our global competitiveness and success. Any threat to fundamental civil liberties is bad for American business. It is incumbent on us as entrepreneurs, leaders, and patriotic Americans to speak up. We believe that the rights and liberties enshrined in our Constitution and Bill of Rights are under threat and need to be safeguarded.

In Tech, we have an environment that celebrates the open exchange of ideas without regard to an individual’s background, religious practice, ethnicity or sexual orientation. This ethos has led to the creation of some of the world’s most admired brands — companies that have transformed the way in which the world lives, works, and communicates.

We are concerned about recent incidents of harassment in diverse communities that could lead to a brain drain of much needed talent. Rather than attract the best from throughout the world, we risk losing our edge. Whenever our employees and colleagues experience hostility and fear, we believe, as business leaders, we must support them, unconditionally.

There is a pragmatic reason for this support. Tech talent who are confident their government will guarantee their freedoms — and operate free of fear — are better enabled to create America’s future innovative products. Simply put, innovation in Tech thrives on trust and inclusiveness.

Source: Civil Liberties are Essential for Business and Prosperity

In an era of massive software driven change, the culture of public education should be compatible with the norms of agile teams and distributed collaboration. Self-organizing teams working in open by default, inclusive by default cultures build great things. This is the present and future of work. What we’ve learned over decades of iterating development culture for adult creatives applies also to students.

Our market is the world. Our audience is the world. Designing for the lived experiences of the full spectrum of human diversity requires working inclusively. Together, we will iterate our way through massive software-driven change. We will navigate disruption with compassion, finding opportunity and inspiration in the diversity of our shared humanity. We are humans making things for and with other humans, helping each other cope with sentience and senescence on our pale blue dot.

Inclusion is the new normal. Inclusion is the way to our boldly better future. Diversity is a fact of the modern world that is good for society and good for business.

See also,

• Communication is oxygen. Build a district wide collaboration infrastructure and an open by default culture.
• Education, Neurodiversity, the Social Model of Disability, and Real Life
• Mindset Marketing, Behaviorism, and Deficit Ideology
• Inspiration Porn, Growth Mindset, and Deficit Ideology
• Building Creative Culture
• Thinking, Fast and Slow: Heuristics, Rules of Thumb, and Unconscious Bias
• Rules of Thumb for Human Systems