Further Oral Activity – Role Playing Script

Notes to Self:

Anytime when U or R are referring to something in the material, they point to it on the whiteboard. When U gives R advice, R types on the keyboard to emulate fixing it, and then the slide advances.

R: I’m R and this is U and we are two Langauge and Literature Higher Level students. For our Further Oral Activity, we have created a media awareness campaign about the need for more gender diversity in the technology industry.

U: The two learning objectives of today’s presentation come from Part 2 of the course, Language and mass communication. They are to “show an awareness of the potential for educational, political or ideological influence of the media” and to “show the way mass media use language and image to inform, persuade or entertain.”

R: You are aware that Silicon Valley, a region in the San Francisco Bay Area, is recognized to be the international hub of tech, and that it also has a major gender diversity issue. And because of our mutual passion for tech, our campaign focuses on raising awareness for this problem.

U: So for our FOA, we are depicting a scene in the headquarters of our campaign’s organization, SF Women’s Alliance, located in San Francisco. The president, played by me, will be critiquing and finalizing the campaign’s marketing resources, which were drafted by the marketing team. R, the Vice President of marketing, will be holding the meeting with me to discuss the poster and appeal letter we created.

R: As the audience, you’ll be able to see our progression and thought process going from our first draft of these two texts to the final versions we submitted – and more importantly, the linguistic, stylistic, and visual choices we made and why.

U: We hope to do this through our creative role play. Ok! So let’s begin.

-- BEGIN ROLE PLAY --

R: Hi President U, we have put together a draft of our Silicon Valley gender diversity marketing campaign for you to look over.

U: Great, I’m looking forward to it. Show me what you have prepared and I can give feedback.

(put poster on the overhead projector)

R:

One of our main campaign texts is a poster. Here it is.

*<Pause>*

Our visuals are an extended metaphor for the situation in Silicon Valley. We conveyed the surprising gender imbalance by visually depicting two male employees and one female employee.

The male employees are pointing upwards to an unreachable light bulb. The light bulb in this case represents the solution to some arbitrary engineering problem which the men are unable to solve. We then see a woman managing to reach and hold the lightbulb, which signifies that she figured out the solution. The moral here is that, male or not, talent is talent - and you never know which of your employees will have a ‘eureka’ moment and formulate a novel solution to an engineering problem. By restricting diversity, companies are leaving a lot of potential talent untapped…. and they are in turn restricting potential innovation and progress.

U:

I like the exploitation of visuals to convey a strong message. However, there are a few things that could be improved. First of all, instead of having 2 male vs 1 female employee, increase it to 4 male employees. This is more representative of the true industry statistic, and allows us to demonstrate a greater polarity between the presence of men and women in Silicon Valley. You should make the woman in the graphic slightly transparent and blurred to express how women in the industry’s male-oriented background are alienated and obscured, or “fade-away” from the attention given to men. It also shows how almost ‘non-existent’ women are in the industry.

Also, arrange the woman in the image to be placed behind the text, to emphasize the connotation that women are inferior or “behind” men in terms of their engineering ability.

R: Those are great ideas... By including these changes, it signifies how the individual woman’s solution isn’t seen, heard, or encouraged, and thus makes the company feel like they are “missing out” on potential progress and innovation.

U: Exactly. A couple more things. To make our campaign seem more legitimate and trustworthy, you should include SF Women’s Alliance’s logo and URL on the poster. This will then enable the reader to learn more if they are interested and also act as brand recognition for our organization and campaign.

Then make the light bulb yellow to contrast with the monotone grayscale on the rest of the poster. Obviously, this would be suitable since lit light bulbs are stereotypically used as a metaphor for a solution. But in this case, it most importantly symbolizes that the inclusion of women in tech will lead to a “brighter future” (due to the brighter color)... or progress.

R: That is great.

(Pause. Indicate to the audience somehow that this is another meeting on another day)

R: What do you think of these changes?

U: It looks great. Now can you please discuss the motive behind the text included?

R: We have included two statistics at the top: “1 in 5 employees in tech are female”, and then “Half of them leave mid-career”. The use of these concise statistics immediately state the issue of diversity in tech, and brings context to the visuals included. Then, we have the text “Dear Silicon Valley,” → “diversity is progress”. We use “Dear Silicon Valley” because it directly addresses our audience with an assertive tone, and is very attention grabbing. Our team could definitely envision this as a billboard in the Bay Area.

