![]() Take opportunities to diversify your network.Īttend events for people who are from underrepresented groups. Introduce yourself to people who don’t look like you. This happens naturally as we often build networks through shared interests, and we usually feel comfortable introducing ourselves to people who look like us. But one significant issue is that we all tend to have “just like me” networks-networks of people who all look like us. Those in power will usually give stretch assignments or promotions to those from their network who they know and trust. People hire from their networks, and they also build workplace trust through networking. It contributes to professional development. Professional networking is essential for a successful career. Karen Catlin speaking at Digital Diversity Days on how companies can search for candidates from diverse backgrounds. Below, you will find some of the ideas she shared. While she was here, Karen shared actionable advice she has identified and ideas for how anyone can be an ally in these situations. Her followers quickly grew, and soon she was asked to speak at events and share her knowledge.Īnd Sparkbox couldn’t be more thankful to have partnered with the Bureau of Digital to bring Karen to Dayton, OH, for Digital Diversity Days in November 2019. That’s when she started the Better Allies Twitter account to share her learnings and practical applications. But she quickly discovered that her strategies for being a better ally with this one underrepresented group could apply to any underrepresented group. Resolving to follow this passion, Karen started her own business as a leadership coach for women. After some time, she realized this was her true passion. To combat this downward trend of women in the industry, Karen established a women’s employee resource group at Adobe, where she worked to equip women for success in their careers. During her career, Karen began to notice that the number of women obtaining computer science degrees significantly declined. She began as a developer and moved to executive and management positions, finally becoming the Vice President of Engineering at Adobe. Karen provides clear advice to help anyone at any position in an organization foster a more inclusive culture.Īfter a long career in tech, Karen now works as an advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion. We were so excited to learn about Karen Catlin and read her work because she has developed practical strategies, rooted in connection and empathy, to help anyone become an ally. How can we set everyone up for success?.How can we learn to be practical, everyday allies for those from underrepresented communities?.What are we doing that we never realized hurts or excludes underrepresented groups?.We’ve sought answers to questions like these: We’ve experienced firsthand the struggle to find actionable steps that support the Sparkbox team in fostering inclusion no matter where they are on their journey. Inclusion and diversity in the workplace are vitally important, but they can also seem like difficult, abstract goals. We’ve seen amazing highs and other moments where we’ve wondered if we can ever be equipped to take on such a worthy task. And it’s been a journey of opening our eyes to our own privilege, how lack of privilege impacts people, and trying to figure out how to encourage and support a company growing in these areas as a whole. Sparkbox architected and implemented this integration to make single sign-on and SAML connections seamless for their customers.Sparkbox has been working to be more intentionally inclusive and diverse for years. On our recommendation, Aperian also selected Auth0 for user management. We also transformed the new look and feel into a design system that could be used to build out future features and support the developers working on both the React app and the Drupal-powered Culture Guides.ĭuring our engagement, Aperian was adjusting their payment model, and we were able to support their business changes by integrating Stripe to manage subscriptions and payments. Giving Aperian one source for managing content was a big win for their team, allowing them more flexibility and giving them the ability to add and adjust content without having to engage the technical team. Together, we implemented a headless Drupal CMS to manage the content in the Culture Guides as well as some of the content on the dashboard and React app. As internal momentum grew for the project, Aperian was able to grow their team by adding two developers. We focused on maintainability and performance, delivering a best-in-class experience for users. We took the lead on developing a React app that rendered the Work Style survey and resulting profile, including the country, individual, and team comparisons. ![]() We worked with Aperian's technical team to modernize the GlobeSmart application.
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