Codes of Conduct: When things go wrong

Nessa: 00:00

Welcome to Make It Kickass, the podcast about creating conferences people actually want to attend, by the people who helped create them. I'm Nessa Jimenez.

Isaac: 00:09

I'm Issac Watson.

Nessa: 00:19

We see them when we walk into a venue. We see them when we go to an event website. We see them at the check box, when you're trying to order tickets online. We mostly don't read them, I mean, I don't, I just check and keep going, but what do they actually mean? What do they actually do? More importantly, what happens when something goes wrong at an event?

Isaac: 00:41

Codes of conduct these days, are kind of like terms of service when you're signing up for a new account or something.

Nessa: 00:41

Right.

Isaac: 00:47

You're just like, "Oh, I don't need to read that legalese. That's fine."

Nessa: 00:48

Exactly.

Isaac: 00:49

"I'm just going to accept and move on." Many people do that. I think part of that is because they've become fairly standardized among conferences and events. The language in a code of conduct is typically similar. I would say that 95, 98, not even 99% of people, probably aren't going to violate a code of conduct anyway, which is great. That doesn't mean that they're not important. They have to exist. They need to exist unfortunately. Because as we all know, some people are stupid and will violate it if you're not careful. I'm not really clear on the exact history of a code of conduct. I know they've been around for probably, I would guess, 8 or 10 years. If I recall correctly, they came up around, specifically tech conferences.

Nessa: 01:48

I would also say, not just tech conferences, but the San Diego Comic Con, where there's a lot of cosplayers and there's a lot of issues around consent, about what's okay to do with the cosplayer, and with women being assaulted at these events, sadly.

Isaac: 02:07

Through these reports of these incidents, I think what happened is a lot of conference organizers realized we can do better, or the attendees demanded that the organizers do better, and so this was done in response to that. A code of conduct is essentially a way of codifying what is and isn't okay for an attendee or a speaker or a sponsor to do, during the event. It gives the organizers a course of action to take that everybody's agreed to upfront. It tries to smooth out the process of addressing a potential issue.

Nessa: 02:51

I think that now generally speaking, there's an expectation that every event is going to have a code of conduct. There are even a few codes of conduct online that have been created specifically, so that people can copy and paste them and adapt them for their events in case someone who's hosting an event, doesn't know how to write the code of conduct. I think that has positives and negatives. The positives I would say is, if you don't know how to write a code of conduct, fantastic, you have a great example online and it's okay. You don't have to put that much thought into it.

However, I would say a negative is, and this is what we're going to get into, you have the code of conduct and you know you're supposed to have it and you have it because there is that expectation, but are you prepared to stand up for that code of conduct? Are you prepared to take action if that code of conduct is violated, because it's not just about having a set of rules, it is also about if these rules are broken, what is the procedure? What is going to happen as a result?

Isaac: 04:12

Yes. I think that what I've seen over the years, is that as code of conducts have become more prevalent, and as the adoption of codes of conduct has become just kind of status quo, what a lot of even speakers and other attendees are starting to demand and request of organizers, is that they also commit to enforcing that code of conduct. If you're not going to follow through on it, then why do you have the first place? You're right, there are plenty of resources out there. As a producer of conferences, I insist that all of my clients adopt a code of conduct, but also understand what that means and what that means about enforcement. Purely having something up on the website, isn't going to be sufficient for following through and being able to address a potential conflict if it arises.

Nessa: 05:12

What does a good code of conduct have, or what does it achieve?

Isaac: 05:16

To me, what makes a code of conduct good, are three components. One, it needs to be up to date. You can't just copy and paste something that you found from a conference website from five years ago. There may be things in a code of conduct for a common con, that are specific to cosplay for example, that don't apply to your business conference where your attendees aren't coming dressed in costumes.

Nessa: 05:16

Right.

