Intel Discloses Diversity Data, Challenges Tech Industry To Follow Suit : NPR

2016/02/04 Leave a comment

Intel_Discloses_Diversity_Data__Challenges_Tech_Industry_To_Follow_Suit___All_Tech_Considered___NPRAn ambitious approach with clear, quantifiable goals, publicly available that provide accountability:

Intel set a goal last year: of all new hires, 40 percent have to be women or under-represented minorities (black, Latino, Native American). The company had never hit that level in the past. So for Intel, it was an ambitious goal. And the company reports today: it managed to exceed it, hitting 43.1 percent.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich shares some of his motivation: “I have two daughters. They’re both technically very bright. I want them to come into a workplace that’s a better place than the way the workplace is today.”

To do that, he says, Intel has to open up about how it’s doing inside. “There’s nothing here [that’s] top secret or should not be shared with the rest of the world in my mind.”

Other tech giants don’t agree. Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft — companies that value metrics so much — have not publicly stated any measurable goals when it comes to diversity hiring, or the retention of employees. They haven’t disclosed the numbers of new hires or of exits from their companies, by gender and race.

Facebook, Google and Microsoft say their goals are not publicly available. An Apple spokesperson says the company has purposely decided to not set goals.

Intel is now an exception. Today’s report gets in the weeds. The company aims to increase its external diverse hiring rate to 45 percent this year, and it’s establishing a new target within this goal of a 14 percent hiring rate for underrepresented minorities.

There’s a sense of urgency. By 2020, Krzanich says, Intel must reach “full representation.”

By that he does not mean the company will look like America or its global consumer base. He means it’ll reflect the available talent pool. Intel has a long way to go — currently at 75 percent male and a combined 86 percent white and Asian.

Source: Intel Discloses Diversity Data, Challenges Tech Industry To Follow Suit : All Tech Considered : NPR

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Intel’s Sharp-Eyed Social Scientist – NYTimes.com

2014/02/21 Leave a comment

And now for something completely different.

Interesting article about Intel’s Genevieve Bell, an anthropologist who is Intel’s resident tech intellectual (director of user experience research at Intel Labs), who brings the real world user experience perspective. I liked the analysis of cars and technology as the user experience in many cars leaves a lot to be desired:

As they [Dr. Bell and a colleague] traveled from country to country, asking drivers about how they used every object in their cars, the pair developed a messier counternarrative to the tech-idealized version. Although carmakers have embedded voice-command systems and the like in their vehicles with the idea of reducing distracted driving, the researchers found that when drivers were bored in traffic, they often picked up their hand-held personal devices anyway.

“What became clear was a couple of things: how much technology people bring to cars, how much they were ignoring the technology that was built in, and how much that technology was failing them,” Dr. Bell says.

Intel’s Sharp-Eyed Social Scientist – NYTimes.com.

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