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bananaofswifts · 3 years

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Taylor Swift Turns on a Facsimile Machine for the Ingenious Recreations of ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’: Album Review

Swift recreates her entire 2008 album literally down to the last note, then gives herself room for stylistic latitude on six never-before-recorded "vault" tracks.

By Chris Willman

Swift recreates her entire 2008 album literally down to the last note, then gives herself room for stylistic latitude on six never-before-recorded "vault" tracks.

There is no “best actress” award at the Grammys, perhaps for obvious reasons, but maybe there should be this coming year. And the Grammy would go to… Taylor Swift, for so persuasively playing her 18-year-old self in “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” her beyond-meticulous recreation of the 2008 recording that did win her her first album of the year trophy back in the day. It’s impossible to overstate just how thoroughly the new version is intended as an exact replica of the old — all the way down to her startling ability to recapture an untrained teen singing voice she’s long matured and moved on from. It’s a stunt, to be sure, but a stunt for the ages — mastering the guile it takes to go back to sounding this guileless.

There are two different, very solid reasons to pick up or stream “Taylor’s Version,” regardless of whether you share her ire for the Big Machine label, whose loose ways with her nine-figure catalog precipitated this, the first in a six-album series of remakes where she’ll be turning on the facsimile machine. One is to marvel at her gift for self-mimicry on the album’s original tracks, where she sounds as possessed by her younger self as Regan ever was by Pazuzu. The other reason is, of course, to check out the six “vault” numbers that Swift wrote during that time frame but has never released before in any form, which dispenses with stylistic fealty to the late 2000s and frames her “Fearless”-era discards in production and arrangements closer to “Folklore.” Those half-dozen (kind of) new tracks really do sound like modern Taylor Swift covering her old stuff.

But those original lucky 13? It’s the same damn record… which is kind of hilarious and marvelous and the kind of meta-ness that will inspire a thousand more think-pieces than it already has, along with possibly efforts at forensic analysis to figure out how she did it.

It would not be surprising if, as we speak, Big Machine was putting a combined team of scientists and lawyers on the case of the new album’s waveform readouts, to make sure it’s not just the original album, remixed. Honestly, it’s that close. The timings of the songs are all within a few seconds of the original tracks, if not coming in at exactly the same length. The duplication effort doesn’t allow any detours. If “Forever and Always” had a cold open then, it’s going to have a cold open now. If the 2008 “That’s the Way I Love You” had slamming rock guitars with an almost subliminal banjo being plucked beneath the racket, so will the 2021 “That’s the Way I Loved You.” A drum roll to end the old “Change”? A drum roll to end its body-snatcher doppelganger. And if she chuckled before the final chorus of “Hey Stephen” 13 years ago, so will that moment be cause for a delighted giggle now.

Of course, much analysis will be put into whether the new laugh is a more knowing-sounding laugh. And that will be part of the fun for a certain segment of audiophile Swifties who will go looking for the slightest change as evidence of something meaningful. When “Love Story (Taylor’s Version)” first came out weeks back to preview the album, there were reviews written that swore she’d subtly changed up her phrasing to put a contemporary spin on the song. And maybe they were right, but, having done a fair amount of A/B testing of the two versions of the album, I found myself feeling like I do when vinyl buffs insist there are significant sonic differences between the first stamper version of an LP and one that was pressed a year later. If you can spot those very, very, very modest tweaks, go for it.

But my suspicion is that if Swift has decided to turn a phrase a little differently here or there on this album, or done anything too differently aside from brighten the sound, she’s doing it more as an Easter egg, for the people who are on that kind of hunt, than anything really designed as reinterpretation. Because the last thing Swift wants most of her fans doing is A/B-ing the two versions, the way I did. The whole point is to have folks retire the OG “Fearless” from their Spotify playlists, right? The Swift faithful were already threatening to rain down damnation on anyone caught sneaking an audio peek at the old version after midnight. What she intended was to come up with a rendering so faithful that you would never have a need to spin the vintage album again. In that, she has succeeded beyond what could have been imagined even in the dreams of the few self-forgers who’ve tried this before, like a Jeff Lynne.

