How diverse is your circle?
I have participated in several Equity, Diversity and Inclusion workshops over the past year that have stretched my thinking. As a hetero-normative, middle-class, white guy I too often forget that the systems in which we work and live have been built for people like me. These workshops have forced me to learn – and unlearn – a lot about the experiences of others.
Over the same period of time, I have been reading about Artificial Intelligence, algorithms, and the biases that seem baked into our technology. This forced me to consider my own media consumption. I read the news headlines, I read some long-form journalism, but mostly I scroll through social media. I don’t create much content, but I certainly consume it.
I began wondering whether my feeds were the result of algorithms delivering me programmed content, or whether I had unconsciously curated a homogenous list of social media accounts – creating a very narrow view of the world.
The Social Snowflake worksheet doesn’t answer the question about my unconscious bias or algorithmic bias, but it is an interesting way to audit your social channels and look for patterns. In the worksheet, you’ll see that I picked six diverse dimensions to investigate. Feel free to adjust the dimensions you see here, or add your own.
Once you’ve completed your mapping, step back and look for patterns. Is the diameter of your Social Snowflake big or small?
Social Snowflake Worksheet (1.3 MB)
Copyright, Use and Distribution
This worksheet is part of our Worksheet Wednesdays experiment. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. You are free to copy and redistribute this worksheet. You can remix it or adapt it to your purposes, providing you share your revised version too. If you use this worksheet, please attribute Thirdway Think and link to thirdwaythink.com
Source of Inspiration
Several Equity, Diversity and Inclusion workshops and follow-up conversations.