Gender, Racial Diversity Key to Customer Satisfaction

Many of the products and services that are household names today were sent back to the drawing board after their first release — something that can be partially attributed to a lack of women and minorities being involved in the process.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love white guys,” said Barbary Brunner, CEO of the Austin Technology Council, in a “lightning talk” on the keynote stage at last month’s Channel Partners Evolution, but their view of the world can be narrow, she noted.

In her presentation, Brunner pointed out how Apple’s Siri voice-recognition system offered only a “female” version at first because of the development team’s sexist perception that people “would prefer to take direction from a female voice.” Another example: facial recognition systems that fail because they aren’t capable of distinguishing faces of African Americans.

Diversity in your company can not only save headaches like these, it can make you a whole lot more money, as this CompTIA study found.

Watch Brunner’s eye-opening presentation above for more insight into the importance of diversity.