Is there any reason to find value in the new versions if you couldn’t care less about the issues of masters and contracts and respect in business deals that made all this strangely possible? Yes, with the first one being that the new album just sounds like a terrific remastering of the old — the same notes, and you’d swear the same performances, but sounding brighter and punchier just on a surface level. But on a more philosophical one, it’s not just a case of Swift playing with her back catalog like Andy Warhol played with his soup can. It’s really a triumph of self-knowledge and self-awareness, in the way that Swift is so hyper-conscious of the ways she’s matured that she has the ability to un-mature before our very ears. With her vocals, it’s virtuosic, in a way, how she’s made herself return to her unvirtuosic upstart self.

On Swift’s earliest albums and in those seminal live shows — at the time when she was famously being told she “can’t sing,” to quote a song from the follow-up album — there was a slight shrillness around the edges of her voice that, if you lacked faith, you might’ve imaged would be there forever. It wasn’t. That was partly youth, and partly just the sheer earnestness with which she wanted to convey the honesty of the songs. She’s advanced so much since then — into one of pop’s most gifted modern singers, really — that the woman of “Folklore” and “Evermore” seems like a completely different human being than the one who made the self-titled debut and “Fearless,” never mind just a woman versus girl. It wouldn’t have seemed possible that she could go back to her old way of singing at the accomplished age of 31, but she found and recreated that nervous, sincere, pleading voice of yesteryear. And maybe it was just a technical feat, of temporarily unlearning what she’s learned since then, but you can sense that maybe she had to go there internally, too, to the place where she was counseling other girls to guard their sexual virtue in “Fifteen,” or wondering whether to believe the fairy tale of “Love Story” or the wakeup call of “White Horse,” or proving with “Forever & Always” that writing a song telling off Joe Jonas for his 27-second breakup call was better than revenge.

If at first you’re not inclined to notice that Swift has re-adopted a completely different singing voice for the “Fearless” remakes, the realization may kick in when those “vault” tracks start appearing in the later stretch of this hour-and-50-minute album. The writing on the six songs that have been pulled up from the 2008 cutting room floor seems primitive, even a little bit by the standards of the “Fearless” album; there are great lines and couplets throughout the rescued tracks, but you can see why she left them as works-in-progress. But she doesn’t use her youthful voice on these resurrections, nor does she employ the actual style of “Fearless” very strictly. Of course, she feels more freedom on these, because there are no predecessors in the Big Machine catalog she’s asking you to leave behind. Her current collaborators of choice, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, divided the co-producing work on these fresher songs, as they did for the two all-new albums she released in the last year. (The “Fearless” recreations are co-produced by Swift with Christopher Rowe, someone who worked on remixes for Swift back in that era.) They co-produce the vault songs in a style that sounds somewhere between “Fearless” and Folklore”… a more spectral brand of country-pop, with flutes and synths and ringing 12-string guitars and a modicum of drum programming replacing some (but not all) of the acoustic stringed instruments you’d expect to be carried over from “Fearless” proper.

Of the previously unheard tracks, Swift was right — she’s always been her own best self-editor — in putting out “You All Over Me” first, in advance of the album. With its imagery of half-muddy stones being upturned on the road, this song has advanced lyrical conceits more of a piece with the level of writing she’s doing now than some of the slightly less precocious songs that follow. Still, there’s something to be said for the sheer zippiness with which Swift conveys teen heartbreak in “Mr. Perfectly Fine,” which has a lyric that shows Swift had long since absorbed the lessons Nashville had to offer about how to come up with a high-concept song — the concept, in this case, being just to stick the word “mister” in front of a lot of phrases relating to her shallow ex, as if they were honorary titles to be conferred for being a shit, while she employs the “miss” for herself more sparingly.