This (“diversity is progress”) is our key slogan. By stating “diversity is progress”, we make a “logical equation” that diversity and progress are synonymous. This appeals to our logical-oriented audience of programmers and technology pundits, enabling them to realize why, through the visuals, the statement may be true. Conceptually, it turns the moral of diversity into something that benefits companies, and therefore acts as an incentive to them. Linguistically, it is very short (just three words long), and hence quite catchy. Since the underlying message of the slogan is identical to the text of the slogan itself, we believe that people will not forget it, and consider gender diversity something that they need to integrate into their workplace.

U:

The idea has a lot of merit, but could use some fine-tuning.

The use of statistics at the top with the address + slogan at the bottom makes for a poor structure. I’m thinking that we structure it almost like a personal letter to the companies. We greet them, identify the problem, and propose the solution (on top of why it’s a worthwhile effort). This makes for a much more logical flow to the reader.

R:

(Pause so that the work can be done)

OK, so like this?

“Dear Silicon Valley”,

“1 in 5 tech employees are female, with half leaving mid-career”

“diversity is progress”

This indeed seems like a more conventional flow that would appeal to the reader.

U: Exactly. Let’s separate “1 in 5 tech employees are female, with half leaving mid-career” into two different sentences. Because they represent two distinct issues: the former being underrepresentation and the latter being mistreatment. Then, our “letter” would have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Include diction like the word “Only” in the first sentence to ensure that the statistic objectively holds a negative connotation. Bold the second sentence to emphasize how, of the few that make it into the industry, only half stay! One half of one fifth is a very small number. This allows us to project our purpose in a significant manner.

R: Mhm. Together, these additions will make it so the statistics hold much more weight and will be startling to the audience, causing them to be much more invested into the issue. Give me one second!

*<Pause>*

How’s this?

U: Looks good. Moving on, I really liked your use of logic in the slogan “diversity is progress”, but we could take it a step further.

R: How so?

U: Make it in programming form, using syntax such as “diversity == progress;” *U takes laptop to prove this*. This takes the logic to a hyperbolic level, and draws the link between “diversity” and “progress” even closer. You can use a font like Menlo to achieve the appearance of actual code. Then, since this statement is characterized as a “solution”, and is our slogan, it should be of blue color to stand out against the rest of the poster as the primary piece of text.

R: Great idea. I feel that with this segment of code, we now very clearly target and attract our desired audience of engineers and leaders in tech who would be immediately hooked upon viewing.

U:

Yea, exactly!

R:

*<Pause>*

*Pointing to the finalized poster*

OK, here. Thoughts?

U:

I think that looks ready to go. If I remember correctly, in your email you said you also have an appeal letter to show me?

R:

Absolutely. Let me bring that up.

(R gives printed out appeal letter to U, and the appeal letter is shown on the whiteboard)

Here it is. Would you like to read through it?

U: Yes.

R: Well, what do you think?

U: I like the premise, but it could definitely use some revamping. Could you first explain the basis of it?

R: Sure. The appeal letter is aimed at startups and companies directly; prompting them to contribute to the issue. This contrasts with the poster, which instead is aimed towards general tech employees in the Bay Area. Instead of addressing the company on a generic level, ie “Dear Bay Area Startup”, we address them by their name ie “Dear BitGo”, to connect with them on a more intimate level, making it engaging; since it’ll seem we’ve given them specific attention.

U: Great. I like how you introduce SF Women’s Alliance is and what we do. Then, you state exactly the goal of the letter: to get companies to “pledge in an effort to interview and recruit a higher number of female employees by the first quarter of 2016”. By doing this, it adds legitimacy and clarity. A lot of organizations write vague promotion emails/letters which include a lot of filler text before getting to a main purpose, forcing people to be invested to keep reading and eventually take action to learn more. However, recently, people have been picking up on this trend and treating this as “spam”. By being upfront with our goal and asserting that our organization is a real and reputable one, we can build initial trust with our reader, allowing them to invest in our letter and cause.

R: Right.

U: But with that being said, there needs to be a better inclusion of formalities, to establish SF Women’s Alliance as a credible organization even further. For example, add our logo to the top of the letter, include both of our signatures at the bottom, and add our email, website, phone number, and address. This provides our readers with pointers to contact us and learn more about our campaign, but more importantly adds a greater certainty that our organization is genuine.

R: Let me try adding those.

*<Pause>*

Yep, this does look much more professional. OK.

*<Pause>*

Then, we have a paragraph dedicated to statistics demonstrating the industry’s gender diversity issue. We use data points such as “20% of the industry is composed of female employees”, “women make up over half of the US labor workforce”, “male-founded startups are 90% more likely to be funded than their female counterparts” etc. to strengthen the argument for the motive behind our campaign and its purpose. Statistics are powerful because they “quantify” the issue, and hence they reveal a pure truth that is not exaggerated. Because of this, and of course because the actual statistics demonstrate an extremely poor state for women in tech, they act as a surprise to our readers. We then use diction such as “only”, “prematurely”, “not sincerely”, and “bias” to attach a negative connotation to these facts.

