Summary of Presentation by Carla Kalogeridis
By AWC member Patty Knepler
“Tracking diversity in your communication is a vaccine against self-delusion” -Ed Young, The Atlantic
You must measure your effort to improve diversity and Inclusion (D&I) or things will never change, shared Carla Kalogeridis, President of Kaló Media. A great way to start is by counting every time your communication features a person through a picture, published works, quote, etc. Enter each instance into a spreadsheet and then add gender, age, and ethnicity. While this practice will be subjective, it is a good starting point. Identify your gaps and then start to ask some hard questions:
Should our communication reflect the current state of our customer base or the ones we are trying to attract?
Should we add D&I guidelines to our style guide?
Will an effort to be more diverse in content sourcing leave out more qualified experts?
What if our D&I efforts make us feel inauthentic. Could we be considered inauthentic because our publications reflect diversity, but our organization does not?
Each organization will need to answer these questions for itself. Practical advice for getting started:
You don’t have to be perfect right away. The key is starting.
Take time to learn diversity terms.
Don’t try to figure out a D&I policy by yourself.
To be authentic you can’t just do something once. This is an ongoing process.
Listen, ask questions, and don’t assume anything.
Listen to the full 45-minute lesson.
Carla shares tips from an interview with Martin Luther King III and his eleven-year-old daughter, Yolanda King. “If every person was treated with dignity and respect that would solve most problems in the world.” -Yolanda King, age 11
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