How To Become Impossible To Ignore With N. Chloé Nwangwu
N. Chloé Nwangwu
“As underrecognized movement makers, we have to understand the gatekeepers, including what motivates them and what their role is.”
Brand Scientist and digital diplomacy advisor N. Chloé Nwangwu joins me on the podcast this week. Chloé is the founder of NobiWorks, a brand awareness consultancy, and a writer and researcher who has advised everyone from small island nations and the first refugee delegation to the UN to small, black-owned mom-and-pop shops. She’s passionate about helping people overcome systemic barriers to visibility, influence, and success and bridge the gap to where they’re meant to be. In this conversation, we talk about Chloé’s experience we talk about Chloé’s experience consulting on the civil war in Yemen, the reality of invisibility taxes for underrepresented BIPOC and women-led businesses, her issues with “niching”, and a different way to think about generating influence.
Talk Topics:
How to emerge from the margins and become impossible to ignore using science-backed initiatives
The four phases of visibility and how to deepen into the work that is calling you forward
Why Chloé believes the visibility game is rigged, traditional branding is outdated and full of bias, and what we can actually do about it
How to garner attention and recognition when you feel underappreciated
N. Chloé Nwangwu’s official bio:
Known as the Brand Scientist, N. Chloé Nwangwu is a brand visibility and digital diplomacy advisor who consults, researches, and speaks on the relationship between brands, bias, and influence, and equips leaders to build legacies tackling the world's most pressing social injuries.
As a multilingual conflict mediation expert with a robust background in tech, digital media, and design, Chloé has been in "the rooms where it happens”, and advised everyone from small island nations to the first refugee delegation to the UN.
Through her brand awareness consultancy, Nobiworks, she is in the business of making sure underrecognized brands receive the attention and recognition they deserve.
Show transcript:
Nikki Groom
Known as the brand scientists and incluye Nwankwo is a brand visibility and digital diplomacy adviser who consults researchers and speaks on the relationship between brands bias and influence and equips leaders to build legacies tackling the world's most pressing social injuries. As a multilingual conflict mediation expert with a robust background in tech, Digital Media and Design, clay has been in the rooms where it happens and advised everyone from small island nations to the first refugee delegation to the UN. Through her brand awareness consultancy, nobody works. She is in the business of making sure underrecognized brands receive the attention they deserve. In this conversation, we talk about Chloe's experience as a mediator during the Yemen Civil War, the reality of invisibility taxes for underrepresented bipoc, and women led businesses, the problem with niching and client avatars and a different way to think about generating influence, you are not going to want to miss this conversation. Please enjoy. Hi, Clay, how are you?
N. Chloé Nwangwu
I'm great. I'm great. Thank you for having me. By the way, if I haven't already said.
Nikki Groom
Of course, of course. I'm very, very grateful to have you join me as my guest today. First of all, but I have been eagerly awaiting this conversation for some time, because I think we're really going to get into it and I cannot wait. So you help make underestimated underrepresented brands emerge from the margins and become impossible to ignore. And this part I love with science. That's right. Will you talk us through what that means? And maybe a little bit about how you do that?
N. Chloé Nwangwu
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so this is a journey.
