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m0e-ru · 3 years

Text

eight months in somebody actually asked me abt visualive instead of me immediately annoying ppl about it without former notice. I might actually write properly for once 😳😳😳

OK OK!!!!! In this essay I will.... I will.... Visualive Adachi.... Visu/BURSTS INTO TEARS/

OKAY OKAY for real I just care Visualive so much (as someone who can’t fully understand Japanese AHAHA)

First I’ll add some foundation about what Visualive really is, then I talk abt Adachi in the latter parts of it because this is technically the first time I’m properly talking about this hehe 🐿

T....table of contents???

Visualive

Visualive the Evolution

Masami Itou

Visualive Adachi

Visualive the Evolution Adachi

Terms and Legend

VL - Visualive

VLE - Visualive the Evolution

stage - shortened for “stageplay”

面白い - omoshiroi (it’s just that specific)

Yuuya - VL Hero name

Hayato - VLE Hero name

Baba - Hero

Masami - Adachi

Taniguchi - Dojima

Saotome - Daisuke

Mamiya - Izanami

I add honorifics but sometimes I forget the hyphen intentionally or unintentionally I’m sorry if it makes it hard to read lol

all links have automatic timestamps for easy viewing. i mean. i hope the timestamps work

VISUALIVE “Persona 4.” A stage adaptation of SMT: Persona 4 by Atlus. It adapts the first part of the story, from the hero’s arrival to after recovering Mitsuo Kubo from the TV world. It also ends on a cliff hanger, showing a teaser of Shadow Naoto being projected on the screen.

It takes up a speedy recapitulation of the hero’s spring life, before slowing down and showing in depth his school life in summer. A day before Morooka-sensei’s death, there is a little skit with Kou, Daisuke and Adachi. The hero walks into the conversation before the two other boys leaving, and Morooka-sensei walking in on the student and detective. The next day follow’s the teacher’s death and the Investigation Team (IT) begin investigating their new lead.

From the words “visual” and “alive,” the niche of this stage was meant to be the fusion of live acting and visual digital projections. All seen from the stageplay with the colorful cast of actors and CG animations being projected on the screen. This offers an opportunity for characters to summon their personas, perform cool visual effects, change the backdrop, or even confront their own Shadows.

Performed in Sunshine Theater from the 15th to the 20th of March 2012. The screenplay was written and directed by Shintaro Asanuma from the theatrical group “bpm.” The video production produced by Shutaro Oku, a film director and visual planner. He later takes over as director for VISUALIVE THE EVOLUTION, the sequel stage. The stage music was produced by Shunsuke Wada, with a special show exclusive vocal track sung by Shihoko Hirata.

On this note, I haven’t seen any sort of original soundtrack released for any of the stages and I’m SO SAD. The last song in Mitsuo’s boss fight was such a BANGER and literally EVERYTHING ELSE Marvelous, Wadasan please take my MONEY

Regarding the cast, there were some special accommodations for Teddie, Rise, and Nanako, all of which did not have live actors at the time. During the casting, actors for the three characters could not be found or simply left the directors unsatisfied they couldn’t cast anybody. An exception for Rise, who was able to have a live actor in the sequel stage. It has been stated that there weren’t any “pretty boy” actors that fit the “Teddie Criteria.” While there weren’t any child actors that were believed to portray Nanako well.

Teddie was only ever seen in his bear costume while Rise was busy talking through a call, all voiced by their video game cast. Nanako has never appeared on stage, only being scarcely mentioned in the script. Again, this is different in the sequel stage where her role was extremely important and was shown as a screen projection.

VISUALIVE “Persona 4” THE EVOLUTION. A sequel stage. Beginning abruptly in the middle of Shadow Naoto’s boss fight, the story continues from there until the “true end” of the game’s original story. *Certain characters are introduced while others have been reintroduced. And on a personal note, when it’s all comedic in the beginning, it’s all for what’s coming right after.

I don’t know if I’m salty or just find it really funny AHAHA I might go talk abt it some other day with more context ehehe

Performed in The Galaxy Theater from the 3rd to the 9th of October 2012, only a few months after the PSVITA Persona 4 Golden release, which is July 2012. The screenplay was now written by Jun Kumagi while directed by Shutaro Oku. And music production finally taken over by Shoji Meguro himself.

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HAHAHA this is starting to look like a wiki page. moving on. I might start rambling rn

(warning LONG !!!! aaa,,)

My thoughts on the stage adaptations. For the first Visualive (VL) I believe it’s pretty close to canon! I enjoy the characterization and how much love and care was present when handling the entire production.

Actors were busy playing the game itself, wherein a PS2 was present in the practice room. Along with magazines and game guides explaining the game’s story and the characters itself. Actors performing together and even improv acting together to get a grasp of their characters. All of them knowing well of Persona 4 as a well loved game, delicately handling their characters and hopefully performing them right while making the audience happy.

The staff taking care of each other while the director and video producer, Asanuma-san and Oku-san, working together well to make their vision into a reality.

The same thing happened with VL the Evolution (VLE) and literally every other good stage. Except... I feel the script kinda got out of hand with too much liberty where it feels a bit more disconnected from canon. But! It makes up for it in its content, whether comedic or (INCREDIBLY) dramatic! It’s great as its own story at that point. So in this case, I like to take the first VL and get to connect it canon, while I don’t know what the hell happened in VLE to the point I’ll just enjoy it as its own content.

These opinions deserve its own essay, post whatever bc I have SO much to say abt this. ANYWAY. VL ADACHI

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Tohru Adachi is portrayed by Masami Itou (伊藤マサミ), a screenplay writer, director and an stage actor himself. He does have a single character voice role along with a fellow troupe member in the same franchise, but mostly works as the former three. He is part of Asanuma-san’s entertainment group “bpm.” On a similar note, Masashi Taniguchi, Dojima’s actor, was also part of their group from 2011 to 2016, which may explain their good synergy as the boss and the bumbling fool dynamic. I mean, somebody’s gotta get hit in the head every few skits.

With Masami-san being an important part of the cast, he doesn’t appear as often as Taniguchi-san in backstage content like the VL bonus disk or the official blog. Mentioned in his own personal blog, he had been busy with his roles as assistant director (I am assuming also for VL).

Also fun to note, because his role is mainly comic relief, he has been using his liberty to change up the material almost everyday making each performance exciting. This also leaves some other actors jealous of his freedom in his role, such as Saotome-san, Daisuke’s actor.

