GOOGLE CLOUD
A CONVERSATION WITH VINT CERF AND JIM HOGAN ON DISABILITY IN TECH
Thank you, Iris and Gina, we’re really excited to be here today.
Welcome, everyone!
I’m excited to have this conversation about our experiences as people with disabilities
in the tech community.
Joining me is Jim Hogan.
Jim, you want to share a few words about yourself?
Thank you Vint!
First of all, I have to say that being here
with one of my all time personal heroes is such an honor.
This is one of the things that makes Google so amazing.
I joined Google as Principal Innovation Strategist
for Healthcare and Life Sciences when I was already 37 years into my career
and I had high hopes of finding a sense of longing that always eluded me.
And when I’m not educating our customers about creating innovation cultures
I spend my time doing important sessions like this.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to have this discussion.
And I also want to introduce Tofer, who’s with us today
and he’s going to be writing the American Sign Language interpretation.
Thanks so much, Jim, and Tofer.
Jim, can you talk a little bit about your definition of neurodiversity?
Yeah! To define neurodiversity
I start by taking a shot in the dark of explaining what diversity is.
This is my own personal definition.
And let’s say I’m looking at an amphitheater
and it’s an enormous amphitheater and in there is the audience
is the entire population of earth.
And what I’m going to see when I look out there, are physical distinctions.
Things like eye color, and nose shape, and ear shape, and hair color.
And these things are all beautiful and that’s what makes up diversity.
Diversity is everyone!
But what you can’t see is how somebody interprets the World
and how their brain works.
That is neurodiversity!
When I’m looking at that same audience
I don’t know how somebody is interpreting what’s going on around them.
And like me, I have blue eyes, which is a physical distinction
and I was born autistic, which is a neurological distinction.
So, to make things short, I identify as a neurodistinct individual.
So, like diversity is everyone, neurodiversity is also everyone.
That’s such a helpful and concrete definition, so thanks for that Jim.
There are -- you know, people need to be aware, I think, of these distinctions.
What do you suppose we could do
and why is it important to make people more aware of these neurodiversity ideas?
Well, what we’re doing in this session is we’re trying to build awareness.
The reason for that is awareness leads to acceptance
acceptance leads to inclusion, and inclusion finally leads to that elusive
immersive sense of belonging that everyone deserves to experience.
As a human rights activist, I truly intend to change the world by using my voice
sometimes a loud voice for the voiceless.
So, Jim, you’ve talked, during some of our internal events
about how you felt included at Google?
And I’m curious to know what did we do to earn that distinction
what actions were taken by your colleagues or your managers
or the company to make you feel more included in our community?
Well, I used to not talk about being autistic very openly.
Before Google, sure, I would occasionally tell someone
sometimes I would distribute a document that talked about
what being autistic is to me.
But I knew that as soon as I joined Google, and I was in the nuclear training
and I knew that the culture was different.
I was interacting with people I was interacting with people who are presenting
and everybody was so open and amazing
it actually made me become out-and-proud.
And when I started to be more open
and when I started to have a pride about myself as an individual, people embrace that.
And I hear from multiple people a week, they’re touched by autism in some way.
And it gives them a great amount of joy that I that I share my stories;
and it gives me a sense of pride
even if I just help somebody just a little bit
and all I have to do is share my own experiences.
This actually builds allyship, which is that major building block to create inclusion
and even that sense of belonging and by sharing my story
with almost every member of my leadership chain
I’ve actually got them to create content with me and to actually start talking
and everybody realized that it create an immersive sense of belonging for them
as well for that to go into that teamwork.
And getting there, to that feeling of belonging is hard work
and Google’s culture is all about empowering people to be their best selves.
And my best self is this - talking about being autistic
creating allyship for the disability alliance that I serve.
That’s why I encourage everyone to write a user’s guide, tell their story
and get other others to tell their story
and they will also get into that sense of belonging.
This is the ultimate icebreaker.
Actually, there's also an user manual or an owner’s manual
which was very helpful in figuring out how do we interact with the most senior guy here.
But Jim, you’ve also talked a lot about bullying in the course of your career
and that sounds awful.
What impact has it had on you?
Well, bullying is a major cause of serious mental health issues and even suicide.
What’s ironic is that when you meet me, I’m this big, burly guy
and I am not somebody that you would walk up on the street and push around, I guarantee.
However, I have a fragility in my mind.
Being autistic has always made me an easy target for somebody
who cherishes being cruel over being kind.
And it isn’t really even about me though.
The worst part of this is people like my mother who worried about me every day,
my working career since I’ve been working when I was 16 years old
and I would constantly be bullied at work and it has a huge emotional impact on me.