U: Good idea. Try turning the data points (eg. 20%, half, 90%) into blue, underlined links to the relevant articles/websites. Many companies, especially if they are surprised with them, will be eager to verify the validity of these statistics. It will continue to strengthen our argument and its legitimacy. Ultimately, it means a greater trust between us and the companies, and a greater number of pledges signed!

R: Let’s see.

*<Pause>*

Agreed, looks great.

*<Pause>*

OK. Our next paragraph focuses on Silicon Valley’s male oriented culture. After your previous suggestion, I have changed “Many companies have recently been in the public eye for allowing and even encouraging a male-oriented culture” to contain a link at “recently” that points to a real news article on the topic. We then have then listed the different faults of the industry’s culture in hope that the readers (companies) will identify them in their own company: “sleeping in the HQ, working in casual clothing, having inappropriate conversations, or disregarding office hygiene etc.”. This, paired with negative diction like “harassment”, “forced out”, “distressing” etc. will hopefully create a slight guilt in the reader and hence act as an incentive to work on solving the issue.

We use these qualitative examples to balance with the quantitative example shown in the paragraph beforehand. The disadvantage of only using statistics is that it is easy to brush them off and forget these are happening to real people everyday in the real world. The scandal attached about a female employee who was harassed out of GitHub, a reputable company in the Bay Area, makes the reader feel more personally engaged with the topic because we can see how the victims were emotionally affected and how they reacted.

U: Great. I am very fond of this paragraph. Let’s move on.

R: Ok, sounds good. Thus far, we have demonstrated the extent to which the issue prevails the industry. The next paragraph is all about branding gender diversity as something beneficial to startups, ultimately incentivizing them to act after they have acknowledged the problem’s existence.

U: Yes. I think this is the most important component of the appeal letter. Tell me what you’ve come up with.

R: Right. Firstly, we explain why diversity in tech is so important:

“You should contribute to the issue of diversity in tech… not just for moral sake, but because it’s actually a competitive advantage for you.”

We use an assertive tone here to tell the company they should create more diversity in their workplace because it will benefit them. This added layer of certainty makes the letter more convincing. We justify this by stating that with more female employees, the probability of solving a “breakthrough engineering problem” is greater. This is obviously something that a company would aspire to achieve, emphasized by the positively hyperbolic word “breakthrough”, and is an example of an incentive. It is contrasted with diction like “disregarding” and “loss” which, due to their negative connotations and implications in this context, convey a comparatively poorer state for the company when not contributing to diversity. In this way, we present the reader with two options: either increase diversity and innovate faster, or do not and become obsolete. By doing this, we inflict a type fear in the reader - a fear that they will miss out on this “competitive advantage” that other companies may instead equip by onboarding more female engineers.

U: Though I agree with most of what you said, I think an assertive tone is not a good idea. We do not want to demand anything from the reader, because that undermines them. Just like the “consumer is always correct”, these companies want to be in an authoritative position. After all, we are the ones asking them for a favor. We should instead suggest they contribute, but not in an explicit manner. Instead of: “You should contribute to the issue of diversity in tech… not just for moral sake, but because it’s actually a competitive advantage for you.”, directly introduce the solution first, like this: “Diversity in tech is actually a competitive advantage”, which makes it seem more attractive and widens the incentive. On top of this, because we start by stating the solution, using the word “actually”, and then explaining why it is true, the reader will soon realize the idea is “common sense” for themselves. This is much better than explicitly telling the reader, because now they have convinced themselves that the issue is one they need to fix!

R:

*<Pause>*

I definitely agree! With these modifications, I definitely see how companies would feel the urge to sign the pledge, rather than doing it (or not doing it) because they were told to. The letter goes from persuading the reader, to having the reader persuade themselves. I think that is a sign of very effective marketing material indeed. In fact, building on your advice, I think we should change the last sentence from “We hope you sign our pledge” to “Thank you in advance for your pledge”, to conceal any desperation on our side and instead almost transfer it to their side!

U: Excellent! OK, let’s move on to the last paragraph?

R: Yep. What our last paragraph does very well is making diversity in tech seem easy. The ultimate incentive for any company to introduce greater gender diversity in their workplace is simply clarity - and they may ignore it otherwise. We make the issue seem more concrete like so: “We believe that two issues, being company culture and recruitment as mentioned above, are at the heart of Silicon Valley’s diversity problem”, by identifying the two exact roots (“culture” and “recruitment”) and having extended descriptions of them earlier. Now, the company can pinpoint the exact steps on how to make change, making it more appealing.

