Diversity needs to be an inside job

Disneyland was a good place to check out the diversity of the game industry. I attended the Casual Connect game conference last week at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California. The event had a whole track dedicated to diversity issues in partnership with groups that included United in Diversity, Leadership for Diversity, and Contagious Creativity.

The sessions were lightly attended, but I thought they were loaded with powerful and moving messages for the leaders of game companies. The gaming, tech, and film industries have had huge wake-up calls on the issue of sexual harassment in recent months, but the main diversity panel argued that corporations need to address the root causes of the problem with authentic and creative leadership. The panel focused on how to transform a company’s culture from within to be more inclusive.