{"id":41198,"date":"2020-09-25T19:53:59","date_gmt":"2020-09-25T19:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=41198"},"modified":"2021-02-24T09:49:30","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T17:49:30","slug":"how-were-bringing-inclusive-language-to-our-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/how-were-bringing-inclusive-language-to-our-products\/","title":{"rendered":"How We\u2019re Bringing Inclusive Language to Our Products"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Learn how the Office of Ethical and Humane Use and the Inclusive Product Language Task Force are working to be intentional in the language used in products, content, and code.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Language matters. It has the power to bring people together, uplift, and empower \u2014 or divide, harm, or reinforce stereotypes. Language is deeply connected to culture, history, and identity. We all have a responsibility to ensure the language we use is respectful, inclusive, and free of bias. At Salesforce, we\u2019ve been on a path over the past four years to lead with Inclusive Marketing<\/a> principles, ensuring our content, communications,  and marketing reflect, respect, and elevate the diverse communities around us. Our next step is to ensure our products\u2019 content and code not only meet emerging best practices<\/a> in the industry, but also go beyond these standards to truly embody our core value of Equality<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnsuring our products use inclusive language is a top priority for us. We are focused on developing a robust and inclusive process centered around diverse voices. This foundation will drive inclusion in our products and in our culture,\u201d said Paula Goldman, Chief Ethical & Humane Use Officer, Salesforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leading with our values<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The language that a company uses has an impact \u2014 it influences the hundreds,  thousands or millions of users who are interacting with the content or products. In light of society\u2019s calls for greater Racial Equality and Justice<\/a>, more companies are making efforts to assess the language they use and ensure it is furthering \u2014 not hindering \u2014 equality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Salesforce, Equality is a core value and we believe that businesses are powerful platforms for change. To ensure an inclusive approach to our products, it is essential that we lead with our values in everything that we do. This includes empowering our engineering and product teams to consider the impact<\/a> of what they create; to ask questions, inquire, and seek out feedback \u2014 including the language that we use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To start, we partnered with Salesforce\u2019s technology teams to remove the most harmful language from our content and code. This includes terms that have long been used in the developer community like whitelist and blacklist, which clearly do not align with our Equality values. Other companies, like Twitter<\/a> and Github<\/a>, have also made similar changes. We also knew, though, that we had to think more broadly and bring a wider lens to this work. To do this, we created a sustainable, repeatable, and scalable process, so we can rectify non inclusive language retroactively, but also on a go-forward basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur first step is to make sure our code is inclusive of all,\u201d shares Sue Warnke, Senior Director of Content & Communications Experience. \u201cAnd the work doesn\u2019t end with simply changing terms. We\u2019re building a robust process that will scale as our product grows.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putting the process into action<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For the terms that may be more ambiguous, Salesforce convened an advisory board of leaders, employees, and Employee Resource Group<\/a> members from diverse backgrounds to guide decisions. We also solicit input from customers and external stakeholders to ensure we\u2019re hearing all perspectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn order to develop an inclusive product language plan, we needed to listen to and learn from our communities, especially those that have been historically excluded from these conversations,\u201d said Orlando Lugo, Program Manager, Office of Ethical and Humane Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To conduct Inclusive Product Language reviews, we leveraged some of our Inclusive Marketing<\/a> principles to guide us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Representation – <\/strong>is the term excluding or discriminating against a community? <\/li>
  2. Historical Context<\/strong> – does the term encompass harmful, hurtful or insensitive historical connotations?<\/li>
  3. Cultural Appropriation <\/strong>– is the term taking a term used by a marginalized community and using it incorrectly or in a way that does not honor the culture?<\/li>
  4. Stereotyping <\/strong> – does this term reinforce harmful stereotypes? <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Ultimately, this process generates recommendations to leadership, a playbook documenting the decisions and changes to be made, and internal education and enablement on why we\u2019ve made these changes and how to proceed moving forward.<\/p>\n\n\n

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