U: Agreed. Making the issue seem “concrete” is not something I had thought of, well done. On top of this, I like how you offer the company to “consult us on shaping an inclusive culture”, which, by lifting partial weight off their shoulder, makes contribution even more attractive.

R: Definitely.

U: I think, though, the letter is missing one vital component: a testimonial. What we haven’t done so far is demonstrate that diversity in tech really is a competitive advantage. A personal anecdote from a real company/company CEO would fix this, and eliminate any further doubts from the reader that the effort is worthwhile. It is also another outlet for companies to place trust in our organization.

R: I agree. We could ask Ryan Hoover, the CEO of Product Hunt, to write one for us. We worked with Product Hunt recently to solve their gender diversity issue, and their company has extremely benefited from it. On top of this, they are very reputable, with over 50 million users and investments from top VCs in the Bay Area. As a key influencer to many other startups in the area, a testimonial from them would open the ears and convince others that solving this issue is worthwhile.

U: Good idea. We could write one on his behalf and send it for approval. That is common practice when it comes to recommendations and testimonials.

R: Ah, I see. Let me draft something up.

*<Pause>*

What do you think?

*<Pause>*

“Our emphasis towards recruiting more women engineers has led us to onboard Silicon Valley’s top talent, enabling Product Hunt’s engineering department to innovate at a faster pace than ever before. In addition, by shaping a more inclusive company culture, we were we able to increase productivity and job satisfaction amongst employees by over 50%. We thank SF Women’s Alliance for bringing this crucial issue to our attention.“ – Ryan Hoover, CEO of Product Hunt

I’ve bolded it to emphasize its importance relative to the rest of the letter.

U:

I like how you have implied that “recruiting more female talent results” in onboarding “Silicon Valley’s top talent” rather than explicitly stating it. And notice how you haven’t written “top female talent”, because the point is by disregarding women engineers, companies are disregarding all levels of absolute talent. This also exudes the competitive advantage stated earlier, and with the industry’s best engineers, you cannot deny that the reader would be experiencing a fear of missing out! With the word “led”, you again create this logical link between diversity (on the left hand side) and progress (on the right hand side). You further strengthen this link by stating that it enabled “Product Hunt’s engineering department to innovate at a faster pace than ever before”. The word “enabling” is key here: it expresses that without gender diversity, Product Hunt simply could not progress as fast as it is now. Then, you added statistics such as a “50% increase in job satisfaction” to act as a confirmation for this mapping from diversity → (to) progress.

R: Exactly. And having Ryan (the CEO) “thank” us for bringing diversity in tech to Product Hunt’s attention reverses the favor from us to the company, to from the company to us. This conveys how beneficial solving the issue is to any startup in the Bay Area.

U: Right. And of course, you fully demonstrate how fixing the two concrete roots of the problem, “recruitment” and “mistreatment”, allowed “progress” and “innovation” to almost naturally and logically come.

R: Yes. In fact, with what you mentioned, it seems as if this testimonial is a culmination of all the techniques in language and content used earlier on in the letter. Many companies will want to follow in Product Hunt’s footsteps after reading this.

U: And if that is the case, there is no point leaving them with only a link to sign the pledge! Make it more convenient by including a form directly with the appeal letter, so that these companies will take action as soon as they possibly can - especially while they are feeling the urge to.

R:

*<Pause>*

Done! I’ll also send this testimonial over to Ryan for verification.

U: Great. Things are looking good. I think we have some really effective marketing assets here. Let’s schedule another meeting when the press release and PSA video are complete, alright?

R: Sounds good - will do. Thanks for meeting with me, really appreciate it!

*U and R get up from their chairs*

*Handshake between U and R*

(Role Play End)

U: And that’s it for our FOA. We hope that you gained an insight about the language and visual choices we made and the various techniques we used to get across our purpose, depending on the text type and audience. We also hope you get to see how we evolved over time from a mediocre first draft to a better second draft to a convincing final version. We also hope you enjoyed it!

R: To close of, we wanted to say that this issue is real. *Put up “THIS IS REAL” (with news articles) slide*. This is an example of the news articles, tweets, posts, etc. in just the last few weeks or so on this matter. All the statistics and scandal/stories we used in our campaign pieces were completely real, and recent too. Silicon Valley is the world’s innovation hub, and it is in one of the most forward-thinking liberal states in the US: California (not to mention San Francisco itself). The fact that some of the guys who are quote-on-quote “changing the world” are the same ones who are misogynistic to women like it’s the 20th century is really scary. And this is why we chose diversity in tech for our media awareness campaign.

Thank you.