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VL Adachi really has a... how do I say this? an adorable speech pattern (THE SAME SPEECH PATTERN THAT DROVE ME MAD TRYING TO DECIPHER I THOUGHT YOU WERE A CITY BOY OSSU OSSU MY ASS /shakes you violently/). Overall, he really fits the loose lipped bumbling fool, and his accent really makes him seem more casual and invested. What I’m saying is... VL Adachi either actually has genuine empathy or he actually has more energy to fake it (compared to some other edgelord. i mean you saw my p4ga analysis. I’m sick of him lol ahaha).

One of my favorite ways to explain this (OTHER THAN CHAIR CAR ADVENTURE MY BELOVED WE’LL GET TO THAT LATER) is the rice field scene with him and Dojima. It’s overanalyzation time 🎉

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(43:04)

While investigating, Adachi whines about being tired while Dojima smacks him in the head. In this case, it’s established that Adachi doesn’t want to be there, yes? It’s the country, it’s hot and it smells like green.

"Ah... Dojima-san..! Why don't we take a break? (...) There really is nothing out here... Is the criminal still even here at all? (...) I wonder if I've passed being a rookie yet. Haha, but this city doesn't even have convenient transportation. I can't go to leisure lands (recreation, amusement parks, arcades, ect.) and head home at all."

Adachi then tries to tell Dojima a story. “when I got to this city after being newly assigned, I met an interesting guy (...) Yeah, I remember that the cherry blossoms haven't bloomed yet. So, I was driving my car and got near the station and--” Dojima gets a phone call.

Adachi politely puts his hands down waiting for his boss to finish so he can finish the story. Again and again, Adachi attempts to talk to Dojima about a story he’s so persistent trying to tell someone about. It was so 面白い that he would find someone to talk to about it. Even being polite and patient enough to wait for a chance to speak. He even gets fed up with it and blows up in front of his boss, clearly irritated he’s not given a chance to talk.

Sure, it could be Adachi feeling fed up like a normal person where someone agreed he to listen to him, before being constantly ignored. Or Adachi trying to be a more annoying whiny brat, depending on where you look at it.

If the story wasn’t too “interesting” to Adachi, he would’ve just brushed it off and stopped talking to Dojima entirely, or start up new small talk, or even complain some more. But no, he had a story he wanted to voice out so bad that he got irritated that the one person in the vicinity couldn’t listen to him.

Only after Dojima told him to continue their investigation elsewhere did Adachi finally stop and focus on something else. Maybe that story was for another day, or maybe it was never meant to be told.

What if it was just original (game) Adachi? He’d find a way to squirrel out of the investigation as usual, or push Dojima to “investigate” elsewhere. “Hey boss, don’t you think it’s hot? Why don’t we go elsewhere? We’ve seen this place too many times to count and I doubt anything new’ll turn up. How about we take a break at Junes, y’know? Where it’s cool? C’mon boss,” something like that.

og Adachi is just really annoying and silly to me. Some grown man thinking he can freeload because he never gets anything out of putting in more energy and effort? I don’t care how tall he is, I will smack him in the head.

Yeah VL Adachi whines, too, but at least it doesn’t look like he’s going to escape and waste his time somewhere else. He just sucks it up stops trying to leave the situation.

Or maybe I’m getting this all wrong and VL is exactly the same and my rage just gets dampened because of Masamisan’s execution of character hmm...

SO. What was his story about anyway? The one he really wanted to share to Dojima?

I mean... it’s obvious enough

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First day in town? Spring? Actually mentioned driving a car when literally out of every single persona 4 media at the time was there not a SINGLE mention of Adachi having a car OTHER THAN the same stageplay it’s being mentioned in?

A story, from somewhere around uhh four? five months ago? was something that he remembered so dearly and was willing to share despite it obviously embarrassing him even if he puts the blame on a certain somebody in the same story?

Or maybe it’s because he really had nothing to talk about ever since he realized all his stories from the city weren’t actually that funny or interesting in the first place.

BUT then that would mean out of all the things he could talk about—more whining, complaining, complimenting, small talk—he insisted about talking about this story in particular.

Okay, look. I’m just. Just. As someone who talks too much, of course I have things I actually want people to hear out of all the bullshit that comes out of my mouth. And if the thing I actually want people to listen to doesn’t even get heard, I’d go mad.

Sure, Adachi’d be fine when his complaints or intentionally unfunny jokes get brushed off. But a story of a guy that he thought was so funny, interesting, 面白い gets ignored, he really blew up, even just for a split second, maybe.

And ALL the things that happened in that story—on his first day in Inaba! His car got dented, he had to deal with a weirdo dumbass employee that knew zero personal space, yelled in his ear, who didn’t know how to do their job, got his station reputation messed up on the first day, got his ass grabbed, got (unintentionally?) mocked for his lame stories, and got his car dented for the SECOND time. Probably MORE

And he STILL wanted to talk about it /punches through concrete wall/

yes I’m overthinking about this of course i am

This little tidbit of VL Adachi kinda makes me go insane sometimes—his entire characterization in VL in particular. It was really refreshing to see and how they included both of his characters in it, his facade and how irritated he is of a lot of things underneath. And how flexible his character is immediately working with other characters when there’s sudden improv to balance the situation. Like him and Dojima, Morooka, the attendant, or even Yuuya (hero) himself.

I’ll take Taniguchi-san’s messing around in the VL bonus backstage disc in place of Masami-san being so busy he couldn’t appear in it as often as other characters.

For stagetime that lasted for fifteen minutes or less, my appreciation for VL Adachi, even if he was just comic relief, really rocketed. I say VL, bc Adachi the edgelord he’s supposed to be in literally every other media is something I analyze separately.

I haven’t even gotten to VLE oh my GODDDDD

Like I said, I don’t really regard VLE close to canon but as something to be appreciated for what it is by itself. But the way Adachi was characterized there, in or out of character, still struck me.

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Yes, there was his strange fan-agreed-canon which is,,, now canon obsession with cabbages (not that that’s a bad thing lmao). There was also him being a lot more jumpy and intimate in a clowny way, patting people on the shoulder or even downright hugging them just to mess around. Even FORGETTING who the same goddam loser who grabbed his ass almost a year ago is. But like, can’t blame him they literally changed their actor (and screenplay writer) AHAHAHA

ha... no more comedy, only dorky sword fights now

(speaking of sword fights I think it’s a fun thought how Mamiya-san [Izanami, also one of the youngest in the cast] admitted it was his first time doing sword fight choreography and even thanked Masami-san and other staff members for guiding him)

One thing unintentionally in character was Adachi accidentally nabbing the sushi overdosed in wasabi. Masami-san didn’t actually account for a joke sushi and didn’t immediately eat it—until Taniguchi-san (who also made Dojima go off his shits compared to VL) jokingly yelled at him and even riled up the audience for him to eat it. He even went off stage to get water just for him to eat the goddam sushi.