N. Chloé Nwangwu
First things first, I think that this, the work that I do is not necessarily something that you need science to do. It's just sort of a tool that I've chosen to use. But the reason that I have chosen to use science and that specifically behavioral science and the science of social change to do the work that I do, is because I have noticed and then began researching some troubling phenomena, some troubling patterns that I've observed in my work before I even began my business. And it was really the difficulty that under estimated by pop women lead, queer, you name it. But the difficulty that these sorts of industry disruptors or you know, future faces of movements, culture leaders, the difficulty that these folks in particular had, with getting the attention and recognition that their work deserves, I guess I'll say that I discovered this, or noticed, maybe, let's say I noticed this friction, this particular kind of difficulty. In my work as an international mediator, actually, I was trained to facilitate peace negotiations between warring nations, or in the context of civil war. And in one of the sort of files that I was brought on to consult with, which happened to be the civil war in Yemen, I realized that while as a mediator, I am someone who can control the dynamics within a room and make sure that everybody is heard. And that poisonous power dynamics don't sort of bleed their way into that negotiation or that discussion as much as possible. I don't necessarily have control of who's getting into those rooms. And the folks who are getting into those rooms are the ones that cannot afford to ignore. And that is not often people like you and me and the other kinds of leaders that I mentioned. And so when I started noticing that particular trend more and more, that's when I said to myself, Okay, we're gonna figure out how to fix this then. And I happen to turn to behavioral psychology, behavioral science, because when I was training in international mediation, my focus was on using those tools to make mediation more effective, right to make conflict resolution more effective. And so those were sort of the tools that I had in my toolkit. But now as I'm not as I'm looking back, sort of all of the stuff that led me here are realize that those weren't the only tools in my toolkit, they were just the most familiar. So all of that being said, when I sort of buckled down, rolled up my sleeves and started looking into what I had observed, I always hesitate to say discover, I always hesitate to say that, because that's just such a explosive word when you work with science. But I noticed and maybe began to name some of these phenomena that I observed some of these frictions that I observed, and so plain as day. The reason that under estimated folks like you and me, do not get the attention and recognition that we deserve for our work or contributions. What have you is because society has been conditioned to ignore folks like us, and the source of that particular tendency, I've taken to calling visibility biases. So those are essentially just the learned brain chemistry that account for and describe the many ways in which society has been conditioned to ignore certain people and certain experiences. If you visit my website, he will say that I say and probably playing their terms that the visibility game is rigged, and it is rigged against people like us. And so the struggles that we have with becoming visible, maintaining visibility, and leveraging that into the things that we want and need, whether that is income or impact or influence, or anything else, are not flaws of the system, they are actually features. So that is what I uncovered. In my work, I started naming some of these visibility biases that I saw, or uncovering them in other research. A great example of a visibility bias that I uncovered myself in research that I did is called the racial attention deficit. This one is one that always surprises people, even if they expect it. And what the racial attention deficit has been able to demonstrate is that at least in the context of America, right, it was a big study. But it was a narrow study that discovered this, at least in the context of America, white Americans are 33% more likely to overlook their black peers in favor of their white peers. And that's even when they've been incentivized to pay attention to those peers. And when they know that those black peers have or know something that will help them with their current issue or problem, something that folks in the marketing and brand and PR space tend to call brand salience, which is like the gold standard for how influential or effective a brand is, right? And so so what we're talking about, and what we're dealing with are very, very significant. This isn't just sort of the you know, and I say just with air quotes, you can't see my face, but I'm rolling my eyes. Right, this isn't just the proliferation of micro aggressions over a lifetime, right? This is literally being made invisible, despite all the efforts that you might make the time, energy and money that you pour into becoming more visible or becoming effectively visible. This is being made invisible in spite of all of that. So. So yeah, when I uncovered or noticed and started naming these things, hand in hand, with that came the idea that obviously, you know, something had to be done. I this is, this is why I got into this research and the work that I wanted to do in the first place, right, because I wanted to make sure that under recognized and this is what I say instead of under represented, under recognized leaders got into the rooms that mattered to their work, and that they weren't in there just as tokens or as figureheads, meant to pose gracefully for just the opportunity to lead even without any actual power or influence, right, that they would be in those rooms with actual influence and position to have ultimate impact. So I started researching again, science is very clear, I suppose I should say, Yeah, science is very clear about how to go about changing or influencing human behavior. That is everything that behavioral science is about network science to a certain extent, which is another one of my my loves, that I use in this work that I do. They're very clear about how to change human behavior. And so if we leverage that knowledge, that's how we can begin to sort of grease the wheel on some of these things, largely, because everything that we are after as movement makers, which by the way, love the name of this podcast, absolutely love that. Whatever thing we are after as movement makers can be boiled down to changing human behavior. Right. And depending on the work that we are trying to do, it's changing the behavior of an individual or changing human behavior at scale. And so if I had to wrap up what it is that I do, and or rather how it is that I do what I do, I would say that I beat leverage what I know about how human brains work, too. help folks like the folks who are listening to this right now to equip them to overcome these visibility biases to help them negate what I call invisibility taxes, which are the extra bit of time energy or money that underrecognized folks pay in order to be visible, or even just seen as part of the club. Right? And, in doing so, also equip them, like I've said before, to emerge from the margins. And well, I guess I should pause and see if you have any questions. talking for quite a while they just die.
