Summary: While passing through London in late 2016, I sat down with Tim Deeson, lead at the Deeson agency. We talked about the history of his company, delivering value with Drupal is more than delivering code, and Tim's revelations and action regarding diversity at his company and in the tech industry. Resources / Mentioned White men in digital - our privilege is blinding - Deeson blog, September, 2016 A progress update on creating inclusive teams at Deeson - Deeson blog, January, 2017 The ten actions Tim and Deeson committed to in 2016 to improve diversity in their company: Begin annual salary audits to check for bias and rectify imbalances Report on our progress when we do our quarterly planning Implicit bias training for everyone Stop attending conferences that don’t have a credible Code of Conduct During hiring, take a more nuanced view on whether a developer has made open source contributions Stop participating in all male conference panels Improve our Careers page, including clarity on parental leave Stop asking for previous salary during hiring – it can perpetuate pay inequality Create dialogue and feedback channels within the company to offer better support Stay informed and signpost groups working in the industry Conversation Video [Full Conversation Transcript] The Deeson Origin Story jam: Tim Deeson, you run what’s now called the Deeson Agency. Is that right? Tim: Yes, that’s our social media name, but just “Deeson.” jam: Deeson. Tim: Yes. jam: What’s the history of Deeson? Tim: Deeson is a family business. It was started by my grandfather in the ‘50s, and was a contract publishing company. In 2001, we started the digital agency and that’s the main part of business, but we, actually, still have a small publishing company, too. jam: You and I talked several years ago now on the podcast about the origins of the business and coming from print to digital and all of those things, but it’s really one of those stories about like, “Yes, I can build a website, Dad!” Tim: Yes. I came back from backpacking and a family friend, when I lived in San Francisco, a family friend who worked for Apple, he taught me how to hack around with Macs and stuff. I kind of came from backpacking, needed some money. This was kind of in pre-CSS days, actually, I started making websites, kept picking up clients and kind of went from there. In about 2007, we started doing Drupal. jam: Pre-CSS. Tim: Yes. This was Adobe GoLive ... CSS was just starting to come out there. jam: Do you still write your HTML in all caps? Tim: Yes. I don’t write HTML anymore. jam: Do you still use spacer gifs? Tim: Yes, and I shrink a massive table and it’s mostly made of one-pixel gifs That’s the only way I know, unfortunately. CSS passed me by. jam: They let you do the managing now. Tim: Yes. More the spreadsheets and the blog posts, probably more where my talents lie, in reality. Delivering Value with Drupal jam: Can you talk about the difference between delivering code or delivering Drupal and delivering value higher up the value chain? Tim: Yes. I guess, I always look at these things as kind of nested, you know, often clients don’t necessarily have a strategy that they work to. Looking – things like Drupal are tools that nested within a strategy, you can deliver value because they have certain attributes, but it’s starting, for me, to the top or the bottom to understand if we want to grow sales in Europe, for example. It’s, then, looking at ways to do digital channel to that and how – what’s a cost effective long-term way of delivering their sales reliably and where does that keep stacking up. jam: “I want a website...