And Masami-san did! (kinda choked, but he’s fine).

Continuing from the same scene, while being overly giddy about sushi dinner (and I mean overly--he was singing about it while hopping to the Dojima residence), he tried to remind the two, Dojima and Hayato (hero), that Nanako was sleeping. Probably where she was sick if the scene was translated from the game.

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(30:07)

And... the dramatic parts of VLE

Adachi was the one who reported to the IT that Dojima was chasing Namatame in the rain. While Naoto was discussing Namatame’s journal entries, Adachi, as giddy as he is, took it from Naoto’s hands and reveled in the discovery of evidence so childishly(?). He even ran to Dojima when he began regaining consciousness and immediately called the nurses to help him wheel Dojima to the ER.

Then, The Hospital Scene™️, right after Nanako flatlines.

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(1:02:02)

Adachi, who recently walked into the scene, immediately worries about Dojima and IT who were ALL crying. He looks down, devastated—before yelling how Dojima’s heading to Namatame’s room.

He yells in terror and the same grief at his injured boss, all while running past and even jumping over children, who fell to the ground sobbing, to get to him. He continues yelling in a pained fashion while immediately reprimanding Dojima to stop. He gets carried by the collar before being tossed to the ground at Hayato’s feet, all while being pat by the same boy.

Dojima makes his speech about how unfair it is for the ‘killer’ to be alive when his daughter isn’t. When he finally falls to his knees, Adachi rises from the ground, humbly saying he’ll do his best to take care of Dojima (or something like that I’m in tears I literally can’t do VLE’s hospital scene i h8 this). He finally starts crying along with everyone else, being pushed away again but still tries again, trying to usher his boss away from the door.

With the help of the guard in front of the door, they all disappear off stage

please... I know this scene doesn’t need that much translation because of how important this scene is in the entire story. and I know my narratives aren’t enough so just,,,, just watch it please it’s so much more than this. everyone’s acting was just spectacular

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(1:08:47)

So, after the IT (YOSUKE. JUST YOSUKE. good job Mae-chan) stop themselves from k wording Namatame, it was ADACHI who reported Nanako’s miracle recovery. He ran to the same corridor where they all cried in, even panting and falling to the ground in relief trying to report the good news. Then he pats Hayato on the shoulder and says he’s going to Dojima.

With this... /slaps roof of half of VLE/ ALL of this....adachi.... adachisan.... he Cares™️..... holy shit.....

now. comparing to the game. do you even remember what og Adachi did? did he.. even do anything?????

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(56:39)

NO!!! he just stood there!!!! being a bumbling fool but.... inappropriately!!! man. he didn’t act concerned enough.

adachi: /walks into a bunch of kids crying outside a hospital room/ “lmao why tf are y’all crying? did uhhh what’s her face uhhh nanako. did she d word or something? rip, I guess lol” LIKE????? CAN YOU IMPLY FASTER

and then he’s like “wgat hmm Where’s Dojima-san Heading Because That’s Not The Way To His Room 🤔” and only when he’s asked he actually mentions he’s heading to Namatame’s room and still needs to get choked by a first year for the room number like..... zero consideration

and his boss??? where his daughter he loves so much just??? di*s???? and he’s so devastated he’s doing what he can that very moment while he’s so numbed of thinking of the consequences???? And adachi goes “uhh boss that’s illegal” LIKE. BITCH. /punches through a concrete wall but harder/

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And??? His confrontation scene??? Like, I know they mashed it up w his tv confession scene to save stagetime for other scenes BUT IT WAS SO MMBMBMBMMGN /gestures in a good way/

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(1:15:56)

UM?? guy behind everything??? in a vulnerable area where he could easily get physically assaulted bc hes not in the tv world w his persona?? Trash talks women like he absolute misogynist he is??? getting yelled at by a bunch of kids and YELLING BACK IN THE SAME AGITATED MANNER even TAUNTING THEM then and there to GET HIS ASS?????

og Adachi was such a pussy he got caught and just scurried off into the TV world where he ended up having powers like...ok....scared of getting beat down by a bunch of highschoolers unless you have powers...ok....

he only taunted them to get him when he was in the tv world too.....he rlly couldn’t say shit in the real world huh... lol

(yeah yeah this shows how VLE Adachi knew abt his TV world powers which would make you think if he ever went into the tv world and came back out alive. Or he’s really just a badass who doesnt give a shit abt anyone’s opinions and CAN beat anyone’s ass. i have a separate thing abt this but bc i like to laught at vle rather than overthink its own lore i might. not. idk lol)

and ??? VLE Adachi can??? He can swordfight??? he doesn’t even NEED a gun—he even reflects bullets w his blade (but apparently he can still get slapped by a flying fan more often than any other attack). His fight choreo was just...so poggers. He’s like short villains done good—like??? he’s short compared to everyone else!!! but he makes up for it for stuffing all the energy inside him while is bursts out making him him the over energetic gremlin he is!!! go VL adachi!!!!

(am I low key making fun of Madono-san in the TUUSH stageplay I’ve seen four minutes of? maybe)

OK!!! Yes I was gushing abt Masami-san again back to Adachi.

It’s portrayed that while not being afraid to admit his crimes, he also goes out of his way to be a bastard and have the gall to get a bunch of kids to fight him, one on eight. He can use a katana, probably a narrative dark reflection of the hero, Hayato which I thought was nice—and he can fight!!! It also shows his persona, yes, but...it doesn’t make it clear if he’s overwhelmed by his Shadow like in the game, where his eyes were yellow and he was emitting a dark aura.

But it gets interesting how he sees he’s getting overwhelmed and starting to lose his edge towards a bunch of kids. He falls to the ground even banging the floor like a whiny brat while literally the IT tries to tell him to turn himself in. Again, like a brat he tells everyone to shut up—before getting incapacitated. While some of the IT rejoice, he bolts up unaccepting of his defeat—before getting hit in the stomach.

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(1:23:54)

And his words from when he drops his katana, “Why..?” He grabs the foldable chair against his stomach, and with a remorseful look in his eyes, he says “I’m sorry..!”