Nikki Groom
I'm loving this. I'm like, no, keep going. This is absolutely fascinating. And this is why I was so looking forward to our conversation in the first place. But yeah, you're right. I do have lots more questions now. And I'm like, huh, which way should we take this? Well, first of all, I knew that you had done some work with the United Nations. But I don't think I actually realized that you're an international mediators. So Oh, my gosh, like mind blown. I love just nonchalantly talks about doing that work. And I love how can noticing who was getting into certain rooms, and all those kinds of research that you were doing around that time, just just open these corridors in your mind about where could this go next? Yeah, I guess I'm curious how you went from doing that work, to doing what you're doing now. And I feel like it does you a disservice to just call you like a branding consultancy, because the work is so much deeper than that, and so much more impactful. But yeah, when did that pivot happened for you? If you even want to call it a pivot? Or when did you decide that it was time to create your business and create your business in this way?
N. Chloé Nwangwu
Yeah, that's a really great question. It's a complicated one, though, because I been an entrepreneur, I would say for maybe three or so years, before I realized that this was, this was the thing. It's just that my entrepreneurial life was tangentially related, maybe we can say, so at the time, I had been consulting as a Yeah, like as a brand consultant, I suppose, essentially, but really, brand consulting, lashes, strategic communications, plus mediation. It's just the combination of all of those things. And it was actually the Yemeni civil war that actually clicked made. This clicked for me. At the time, I was consulting with a group of independent diplomats, right. And so what that meant is that they were diplomats, but they weren't connected to any nation in particular, they would be brought on to support democratic separatist movements and small democratic governments whose needs had been sidelined at the UN and refugee leaders and that sort of thing. Right. So just very cool, very exciting work. And so I was consulting with them in my capacity as a digital diplomacy expert. And for those who are unfamiliar, just think of like a typical bird. ANDing and marketing person, right. So doing all the design and the, like the graphic design and like the putting out social media posts and all that stuff that you just need picture when you picture someone who does, who does branding and marketing. But now picture someone doing that on behalf of a nation state. And so I was working with them in that capacity across a number of different projects. And it was really, it was really the Yemeni civil war that made this click for me, as I said before, that the folks that we had been brought on to support, they were not a part of the UN peace process, as far as anyone was concerned. And that was, even though they were a pretty sizable chunk of the population in Yemen. And so I think that was the first, the first time like, you know, there have been rumblings in my work before, even before I'd become a digital diplomacy consultant. And I was, you know, working a typical nine to five, at a big nonprofit, actually, I was working at the anti Defamation League. So I was doing anti bias and anti discrimination work, and crisis management, when bias incidents would break out in my state. And so yes, there have been rumblings of this beforehand. But really, it was this conflict in particular, that made it stick out for me. And that was because, again, like I said, this ethnic group, really, if this civil war was going to end, if this civil war was going to end with a peace agreement or settlement that was going to be in any way sustainable, these people should have been at the table. Yeah, and they were not. And that is my I think it's a bit dramatic to call it a crisis of faith. But I realized that the limitations of, of what I could do where I was, and it wasn't just the limitations of mediation, though, I'm sort of loath to admit that because I love mediation, and, you know, still consult time to time on it. But it was the limits of my skill set at the time, because my work was, until then, focused primarily on supporting the folks who were already in those rooms. Getting folks into those rooms had never crossed my mind, I just assumed that the system would work. And then whoever needed to be in those rooms would be in those rooms. And in hindsight, it's naive, because I have observed that very much not being the case in many other parts of my life, as a black woman who is young, ambitious, and smart, if I can say without sounding too. That stuff, yep. Yeah, like I've seen access issues before, right, like I was fully aware, but for some reason, it just didn't occur to me that this would be happening here. So um, so that's really how that pivot began. And I think I can credit this group of independent diplomats that I was working with, and especially my mentors in that group, and the folks who had brought me on foot and full well, knowing that my work was aligned, but not not exactly what they needed, right. So they brought me in because of a mediation experience. And also because of my digital diplomacy experience, right? They knew that I didn't yet have experience getting folks into these rooms, which is primarily what they do all day. It's why they'd been brought on by this group. But they brought me in anyway. And because of a lot of that mentorship, I was able to find my way in a bit. And it was in this particular time, while I was you know, more heavily consulting with this group, though I do it from time to time now to that I began to hone my perspective and some of the tools that I use even now in my work, and they gave me the space to do that, which I am super grateful for. So I can say happily, even though I have not been involved in going on in the civil war in Yemen for quite some time, that by the time I had left, and by the time my my role, at least in that particular project or that file as we call it was done. This group was out the negotiating table, they were part of the UN peace process. Amazing. Yeah. And so I got to see that happen in real time and contribute in my very, very, very small way. And I cannot stress that enough. It was a very small role. But still, it was one that not only opened my eyes, but allowed me to start developing towards ultimately what I've become so
Nikki Groom
amazing, amazing stuff. Yeah, I mean, this is fascinating to me, I could listen to you talk about all of this all day long. At the same time, I'm so intrigued by the tools that you had mentioned in your toolkit. And I'm thinking about how so many of us do so often feel like we want to seek more of that attention and recognition so that we can do our great work. But I'm curious what your message would be for those who are feeling overlooked? Or who are feeling like they're struggling to negate invisibility taxes? What do you really want them to know about how they can bridge the gap to where they're meant to be? How, how should they begin to think about navigating all of that? Or what are some of the things that you teach?