Some of the remaining outtake songs go back more toward the sedate side of “Fearless”-style material; she didn’t leave any real bangers in the can. “We Were Happy,” the first of two successive tracks to bring in Keith Urban (but only for backgrounds on this one), employs fake strings and real cello as Swift waxes nostalgic for a time when “you threw your arms around my neck, back when I deserved it.” It’s funny, in a good way, to hear Swift at 31 recreating a song she wrote at 17 or 18 that pined for long-past better times. The next song, “That’s When,” brings Urban in for a proper duet where he gets a whole second verse and featured status on half a chorus, and it’s lovely to hear them together. But, as a make-up song, it doesn’t feel as real or lived-in as the more personal things she was writing at the time — and the fact that its chords are pretty close to a slightly more balladic version of the superior “You Belong With Me” was probably a pretty good reason for dropping it at the time.

the 18-year-old Taylor Swift is a great place to visit, but “Folklore” and “Evermore” are the place you’ll want to return to and live, unless you have an especially strong sentimental attachment to “Fearless”… which, sure, half of young America does. It’s not irreconcilable to say that the two albums she issued in the last year represent a daring pinnacle of her career, but that “Fearless” deserved to win album of the year in 2008. Has there been a greater pop single in the 20th century than “You Belong With Me”? Probably not. Did the album also have lesser moments you probably haven’t thought about in a while, like the just-okay “Breathe”? Yes. (I looked up to see whether Swift had ever played that little remarked upon number in concert, and according to setlists.fm, she did, exactly once… in 2018. Because she’s Taylor Swift, and of course she did.) It’s not certain that her duet with Colbie Caillat really needed to be resurrected, except it’s fun, because hey, she even roped former duet partners back into her time warp. But there are so many number that have stood the test of time, like “The Way I Love You,” an early song that really got at the complicated feelings about passion and fidelity that she would come to explore more as she grew into her 20s… and just kind of a headbanger, too, on an album that does love its fiddles and mandolins.

It doesn’t take much to wonder why Swift put up “Fearless” first in this six-album exercise; it’s one of her two biggest albums, along with “1989,” and it’s 13 years old, which does mean something superstitious in the Taylor-verse. In a way, it’ll be more interesting to see what happens when she gets to more complicated productions, like “1989” or “Reputation.” But maybe “Fearless” did present the opportunity for the grandest experiment out of the gate: to recreate something that pure and heartfelt, with all the meticulousness a studio master like Swift can put to that process now, without having it seem like she’s faking sincerity. Let the think-pieces proceed — because this is about six hundred different shades of meta. But, all craftiness and calculation aside, there’s a sweetness to the regression that’s not inconsequential. It harks back to a time when she only wondered if she could be fearless, before she learned it the harder way for sure. What they say about actors “disappearing into the role”? That really applies to Taylor Swift, playing herself.

#taylor swift #fearless #review

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shinygoku · 3 years

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gordon gordon gordon gordon

Gordon Gordon Gordon Gordon!!

He's been sneaking into these asks by proxy, so it's finally time for his dedicated session, hehe~

First impression

WUAAAGH what's up with this WEIRD LONG NOT-THOMAS and his FACE?!

Impression now

His face is still pretty weird! But you know what else it is? Part of an Absolute Legend ✨

Like, man, Gordon is such a big presence and interesting character, the entire premise leans heavily on him. I'm inclined to go as far as to say that the Blue Boys of 1, 2 and 4 here are the three most important characters for the franchise (not at all to knock everyone else lmao) and they slot nicely into a Triforce of Courage, Wisdom and Power, and Gordon has Power in spades!

Gordon is The Vain One (not James!). He's legit very strong and the fastest on Sodor (which isn't just being a big fish in a small pond because that island has some crazy cool engines!) but unfortunately he lacks humility. His success seems to have been lodged in his head before the series even begins and this Pride is the source of pretty much every single conflict he's involved in.

But when it isn't his self satisfaction in his actions, it's being smug about being such a grand, magnificent Tender Engine and he is snooty as hell about it. He seems to look at smaller engines [pretty much everyone compared to him lol] as a lesser class, particularly if they're small and cheeky and Tank Engines. This may not be the case exactly, but his way of talking to them and some other things he says are very condescending.