THEN HE BACKFLIPS—then Hayato slashes him.

In a tone of disbelief, he goes “no way...” and collapses to the ground, being possessed by Ame-no-Sagiri.

Blah blah blah then Teddie rockets himself into the eyeball spy cam and then they both explode aaaaa

Teddie survives but I really don’t know where Adachi went. Not even a mention by Dojima if he turned himself in or was ever found—or I need to review VLE for the 48274827482nd time hehe

WHOO then the whole cast appears for the dance number at the end of show YAHOO

#long post #persona 4 #persona 4 visualive #persona 4 visualive the evolution #tohru adachi #sulululat #pagsususuri #p4 #p4v #p4ve #//HAPPY 4K WORDS VL ANON #// if theres anything u want to ask... im right here /collapses/#// i almost went ham over actor relationships like. talking abt bpm was ENOUGHHH we're talking about the character not the assistant direct #// aaa this took so long... i literally mashed up so many other idea documents into one.. man.

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nonbinaryresource · 5 years

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pls forgive me if i mistakenly word something incorrectly/use the wrong term bc i’m still learning, but i’m questioning if i’m nb and i need some help.. i’ve never really felt like a girl, but i’m definitely not a boy either. i’m biologically female and i use she/her pronouns and don’t really want to change that and i also present myself somewhat femininely thru my style. is nb the correct term for me? or is there maybe another term that would fit me better?

Hi, there!

Since you’re new, I’d like to talk about terminology a little bit. This isn’t to scold you, just to share more perspective!

So “biologically female” can be useful for some people and if someone prefers to use that for themself, that should absolutely be respected. But it isn’t a term that should just be applied generally to everyone! I am nonbinary, therefore I am biologically nonbinary. There’s a lot of misguided effort in saying “biologically [gender]”, especially when it’s by cis folk and/or being applied as a blanket statement to all trans/nb people. Basically, unless someone is personally using it for themself, I consider it a sneaky way of misgendering trans people. It comes from the idea of the “sex =/=gender” split, which is supposed to help people new to the trans identity understand what trans means more easily.

Trans simply means ‘does not identify only and wholly as the gender they were assigned at birth’ (whereas cis means ‘identifying only and wholly as the gender they were assigned at birth’). Because the way we assign gender is... pretty simple and subjective. Doctors take a look at a baby’s outer reproductive genitalia, assign a gender based on that, and call it a day. Only it gets even more complicated when you include intersex people in the conversation. Intersex is a broad category we use for people with variations in their sexual anatomy that don’t match up with the binary anatomies of either external or internal genitalia and what typically goes along with each of those. These conditions can be anything from an extra chromosome to ambiguous physical genitalia to more. A lot of intersex conditions aren’t even visible at birth, so babies like this are marked as they appear to the doctor and may only find out at an older age that they are intersex if/when a health condition pops up. And intersex babies whose condition is visible? ...They are often mutilated: surgically made to appear as if they only have external or internal sexual genitalia. I think this is one of the clearest examples of just how subjective and simplistic the system that we use to assign people gender is, which is why “biologically [gender]” isn’t broadly useful.

Because a long time ago someone decided to take a rather simplistic view of gender and randomly assign people one of two genders based on random criteria, which happened to be visible genitalia. And we used this determination to separate people into two categories of social class and treat them differently because of this. When someone says “male” or “female” or “man” or “woman”, people have the same connotation regardless. So trying to separate sex from gender as two different concepts... well, it isn’t the greatest idea, as that means erasing a meaning/connotation people have for one of those terms and redefining it. It is much easier - and more accurate - to instead expand our understanding. As well, a method such as this, where you could understand that I have [x] set of genitalia and [x] set of chromosomes and am nonbinary regardless of all of that would result in much better healthcare because it would actually give doctors relevant information about my body and health, rather than relying on assumptions based on if I check an “M” or “F” box.

So if you find defining yourself as “biologically female” as useful, that’s fine and don’t let me stop you from defining your own experience! I know a few nonbinary people who find the “sex =/= gender” split useful for defining their experience and how they figured out they were nonbinary. But as a general rule, it’s just a description to not use in an umbrella way.

If you already knew that, sorry for being redundant! But since you said you were still learning, I thought it might be useful. ^^

So let’s move more onto your question. I’m just going to repeat it here, since it could have gotten a little lost after my explanation:

i’ve never really felt like a girl, but i’m definitely not a boy either. i’m biologically female and i use she/her pronouns and don’t really want to change that and i also present myself somewhat femininely thru my style. is nb the correct term for me? or is there maybe another term that would fit me better?

So, as noted earlier, trans simply means ‘does not wholly or only identify as the gender you were assigned at birth’. More specifically for nonbinary, we can define this as: ‘not identifying wholly or only as the gender you were assigned at birth AND not identifying only or wholly as man or woman’. Note that this says nothing about your genitalia, pronouns, name, presentation, expression, or anything else superficial. Because all that stuff doesn’t have to define your gender! So you were assigned female at birth, dress femininely, use she/her pronouns, and don’t mind being read as a woman? You can totally still be nonbinary! There is no bar or test that you have to pass for your identity to be valid! All you have to do is identify as nonbinary!

As you have touched on in your ask, gender really comes down to how you feel. There’s two posts I want to suggest here where a couple other people go over what gender “is”. They’re good reads and when trying to figure out what the heck gender feels like, it’s always good to be able to get multiple perspectives to see if you can find one that’s helpful for you! They are “What is Gender? What Does it Feel Like?” by askanonbinary and “Gender is Art” by wedontcareaboutyourbinary. I’m not great at explaining open and subjective concepts like this, but for me, gender is an innate feeling of who you are. It’s a connection you make, either (or multiply) with a label(s), others, and/or yourself. It is something internal that can have external influences and expressions.

So when you say “i’ve never really felt like a girl, but i’m definitely not a boy either.” - this sounds like your gender!!! And, as we saw defined above, you don’t feel wholly and only like a girl or a boy, so it sounds like you do fall under the label of nonbinary!