N. Chloé Nwangwu
Yeah, that's a really good question. So I think the first thing that I would say, before I even start getting into tools and how to bridge the gap is just sort of a reiteration of what I said earlier that this experience is not unique to them. It is not a personal failing, it is a systemic one. And so any feelings that you have wrapped up in your own inadequacy, or inability to get as visual as some of your peers who have, let's say, greater environmental protections or privilege than you, those things are not a result of your lack of elbow grease, right, they're not the result of you're not trying hard enough, or not being in enough places or not having enough posts up not being on enough channels, or whatever it happens to be right. That's not why that's happening. It is because people have been conditioned to ignore you, and you are paying extra to be visible. So I think that's the first thing that I would say, and just sort of like center people in that understanding. And then I would say that, it depends as far as what bridging the gap looks like, when I think about doing so I think about it in three stages. The first stage is articulating your advantage or making your genius visible, articulating your signature insight. Lots of people call this a lot of different things. But I think that this is something that is, as movement makers, this is something we tend to rush through. Because we're eager for the impact. And that's not something I fault folks for this is the pot calling the kettle black, right? I've absolutely have that same person or that same impatience. But there are very fundamental things that we tend to overlook, in our rush to get to that impact. And so what I would say is that, for example, right? If you find yourself in this sort of situation, where you're having difficulty articulating what it is you do to anybody, in any scenario, or if you're air quotes, elevator pitch turns to mush in your mouth, right? Or, or you get a sense of panic. When someone asks you what you do, and you know that you have 3.5 seconds to try and explain this very complex body of work that borrows from various traditions before this person loses interest, and you still don't have the knack of it. If that's you, then there are, there are things that you need to address as far as articulating your advanced vintage or your Virginia's is concerned. So that's sort of the first thing that I consider.
Nikki Groom
You know, it's interesting, I just had a conversation with Jada Sellner, who has been a previous guest on this podcast. She was asking me a little bit about the work that I'm moving into because I find myself at a bit of a transitional point. And I think back 10 years ago to when I first started my business, which has definitely evolved a ton and how has like, I just want to figure out what my quote unquote thing is. Yeah. And as I was talking to her about the work that I'm moving into, she was good enough to say, you know, I, I feel like that's been the through line through how all of the work that you've been doing. And you know, sort of that urgency that so many of us feel to get things figured out, you are right, it can't happen overnight. Like it really has to be leaning into all of the things, our ideas, our experiences. So that's certainly something that I have personally found too. And I know that so many grapple with is not sort of a three step process to figure out exactly what your signature advantage or insights or genius is, but so that there's growing dawning awareness, I often talk about it in terms of deepening into the work that's calling you forward, because it's, it's slower than we would often like. So I'm glad that you emphasize that. The frustrating part oftentimes, but it's important to not be too hard on ourselves, I think is we try and figure all that all of that
N. Chloé Nwangwu
stuff out. Yes, 1,000%. I literally could not agree with the statement more. And this brings me in like five different directions that are not the other two steps for crossing the bridge that I wanted to talk about. But I feel like I must talk about the habit so well. And so it's two things. One, what you're talking about, right, this, this slow awakening, or dawning or deepening that we're talking about. This is in fact, the entire purpose of one of the four stages of visibility that I've I've sort of discovered, and here I will say discovered, because these are this, this is something that I intend, after lots of observation. So So in my work, I've seen four phases of visibility, right. And this idea of, of deepening into this work, what I call sort of like a branded download, this is this is the full purpose of one of these phases. And this is why some of the issues that we've been talking about and some of that, well, here, I'll put it this way, what I often see is folks are trying to do the right thing as far as becoming more visible and