I can't believe I did it!
I fight every day against ' unconscious bias' AND then when I was thinking on my feet (aka unconsciously) in last week's live, I picked 'Debbie Downer' to describe the opposite of an ungrateful person.
The crazy thing is... last week's live was one of THE MOST POPULAR lives we've ever done (and it is the middle of the summer!). So not only did I live out unconscious bias on a LIVE feed but one that was seen by hundreds of people.
2 reasons this was wrong (thanks Deborah, who emailed me and pointed out my errors):
1) I picked a WOMAN'S name to be the 'downer'
2) I degraded all DEBBIES by using that instead of another name
SOOOO.... to all the Debbies out there - please know you have my heartfelt apology. And thank you Deborah for being brave enough to speak up about how you felt.
Here at TechPixies we base everything off our values which are represented in the word SPARKLE - Supportive, Positive, Authentic Relationships with Women who are Keen to Learn and want to be Empowered. We are not about encouraging stereotypes and spreading unconscious bias.
That point leads me nicely to my next dilema and I would ❤️ LOVE ❤️ to know your opinion (in the comments of the Facebook post please!)
Many women, when speaking about their tech skills say to me 'I feel like such a dinosaur'. Lisa (our new digital marketing assistant - who we hired out of the TechPixies programme BTW) and I had a total blast coming up with all sorts of dinosaur names for a potential quiz like:
🦕 Stagnate-o-saurous
🦖 Tyrannosaurus Wreck
🦕 Geriactyl (for pterodactyl) obviously
🦖 Tricera-stopped
The point of creating the dinosaur characters was to help women decide which ones they were and then ENCOURAGE them to work towards making that dinosaur extinct and resurfacing in the 21st century with top notch tech skills - like Social Media and WordPress.
We decided to ask women what they thought... would they prefer a 'What kind of Tech Dino are you?' quiz OR would they prefer 'How Social Media Savvy are you?'
HANDS DOWN... with only one exception ALL THE LADIES said they would prefer the 'How Social Media Savvy are you?' quiz.
Have you weighed in on this argument yet? If not, post in the Facebook comments of the video. I'd love to know.
I also have a bunch of 'dino swag' and I need to know what to do with it!!! Should we still give it away? Let me know in the comments (or if you get this via email, reply back and let me know any good ideas).
Regardless of whether you are a 'tech dino' or on the lower end of the 'social media savvy scale', that isn't what matters. Once you've identified where you are now, you have to always ask yourself the question...
Where do I want to be?
In the next few weeks, we'll be putting together some initiatives as we build up to our autumn cohort - such as a private pop up Facebook group for people who are thinking about joining the TechPixies programme and want to ask all sorts of questions about it.
We'll also be creating content that will help you decide if learning about social media is something you want to do. To make sure you don't miss anything, please join our mailing list so you don't miss any announcements (like when our social media savvy quiz is ready or when our private pop up Facebook group goes live).
You can sign up here:
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Thanks for listening!