How do you spell diversity?
Kate Trgovac’s post caught my attention where she’s talking about an upcoming conference - Media in Canada Forum and diversity with conference speaking rosters. So what is diversity? Wikipedia defies it as "diversity is the presence of a wide range of variation in the qualities or attributes under discussion." The site further breaks it down by the following:
- Cultures,
- Ethnic groups
- Languages
- Physical features, especially if they are recognized by members of that population to constitute characteristics of a race - (see also human variability)
- Socio-economic backgrounds
- Opinions
- Religious beliefs
- Sexuality
- Gender identity
- Neurology
I have to agree with her that there really isn’t a lot of diversity at conferences, but to say "Now, I know that everyone is tired of thinking about gender and ethnic diversity. We think "It’s 2006 .. haven’t we dealt with this?" I think is a bit too soon to take that type of position on such a broad topic.
Part of the problem stems from corporate cultures that do not allow for people from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to move into management, often management teams or Board of Directors are headed up by the "old boys club". If the corporate culture isn’t open towards diversity, then employees will never get the chance to make bigger contributions that could ultimately get them noticed and invited to speak at conferences. Over the years I’ve spoken at events on this topic and time and time again I’ll have someone from a corporate management team or HR puff out their chest and tell me how diverse their organization is. To which I usually agree, many of today’s large corporations have diversity - at the help desk, call center or IT department.
Looking at the line up of speakers that Media in Canada Forum has for their upcoming conference, this isn’t the best representation of diversity, with my own upcoming conference Word UP! - Canada’ Word of Mouth Marketing Conference we’re faced with a limited pool of speakers from diverse backgrounds
The benefits of diversity have been discussed for years and in this global world it really is a no brainer and there will come a point in time where if a company wants to compete on a global level they will have to embrace diversity or be left behind. Imagine how much faster your brand’s presence could grow if it was talked about by people here in Canada, and they spread the word by in their native country.
Tags: WOM, word of mouth, conferences, wordupcanada
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Podonomics » Blog Archive » I’m the Nutella for Technology’s White Bread on 15 Sep 2006 at 3:56 pm
[…] Dave Forde also weighs in on this issue, saying that having a diverse call center is not enough. That diversity needs to be reflected in the upper echelons of a corporation. […]