Leveraging Social Media to Enhance Diversity
This weekend I had a great session at Craft Content on the topic Leveraging Social Media to Enhance Diversity.
The PDF presentation is best accompanied with a presentation in-person or through webinar but here are a few highlighted takeaways:
1) As an ally, your role may be to be quiet and listen.
2) An offline, intentional diversity and inclusion plan may help remove feelings of exploitation of certain groups.
3) Your obligation online starts offline.
4) Representation matters.
5) Let's move beyond equality to equity.
6) Be patient with the trust process. African American's and other groups have often been used for entertainment. When invited to certain tables we could be shy, fearful or angry. Understand there may be hurt.
7) Build relationships, then ask really uncomfortable questions to push past ignorance.
8) As someone considered disadvantaged in some way I also feel responsible to have transparent conversations with people who want to learn more.
9) Facts and data can be used as a tool for understanding. It is a fact that our country will be "no majority minority" by 2040 (2025 in some places). If your employer has a difficult time understanding why cultural inclusion is a conversation, use the census and/or other supporting documents.
10) We sometimes talk about gender diversity with the sexual preference most comfortable to us. i.e. I've seen boards say they want a woman on a board, but they are sometimes considering a heterosexual, white women. Let's change that thinking.
11) Think of the varied ways diversity can show up. Race/ethnicity, age, gender, relationship preference, communities, faith, industry, and so forth.