{"id":1988,"date":"2019-03-04T16:53:54","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T16:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marendeepwell.com\/?p=1988"},"modified":"2019-03-04T17:07:50","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T17:07:50","slug":"virtual-teams-special-femedtech-podcast-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marendeepwell.com\/?p=1988","title":{"rendered":"Virtual Teams: special #femedtech podcast edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hello and welcome to this month\u2019s post on leading a virtual team. In this post (cross-posted here<\/a>) the two of us, that is Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey<\/a>) and Maren Deepwell (@marendeepwell<\/a>), continue our series of openly sharing our approach to leadership.
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If you are new here, you can catch up on earlier posts<\/a> and podcasts<\/a> or find out more about ALT<\/a>, the organisation we work for as senior staff. We really appreciate comments & feedback and welcome questions or suggestions for future posts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Maren<\/em><\/strong>: In the past year we\u2019ve each volunteered as a guest curator for @femedtech (here\u2019s a <\/em>link<\/em><\/a> to my post on that). Promoting greater equality in Learning Technology and in our distributed organisation in particular has become an important part of our professional practice. In 2017 I gave <\/em>this talk<\/em><\/a> at EdTech17 and since then I\u2019ve included something about equality in most of my talks, following the example of others to use my voice to raise awareness.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As my turn to volunteer as a guest curator is coming up just after International Women\u2019s Day on 8 March and we are contributing a joint keynote on promoting equality in a distributed organisation to a related event at the University of the Highlands and Islands, I\u2019ve started to reflect on what I\u2019ve learnt over the past year and come up with some ideas to discuss in this post and podcast: first, I\u2019ve discovered lots of my own blind spots – issues and inequalities that I wasn\u2019t aware of previously. The #femedtech network and also working in the Open Education community has helped with that (although there is a lot more to learn). Also, our work on policies for remote working has prompted me to question what I can do, what I can change, to help address any structural inequality within our organisation, by for example reviewing policies for flexible working and family leave. Another thought is that reading the narratives of others, recounting personal journeys, precarious work and family situations, career challenges, work life balance problems and so forth, made me reflect on how far outside of any comfort zone I usually work. And that is a sobering thought, particularly as I am in a position of relative privilege. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin: <\/strong>It\u2019s interesting to consider equality and diversity as part of a distributed team. A number of the discussions I\u2019ve seen around gender equality highlight the benefits of employers providing better opportunities for flexible working. Another factor to consider is the physical workplace can be very gender bias. The allocation\/distribution of toilets is often mentioned, but I think there are lots of other environmental factors which are often overlooked. I don\u2019t know whether virtual workplaces can be gender bias, perhaps you have thoughts on this, but it\u2019s interesting that in a 2017 survey on Jobsite<\/a> they reported that 76% of female tech professionals thought businesses offering remote working were more likely to retain top talent. Blind spots is one of the biggest challenges, not just within the workplace, but society as a whole. Before attitudes and approaches can be changed the issue first has to be acknowledged. In the case of gender I think a lot of guys don\u2019t see a problem, or even if they do see it as a problem it is something that they shouldn\u2019t be concerned about. As part of my curation period for @femedtech I came across the \u201cICTs\u2019 for Feminist Movement Building – Activist Toolkit
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My lunch time read as part of #femedtech<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/WCOYHfwH74<\/a><\/p>— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) January 29, 2019<\/a><\/blockquote>