I can't believe it's been ten years...
Data & Society at 10
When Janet Haven (the Executive Director of Data & Society) asked me to come be a part of the org’s 10-year celebration, of course I said yes. I resigned my board seat last spring after 10 years of working on the project but I’m still an advisor and I still engage with the research team and I still donate and I still cheerlead everyone on whenever possible. But stupid me did not really consider how Data & Society at 10 might turn into a party that would honor me - so much so that I didn’t even bother to tell my partner and kids to tune into the livestream. I really thought it would be about the future.
I was just so ecstatic to see old friends and meet new ones. There was a big ole reception before. There were so many hugs, even as people would also wonder if it would be a superspreader event.
And then I got up to honor the past at the start of the event. To my surprise, I got a standing ovation and had to will away the tears even as the wind was blowing my speech off the stage. I did what I had come to do - thank the amazing audience for all of their contributions to making this org vibrant - and then thought I would slink into my chair on the edge of the room and blissfully watch all of the amazing talks.
And I did. Until, after a series of amazing lightning talks, there was a panel that included two former board members (John Palfrey and Alondra Nelson), a current one (Suresh Venkatasubramanian), and an amazing leader of another research organization (Felicia Wong).
Suresh kickstarted the panel with a question about policy and turned it to Alondra who refused to answer the question and, instead, took the moment to acknowledge what I made possible as I tried to turn invisible (which failed). And then John followed suit. Poor Felicia (who I’ve spent far less time with) offered a few notes of kindness before helping Suresh get back to the topic at hand.
It was all super sweet. And embarrassing. And full of love. And it really made my heart melt, not just because of the kindness towards me, but also the repeated admiration for what Data & Society has become. And that was so clear from the energy in the room. And while I’m given too much credit for the project, what really amazes me is how many people contributed to making this whole thing real. There’s the obvious stuff of doing amazing high impact research, creating events, making the organization work, etc. But there’s also the less obvious stuff. The ridiculousness of funders building furniture alongside friends of the org. The willingness of old friends to take a bet on what I was creating and offer resources to make things happen (from offering office space to voluntarily serving on the board to donating money when we most needed it). Data & Society has always been a collective effort. And soooo many people showed up to honor that. Here’s just a part of the room:
The other delight for me involved people sharing their memories. One of my favorites were all of the stories of interactions people had at Whiskey Wednesdays. In the pre-Covid times, this was a weekly gathering that took place on Wednesdays, starting at 4PM, where all in our network were invited. The naming of this event was all Baratunde Thurston. The goal was to create a space to really connect people across a broad network, to create a regular moment when people could meet the organization, meet others, and feel like they were part of a community. It really worked. What most people didn’t realize was that it was also dirt cheap. We served a small platter of meat and cheese each week, but the only alcohol we served was whiskey. It was that - or water. Some people would bring a different beverage to add to the mix. But one of the things that we accurately assessed about our community is that very few people would drink much (if any) whiskey on a Wednesday at 4PM. A bottle would last weeks. It was soooo much cheaper than serving wine and beer, which made it sustainable. And we got out of it what we really wanted - community.
I’m still glowing from all of the love and connections a week later. Thank you sooooo much to everyone who joined in both in-person and virtually! When the video from the event is posted, I’m going to have to watch it because I missed so much while dying of embarrassment. (You can too!) I’m also painfully aware of how few photos I took. So I have a few requests if you’ve read this far along:
If you were there and have photos, please please send them to me.
If you don’t know what Data & Society is, please do check out the website and join the newsletter: https://datasociety.net/
If you have the means to support Data & Society, please consider doing so. Obviously, donations are super helpful. But so too is the amplification of work, the making of connections, the invitations for D&S folks to speak, etc. Even though
Even though Data & Society is not where I spend most of my time these days, I really really want to see the organization continue to thrive, if for no other reason than to go back to the 20th anniversary celebration and tell old people stories. “Back in my day…” So I’m relying on all of you to help with that. <grin>
And for all of you who have contributed in some way to D&S, thank you thank you thank you for all that you’ve done to keep me whole and help make this crazy vision into a reality.
{{HUG}}