more effectively visible is concerned. They're trying to do the right things, right. And they've heard about all the right things from various different people, but they're doing it at the wrong time. And more often than not, what I have seen is, as I mentioned, before, folks are skipping key parts of this particular phase of visibility, and reaching into tactics and strategies that are part of that next phase where you focus more on strategic attention. And that is what leads to a lot of the situations I talked about before the frustration that you have, when Gosh, you're grinding between trying to make your vision real, and trying to feed it with all the resources that it needs to survive, whether that's time or energy or money, a lot of the mismatches and friction and frustrations that I see folks going through as far as resourcing their vision for the world. And as far as getting visible are concerned, is because folks are are skipping this trying to skip rather this key phase. And I won't say that it's before they're ready, because that's not it exactly. It's more that they're not addressing the barriers that are in front of them, and they're addressing barriers that are further down the line. So that is often what I see. And this is also why I see folks turn to and if you have been with me on social media for any stretch of time, and you can't see me but like I've just gotten very I just become my sassiest right now I have my hands all I have like my, my head is just tickling very intensely, right. Like, if you've been with me for any period of time, you know, that my aside from visibility, biases and invisibility taxes, my sworn enemy is niching niching niching niching has been sent from hell to kill me and I I literally cannot say enough about this. And this might be a whole other like podcast episode, where I tell you what's wrong with niching and why it bothers me so much and why I hate it so deeply. But if I could just very briefly talk about that. I would say that niching is a tactic. That is meant to be used in very specific instances. And there are marketers out there who either knowingly or unknowingly share it as a tactic that if you are in business you should use right. So like, if you're in business, you should be niching. Right? That is wrong on so many levels. And what it leads to, is this ever moving target, where as you continue to struggle with the dual parts of your purpose, the movement making and the supporting of that movement, right, the resourcing of that movement. So as a small business owner who has a greater purpose, right, as you struggle with the dual sides of that, work, niching continues to contribute to that those struggles by sort of saying, hey, if your niche was a little tighter, this would be working out. If your niche was a little bit more magnetic, this would be working out. If your niche was a little more irresistible, this would be working out. And it's not too real.
Nikki Groom
So happy that you said this, there have been so many times that I've seen witnessed others grappling with it, and I have grappled with it, especially when being surrounded by some incredible mentors who were like, You got a niche, you got to do this, like, but I have this like bigger vision. And I feel like I'm just kind of sandwiching myself into a box. So yes, yeah, yes.
N. Chloé Nwangwu
No, look, it's like it is. Like I said, that's a whole it's a whole other thing. And we should actually definitely sit down and talk about this. I am
Nikki Groom
so down to do that. Yes, I'm so so down to do that. Yeah,
N. Chloé Nwangwu
but but the science, I will just say it this way, the science does not support niching in the large majority of cases. So if you have been agonizing over finding your niche, I would like to release you from that. Now. That is not the struggle, right?
N. Chloé Nwangwu
Yes. Like, the problems and issues that you are trying to solve are not issues that niching was meant to, to solve, right? I know a lot of people turn to niching because they're struggling with talking about or describing what it is that they do in a way that is succinct, and compelling. And whatever else, you know, add insert important or adjective here, right? But that's not a problem of niche, but niching solves. That's the problem that positioning solves. That's positioning. Positioning is something similar, but different. So Oh, I could talk about that for ages. Okay. Okay, okay. Like,
Nikki Groom
shall we Shall I reel you back? Because I honestly could talk about this with you for so many hours, I definitely do think we need to figure out another way to have another conversation about all of this, because it's so good. But what what was the second two steps that you're gonna take us through earlier? I am Yes. So on the edge of my seat.
N. Chloé Nwangwu
Thank you for really bad, I did need that. But like also, this, this, this liberals version was also needed.