And my amazing wife, who 17 years ago on our second wedding anniversary
spent that time looking at me through an observation window in the hospital
where I spent two weeks trying to recover from a workplace bullying situation.
And the people who put me there
they celebrated their victory of making me go to the hospital.
And I spent a lot of time researching bullying.
And what it all comes down to is there’s just no shortage of cruelty.
And just as a perfect example Vint, my friend Crystal, here at Google
she called me one day and said that her 7-year-old son came home and was upset
because his autistic friend was being bullied at school and crying every day
which makes the situation even worse.
And my heart sank, because I said that used to be me.
I was that 7-year-old kid.
And the worst part of this is that people aren’t born bullies.
They learn to be bullies and they can unlearn that too.
And if you leave them unchecked at home or school or later in the workplace
that’s why my activism surrounds this topic of educating -
starting in elementary school and anti-bullying campaigns that we’re doing.
This is the interested bystander idea where you teach people to learn to intervene
when they can actually do something about a harmful practice.
And so I hope you’re very successful with that program.
Jim, you’ve mentioned something else in the past about masking and this is a term
that I’m not familiar with, can you tell me a little more about what that is?
Yeah! The reality is, it’s a very scary to disclose being autistic.
First of all, it opens you up to being bullied
because people look for vulnerabilities.
That’s how people bully.
But people don’t really understand what autism is.
And due to societal norms that exist
there’s a lot of judgment that goes along with that.
A lot of people fear that.
So we do what’s called masking.
And we will hide the physiological signs
of our neurological condition by stopping our stimming
and stopping our rocking back and forth and by forcing eye contact and things
that are based on societal norms
because, frankly, that’s what society demands of everyone.
But I guarantee that whoever created those societal norms is not autistic.
And that’s why at Google Cloud, we’ve trained over 500 hiring managers
to put aside those unconscious biases based on those societal norms
and educated them on the intricate nature of how to interview neurodistinct talent.
That’s such a smart thing to do.
And, of course, it applies to a broad range of disabilities
not just the neurodistinct ones.
Learning how to cope with people or how to be helpful to people
who have a disability of one kind
or another has got to be the smartest thing that we could do.
Yeah, and we found that when we were doing this training that
people don’t realize that it’s an unconscious bias.
Those societal norms are ingrained in you.
So they will mark a candidate down for not emoting well
or mark a candidate down for not making eye contact and things like that.
But then let me ask you a question, you’re a pioneering computer scientist.
You’ve had a crucial role in making today’s modern Internet possible.
A lot of people know that, but what they don’t know is that
you’ve been hard of hearing since you were 13 years old.
Can you tell me what your lived experiences have been like?
Well, I was actually born six weeks premature
and they tossed me into an oxygen tent because my lungs were not fully functional.
And they think that being in this pure oxygen may have started
a sensory neuro nerve loss that has been going on.
And it became significantly notable by the time I was 13
when I started wearing hearing aids.
And I have to tell you that it was a mixed blessing.
It was wonderful to be able to hear
the question in the back of the room to which the teacher said yes.
Because otherwise, what do you do with the yes part that you got
because you were sitting in the front of the room.
But at the same age as I was discovering girls, and let me tell you hearing aids
don’t help much, because when you’re making out they squeal.
And so what do you do?
I mean, it sort of breaks the mood
but then you could take them off, you can’t hear anything.
So that was a difficult time for me.
But over the years, I’ve become very comfortable with the fact
that I am hard of hearing, I wear hearing aids
I need some accommodation from people like it helps a lot if you face me when I’m --
when you’re talking, so I can see your lips as well.
I’ve become very comfortable with all of that.
And it certainly colored some of my technical and career interests
ever since the ARPANET project started in 1968
and electronic mail was invented in 1971.
I’ve always gravitated toward jobs that have electronic mail capability
because it’s a lot easier for clear communication.
And how has this changed your perspective
as you’ve increased in seniority, your achievement, and your fame?
I mean, let’s be honest, you’ve been to the White House
you’re a household name of the Fathers of the internet.
So, when did you feel
your voice should be used for the good of others?
That’s a really good question.
Because for a long time, I felt uncomfortable admitting
that I am wearing hearing aids and change batteries
and I was always a little shy about that.
And, then finally, I think as I got into more senior positions
and felt comfortable being very upfront about by hearing impairment
they -- basically,
I was persuaded that I ought to take a stand to be helpful to people
with any kind of disability; to remind the companies that they should be thinking
“How do I make this employee more productive?
What can I do to accommodate and to create an atmosphere
where people who need that accommodation feel comfortable to describe it
either to their management or to their colleagues?”