That being said, I want to touch on “is nb the correct term for me?” and the answer is... that’s totally up to you! I really like how I saw nbandproud put it: “Gender is Not A Diagnosis”. There is no formula for determining your identity (although I know many of us would find it easier if there were!). You can’t just check off a list of feelings, expression, etc., and get a simple output that defines who you are. We describe our gender with a label, and labels are, first and foremost, for ourself. They are to help us describe how we feel and communicate this to others. And there is absolutely an important part of this that has to do with human emotion and connection. Two people could potentially have the same exact gender feels, yet could decide to use two separate labels for how they feel because that’s the term they connected with and decided to use. And neither of them would be wrong for doing so! That would be like me calling someone beautiful and another person arguing with me that the someone is actually gorgeous. We are using two words with similar meaning but used the word we felt at the time. Neither of us are wrong that ‘someone’ is beautiful or gorgeous. We simply used different words for it.

So only you can decide if nonbinary is the correct term for you. Often, the best way to decide this is to use the label for yourself for a while! How long that while is can be up to you. It’s fine if a while is months or years long!!! It took me a matter of several years to fall in love with the term nonbinary - and even longer to fall harder in love with genderqueer. I simply wasn’t sure and struggled with accepting myself for that time, but in the end, those are the labels I’ve landed on (at least for now - it can always change in the future). Using the term doesn’t mean you have to come out, either. You can just use it privately. Think of yourself in regards to being nonbinary. Draw nonbinary people. Write nonbinary characters. See if the label fits you or if there’s always a disconnect with it. Experiment and decide if nonbinary is the correct term for you!

As perhaps implied above with my own identity, nonbinary doesn’t have to be the only correct term for you if that’s how you feel. You can use as many or as few labels as you want. You can use nonbinary as a specific and/or general term. You can use as specific or as general a term as you want - you can use a general term and an ultra specific one. It’s your identity: whatever you feel fits is the correct term for you!

I can suggest some more terms if you’re interested in hearing more, but there are a whoooooole lot of identities that could generally be described as “neither girl nor boy”. One of the more well-known terms I can throw based on this out would be agender: lack of a gender. If you are interested, I would suggest just flipping through some glossaries. Here are a few of my suggestions:

http://genderfluidsupport.tumblr.com/genderhttp://gender.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Gender_Identitieshttps://nonbinary.wiki/wiki/Main_Page

Then, of course, there’s whole lexicon blogs meant to help spread and share and celebrate terms that people are coming up with everyday. Blogs like @genderlist, @beyond-mogai-pride-flags, and @imoga-pride.

I will warn you that these blogs can be overwhelming, especially if you’re desperate for that One Perfect Term(TM). They’re a lot to go through because there’s a lot of different ways people can feel and feel about their gender! If you find them overwhelming, take a break! You don’t have to have that One Perfect Term(TM). I don’t! And I am finally comfortable in the fact that I simply don’t understand my gender enough nor am I able to so specifically pin it down that it can be described with a term and simple definition. So if you get overwhelmed, take a break, give yourself some self-care, and go back to reading later. Questioning can takes years, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Now... have a kitten for getting through all that text! And feel free to ask as many questions as you need!

[gif of a tiny white kitten getting its paw gently squeezed by someone with long, painted nails. the kitten places its other paw on the finger, sandwiching them in a teeny hug, laying its head down, and closing its eyes in complete peace]

~Tera

#mod tera #long post #questioning #identity #labels #terminology #biologically gender #sex and gender #Anonymous

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livingbutamireally · 3 years

Text

AY2020/2021 Y2S1 Module Reviews

This semester proved to be a pain as expected. Said pain coming mostly from BT2101 and CS2030. Everything was conducted online with the exception of the weekly lab sessions for CS2030 so I only had to go to school for 1 day. F2F CS2030 recitations were optional so I gave up and just watched the recorded zoom session instead of going to school just for a class half way through the semester. I usually miss the live zoom sessions because mine was at 1pm and I am almost always still having lunch at that time and not ready at all. Also i missed about half of my BT2102 tutorials because I simply forgot I had tutorials at that time (2-4pm). They still awarded me nicely for participation much to my surprise (7/10).

BT2101 Decision Making Methods and Tools

BT2102 Data Management and Visualisation

CS2030 Programming Methodology II

GEQ1000 Asking Questions

IS1103 Ethics in Computing

CS2030: Programming Methodology II in Java

Prof: Dr Henry Chia, A.P. Terrence Sim

Weightage:

Weekly labs (5%)

Individual project (15%)

Practical assessment #1 in week 7 (15%)

Practical assessment #2 in week 12 (20%)

Class participation (5%) : includes lab participation, piazza discussions and peer learning activities

Final exam (40%)

CS2030 proved to be intensive not only in the aspect of planning code design but also the actual implementation itself.. (thinking about how to solve the problem and/or get the expected outputs).. Really struggled my way through the start although that really was only the tip of the iceberg because I had no prior experience in Java and the introductory Winter Workshops were reserved exclusively for freshmen or I missed the deadlines can’t remember.. The first few lectures got us familiar with Java Programming before diving deep into Functional Programming which is a lot harder to grasp vs Object-Oriented Programming which was introduced to us in CS1010S already. The hardest part comes with Streams but honestly after learning streams so many processes can be coded so much more efficiently as compared to OOP, really simplifies some of the tasks when using FP rather than OOP. Interesting to note that this streams part ties in well with BT2102′s coding part where we learnt aggregation pipelines in MongoDB and MySQL i believe the concepts felt similar??

Weekly Labs

Pretty manageable imo , compared to the project ofc (rolls eyes)

This semester they changed things up a bit and shifted all the weekly labs deadlines to finals so we had more control in terms of time management and our progress in the labs. Naturally we are expected to do them every week but say we are busy in a certain week for other modules we can always come back on another. I was always behind by like a month compared to my friends who were more on task.

Individual Project

Project part 1 was still okay for the Discrete Event Simulator (DES) basically designing a system for customers to queue and be served and recording the relevant work done at the appropriate times using OOP.

The hardest part was project part 2 where you had to rewrite the whole chunk in part 1 FP style and also they added a lot of more complex simulations and cases which I really just gave up entirely after completing level 2.

It was so hard it was traumatic. Level 3 had something to do with importing a random number generator and the test cases only get more confusing and long i just really had no brain cells left for the work worth only 7% before deducting late submissions penalty (bc brain slow LOL) and the code design criteria and checkstyles. I was so mad that it takes up so much time and effort just to be worth a petty 7% that I gave up entirely didnt even finish reading the questions (which was also pretty darn long). Sorry i am dumb. Please be proud of me I am trying my best.

I have zero idea who in the department decided to rig the difficulty of this project by so much up compared to previous semesters. They really expected too much out of us i am so sorry to disappoint.