N. Chloé Nwangwu
So, so not to leave you in suspense much longer. The second of these three steps that I usually take folks through when we're trying to cross this bridge, right is formulating chemistry. And this is where all of the the sort of typical brand management and strategy and some of the marketing stuff that folks are familiar with, when they hear about somebody who works with brands, this can be where a lot of this stuff falls in theory, I will say, but the idea of formulating chemistry is one of first of all, knowing who the right stakeholders to spark chemistry are in the first place to spark chemistry with are in the first place, right? Let me put all my prepositions in there, which is not something that we acknowledge and remind me to talk stakeholders. I'm going to move on but remind me in a moment to explain stakeholders further. So first of all, it's knowing who those stakeholders should be especially if you're an underrecognized. Leader, right? So that's one, two, understanding how you are perceived by said stakeholders, right? And this is through the lens of visibility biases, not just through the lens of your efforts and what you have built but through the lens. As of what behavioral science can tell me folks see and notice, and then using or leveraging both of those things, to gain a deeper understanding of how it is you need to be perceived in order to meet your goals, and then engineering the way there. So that's what the process of formulating Chemistry is all about. When I talk about this process, and I have talked about it elsewhere, I can probably include links or something. But when I talk about this process, I talk about ensuring that you are industry aware, but distinct. And this is a perspective that does come from behavioral science. Well, when I say behavioral science, I would say this comes from an understanding of how the human mind works, or the human brain works, right? In that you have to look and feel. And in some ways, communicate, like you belong to the thing that you belong to, right, whether it's an industry or vertical, or whatever it happens to be. But you also need to be distinct in order for the brain to pick up on you at all. And you need to be distinct in specific ways in order to overcome some of these visibility biases, right? So it's a particularly tricky balance to strike. And I guess at this point, I'll go back to the idea of stakeholders, because I still remember it. And I will say, I will say that part of the reason it's so tricky is because when we are talking as brand and branding and marketing and PR and whatever else is tangentially related to this, right, when we are talking about this, when we're speaking from that perspective, there is one stakeholder it is your ideal client. That is that to the stakeholder is this is something that I feel almost as passionately about as good. But I will, I will, I will not go quite as quiet. But I will also say that ideal client avatars I see as ruining your business, do not trust them. They are poison. So I will just say those alarming things. And I will say that this is because especially as an underrecognized person, and like honestly, really just think about any situation that has been new to you, right as an underrecognized person, right? You enter any room that you have not been in before, and you need to make something happen. Right? When we walk into those rooms is under recognized people, there's no way in, heck, no way in heck, that the only person that we need to pay attention to in order to be successful, is the person who we're trying to get to support us. Right? That has never been our experience. Sometimes, as I have, you know, stressed multiple times. And as we spoken, sometimes we can't even get in the door. Okay, and so, so one of the most overlooked stakeholders that I find that folks in my field are just sort of like completely oblivious about are gatekeepers do not understand our gatekeepers, as small business owners and as movement makers who are under recognized, that is a death sentence to any work that we hope to see. We have to understand the gatekeepers, we have to understand what motivates them. And we have to understand their role as a gatekeeper. Right? Are they? Are they just just the guy standing at the door? Who is perfectly pleasant and will open the door for you? If you ask, right? Are they someone who is protecting something inside? Are they literally gatekeeping? And that, you know, only certain people are allowed in here? Right? And what does that mean in the context of the work that you're trying to do? No, there's so many, so many variables, and I could talk for ages about this right? But in my work I have uncovered, let's say, at least five key stakeholders that we need to be paying attention to as underrecognized movement makers And that's for more than what typical brand strategy suggests, right? And we have to balance all of those perspectives, and all of those motivations, as we are formulating chemistry. So that's why it's such a tricky balance to strike amongst other things. So that's the second.
Nikki Groom
That's awesome. I'm so happy that you talked about that. Because you're absolutely right. Yeah, I love it when you get when you get passionate.