So, for me, as I gravitated into more senior levels, I felt more and more comfortable
and even more compelled to speak on behalf of people with disabilities
to remind people that they’re just people, and they are fully capable
they just need some help every once in a while.
And we appreciate you!
So was this the same for you, Jim?
I mean, how did you get to the point where you decided
you wanted to be much more open about your autism and how you cope with it
and how other people might help you to be more productive?
Well, my story is that for 37 years of my career
I never had a corporate situation where I wasn’t being tormented and bullied.
And this led to when I got my offer with Google.
I did a video call with my mom and she was so happy.
And this is an example of a an 88-year-old woman who worried about her baby boy
who is 53 years old at the time, and was so happy
because she knew the culture at Google would embrace me and wouldn’t let me down.
And I was supposed to see her four days later.
And I hadn’t seen her in almost a year because of COVID.
And she died on me three days later.
And that was our last conversation.
And we -- I cherish those moments because when she was passing away
she looked at my sisters and said, “He’s going to be okay.”
And that is why when people try to shake me from my bond with Google
you’re going to be very unsuccessful
because this is my last job and I’m very, very happy to be here.
So now let me turn the questions back to you Jim.
What are you most excited about in tech today with -- for people with disabilities?
What kinds of things strike you as being really powerful contributions
to in assistive technologies?
Well, being autistic, one of the things that I’ve seen since I joined Google is the --
when you’re on Google Meet, there’s a raise hand function.
And for autistic individuals, sometimes we don’t know when to speak-up in a meeting
and we have to -- things are moving about 1800 miles an hour
and we’re trying to figure out, when should we chime in and say something
and it’s very, very hard to enter that conversation.
So, the raise hand function pauses the cadence of the meeting
so that somebody can be acknowledged and as part of my user guide for my co workers
I share the fact that I’m very quiet in a group setting and sometimes
I use the raise hand function
and I make sure that everybody knows how to use that.
But also, for me, if you think about the six assistive technologies in Gmail
for instance, if I can open up a new message that somebody has sent me
and all of a sudden a suggested text comes up about how I can actually be better
at social interaction, something that I struggle with
and it will actually tell me, like, if I just hit the tab button
it’s going to give the perfect way for me to respond
to that message and the perfect greeting.
And those types of things are things that really change people’s lives
where everyday users see them combined.
They don’t really get it.
But when you’re living with disabilities
those types of innovation, it just is a life changer, and it makes life so much better.
Jim, that must make you the emoji king of Gmail.
I do enjoy expressing myself
with emojis and using different things.
Because some of the things are that I don’t emote well.
I don’t have a good effect in my facial expressions and whenever I take --
somebody takes a picture with my wife and I’m --
if I’m taking a selfie, I’m okay with that, because I could see what I look like
and I can try to muster a smile.
But somebody takes a picture of us usually, and I’m not smiling
and they’re like, “Oh, my God, you’re very miserable, like, what did she do to you?”
It’s like, “No, she didn’t do anything.
I assure you that I love my wife very much.
And I am trying to be --”
smiling on the inside doesn’t do the trick when you’re doing pictures.
So I am working on that, but yeah, my lack of an effect is --
sometimes people get confused by that.
And especially when you’re on Google Meet
people will think that I’m not being very expressive,
or that I’m angry when I’m happy or happy when I’m angry.
It’s hard to have those emotions
as they show up on your face come out right sometimes.
Wow! That was a great conversation.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with me Jim
and for all of you for listening in.
Jim and I wanted to leave you with three top actions
that you can undertake to be an ally for people with disabilities.
So, Jim, do you want to put that slide up and talk through it?
Absolutely!
So, I thank everybody for listening today.
We want to talk about how to build allyship in your organization.
And the first thing you can do is, ask directly what you can do.
If you have an individual who has come forth and says that they have a disability
ask directly, “What can you do to make their life better?”
More importantly, be aware of what accommodations are available
whether you are asking for accommodations or whether you are granting accommodations.
Just understand what the process is
what accommodations are available in your organization, and also look for any gaps
especially if you’re granting something and go into that with an open mind
and if you’re receiving those types of requests, be open about granting them.
And lastly, do your research during your design processes to consider accessibility.
Don’t wait until your product launches for somebody to come back to you
and tell you that you didn’t consider accessibility
and so make sure you put that in your design considerations
and talk to your Google Developer Advocate to make that happen.
So that’s all I have Vint.
Well, thanks so much Jim.
That’s a lot and it’s certainly things that we can all follow.
So, thank all of you for joining us.
Thank you, Jim, for being a part of this program.
We’ll see you on the Net.
And thank you Vint and thank you very much Tofer.
I appreciate what you do so much.
GOOGLE CLOUD