Practical Assessments

Basically similar to weekly lab exercises but you have to do it within the time frame during a lab session. You get to take home and re-edit the code to get the full marks and are moderated according to the changes you made compared to the one submitted during the PA itself. That also means if you do not submit the correct full marks version of the code in a week, you do not get moderated and will be awarded with the marks scored in lab which is obviously 0 for me I had over 70 compilation errors and you might be thinking how. But trust me i am too, confused how. Most people will score around 0-2m in lab but taking it home and refining the whole code with minimal changes and will be graded according to the amount of changes made to get the final code. Tests you how close you can get to the correct outputs within the time frame whether you already had it in your head.

Final Exam

Comes in MCQs, a few case questions consisting of subparts if i remembered correctly some of which required you to write out a possible code (2-3 lines) converting oop to streams, synchronous to asynchronous etc. There are plenty resources (pyps) floating around in the gc so you can use them well for revision.

Theoretical content was tested i dont really know how to put in words but you may be able to code well even though you may have some of the concepts wrong

We only did pure coding work in labs, projects and practical assessments so this really reinforces your understanding of the material

Considering I didnt finish project part 2 this is quite a decent grade already really thankful i dont have to go through this ordeal again. See you never.

BT2101: Decision Making Methods and Tools

Professor: Rudy Sentiono, A.P. Huang Zhiyong

Weightage:

Group project (20%)

Written assignments - 3x 5% (15%)

Tutorial participation (5%)

Midterm - open book (20%)

Finals - open book (40%)

This is the second module that I have been struggling with since the start of the semester. Tutor changed after the first session, the former tutor was much better and clearer in her explanations. This is quite a math-intensive course and requires some knowledge of linear algrebra and thus the pre-requisities. Maths has never been my strong suit (well except in primary school) so I struggled hard with this module. Nearing the end we learnt about deep learning neural networks which was pretty interesting and really broadened my perspectives on the future of machine learning. The pace was okay, but the lecturer seems to just repeat the words on the lecture slides in his lectures. The lectures were seemingly simplified from the reference texts he used but is nevertheless still daunting to look at to revise. Project was a 4-5 people groupwork where we had to conduct all the stages of data analytics from data exploration, cleaning of data to data mining, conclusions etc. There were an additional 3 assignments that we had to do together with our groupmates by the stipulated deadlines. This module requires a lot of work and preparation. Am glad to be able to pass.

BT2102: Data Management and Visualisation

Weightage:

Assignment 1 (Group): 25 marks

Assignment 2 (Individual): 35 marks

Assignment 3 (Group): 30 marks

Class Participation: 10 marks (Participation in Tutorials and Group Assignment Discussions)

IS1103: Ethics in Computing

Weightage:

FPAQ (50%)

Missions (50%)

Expected Grade: B+

Final Grade: A-

For this module, all 13 missions are to be done by the last date of submission for finals which was a 300 question quiz held on LumiNUS. Missions are assigned weekly where we go to the WordPress website the professor has built, a server that he regularly does maintenance on and in it he uses a tracker to track our progress through clicking links and submitting short answer questions sometimes. Most of them were done by clicking of links and we were told to disable our Adblockers if any to prevent interruptions or his system not capturing our data. We were encouraged to do it weekly although the deadline was the end of the semester. One of the missions included us doing some Linux practice penetration questions on Kali, it was a bit tough but other than that the other missions were pretty simple and straightforward. After every mission done we were to do a practice PAQ which is not graded and upon submission would give us the model answers to study in preparation for FPAQ the final week submission. PAQ consists of 5 themes * 7 questions = 35 questions, whereas FPAQ has 300 over questions to be done over the span of a week, the reading week. Carpal tunnel.

GEQ1000: Asking Questions

Weightage:

Tutorial attendance/participation (36%)

Forum participation - forum 1 and 2 (14%)

MCQ quiz (36%)

Final paper (14%)

This is a general education module everyone in NUS is required to take. I dont think I learned much so I am really only there to go through the motion. There are a few pillars that the department touches on mainly Physics, Engineering, Design, etc to show how the different disciplinary courses are interconnected and how/why is questioning important. Really low maintenance course, we do a 6 or 10 MCQ quiz every week prior to the lecture for that pillar. Tutorial was online via zoom and really low workload in general. Final week was on design and we had to make a wallet for our partner and explain why or how we chose the designs, and also submitting a word essay on our reflections of things we learned.

Update. I only pray to hover above or maintain at this current CAP lemao PLEASE YOU NEED TO

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harryscuddles · 7 years

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Hi sorry if this is weird I’m so very very unable to socialise.. I finished rereading y&b yesterday bc you reblogged something about it. I was wondering if you had any other favourites you would mind sharing? If it’s too much of a bother please just delete this,, (I’m so sorry for being annoying alfkfk)

hiiiiii!! noo youre not weird or annoying at all!! i’m glad you asked tbh i mean most of these are the classics but theres some other really really good ones that are really worth reading!

so as requested, here’s a list of some more of my all time favourites:

Love Is A Rebellious Bird

AU in which the boys still make music. Louis is the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interim conductor/ex-cello prodigy who “has made Mozart cool again” according to Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why he internet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), and Niall is the best. Zayn and Liam are around too.Don’t hum Bolero.

Unbelievers

It’s Louis’ senior year, and he’s dead set on doing it right. However, along with his pair of cleats, a healthy dose of sarcasm and his ridiculous best friend, he’s also got a complicated family, a terrifyingly uncertain future, and a mortal enemy making his life just that much worse. Mortal enemies “with benefits” was not exactly the plan.

Or: The one where Louis and Harry definitely aren’t friends, and football is everything.

Here In The Afterglow

“If you hadn’t noticed, I don’t have many friends,” Louis whispers, the blossom of insecurity in his stomach unfurling and clawing its way into his throat.

Harry is silent for a long time, and then he speaks; a soft, slow uncurl that makes Louis’ stomach shake. “I’ll be your friend.”

1970’s AU. In a tiny town in Idaho, Louis’ life is changed forever by the arrival of a curious stranger.

Wild and Unruly

Harry is a cowboy sitting on the biggest oil reservoir in Wyoming, and Louis is the paralegal assigned to pressure him into selling his land.

Love’s Truest Language

The first part was meant as a joke. He didn’t really expect Harry to buy anything. It was just Louis’ way of softening the ‘get the fuck out’ blow.

“Where’s your order forms, then?”

“I don’t want your flowers.” Louis chided before directing all of his attention to the arrangement in front of him.

