On Monday 10th April, 2017 I sat outside Lecture Theatre E of the Teaching and Learning Complex of the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus with a handful of people who like me just HAD to reach early for the evening’s lecture . A trickle of well-known faces in the local PR and Communications fraternity then began to roll in as the 6:00 p.m. start drew nearer.
Soon enough we were allowed inside the lecture hall, with anxious attendees looking for the best seat behind the reserved rows, not only to get the best vantage point for Maxine Williams’ presentation on “Social Media and the creation of Global Communities”, but for the best photos for their social media posts.
After several mentions of Maxine as a true “daughter of the soil” by Professors of the University, she took the stage.
Here are the 5 business (and life) lessons I learnt from Maxine Williams that day:
1. Have a sense of Community
Maxine Williams, the Global Director of Diversity at Facebook is from Woodbrook, just outside the capital city of Port of Spain, Trinidad. She is the beneficiary of the sense of belonging that growing up in the small community provided. There were opportunities to roller skate down Ariapita Avenue or hang out with neighbours and friends in the ravines on Wrightson Road. Everything you needed was contained in the small community which provided less opportunity for the intervention of otherness.
Her mother worked at the national airline then known as BWIA or BWEE by the locals. It gave her the opportunity to travel a lot which she admits was beneficial to her as she got to see and understand other parts of the world.
“We are born somewhere but the world belongs to us” Maxine Williams.
Lesson: Use where you begin to find where you are going. “I would look out beyond my shores and wonder what else was there. I ended up at Facebook because of where I began. ..we sometimes get in the habit of thinking of just this boundary and not beyond.” Use your foundation to leverage your talents and skills and increase your possibilities!
2. Know your situation/environment intimately in order to succeed
Maxine gave the example of the partnership between UNICEF Brasil and Facebook to combat the spread of Zika in the country. Activated with an action plan to firstly understand the occurrence and secondly create a campaign that should create behavioural change, UNICEF reached out to Facebook. With over 90% of the population using the social media platform, Facebook provided data to UNICEF which showed that public conversations related to Zika on Facebook were dominated by men. UNICEF developed a successful Facebook campaign based on this insight and as a result saw that 82% of the persons targeted took action to prevent Zika. UNICEF knew they had to understand the parallels of the situation they faced, and Facebook gave them the right insight.
She refers to this example as “the power of using online insights to mobilize people” in creating the kind of impact that was done infinitely faster than a focus group would. As PR practitioners how do we use the data available to us to create successful campaigns with high impact?
3. “Think Globally, Act Locally”
According to Facebook 87% of their users reside outside of North America. Even with its world-wide reach of 2 billion active users, Facebook understands that some people in secluded areas of the world are not as connected as they should be. With internet.org by Facebook even the most underconnected or unconnected persons receive access to the internet and with that, find opportunities beyond the confines of their immediate environment.
Through internet.org persons connect on Facebook groups with people experiencing the same things and so develop a sense of belonging. This feeling often makes people want to persevere in rough or challenging times.
Lesson: In business and in life, it is important to connect with people by finding a common interest that you can relate to. Engage with persons, don’t just pitch to them for the sake of making a new client. Have a wider sense of purpose in your business of how you can help others and be of real benefit to them. Scale your vision up and across your boundary to create global impact!
4. You don’t have to leave where you are or be a big business to have impact
Maxine emphasised this point to the audience after they viewed two videos of how internet.org connected people and changed their lives forever. Riza who is from a small island used her connectivity to the internet to become the first person in her family to earn a computer science degree. The impact of this will be felt in her family for generations to come. From within her walls Riza stayed in touch with the students in her class, followed up on lessons she missed, and stayed on top of her goal. What goals can you accomplish in the place and position you are right now? You don’t have to have the best computer or the greatest website to succeed in business. Start from where you are!
The other video features Paula, an entrepreneur who overcame her lack of knowledge in agriculture to start a compost business with the use of internet.org. The tools available to her allowed her to purposefully follow her dreams and create a better life for her and her family. Along the way she receives business advice and tips from Facebook groups she follows. How many of us think twice before reaching out to email a business mentor? Let us grab the opportunities we have before us and like Paula follow our dreams.
5. We do better with the benefit of different perspectives
“We are building for the world so we must represent all different perspectives,” Maxine Williams.
According to Maxine the solution to complex problems requires as many diverse people as possible. She echoes the call of her C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg when he said: “We have to work together.” Facebook allows everyone to have a voice and all perspectives are welcome. When we connect with each other as part of a global community, we become richer by learning the things we did not know before.
How do you leverage the rich diversity that Trinidad and Tobago offers? Diversity has certainly worked for Facebook and the drive towards inclusivity means that they are constantly learning from the world around us. The possibilities of adopting this ethos are great, and we must truly live by the values of the global community, and work as one.
Written by Natasha Brown Founder and Chief Brownie Communication Concepts