However... as much as a gigantic jerk he is at several points, with Gordon I kinda feel like he plain ass doesn't conceive of his words being out of line. That and having to Unlearn things... he's not innately better than everyone else. He sees things in black and white. There are Useful Engines, and those who should be scrapped. There are Noble Tender Engines and Lesser Tank Engines who exist to do the tedious chores on behalf of the Superior ones. Edward doing shunting is seen as Demeaning and contradicts Gordon’s world view that Tender Engines Don't Stunt™, and he doesn't like that one bit! (Also Edward was crossing the picket line but that wasn't Awdry's concern lmao)

Related is Gordon does seem oddly dense at times, like assuming that Tenders are in of themselves a Status Symbol rather than a large lunchbox of sorts lol, or that Tender Engines like him being too heavy for Branch Lines being because something about Branch Lines are degrading. This might be all Elitist Brainwashing influence. But still, that he just takes these as The Truth means I get to affectionately call him an idiot. And there is no other way to explain how he genuinely believes Bill and Ben were going to murder him if he wasn't missing a few brain bolts in there.

Fortunately, he does eventually start to learn the important lessons.... very gradually, but the Early Gordon is a pretty different beast to Later Gordon, and it's wonderful~

Also, I gotta give credit to him for having some moments of utter brilliance and actual grasp of reality and more complex matters, like culture. (Yeah, I'm rolling with his geniune Opera Knowledge from s6 of all things. It's good!) As much as Awdry himself may have disagreed, Gordon was in the right to want a Station Pilot and the Strike was called for (not bullying Edward for it, but myeah) ...but this leads to my next point: He seems to have a mental block when it comes to Emotions.

Certainly, he's as emotional as the others are, it's not just a scale of Snooty, Arrogant, Condescending, Prideful ....well, it is, but ALSO the more mixed and varied feelings: Shame, Sadness, Fear, Ambivilance, Irritation, Anger, Passion, Amused, Delight and so on. However, Gordon is seemingly unaware of how his words may make the others feel, and even at his cruellest it doesn't look like he's aware he's twisting a knife in. To Gordon, he's being honest, but his verbose manner ends up twisting and wriggling away from any valid point like an overgrown vine that somehow links back to how [Other Engine] is disgracing him, Gordon, by association.

Examples include: Being offended by Henry's new shape (??? Gordon dude he nearly died and this is an improvement, a good thing!), saying that Edward's age and difficulty starting a heavy ass packed load of passengers is grounds to be Retired or even Scrapped, other little insulting things like calling the likes of Thomas and James Little insistently (it seems to vary if he's trying to put them down or actually be affectionate), and many more when in the hands of inept writers who have to wheel out the same Gordon Learns A Lesson Plot every other season.

Like I said in the James post, I also think he kinda poisoned the Red guy with his snooty attitude... but I maintain that I think Gordon was unaware of this. He may know he has Influence, and enjoy that, but he really truly doesn't appear to mean to mould James into a smaller, redder version of himself. He's oblivious and from his own point of view, benevolent. Which is in fact a dangerous combo indeed!

It's... a lot o7;;

Again though, if you're looking at the books and s1-s5 of TVS you can see him grow and change. He does take a while to learn the lessons, but as time goes on he moves 2 steps forward and 1 step back, then eventually less steps back entirely. It's great! And so is Gordon. A big dumb meathead with not entirely uncalled for delusions of granduer. A dramatic so-and-so who is the best engine for his job.

I love this sophisticated jock who grows more kindness~ 💙

Favourite moment

Hm! This isn't as easy to decide lol. We all like Gordon Goes Foreign... but you know what sticks in my mind more?

hOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH

Look, I’m not 100% objective, here! But Ringo’s read of this line is fantastic (and keeps making me expect him to finish saying OOOHH SHIT) and it’s also a well deserved bolt of divine retribution for how rude he was being earlier. (As long as my essay already was, he very much needed the knocking down of some pegs here!)

Idea for a story

While both my fics with him thus far have been variations of Pre-Canon, Full-Arrogance and Snobbish Gordon (and both were a lot of fun!) ...but I cannot bear the same expired horse being beaten more when the story is set waaay later but he’s still up his own ass. Please, PLEASE writers, let him hold what growth he’s managed to gain!