N. Chloé Nwangwu
Thank you. Good, good stuff. And so the third and final thing that we do, or thing that I take folks through is finally, finally, finally, generating influenced, and this often doesn't look the way that people expect. And what I often have found is that books will get to a place where they are stretched, so thin, that influence is really the last thing on their mind. So they're in so many different places, right? I'm, if I can, you know, if I can talk very specifically in the instance of small business owners, because I know that's who's likely listening here. You're in so many different places at once you're on Instagram, and LinkedIn, and you're considering an illicit career on tick tock. And, of course, you also have to communicate with your email list at least once a week, right? And, and you're in all of these different places. And then maybe you have like a group community at you know, like, you're stretched, incredibly thin, it's exhausting. It's exhausting. It's exhausting. Again, part of the reason is because of invisibility taxes, right. And that's something we always need to negate and nullify. But part of the reason also is because we have a fundamental misunderstanding, as a society, about how social change actually happens. And when I say social change, I'm talking about behavior change at scale, we believe that if you connect with one or two, or if you focus by connecting with influencers, let's say. So folks who are very well connected, have huge audiences and you know, blood that love the blood, right? If we connect with those folks, and then at the same time, ensure that we are are as visible as possible in as many places as possible, then the message we are trying to get out, the change that we are trying to see in the world has the best possible chance of happening. And I am here to tell you, unfortunately, that that is another darling of your I will have to kill I'm so sorry. The science is not supported. Okay, on a lot of different levels. First level is this, right? That as an underrecognized person, especially, but just sort of generally showing up in as many places as possible, especially if you don't have the first two steps that I've talked about sort of fine tuned, actually works against you. Because what you are doing is you are becoming part of the noise that we have been conditioned to filter out. And as an unrecognized person, you're more susceptible to being considered noise. So that's one thing showing up in lots of different places can and very often does train other people to overlook us. I'm just gonna let that sit for a second. I was like, ooh. Because I know that things I'm just gonna let that sit for a second. Yeah, yeah. I love it because
Nikki Groom
as somebody with a marketing background, like I know all the things that we could be should be doing and I know so many who struggle with this like feeling so exhausted, so stretched, then trying to be in all the places all at once. Yeah. And you're saying that the more you do that, the more likely you are to do be overlooked?
N. Chloé Nwangwu
That is exactly what I am saying. Wow, on, fortunately, yeah. And this is only going to get worse. And I'll explain that very quickly. So, I am sure you have either heard or will soon be hearing more about something called the attention, economy, right. And it is exactly what it sounds like, attention is a commodity, it is something that we have precious little of. So we in this attention economy will barter and trade and do what we can to get as much of it as we can. However, because there is so much content, and data being thrown at us, and frankly, at this point, there is more of that than there has ever been in history, and it continues to grow, we have, ooh, how would I put this, we have more noise to wade through as a civilization. Add to that the fact that we have just been through and are still sort of navigating the tail end of and I put this with air quotes and cross fingers of a global pandemic. And things further complicate folks will have noticed this in their own lives. But the pandemic has changed us and our capacity for attention and cognitive load in ways that we are still discovering. Again, more data and content than has ever been shoved in front of us is being shoved in front of us, like more than ever has been. But on top of that, because of the pandemic. We've all been held hostage to all of that data and content in ways that we had not ever previously been, when we were living our usual lives before the pandemic, leaving the house driving to work, you know, like whatever it happened to be right going places, we had other things to maybe draw our attention away from this particular onslaught. Normal things, right. But because we have been held captive to this unprecedented amount of information for two plus years, we're in a state of what I call attentional fatigue. And what that means is that not only do we have more things to wade through to filter out as far as noise is concerned, but we have fewer resources with which to do that. And so what that means is that our brains filters are especially judicious. And it is a very narrow margin of things that can get through an overactive filter unscathed, essentially. So that is sort of the dire situation of the attention economy. And so that's why when you add to that particular account, powderkeg visibility biases, and showing up in as many places as we possibly can. With those visibility biases well in place, and sometimes without those other two things that I mentioned before in place, we very easily get relegated to so much noise. Again, it's increasingly more likely that we will be as time goes on. So that's the first thing I say, trying to remember the second thing Ah, yes. The second thing, right. The second thing is this. influencers are not they're not what is going to get behavior change to happen at scale. If you look at any major social change that has happened in the last century, if you look at any sort of major adoption of like a new tool, Twitter I think is like a really Great example, before it started blowing up, look at the massive adoption of