Thanks for chatting with us today! I’d love to hear how you got started. How did you first get into education?
It’s my pleasure to be talking with you and sharing my story with you. The question about what got me into Education was a healthy appetite of curiosity and interest in knowledge seeking and building. I liked the idea and privilege of being in school (at all levels) and having the room and luxury to think, learn, question, create and disseminate. So, as it does for an intuitive person like me, I followed my instincts and passion to continue from one educational degree to the next and fell in love with the freedom that the education industry offers in knowledge seeking, knowledge production and dissemination. And here I am – educator, author, producer and practitioner, all in one!
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) work is quite an unfortunate one that many of us BIPOC changemakers may relate to: I had a series of really bad work experiences in one of my past workplaces. Those experiences made me feel bad and also made me feel unsupported. It also made me feel excluded and uncared for.
I happened to go to a weeklong conference that had a great deal of workshops and trainings in DEIB that I participated in, which allowed me to process some of the bad feelings and take action on them.
I was not ready to stop feeling sad and resentful. So, I started my research, teaching, production, service, trainings in the world of DEIB and immersed myself in it to find ways of creating safety, equity, inclusion and belonging in the workplace.
First, I created the open-access multimedia show Talking Out Of Line that brings together leaders in diverse industries on the topics of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB). Each episode chooses a different industry to focus on and a leader within it to highlight that is working at the intersections of DEIB to create lasting impact in diverse fields. I launched this project to highlight data, experiences and projects of people in various industries on the topics of DEIB.
I am also the Founder of collaborative.ly, a company that provides services based on a model of DEIB that I have created after years of research and prototyping in academic and industry settings. I created the Inclusive Business Model Canvas (IBMC), which is a tool that helps businesses and organizations build an inclusive foundational structure by re-prioritising and re-calibrating their structures to meet diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) goals. IBMC is a tool, methodology and framework that can be used to evaluate whole organizations, processes or outputs.
In college, what did you study?
For my college, I went to this unique, amazing liberal arts institution called Hampshire College in Western Mass. I created my own major and my Bachelor Thesis was on Gender, Representation and Screen Cultures. I continued in the path of Communication as a field with my Master’s Thesis and expertise on Fair Trade, Inclusion and Brand Representation in the Communication Department at University of Massachusetts Amherst. Then, I really wanted to “complete” my educational journey and exploration, which led me to pursue my Doctorate. My PhD Dissertation and subsequent book was on environmental communication, climate justice, inclusion and new media amplification. My research on environmental communication and climate justice, global youth movements and new media technologies led me to find an international non-profit called The BGreen Project. The scope of this project is explored in her book (Routledge, 2019), Participatory Networks and the Environment: The BGreen Project in the US and Bangladesh.
Are there any challenges you’ve faced in education?
The challenges I have faced in education have been that of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB), like many other industries, which unfortunately many of us BIPOC changemakers may relate to. I had and continue to experience microaggressions and scenarios where unconscious bias plays out. Also, one thing I notice is that the higher I rise in my career, the more complexities and challenges I face as a woman of color in my workplaces. There is increasing amounts of research that shows this pattern for women of color in workplaces.
Could you tell me more about your business strategy? How did you know where to start?
These experiences made me feel bad and also made me feel unsupported. It also made me feel excluded and uncared for. I would say, my own experiences have propelled me to get trained in DEIB processes and frameworks.
I was not ready to stop feeling sad and resentful at my experiences. So, I started my research, teaching, production, service, trainings in the world of DEIB and immersed myself in it to find ways of creating safety, equity, inclusion and belonging in the workplace.
First, I created the open-access multimedia show Talking Out Of Line that brings together leaders in diverse industries on the topics of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB). Each episode chooses a different industry to focus on and a leader within it to highlight that is working at the intersections of DEIB to create lasting impact in diverse fields. I launched this project to highlight data, experiences and projects of people in various industries on the topics of DEIB.
I am also the Founder of collaborative.ly, a company that provides services based on a model of DEIB that I have created after years of research and prototyping in academic and industry settings. I created the Inclusive Business Model Canvas (IBMC), which is a tool that helps businesses and organizations build an inclusive foundational structure by re-prioritising and re-calibrating their structures to meet diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) goals. IBMC is a tool, methodology and framework that can be used to evaluate whole organizations, processes or outputs.
How do you hope your talks and social media will impact your viewers?
I hope my talks, my show Talking Out Of Line and social media engagement will inspire people around the world to follow their passion, understand the challenges of themselves and others in the workplace and create pathways of solutions to overcome the systemic barriers that people face every day when they want to just live their lives and go about their days.
Do you have any advice for other people in the space that want to turn their passion into a career?
These may all sound like cliches— but not to me! Each of these have played a significant role in my life-building—Know yourself, follow your instincts and passion, work harder than hard, never give up, don’t listen to naysayers (there will be plenty) and if you fall down, heal and get up and do it better next time. Did I mention hard work? There are no shortcuts to success!
How can our readers connect with you?
My IG is
Media Contact
Nickie Robinson
nickie@goodgirlpr.com www.goodgirlpr.com