March 12, 2020, by Sean May

Blog of blogs

This may seem a little ironic – a blog about the visibility of EDI blogs – but it is topical and might prompt you, the reader, to consider broader issues of EDI visibility, messaging ennui, and input overload amongst University staff.

First things first – This blog (and several others on EDI topics) are at https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/biosciedi/

Quick… bookmark or favourite that URL ! So you can find it again…

….or do you use bookmarks any more? Perhaps you just wait for an email? Or visit the Staff Room? Google? Message of the Day?

Actually, how do you get your University ‘news’? Or know what roads are going to be painted or closed, flags to be flown, films to be shown, lectures to be given?

Data Tsunami

We experience constant data flooding – especially through e-mail, push notifications, Linked-in, FB, Twitter, Insta, Medium, or even Tik Tok  (depending on your age and inclinations). Our desktops and networked devices are screaming for our attention all the time …..and I have already written too many words to retain half of you (TL;DR).

For example, how many times today have you read the word coronavirus? What proportion of those did you actively seek out?

Channeling Canute

Even the most powerful are largely helpless against these persistent waves of information. We can all construct walls or filters against blanket emails – but to whirlpool a metaphor, you don’t want to throw the baby out with the seawater.

What happens if you miss the important Covid emails that you have spam filtered? Why don’t you know about EDI blogs, events, or actions? How much “don’t-you-know-that-you-don’t-know” because you have ‘too much to read’ and have pre-deleted everything from person X?

How restricted is your personal email silo / data ghetto now? Can you remember who you have excluded in the past? Might you have trimmed it too far?

Have you intentionally disengaged from your diverse colleagues and their concerns and activities – because you don’t have time for them at a personal or professional level?

If you are reading this, you either received this blog as an email, or you clicked through, or searched (perhaps via the word coronavirus – sorry !). Perhaps you already subscribe (thank you). If not, it’s easy – if you are on the blog site look to your right. We want to keep you coming if we think that our message is important …as we certainly do with issues of Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI).

Blog Stats

At our recent Biosciences School Forum, we were asked how frequently these EDI blogs are viewed. So :- You asked, we did (see figure, right).

In this snapshot, we had 416 blog viewers on the day after we released the Rainbow blog – not bad at all ….and that single LGBTQIA+ blog has enjoyed 703 views to date (12/03). So the audience can be significant.

Other blog posts such as understanding-non-binary-gender  and academic-work-life-balance-can-be-achieved attract a different but relatively constant slow trickle of interest – every week since 2018 (and yes, this is corrected for bots).

Biosciences School Survey 2020

We asked several EDI questions (some more successful than others – please feedback directly on ways to improve these) – and got multiple currently anonymous offers to write EDI blogs (8+).

Do you want to write one? – PLEASE DO. If you aren’t sure whether your topic is suitable, just ask – there are no stupid questions or embarrassing suggestions and yes, blogs can be anonymous.

Could you do a vlog (video blog)? Perhaps as an alternative to a ‘Discussing what matters’ talk – this can certainly be facilitated and could possibly also be played in a formal talk slot. Do you have a diverse group that can talk on YouTube, Echo360, etc? Suggest away.. we will make it work.

Also, if you have any ideas on how to subtly (or blatantly) promote these blogs ..or other EDI issues then please pass them on.

Tell us

If you think that we can be better, bigger, bolder on ANY aspect of Equality, Diversity, or Inclusivity – don’t hold back. The surveys are not the only means of communication.

…and seriously, don’t be fashionably cliquey with your spam filters  …..you never know what you might miss….

 

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