Isaac: 05:44

Right? Just fine tune and make sure it's up-to-date and relevant. That's piece number one. Second, a good code of conduct is a code of conduct that is communicated. If you are not putting that information out there to your attendees, to your speakers, to your sponsors, even to internal staff at your company to make sure that they're all aware of what's in there, then it makes it really hard to enforce or back that information up, which is why I think it's important to communicate multiple times that there is one. Right before the event, please make sure you review this. You could even call out that it's changed recently, to kind of encourage people to familiarize themselves with it. There are two reasons for that. One, is not just to discourage behavior, but two, to let attendees know what you are willing to stand up for and enforce, and to let them know how they can report.

The third component to me, for a good code of conduct, is enforcement. We talked about that a little bit already, but it's worth harping on. If you don't have a plan in place to deal with any potential violations that are reported or accusations that are made, then you are going to get caught flat footed and really have a hard time backing up what you've said you would do to protect the people who have gathered at your event. That puts you at a disadvantage.

Nessa: 07:18

I wanted to say a few words about what a code of conduct is not. A code of conduct is not a wokeness street cred thing. That's kind of where the marketing comes in, because I see that all the time. It's like, "Oh, we have this code of conduct," and they're trying to use it to prove like, "Look how forward we are. Look how inclusive we are. Look how cool we are." If you're not enforcing it, if your only intention is for this marketing, is for the street cred, it's useless. You already touched on it, but I'll say it again, a code of conduct is not a decoration. It's not a dead document. It's not a set it and forget it thing. It has to keep evolving, keep changing, keep growing, because culture changes.

Isaac: 08:04

Absolutely. I agree 100%. I think the current affairs and current events piece of it, it does have a lot of influence. I mean, you look at some of them were tragic things that have happened at larger events like mass shootings and other major issues like that. Those types of things bring into the spotlight, additional things that can be called out in a code of conduct. I've seen people adapt theirs to include firearms bans, to include other kind of weapon carrying policies, and things like that. That is relevant. That is important because, as the world continues to change and as things happen, we as event organizers and producers, need to adapt and evolve and make sure that we're responding to potential conflicts and potential incidents and issues and things like that, through our codes of conduct.

Nessa: 09:06

Do you think COVID, or health-related things, are going to be making their way into codes of conduct?

Isaac: 09:13

That is an excellent question. There's been a lot of talk lately, especially around vaccine requirements-

Nessa: 09:22

Exactly.

Isaac: 09:22

For in-person gatherings or onsite testing. This goes back to all the debate about authenticity of a vaccination card, are these vaccine passports valid? Can we create something like that? I think that there are, certainly health and safety elements that will come into play. I don't know how that's really going to be affected by the pandemic. It's hard to say at this point, how that's going to bear, especially because so many people are focusing on hybrid events these days. The in-person health and safety, I think, is less in the forefront of people's minds than maybe it should be. I don't know. That is an excellent question. I don't really have an answer for it.

Nessa: 10:28

You have a code of contact, you're at the conference, and something went wrong. Now, what do we do? I will tell you a story. I will kind of change the details so nobody gets in trouble-

Isaac: 10:41

Sure.

Nessa: 10:41

But I was working at a conference, not that long ago. The conference involves a social justice issue. One attendee attacked another attendee verbally. The victim of this attack was very, of course, affected by it. They left the session, but they informed us of this code of conduct violation. Now, at this point, using that as an example, what is supposed to happen?

Isaac: 11:19

I appreciate the example. It's a perfect example of something that could have happened. I think often when we talk about codes of conduct, we're kind of implying sexual assault, which is a bit more of an extreme. That of course, involves potential criminal action as well. That's a great example. The other thing to me is that that is the middle of the story, not the beginning of the story, from a code of conduct standpoint. For me, as an organizing team, you get a report like that. You're in the middle of your code of conduct enforcement process, because everything has come before that, all the planning that you've done, is going to inform what happens next.

Nessa: 12:05

Exactly.