I think it’d be good to accept that he’s gonna be outdated sooner or later, so have him help train another High Speed Engine and take them under his wing. The Christopher Awdry books kinda have something similar with Pip and Emma, but I think a better way of having Gordon be involved would be if he was actively doing some mentoring himself, as well as being a neat parallel with Edward, whose type was once Express only but got outclassed by A1s, and so the same can happen to this big A1 -> A3 lad and he can form a healthy relationship with some bright eyed newbie (and maybe have some self awareness and try to stop their head getting too large, lol).

Unpopular opinion

I know I just said him mentoring would be a cool story idea, but in canon? He is NOT a resident Dad type!! He’s a hotshot young man but he’s also a hot mess. He’s physically large but he’s not got the Energy of someone who dispenses sage advice and a shoulder to cry on. At best, he’s a weird uncle! One who means well but you shouldn’t take his life advice to heart because he’s actually just as, if not more clueless than you!

Favourite relationship

I feel inclined to say Thomas here. Emphatically not because Gordon is ‘old’ and Thomas is ‘young’, but because they’re so damn alike and actually make an excellent, albeit unconventional type of Rivalry.

Both are self important with genuine finesse in their respective talents, both are honest to a fault, both have redeeming qualities to offset their initial abrasiveness, and the first TVS episode is centred on the both of them and sets the tone for the series as a whole. There’s more parallels, of course, but I also wanna point out they’re effectively the mascots of North Western Rail in universe too, and I absolutely love this picture:

I also have immense fondness for the Down the Mine paradigm shift! Thomas gives Gordon grief over the ditch incident and later when it emerges the Fat Controller is gonna send for Gordon to pull him out, Thomas is filled with dread. But Gordon isn’t using the chance to lord over Thomas, he’s actually so amused by Thomas’ mishap and it coming at a time where he’s been significantly humbled, they instead become Comrades and I love it. I eat it up! Paint Pots and Queens isn’t anywhere near as good but I adore the little bit where they’re appealing for the other, equals and watching each other’s back~

But yeah, as Friendly Rivals they both feel very authentic and yet, in a daft way, sweet ;3

Favourite headcanon

He still says “Hurry, hurry, hurry!” when pulling the Express. That’s a HC as I think the show phased it out, but I like it lol. I feel like my essay on him contains most of the headcanon stuff, but it’s all based on what’s shown, baybee!

#this is ttte #TTTE Gordon #ttte talk #Gordon the Big Engine #Thomas the Tank Engine #TTTE Thomas #snuck in a bit in there lol #mentioned Edward a lot as well but not in as much depth #I love me some Blue Engines #TTTE

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toomanysinks · 5 years

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Why unicorns can raise $1 billion but can’t figure out diversity and inclusion

Sarah McMillian Contributor

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Sarah McMillian leads sales at Temboo. She has been recognized as a leader in diversity and inclusion by MIT, her alma mater, Complex and The Root, and advises tech companies on how to become more diverse and inclusive.

In the early 2000s, Hasbro revived its “My Little Pony” toy franchise. Of all the colorful creatures in Ponyville, my favorite were the unicorn ponies.

Unicorn ponies were magical, whimsical and, most importantly, rare. I identified with the latter.

I was 13 years old and had just been selected for a competitive math, science and computer science program. Of the 100 students in the program, I was one of two black girls. But, I was lucky. Just like the Earth ponies embraced the unicorns, my white and Asian classmates made me feel welcome.

I wish that was always my experience in the tech industry.

The tech industry is no more diverse than it was when I was 13. But more tech companies than ever have committed to becoming more diverse and inclusive.

So why doesn’t commitment always translate to Ponyville?

Goodbye Ponyville, hello world

Six years in my intensive math, science and computer science program almost prepared me to study at MIT. Multivariable calculus? Check. Getting over the fact that you’re not the smartest person at school? Check. Having to worry about being discriminated against by your classmates? Not check.

Here’s an example. My senior year, I was working with a team of 21 other students to develop a new medical device. Peer valuations determined part of my grade, which concerned me. I worried that some of my classmates’ feedback would be clouded by biases against black women. I felt pressured to be perceived as intelligent-but-not-intimidating, confident-but-not-aggressive and approachable-but-not-dense.

