Aut Collab - collaborative autists, aspies, and ND ventures

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The stereotype that autists have difficulty with collaboration is the result of a fundamentally different perspective on the purpose of social interaction.

The autistic understanding of “social”

- Naive assumption: “social” refers to 
interaction to learn from each other
- Naive assumption: “social” refers to 
collaborating with others towards a shared goal
- An autistic individual may take decades to decode the typical meaning of “social”

The prevalent neurotypical understanding of “social”

- Unspoken assumption: “social” refers to negotiating social status and power gradients
- Unspoken assumption: “social” refers to competing against each other using culturally defined rules
- A typical individual may take decades to appreciate non-social interests

Aut Collab (https://autcollab.org/) has been set up as a platform for autistic collaboration and as a platform for sharing the results of autistic collaboration.

I would like the next generation of neurodivergent people to grow up into a society that is capable of fully appreciating cognitive differences. By definition such a society must provide space for autistic ways of collaboration.

Delighted to see you back jbw

Thanks, and good to see you are still active! There is a lot of work still to be done.

Some of the big companies such as SAP are starting to pay lip service to neurodiversity.

... The program has been such a success, SAP is currently working to expand it, with the goal of having 1 percent of its total workforce -- approximately 650 people -- fall on the spectrum by 2020 ... (from https://www.cio.com/article/3013221/car ... -jobs.html)

I cringe when I read these statements and absurd goals. Based on first hand experience of working in the sector, my guestimate is that at least 10% of the workforce in the software industry are aspies. Temple Grandin comments that "Half of Silicon Valley’s got mild autism, they just avoid the labels" and diagnosis "like the plague". That number may be an exaggeration, but my 10% estimate is probably very conservative.

The implication is that companies like SAP make a big deal out of aiming at 1% of autistics within their workforce, whilst at least another 9% of their workforce don't dare to openly identify as autistic – because they know what it would do to their career prospects.

With the right kind of peer support, aspies and autists are much better advised to shape their own ventures, either alone in lose collaboration with others, or in small to mid sized teams where neurodiversity is the norm, to work on things that more traditional organisations would consider too hard or impossible.

I think organizations claiming to help autistic adults find employment are great in theory, but how many are actually placing autistic adults in jobs? How many autistic adults do these organizations turn away? And how is their success actually measured? I went to SAC in NYC called and left messages and they did not help me. I went to another organization in NYC and they said their class was full and wouldn't have another for an entire year. Voc rehab through arc in NJ did nothing to actually place me in a job. They placed my resume on a website and showed me how to look at job postings on indeed.com. they are supposed to Place you in a job.