Mission Log: Tom Tom Fest 2018
Last week, my fellow Moonfarmer Erin and I were sent on an excursion to Charlottesville, VA to attend the Tom Tom Founder’s Festival! It was a jam-packed 4 days of sharing, learning, and meeting new friends!
Tom Tom Fest is a interdisciplinary, multi-track conference that explores the future with entrepreneurs, leaders, designers, innovators and visionaries who inspire change.
How did we end up there? There’s a story to that. Back in December, the organizers of the conference reached out to ask me to join a panel on the topic of Inclusive Design. They found me through some of my other talks and my article on the Moonfarmer blog. They were also really interested in the work we are doing at Moonfarmer. So away we went!
Day One: Traveling, Wordpress, and John Cleese
Even Moonfarmers sometimes need earthly transportation. So we kicked off our day at 3:30am to fly from our local Stewart International to Charlottesville, VA (with a layover in Philadelphia). I made the mistake of getting a bagel in Philly. Don’t do that. Bagels are very sad outside of NY.
We arrived at our Airbnb around 11am. At this point it felt like the end of the day, but we still had a lot ahead of us! After a couple of hours of unpacking and getting settled, we trudged on.
While we were prepping Moonfarmer’s social media for the event, we came across a promotion for one of the most anticipated events of the weekend! Originally, the tickets for John Cleese’s keynote were around $100. We were fortunate enough to stumble across a last minute promotion and snagged a couple of tickets for only $20. More on that later.
After a quick lunch, I ventured out to my first workshop, on the topic of the new editor experience coming to Wordpress. It probably won’t come into production until next year, but I’m already excited about it.
Wordpress is not our main focus at Moonfarmer, but we still use it fairly often. When we do use it, we have a tendency to attach it to a React frontend (See: America’s Health Rankings, Peter Buffett, and Radio Kingston). In the case of America’s Health Rankings (which we made a couple of years ago) we had to create our own React-based editor, which was pretty wild. But soon, thanks to the developments with Gutenburg, Wordpress Core will be supporting front end components in JSX/React!
I was also really excited to see some inclusive design principle being incorporated into the Wordpress editor. The editor allows a user to create buttons and pick the background and text color, but but will notify the user if the color combination does not adhere to accessible color contrast ratios. This kind of practice makes it easier for someone with low vision or color blindness to read.
After that, Erin and I got a drink with some new people we met at the Wordpress workshop. These folks were all from a [small] city called Fredrick, Maryland. Something I immediately liked about this conference is how easy it was to meet other people from small cities like Kingston. It was exciting to hear about what their tech, entrepreneurship, and design communities were like and how they address smaller and more spread out populations of people.
Next, it was time to see John Cleese! His keynote was full of insights on futility, stupidity, and general silliness. It was as thought provoking as it was hilarious.
You might be wondering what business the founder of Monty Python has giving a keynote talk at an innovation & entrepreneurship conference. We were curious too. Attending this talk, we learned that John Cleese is on the Advisory Board for University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies. Curious as to what that was all about, we made a mental note to attend the next evening’s DOPS panel where John Cleese would be in attendance again as moderator!
After an incredibly long day, all we wanted was a nourishing meal before sleep. We ended up stumbling into a cozy little hole in the wall where we shared a cheese plate and mused over the day’s events.
Day Two: Company DNA, The Future of Food, and New Friends
After such a long first day, Erin and I really enjoyed a slow morning. Our lovely B&B host prepared us a delightful spread each morning, and we took great pleasure in enjoying it.
Late in the morning, I walked to the first summit of the day. It was a really interesting talk by Henry Hwong about strategies for testing “company DNA” to determine objectives and metrics for success. It was particularly interesting to think about in terms of software companies. Why does your product exist? Are you trying to address a social issue? Create sustainable income? Develop a new technology? All of these things can affect how you are presenting your brand. At Moonfarmer, we are constantly thinking about how to position ourselves to be able to do the kind of work that feels meaningful to us. (see: Kale’s Q&A blog post) This also really speaks to the consideration that went into developing the Moonfarmer brand!
After that I attended a panel on the Future of Food. Discussion centered around the topics of food sustainability, and ethical farming practices from companies like Fair Food Program. I even got to try my first ever Beyond Meat Burger! It was really good.
It was at this summit that I first met up with the moderator for the panel I was set to speak on the next day! I had spoken to Lance Barrera a few times leading up to this conference, in preparation for our panel discussion. After enjoying our vegan burgers, Lance and I met with one of the other speakers on the panel and we got a tour of the offices where he works — Willow Tree.
It was cool to see a dev shop so similar to ours also thriving in a small city. The people at Willow Tree reminded me a lot of my coworkers at Moonfarmer, and they quickly became my favorite friends in Charlottesville.
Despite all this, I still had a long day ahead of me, so I took a mid-day break to work on slides for my keynote talk on Saturday.
Thursday evening we got to see John Cleese on stage again, this time moderating a conversation hosted by the UVA Division of Perceptual Studies entitled “Life After Death.” The discussion circled around a scientific exploration of the human consciousness. The scope of their research includes: investigating children who claim to have past lives; the nature of consciousness and the mind-body relationship; neuro-imaging studies of psi events; and individuals who report experiencing near-death experiences.
It was the most unique panel I’ve attended at a conference, and it was truly fascinating!
We ended the day by attending the Speakers Gala, where we were served hors d’oeuvres and cocktails and were able to mingle with the other people invited to speak at the conference. It was such an energizing gathering of smart, interesting, good-hearted people. I’m so glad to have been a part of it!
Day Three: Creative Mornings, Design, and my panel discussion
At Moonfarmer, we’re big fans of the breakfast lecture series, Creative Mornings. So naturally, we were thrilled to find out our new friend Lance from Willow Tree is the host of the Charlottesville chapter, and they happened to have a talk scheduled while we were there!