Though I largely received positive evaluations, not one, but two, of my teammates told me to “be less aggressive.”

I felt singled out and discouraged until I heard from some of my other black classmates. They’d been excluded from team meetings, and assigned the most menial tasks.

Creating diverse and inclusive tech companies starts with individuals.

How could this happen at MIT, a place that prides itself on being a diverse and inclusive center of innovation?

People discriminate. Institutions tolerate discrimination. People learn to tolerate the discrimination against them. It’s a simple, vicious cycle that few institutions and companies design against.

During the three years after I graduated from MIT, I became fed up with being treated as “less than.” It was time to find a unicorn.

Unicorn (noun)

uni·corn | \ ˈyü-nə-ˌkȯrn

a mythical, usually white animal generally depicted with the body and head of a horse with long flowing mane and tail and a single often spiraled horn in the middle of the forehead

a diverse and inclusive tech company

Following the Rainbow Trail

Finding a unicorn was not easy. My Google search yielded plenty of startups with billion-plus valuations. Few startups were very diverse or inclusive.

That’s why Temboo, a NYC-based industrial IoT startup, intrigued me:

A tech company led by a woman of color.

An engineering team with an equal number of women and men.

A product focused on accessibility and the democratization of programming.

A diverse team of employees from different cultural backgrounds.

And, most surprisingly, when I arrived for my first interview, I was greeted with a giant hug. This is New York. Random hugs don’t just happen.

Every person I met had a background and interests different from the next. Of all the companies I interviewed with, only Temboo asked why I chose to lead the black employee resource group at my previous position. Even the company’s physical space was different than most tech companies — an independent office nestled in the heart of the TriBeCa neighborhood of NYC.

When I made the decision to join the team, I was hopeful. Maybe this would be a place where I would be respected and appreciated for just being myself.

My Little Pony: NYC tales

During my first few months, I held onto the past lessons that taught me I needed to formulate an acceptable version of myself for my colleagues. However, with time, I understood that at Temboo, Sarah is enough.

My kinky hair could be braided or in an afro, but my hairstyle had no bearing on my perceived intelligence. I could openly critique the lack of diversity at the industrial IoT conferences we attend, and hear resounding agreement.

There were, admittedly, a few times I felt judged. My deep love of obscure reality TV shows and pumpkin-flavored foods is questionable.

I found my unicorn and I’m happier for it. Now, I want everyone working in tech to find their unicorn, so I’ve started to think about ways that I can help pass the torch.

Stuck in Bro-nyville

Most tech companies are following the same recommendations to become more diverse and inclusive:

Diversify your talent pool.

Create community with employee resource groups.

Tie performance evaluations to diversity and inclusion goals.

Call out the lack of diversity.

Take the example of this medium-sized tech company that was preparing to revamp its employee resource groups. The company invited me to speak on a panel, and share what I’d learned from leading the black employee resource group at my previous company.

For example, my team organized Microaggression Awareness Week. The results were tangible: the next week during an executive leadership meeting, a senior manager stopped to ask his peers if something he said was a microaggression.

But we could not convince the recruiting team to tie their performance ratings to diversity and inclusion goals. They did not want the burden of responsibility, and asked my team to come up with new ideas to attract more diverse talent.

Diverse and inclusive tech companies have better retention and financial performance.

Another panelist shared her experience of coming out in the workplace at 50 years old. After 18 years as a senior executive at a Fortune 500 company, she moved to a small tech company. The atmosphere was totally different. Jokes about someone’s sexual orientation were faux pax, and the company even built a float for the NYC Pride Parade. After a 30-year career, she finally felt safe enough to be herself at work.

The panel ended on an encouraging note, but issues remained. One of the company’s employees shared with me that in order to avoid discrimination, he goes by his Anglo-sounding middle name. His job is to lead diversity and inclusion initiatives.

How to grow a horn

Unfair behaviors like stereotyping, harassment and microaggressions are the primary reasons employees quit tech companies. Women, underrepresented minorities and LGBTQ employees bear the brunt of discrimination (Kapor Center).

