Conclusion
looking back and next steps
Talk About It
- We created this guide because nothing like it existed
- It is incomplete, and we'd like your help
- Share what you've learned by giving talks like [DelBoca2024]
or on social media
- Preferably Mastodon rather than X or Bluesky, because the latter are single points of institutional failure
- Share what hasn't worked as well so that other people don't have to find those landmines the hard way
- And sharing your experiences during difficult times protects your mental health [Pennebaker2016, Cullen2022]
- Take time to grieve
- The end of years of work will hurt, even if it is voluntary
- Your colleagues may be suffering as well
- And those who haven't been hit (yet) may have survivors' guilt
- Remember: people often become altruistic, resourceful, and brave in the wake of disaster [Solnit2010, Yang2024]
Organize
There's no point surviving today's flood if you drown in tomorrow's.
— variously attributed
- The best way for researchers to take preventive action
is to become active in professional associations
and push them to take meaningful action
- Unfortunately, there aren't meaningful professional associations in the software industry to join and push
- The idea of doing this makes many people uncomfortable
- Membership in voluntary organizations has declined over several decades [Putnam2020]
- Which means we're out of practice
- Unfortunately, the bad guys aren't
- Who is more likely to run for a school board seat: a PhD in epidemiology or an anti-vax conspiracy theorist?
- Right now we have to focus on preseving what we have
- But playing defense is just a way to lose more slowly
- See Organizational Change for Open Science for ideas