Harry laughed under his breath as he stood to his full height, “Who said anything about them being for you, love?”

your love is as bright as ever (baby love me lights out)

Harry’s got a late night talk show, Louis’ got a couple of Grammys, they’re best friends who like to kiss.

We’ve Got Nothing To Lose

“Oops!” A deep and slow voice fills Louis’ ears as an arm reaches around his waist, to keep Louis from rebounding into another white-outfitted body – this time a short young girl who could only be gymnast.“Hi,” Louis replies as he turns to smile up at the person and thank him for preventing Louis’ life from dissolving into a real-life game of Pong, but the words dry up in his throat when he sees.

The person is a boy, tall and lanky with curly brown hair pushed away from his face messily and held back by a gaudy Union Jack scarf, green eyes sparkling from all the camera flashes and impossibly pink lips curled in a wide smile that nearly encompasses his whole face.

And Louis recognizes him instantly. And he thinks that maybe if walking into the Olympic Stadium during the opening ceremony wasn’t enough, having Harry Styles’ arm around him might be the killing blow.Also known as an Olympics AU where Harry is a pro tennis player, and Louis is a pro footballer. They meet at the opening ceremony and fall in love, obviously.

Oh Glory

Tomlinson looks Liam over, tilting his head. “Are you a swimmer as well?”

“Yeah,” Liam says, a little cautiously. Harry wonders if it’s Tomlinson’s fame or the unimpressed eyebrow that’s making Liam wary. “Distance, I’m doing the 1500m. Harry here’s a sprinter.”

“Ah,” says Tomlinson, turning his glinting eyes back to Harry. “So you’re not an endurance man.” A beat passes, and his grin grows, wide and filthy. “Shame.”

Harry Styles is Team Great Britain’s newest swimmer, and has spent his whole life training for this moment, a chance at the gold medal in the Rio 2016 Olympics. All his training, hard work, and dedication to no distractions is tested when he’s assigned to the same Rio apartment as Louis Tomlinson, British gymnast and Harry’s childhood crush.

These Inconvenient Fireworks

Future AU in which nobody tries out for X Factor but the boys end up finding one other eventually anyway. Louis is a jaded bastard who owns a cat named Duchess and teaches drama to teenagers, Harry is an idealistic aspiring photographer/part-time footy coach, Zayn teaches English lit and wears leather jackets, Liam saves people from burning buildings, and Niall is Niall.

Pull Me Under

AU. As the first British footballer to come out at the prime of his career, it helps that Louis Tomlinson is in a long-term, committed relationship. Even if that relationship is fake. (Featuring Niall as Louis’ favourite teammate, Liam as Louis’ agent, and Zayn as Liam’s boyfriend, who just happens to be good friends with one Harry Styles.)

In Vogue

‘Is that why David Beckham has been featured multiple times on the pages of your life’s work? Does your criteria seriously consist of one thing – a man’s ass?’‘Well the ass is a man’s best asset,’ Harry smirks, holding the Martini glass high up his face. ‘And don’t call the magazine my life’s work. There are far more important things in life, Louis Tomlinson, than what’s printed on the pages of a magazine.’

Fashion AU. Louis is the editor in chief of Vogue magazine, and Harry’s running British GQ. Featuring Zayn as the crazy creative director and Louis’ confidant, Liam as the sports writer that gets to sit front row at fashion week and DJ Neil as the only sane person in the whole story. (There are no skinny jeans in this fic)

Escapade

In the grand scheme of things, finding a date for a wedding should be no problem for Louis Tomlinson. He’s rich. He’s handsome. He’s reasonably well behaved. But when the wedding is for his lifelong best friend (and former boyfriend), and is happening in under a month, finding a date for the ceremony and accompanying festivities becomes more of an adventure than he ever could have planned for.

The Dead Of July

Being an Avenger means continuing to be Captain America and smiling and being honorable for the public and Harry does his best. But it doesn’t give him time to figure out who he is supposed to be once he takes off his uniform and puts the shield to the side. Just being Harry had always involved Louis, and Harry fears he doesn’t know how to exist without him.

or: Harry is Captain America, and Louis’ been dead for 70 years.

California Sold

Notoriously closeted boyband member Harry Styles is famous on a global scale, meanwhile Louis, as his best friend, is back home in Manchester, living the typical life of a 24 year old. When Harry needs Louis with him in LA, a publicity stunt gone wrong changes their friendship forever.

A fake-relationship AU between two lifelong best friends.

Relief Next To Me

AU. What happens when a baker and a graphic designer meet via a very specific Craigslist post? Fate, friendship, food, and maybe more.

#hello this may have been more than you wanted but #i couldnt leave any out i got a bit carried away #also i promised myself i wouldn't half ass this and i didn't #also i really fucking love the olympics #also lmk if you wanted more obscure fics rather than the classics if you've already read them all #also #pleasdnjee come scream at me about these fics #my ask box is always open but like so are my messages #i would love it if you did #thanks for asking hun!!#mine #ask arsh #anonymous #fic rec anon

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garynsmith · 7 years

Text

How I had to change to increase diversity at Redfin

http://ift.tt/2pToSdP

Reposted with permission from Glenn Kelman.

I realized my company had to change after talking to an African-American woman who’d just quit Redfin. When I asked her what it was like being black at Redfin, she simply said “lonely.”

I wish all the people engaged in culture wars and political-correctness debates could have been there to tell me what I should have told her then.

She didn’t judge the company based on our diversity efforts; she experienced it based on our actual diversity, as one of a small number of African Americans in our Seattle office.

It was easy to decide then that I had to change the company because I hadn’t yet realized how much I’d have to change myself.

This essay describes those changes, personal and organizational, but it isn’t aimed at the diversity advocates. It’s for the people in my seat, the ones accountable for delighting customers and generating profits, who will lose our jobs and our identities if our businesses don’t grow at a berserk rate.

Redefine hard core

The unholy power we draw on in our darkest hours as an entrepreneur is not our intelligence or creativity, but the intensity of our work ethic.

Our companies are fighting for their lives against giants with more money and people. Often there’s a billion-dollar prize at stake. Once our survival seems assured, we never quite get over what we went through, and we never want to get over it. What we fear most is becoming as complacent as the companies we’ve challenged.

But in many startups, this pressure to work hard is so overwhelming it becomes a form of aggression against anyone with other commitments, including people with children and aging parents.

It follows you into the bathroom and down into the parking garage. It’s why startups are often run by a cadre of young men, single or married to stay-at-home spouses.