Diverse and inclusive tech companies have better retention and financial performance. McKinsey examined the relationship between the diversity of company leadership and financial performance in 2014 and 2017: companies in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15-21 percent more likely to experience above-average profitability compared to companies in the fourth quartile. For ethnic and cultural diversity, the likelihood of above-average performance increased to 33-35 percent.

Creating diverse and inclusive tech companies starts with individuals. From management to junior employees, everyone needs to continually rethink, unlearn and relearn.

Rethink personal biases.

Unlearn habits of discrimination.

Relearn how to respect others who are different.

Companies help end workplace discrimination by signaling their intolerance. Temboo’s culture and practices are a great model.

Unicorns are magical, but diverse and inclusive tech companies are not. They ask the people who work there to redefine what is ordinary.

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/23/why-unicorns-can-raise-1-billion-but-cant-figure-out-diversity-and-inclusion/

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fmservers · 5 years

Text

Why unicorns can raise $1 billion but can’t figure out diversity and inclusion

Sarah McMillian Contributor

Share on Twitter

In the early 2000s, Hasbro revived its “My Little Pony” toy franchise. Of all the colorful creatures in Ponyville, my favorite were the unicorn ponies.

Unicorn ponies were magical, whimsical and, most importantly, rare. I identified with the latter.

I wish that was always my experience in the tech industry.

The tech industry is no more diverse than it was when I was 13. But more tech companies than ever have committed to becoming more diverse and inclusive.

So why doesn’t commitment always translate to Ponyville?

Goodbye Ponyville, hello world

Though I largely received positive evaluations, not one, but two, of my teammates told me to “be less aggressive.”

I felt singled out and discouraged until I heard from some of my other black classmates. They’d been excluded from team meetings, and assigned the most menial tasks.

Creating diverse and inclusive tech companies starts with individuals.

How could this happen at MIT, a place that prides itself on being a diverse and inclusive center of innovation?

People discriminate. Institutions tolerate discrimination. People learn to tolerate the discrimination against them. It’s a simple, vicious cycle that few institutions and companies design against.

During the three years after I graduated from MIT, I became fed up with being treated as “less than.” It was time to find a unicorn.

Unicorn (noun)

uni·corn | \ ˈyü-nə-ˌkȯrn

a mythical, usually white animal generally depicted with the body and head of a horse with long flowing mane and tail and a single often spiraled horn in the middle of the forehead

a diverse and inclusive tech company

Following the Rainbow Trail

Finding a unicorn was not easy. My Google search yielded plenty of startups with billion-plus valuations. Few startups were very diverse or inclusive.

That’s why Temboo, a NYC-based industrial IoT startup, intrigued me:

A tech company led by a woman of color.

An engineering team with an equal number of women and men.

A product focused on accessibility and the democratization of programming.

A diverse team of employees from different cultural backgrounds.

And, most surprisingly, when I arrived for my first interview, I was greeted with a giant hug. This is New York. Random hugs don’t just happen.

When I made the decision to join the team, I was hopeful. Maybe this would be a place where I would be respected and appreciated for just being myself.

My Little Pony: NYC tales

There were, admittedly, a few times I felt judged. My deep love of obscure reality TV shows and pumpkin-flavored foods is questionable.

I found my unicorn and I’m happier for it. Now, I want everyone working in tech to find their unicorn, so I’ve started to think about ways that I can help pass the torch.

Stuck in Bro-nyville

Most tech companies are following the same recommendations to become more diverse and inclusive:

Diversify your talent pool.

Create community with employee resource groups.

Tie performance evaluations to diversity and inclusion goals.

Call out the lack of diversity.

Diverse and inclusive tech companies have better retention and financial performance.

How to grow a horn

Creating diverse and inclusive tech companies starts with individuals. From management to junior employees, everyone needs to continually rethink, unlearn and relearn.

Rethink personal biases.

Unlearn habits of discrimination.

Relearn how to respect others who are different.

Companies help end workplace discrimination by signaling their intolerance. Temboo’s culture and practices are a great model.

Unicorns are magical, but diverse and inclusive tech companies are not. They ask the people who work there to redefine what is ordinary.

Via David Riggs https://techcrunch.com

#TechCrunch

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