Isaac: 12:07

Let's start with the beginning, the proactive nature of codes of conduct. You've set one up. Great. You've established your code of conduct. You made sure it was relevant. Cool. Also, you need to figure out what your plan is going to be when you do get a violation or report that that is effected by the code of conduct. To me, that includes knowing how things are to be reported and how there'll be escalated, right? Typically, onsite staff are then going to pass the report along to somebody in a leadership position or decision-making position. Then that person needs to know what to do about it. That includes who is involved with any decision-making, what kinds of actions are anticipated that you may need to take? That could be everything from blocking someone from a virtual chat to ejecting somebody from a physical venue to escorting them off the premises with security, to calling the police, right? There's a graduated scale of action that you could take. If you don't know what those are in advance-

Nessa: 13:24

Right.

Isaac: 13:24

It's going to be really hard to come up with those on the fly and be able to respond in the right way. The rest of that plan is also, how are we addressing conflict? How are we communicating to the relevant people? Doing all of that legwork in advance, being proactive about creating that policy and that decision-making process, documenting it, is critical. When that report happens, whatever it is, then you have a clear path to take. You as a producer or organizer or host, can set aside any emotions or anything that might be influencing, like defense mechanisms or anything like that, and you can rely on the process.

Nessa: 14:17

In that moment when you hear, "Oh my God, this person was assaulted and it was a racial type of comment that was made, a harassment." You do have the emotional reaction of, "Man, that's fucked up." I got angry and upset, but having that protocol, I know what I need to do. Yeah, I can feel my feelings, but I know what the next steps are.

Isaac: 14:44

That emotional reaction can also go both ways, right? Some people have kind of the, mama bear instinct, where they quickly go to someone's defense and maybe they get angry and worked up. Other people, especially a lot of event producers that I know because of the nature of work we do, we are people pleasers, right?

Nessa: 15:05

Yes.

Isaac: 15:05

We want everybody to get along and to have a good time. Our natural inclination and our bias, is going to be toward smoothing, or maybe even downplaying, or being a little anti confrontational. I think that's why this plan is key. That plan includes, are you training your volunteers or your event staff, the people on the ground, to be able to identify a report and pass that up to the right person? Is your team enrolled in conflict resolution training? There are all kinds of things that you can do in advance to prepare for this kind of stuff.

You were so smart to have been working with a team that could anticipate these potential issues because of the subject matter of the event, knowing, "Okay. If we're going to have a conduct violation, it's likely going to be in this realm, or it could be this, this or this. We're going to come up with maybe some scenarios." You can run some role-playing and do some prep in advance to figure out, "Okay, how can we do this in a way that is kind of procedural, and make sure that we're treating everything consistently?"

Nessa: 16:30

With every event, again, the whole point of this conversation is if you're going to have a code of conduct, are you prepared? Are you willing to stand up for it? Do you have that plan of action? Of you don't, then instead of creating a safe space for people to participate, you're actually putting them in danger because something happens and then, "Okay, now what?" I've seen this particularly in the online spaces where they're using the codes of conduct, they're copying and pasting, but then the event comes and in the chat room while the stream is going, you have people saying racist stuff, sexist stuff, just spamming the chat. I'm sitting here going, "Okay, where is the mod? Where is the mod? These people are spamming racist stuff, where are the mods?"

Isaac: 17:16

Right.

Nessa: 17:18

That tells me this event is not safe for me. This is not a place that I want to be in, so don't do it.

Isaac: 17:25

I'm really glad you brought that up because I mean, we've harped on enforcement, but we haven't really talked about what that is. It's not just, what are you going to do when something happens? It's also, how are you paying attention to what's happening? You can't rely on anyone particular attendee to feel comfortable reporting an issue. There are still a lot of issues where any given attendee, just may not feel comfortable coming forward because they don't know your organizing group, they don't trust the process maybe, maybe they've been burned before. Any number of reasons that they may not make a report. You need to be actively paying attention to that. Moderate your chats. It's not that hard.

Nessa: 17:25

Yes.

Isaac: 18:13

You could spend five minutes brainstorming common phrases or slurs or whatever that might be posted in a chat, and just come up with a running list to refer to. It's not that hard to do and yet, so many people seem to forget that part.

