Summer Book Club: Unreasonable Hospitality chapters 6-8

[KirstieJane]

What reflections did you have about chapters 6-8? Where did you see connections to your work at BIDS and in the scientific open source community? Which elements did not resonate?

[lillihart]

First, I want to admit I have a habit of binge-listening during my commute so my reflections might bleed into later chapters... Next, some points that spoke to me:

• The experience that a guest/attendee has upon arrival (their first look) is something I've been thinking about. At AI Futures Lab, there had been some confusion because we were first told no signage allowed at the entrance. Now, we do have the option for a tabletop sign inside the lobby, but that's still not ideal. Once upstairs, there was also a little confusion before Kirstie suggested a sign opposite the elevators (great idea!). I think the process of welcoming/arrival/first look still needs some consideration and there is plenty of room for improvement.
  • At the Gateway, we may run into similar issues - tbd!
• These chapters talked a lot of teams -- such an important conversation: Finding alignment, helping each other, meshing, consistent communications, etc. All of this creates not only a good experience for the guests, but also contributes to a healthy work environment.
• Maybe it's because I'm listening to the book and because I am a Midwesterner raised in the German culture, but the author's claim that "passion" is required doesn't sit well with me. (I don't remember exactly how he worded it, but he declared "loving customer service" over and over!) In the simplest terms, I wholeheartedly believe that working to give the guests a memorable and educational experience is vital. I also want the team to be successful as well as have individual successes. And, I believe it takes dedication and drive to improve.

[slohia-19]

This central tension of these few chapters, that of fine dining and deep hospitality, is really interesting because I've never thought of those as contrasting before. To be fair, I haven't been to many Michelin starred places, but the idea that a welcoming, inviting restaurant is opposed to traditional fine dining was surprising. To me, it makes sense that the best restaurant in the world should also be one where guests feel welcome and at home.

Relating this back to the work I've been a part of at BIDS, I'm thinking about the events that we run and the impact that we want to have. There are so many cool events and speakers that I've been able to sit in on as an intern, and I hope that we create a welcoming environment where people not only learn something new but also feel like a part of a larger community. However, I also recognize that there's room for improvement - in the moment of helping out at an event, I know that I can get caught up in details such as checking people in or setting up. As students working at BIDS, I feel like we bring our own unique perspectives, and I'd like to think more about how we can be engaged and connect with attendees.

The experiences that the author describes about trying to build the team and establish a new culture also resonated with me. These chapters brought me back to my first job, where creating a cohesive team felt next to impossible due to external pressures and politics. In contrast, in my experience at BIDS, I've really enjoyed working with everyone and learning, and during the summer, I've enjoyed spending more time diving into bigger projects related to events.

Lastly, I think the author's point about identifying people's "why," and putting them in a position to play to their strengths, is underrated. In thinking of the people who may work on projects or come to events, people have different motivations, which can deeply influence their experience. It also makes me more excited to develop processes such as the events template, because I think that clarifying those goals and objectives within BIDS can help us deliver a better experience for attendees as well.

[minrk]

I realize I've been neglecting this, sorry!

Key points that I felt like were relevant to our work:

Recognizing and valuing different expertise in kitchen/dining room is resonant with OSS community work, where we often struggle to fairly value disparate skills across different areas of expertise, such as code contributions, documentation, and community work. We've known this forever, but continue to struggle to support contributors who don't focus on code. This is an area where I really want to improve.

Another resonant idea is "don't go too fast, build foundations or you'll fail" - wanting to move fast is really attractive, but if you don't have support structures in place, it becomes unsustainable - not just sustaining the pace, but as a whole. We've experienced this many times and the novelty-based grant funding structure actively promotes novelty at the expense of sustainability.

Support folks who are trying, set them up for success. An important concept in community software is identifying enthusiastic participants and giving them support. That's the most valuable and most rewarding work as a maintainer, and my favorite thing. It's also absolutely obliterated in this age of automated contributions. "low quality" contributions used to be an opportunity to teach and foster new members of community. Now they are mostly a waste of everyone's time, mostly at the expense of folks who actually want to learn.

Chapter 8:

"Keep asking why, why should be clear" - it's important to ask why we do things, both because the underlying reasons may change, which should mean we change what we do. But it also helps us communicate why we do things, which is necessary for bringing in new people and fostering the community. Understanding why we do what we do helps make new decisions because our reasoning is clearer.

I also appreciated the note that hiring a group together helps create a community - having a cohort of new hires / interns really enables peer. This is really hard for how most of what we do works, but it seemed an important idea. We currently have the opportunity to hire a cohort, which is exceedingly rare. I hoe we can make the most of it.

I also noticed the idea that cool kids hold back and "trying isn't cool" because I don't think that's true anymore? I may be out of touch and maybe the pendulum has swung back again, but I thought that the trend of "caring is cringe" was mostly over and young folks thought it was cool to care about stuff. But I'm 100% not in a position to know that.