After coffee and breakfast, we had the pleasure of listening to Sean Duncan talk about games and play, critical game design, and understanding the culture of gaming. We even had the chance to chat with him after the event about the uncomfortable joy people get from assuming villainous roles while playing. The whole talk will be available to watch on the CreativeMornings website.
With such an inspiring start to the day, I headed off to The Welcome Gallery for a long day of panels and discussion all about design!
First I got to see an amazing panel called “Designing Products with Purpose.” Some incredible people spoke about how they’ve used design as a means for creating vessels for social impact — taking on issues like food waste, police violence, and homelessness.
Immediately following, I got to see a panel discussion on how to solve design problems with prototyping. I learned a bit about collaboration functionality on specific softwares like InVision and how they’ve helped with community engagement!
The official name of my panel was A Universal Language: Inclusive Design. I was joined by Julia Swenson of WillowTree, Jordan Devries of Brave UX, and Lance Barrera.
We started out by discussing what inclusive design really is: at it’s core, it’s about making digital products usable and intuitive for as many people as possible. I took that time to talk about how it differs from how design and UX is typically approached and what needs to change. Right now, “accessibility” and “edge cases” are often addressed at the end of the process, if at all. Something I discussed on the panel was how we should be approaching things focusing on edge cases and thinking about accessibility first. We need to rework our processes similarly to the changes made when “mobile first” became popular.
Another really important thing we talked about was how lack of diversity in the tech industry heavily impacts design and how many people it reaches effectively. Empathy is so deeply important to our work, and the most genuine empathy comes from first hand experience. While it may not be possible to get a person with every experience ever at the table, we sure can try to get closer to that. As a start, we need to see more diverse teams with people coming from different socio-economic backgrounds, races, gender identities, etc.
We ended on a positive note, discussing how the WCAG 2.0 standards for design and development are being more universally adopted all around the world. Accessibility standards, and in turn inclusive design concepts, are becoming legally upheld, and therefore, for many companies not an add on or optional. These concepts are becoming standard practices and not just best practices. I shared the examples of how the Gutenberg editor that’s coming to Wordpress next year is enforcing AA color contrast standards on the buttons users can build, and how Codecademy is now teaching the alt attribute to be equally important to the src attribute to new users in their HTML course.
I have a feeling that “inclusive design” won’t be a niche panel or subject matter in a few year’s time.
After the inclusive design panel disbanded, we stuck around for one last discussion on citizen-centered design in Gainesville, Fl. We learned about how the city administrators of Gainesville partnered up with IDEO to reorient their entire local government around citizens. It resulted in some beautiful, human centered design.
Finally at the end of the day, though we were exhausted, we were able to relax and enjoy ourselves. I had overheard that speakers were allowed access to the rooftop bar at an exclusive social club, so we decided to go for a couple of drinks while the sun set on the beautiful spring day.
Day Four: Diversity in Tech, Virginia Wine Country, and Sunshine
Saturday marked our last full day in Charlottesville. The weather was gorgeous, and wine country was calling our name, but first I had to address the issue of diversity in the tech industry. Not a small topic by any means, but I was asked to be a keynote speaker at a hackathon aimed at promoting diversity in tech!
I can’t say how many talks on diversity I have personally sat through that were laden with depressing statistics and feelings that the industry I have selected for my career is absolutely hopeless. I knew the audience of this event would be people that probably have a similar experience, so I felt it would be appropriate to come at it from a more practical and optimistic perspective: joining and staying in the tech industry while also maintaining your own sanity.
I talked about my own path into my career and all the twists and turns along the way. I think it’s important to make it clear to people (especially those from underrepresented identities) that it is common and normal to face challenges from the people around you, and it may not always be very easy to find the perfect company culture or people you relate to right off the bat. That does not mean we do not belong here.
A job in the tech industry can be really rewarding, and people from underrepresented backgrounds are actually better suited to make good software. People who face challenges are more likely to have a stronger sense of empathy, and be more effective at problem solving. Those are traits we really need to be seeing more of in this industry. I even tied it back to one of the main points we discussed on my inclusive design panel: the only way we are going to address the deep seeded issues in the tech industry and how it fails many crucial demographics of people. We need more types of people at the table in order to serve more types of people well with software.
Finally, it was time to relax. Have I told you yet how beautiful the weather was while we were there? While it’s been blustery and chilly in Kingston this April, Charlottesville gave us four beautifully sunny days. Not to brag, but Saturday it was 84 degrees! New York, take your cue.
We spent the rest of our time in Charlottesville enjoying the beautiful country, eating good food, and solidifying friendships which we hope will last for a long time.
Final Report:
Tom Tom Fest gave us a lot to think about. How to design better, how to think for the future, and how to be better people. I feel confident that I’ll take these lessons with me in my work at Moonfarmer, and beyond.
A Big Thanks to Everyone Who Made this Trip Possible (and fun!) ♥
Thank you to Tom Tom Fest and speaker manager Madeline Rhodeau for finding me through the internet, and inviting me to be a part of this,
to Hacking Diversity, and their organizer Michael for inviting me to speak there in addition,
To my team at Moonfarmer for accepting me being gone for such a substantial period of time,
To the friends that traveled from NY and NJ to see me speak, especially my sister Fiona, who we drove back home with,
To Erin for coming with me and for being a great travel and conference buddy, for essentially being my personal representive, and for helping me write this,
and to Lance, Viju, and Jeremy for having us tag along with you and all your friends from WillowTree and for being so welcoming! This conference was special because I wasn’t just hanging out in my room or sticking to the people I came in knowing. It was so awesome to have people from Charlottesville inviting us to do things and see what your little city had to offer!