Nessa: 18:30

I will also bring up the fact that if your event is free, anybody can walk in. That means that you have a way higher probability of getting jackasses in your event-

Isaac: 18:42

Yes.

Nessa: 18:43

Which means you need to do your job. Watch the event like a Hawk.

Isaac: 18:49

Mm-hmm affirmative. I mean, it's not just racist and sexist comments. It's also self-promotion-

Nessa: 18:56

Yeah, spam.

Isaac: 18:56

And trolling.

Nessa: 19:00

Yeah.

Isaac: 19:01

There's all kinds of behavior that is worth moderating and worth paying attention to.

Nessa: 19:06

It's easier to deal with online. Just block them, kick them out.

Isaac: 19:12

Yep. Let's talk a little bit more about that action process, because I think that that's important. You've gotten a report, you've talked to the victim, you've gathered, you've documented. If somebody comes to you the day after the opening party and reports sexual advances, and you want to get some witnesses, whatever you've done, you've got all that, now what? What do you do? You know what the victim would like you to do, how do you actually take action? Again, going back to your pre-planning and saying, "Okay, who's in the decision-making process?" One of the most important things, is that it shouldn't be down to just one person. I think it's important talking about why. People have biases, we know this. I have biases, you have biases, everybody has biases. If you designate a single person to be responsible for making all decisions related to code of conduct, their biases are going to factor into their decisions, whether they know it or not.

Having multiple people contribute to a decision making process is really important. I would recommend at least three, to be able to say, "Okay, we're going to look at the facts. Look at the report. This is what the victim has told us. This is what they would like to see happen. Do we feel comfortable with this? Do we know of any other behavior of this particular person? Great. Let's come to a consensus and decide what to do going forward." That way, the decision is placed upon multiple people's shoulders, and you can back each other up if things go south.

Nessa: 21:05

More than one person, but at the same time, not everybody on the staff needs to know the drama

Isaac: 21:13

Yes.

Nessa: 21:14

It's not a gossip session. Not everybody on-

Isaac: 21:16

Yes.

Nessa: 21:17

The team needs to be involved in code of conduct so also, identifying the people, "Okay. If something happens, these people need to be informed, but these people don't need to worry about it."

Isaac: 21:28

Yes. I think the keys here are anonymity, keeping it quiet, and swift. You need to be able to react quickly. You want to only inform those people who need to know what's going on, and you want to keep the victim's identity anonymous as much as possible.

Nessa: 21:58

We have now reached the part of the episode that I always think is hilarious. Just listening to you, trying to talk quickly and summarize everything. This segment is called Too Long, Didn't Listen. If you don't have time to listen to the full episode, what Isaac does in this segment is he tries to summarize all of the big, important points that we've just discussed, in 60 seconds or less. Take it away Issac.

Isaac: 22:29

They are really important because they help your attendees feel safe. They help you know how to address potential issues. They define what is and isn't good behavior. What happens when it actually happens, when somebody comes to you and reports behavior, or you observed some behavior that needs to be addressed? First of all, go back to your plan. The code of conduct is more than just a document. You need to have a plan in place if you get a report, or if you see behavior that violates the code of conduct, you need to know in advance what you are going to do. That includes who's involved in the decision-making process, what kinds of information you're going to collect and evidence you're going to document, and what your potential courses of action are. Then when it happens, you follow the plan. It's not that hard. You do it quickly and quietly and decisively, and you rest confident that it's all amazing and your code of conduct has worked beautifully. You've addressed the issue and everybody's had a great experience, except for the person who violated it, who should know better and will hopefully never do that again.

Nessa: 23:32

And talking about a great experience, I hope you have had a great experience listening to this week's episode. Thank you so much for joining us. To get transcripts, full show notes, learn more about what we do here at Kickass Conferences, you can visit us at our website, kickassconf.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to share it and also, leave a rating review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, because that really helps us out. Thank you and I'll see you soon.