tools like that, which is kind of behavior change, right? The influencer, that may have put some of those things on your radar weren't the cause of the behavior change, they were the bellwether. More often than not, they are the last piece to turn. So what network science has been able to tell us about how social change happens, or how behavior change at scale happens is that it's not through an influencer. But rather, it is often through what I might call a small network of peers on the periphery of whatever is going on. But that's how behavior change at scale actually happens, how it actually begins, it begins with small clusters of inner circles are beginning to change, and then connecting with others, smaller clusters of inner circles, who then begin to adopt that change, and so on and so forth. And so, rather than saying, or wondering, okay, how can I get in front of as many people as possible in order to influence their behavior? What you really want to be asking is, where, and more often than not that, where is how many of us, it's in clusters of places where people know each other pretty well. And what actually happens is that a person will observe to three of their peers, people that they know and trust, in some particular formation, it depends on the kind of behavior change that's happening, they will observe this change in them. And that's what makes it click for them. That's what then causes them to change. But these clusters of networks, these clusters of people who are changing, can't be too close to, you know, the center of the action. Because there are too many, what folks in networking science will call countervailing influences or forces, but really what I just call the Ides of the status quo, there are too many wins have the status quo at the center of all the action. And so change is more likely to be stifled there. So that's why the idea of beginning with an influencer so misguided, because they are at the center of all of that status quo. So yeah, so when you take all of that together, what it means is that as an under recognized movement maker, in order to generate influence, you really, really, really need to be considering how to structure your communication network, not just the things that you will say or how you will say it, which you know, I think that we tend to handle in the previous parts of the work that I do with folks, but the actual structure of that communication network and where you are going to boost that message. So that's what I will say, on generating influence.
Nikki Groom
Amazing I am in a war you have taught us so many good things in the last hour and given us so much to think about. I want to thank you so much for giving up your time to be here with us today. before we go, would you be able to share any ways that people might be able to connect with you or stay tuned into the work that you're up to? Yeah, absolutely.
N. Chloé Nwangwu
Absolutely. So a couple of things if you are somebody who suspects that you are dealing with invisibility taxes or facing off against visibility biases and you are not sure how to go about fixing that, I do have a visibility diagnostic called the visibility RX so you know, like it for scription that is completely free. And so if you take this diagnostic, what it will be able to tell you is, where your hidden strengths are, where some of your blind spots may be, and things that you want to consider working on as a result. And it connects to all three of these things that I spoke about earlier this articulating advantage, formulating chemistry and generating influence. So if that's something you're interested in, I'm sure we'd be interested in I'm sure we can leave like a link in the show notes, right. So I just I don't want to leave folks with all this doom and gloom. There is help take that diagnostic. And it will, it will show you what your next step ups can be. If you are somebody who knows that you want to talk to me directly, right? Like any of these particular issues, or things that I've spoken about are like hitting real close to home closer maybe than we're comfortable with. Absolutely, feel free to follow me or reach out to me on Instagram or LinkedIn, I am in those places often. So DM me in any of those places, either, like connect with me on LinkedIn, or DM me on Instagram with the word network. And like we can begin talking about stuff, feel free to ask any questions that you have, I will know that you came from Nikki's interview. And I will know also like the context that you're coming from what you've heard and what you understand. So feel free to reach out to me that way. I am at Adobe works on Instagram, you can find me under my full name on LinkedIn. If you want to go to my website and learn a little bit more about invisibility taxes, like the different kinds that there are and visibility biases and some of this, you know, some of these routes that I almost went on, as far as I see as a niching concern. I'm gonna go to nopi works.com. Definitely check out my blog. I talk about these things all throughout the websites. There are lots of resources there. Let's see what else. Honestly, I think that's it. Yeah. So if you if you have questions, or you want to talk to me directly, reach out either via LinkedIn or Instagram, drop the word network. And I will know where you're coming from and immediately have enough context to like, engage with you. And also know not to ignore you, which sometimes happens. So like full disclosure, full disclosure, otherwise, take that diagnostic, check out things that I've written on this. And let's work on emergence in the margins together. This is not a a journey that is easy, even if you know what you need to do, even if you know the exact steps. And so I want to encourage as much as possible for us to be doing those things in community, not only because the science supports that being a key element to social change in general, but also because it makes this journey a lot easier.
Nikki Groom
Amazing. Thank you so much, Chloe, this was phenomenal. I appreciate you so much. And let's stay in touch. Okay,
N. Chloé Nwangwu
Absolutely. Thank you for having me.