When a Redfin team slipped a deadline, I used to ask why their offices were empty at 6 p.m. Our chief technology officer, Bridget Frey, has been militant in objecting to such questions on principle. “You want to know where they are?” she said. “They’re picking up their kids from daycare, just like you.”

Bridget suggested an alternative performance criterion: results. We invested in measurement systems that an entry-level engineer could access on her own at 9 p.m.

It took a year to warehouse data from across the business in one place, to figure out which metric to assign to each team, and to train the team on how to move it.

But it was worth it. Since the two of us embraced this approach four years ago, I’ve stopped asking why people aren’t in the office. Redfin’s traffic has accelerated from 26% year-over-year growth to 45% now.

In roughly that same period, the percentage of engineers in Redfin’s Seattle office who are female has grown from 0% to 33%.

Objective measures such as these are the ultimate refuge for people who have faced double standards and moving targets all their lives, but are also the happy place for CEOs eager to have someone else responsible for hitting a number.

I realized this at a dinner with a portfolio manager who was the mother of five. I told her that the macho hedge-fund world would be the last industry I’d want to work in as a mom.

“It’s the best,” she said. “If I worked for you, my career would depend on whether you liked me. Here, I’m judged on my trades. My partners make too much money from my trades to be sexist.” The most convincing arguments for diversity come from the capitalists, not the socialists.

Embrace bureaucracy (the good kind)

Since we at Redfin are coders and customer advocates, not traders, many Redfin promotions are still subjective, but that conversation got me thinking about how to make them less so.

For years I’d resisted writing down the criteria for hiring and promoting employees. I believed that check-box promotions, where people move up by doing everything right except generating results, create a confederacy of do-nothings.

I preferred promoting people based on the manager’s discretion. That changed when another woman left Redfin for a bigger job at another company, without realizing she was about to get promoted at Redfin.

Her manager never knew what the standard process was for promoting her, because there wasn’t one. That left the departing employee to worry about our basic fairness.

No one should have to worry. It’s your job as a manager first to be fair, but also to convince people of your fairness. Fairness, after all, is the starting premise of any collective activity, whether it’s a kickball game or a technology-powered real estate brokerage. And the only way to be fair about a promotion is to write down what it takes and refer to that regularly.

Redfin has documented the promotion criteria for every engineering role above entry level, and for all directors and vice-presidents.

We now require managers to make the case in writing for every promotion, and also, because the process should be rigorous, the case for rejecting or deferring a promotion. These documents overwhelmingly focus on results.

Does all this documentation sound like bureaucratic baloney to you? Well, bureaucracy was originally conceived in 134 BC as one of the foundational innovations of modern society, where Chinese mandarins were chosen based on a civil-service exam rather than by political or family affiliation with the king.

It helped an entire continent avoid the dark ages. Like all great ideas, it spread to the rest of the world. A bit of it should come to the technology industry too.

Train people to be strategic

Board members who decide someone shouldn’t be promoted view promotion criteria as bureaucracy in its worst sense. We often simply conclude “she just doesn’t have it.” I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard that phrase, about men and women, from me and others. It sounded innocuous enough, until one day I realized it was the sound of someone’s head hitting a glass ceiling.

But it’s also often a fair assessment. The would-be executive being passed over may chase off-base ideas, or get overwhelmed by the sheer number and ambiguity of projects he or she has to handle at a senior level. Promotion denied.

When our chief technology officer first heard that someone just wasn’t strategic enough, she responded with a question no one had ever asked before: “So what are we going to do about that?” My initial response: nothing. If there’s one belief boards hold sacrosanct, it’s in God-given talent, which it is their job to find, coddle and lavishly overpay. You either have it or you don’t.

But most engineers don’t believe in the kind of God who anoints people for corporate leadership. They believe in humans’ power to make things better, and that includes all things, even other humans. They abhor the waste of writing off one of your most talented employees.

So Bridget and I have worked on a program to train Redfinnians on the un-trainable: how to be strategic. We go through the calendars of up-and-comers to clear time for chasing big ideas.

We expose them to board-meeting materials so they’re ready to contribute, not just listen, the first time they participate. We turn their writing upside down to put their conclusions first. We teach them the business, explaining our technology stack and financial statements, even if it isn’t directly relevant to their jobs.

About half the time, none of this makes a difference. Talent still matters, and the would-be executive really has hit his or her ceiling. But half the time, the person breaks through. And this in turn has increased our money-making capacity.

Redfin could never have launched a mortgage business this year while also building an automatic system for scheduling home tours, because one executive was responsible for both projects.

Fortunately, we’d been developing another executive to take over on-demand tours. Since the new executive is an Asian-American woman, this increased the diversity of our executive team, but we think of that increase in diversity as a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Diversity as a product

We still have a long ways to go to take advantage of all the talent the world has to offer us. This is in part because for years, I focused on short-term results, hiring the folks nearest at hand, elevating the loudest voice in the room.

In Silicon Valley, we talk about the technical debt that piles up from years of hacking in quick-and-dirty features, but we also accumulate debts from such short-sighted business practices. To grow into a great company, with better talent than our competitors, Redfin has to set aside time to pay those debts too.

It has helped to approach diversity at Redfin like other challenges our engineers have to solve, first because it brings a relentless mindset to the problem.

When I hear that there just aren’t enough qualified candidates to diversify Silicon Valley, that the problem is too hard, that it’s not our fault, I try to recall another time when Silicon Valley tried to solve a problem, failed on the first or second try, then resigned itself to defeat.

We’ll increase diversity the same way we solve every other problem: by iterating fast, thinking long-term, trying out risky ideas, valuing progress over perfection, analyzing everything.

This is why at Redfin engineering has taken the lead on rewriting job descriptions, retooling career ladders and recruiting from new sources, developing a prototype for improving diversity beyond engineering in the same way we develop prototypes of our products. We never assume we’ve solved the problem, instead measuring whether we’ve made it better, then fixing another round of bugs to make it better still.

The crazy thing is that I still believe in all the utopian stuff that brought me to the technology industry in the first place. I think Redfin is a work of art. I want it to be a meritocracy and a sea of love, for everyone.

We’re still figuring out how to be a city on the hill, and I’m still figuring out how I need to change to make it so, but this is what has helped us get this far.

Glenn Kelman is the CEO of Redfin, a technology-powered real estate broker. Follow him on Twitter.

from Inman http://ift.tt/2qojqDk via IFTTT

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