Writing Thought-Provoking Opinion Pieces

"Men and women were, on average across studies, more than twice as likely to describe a male (vs. female) professional by surname in domains, such as science, literature, and politics. We find that this simple difference in reference affects judgments of eminence, with participants judging those professionals described by surname as more eminent and 14% more deserving of a career award. This gender bias may contribute to the gender gap in perceived eminence as well as in actual recognition and may partially explain the persistent state of women’s underrepresentation in high-status fields." https://lnkd.in/gS8X6dBf

The worth of an idea isn’t in who says it, but in what it says. Is the messenger distracting us when we should be focused on the message? Hierarchy, gender, perceived expertise, & even conformity has been called out time & again over the last 40 years as reasons why the best ideas haven’t been adopted. For example, in 1987 a study by Conner & Petty found that the ‘highest paid persons opinion’ was 50% more likely to be adopted. In 2012 Brescoll found that women’s ideas were 30% less likely to be implemented than men’s. We can’t deal with our biases unless we acknowledge them, & constantly check them. It isn’t enough to say I am not being biased, we need checks & balances to make sure. In 1942, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote a book. It was called The Little Prince. In the story a Turkish Astronomer discovers an asteroid - B-612 - in 1909. When he tries to describe his discovery to the Society they won’t believe him because of his flamboyant clothes. In 1920 he goes back. This time in Western clothes, & they accept his findings! The Little Prince, in the story, also meets a railway switchman, who describes that the adults have no idea where they are as they are too busy being busy - the children are the only ones that bother looking out of the windows. Saint-Exupéry’s book is a children’s book - but in reality it’s probably describing adults to adults! How do we better look outside our carriage & keep our biases in check? ————————————————————————————— I talk about these things on LinkedIn: 📈 #Strategy & notably, our effect on implementation. ♻️ #Sustainability, our biggest business opportunity. #Leadership #Management #Change

It is time to rethink how we talk about climate change 🌎 Sharing my latest article for Inc. Magazine on why fear alone is not an effective long term strategy for climate communication. Over the past decades, the climate narrative has centered on alarming data, catastrophic projections, and worst case scenarios. While this approach has successfully elevated the urgency of the issue, it has not always translated into meaningful behavioral or systemic change. Fear is a powerful motivator for immediate reaction, but its effect diminishes over time. Constant exposure to catastrophic framing often leads to emotional fatigue, desensitization, and disengagement. Without clear solutions or a sense of agency, the public is left concerned but uncertain about how to engage. The article argues for a more balanced and constructive communication approach. One that complements the sense of urgency with a forward looking and relatable vision. Rather than focusing only on sacrifice and decline, climate change can also be framed as an opportunity to rethink how we live, move, and produce. Drawing on insights from Futerra’s Sell the Sizzle report, the piece outlines four critical elements of effective climate messaging: Vision, Choice, Plan, and Participation. These components can help build a narrative that is not only accurate, but also engaging and action oriented. Reframing the story of climate change is not about reducing the severity of the issue. It is about increasing the relevance of the message. By presenting tangible and near term benefits, and by inviting people into the solution, communication can become a catalyst for broader participation and deeper commitment. You can read the full article here 👇 https://lnkd.in/g4hcb-Sd #sustainability #business #sustainable #esg

On Women, Men, and Authorship (or Things to Consider on International Women's Day) Authorship is essential for receiving intellectual credit and succeeding in academia. Yet, author order and naming practices vary widely across disciplines, often resulting in unfair or opaque attribution of contributions. In my experience, power dictates author order and inclusion decisions, with senior faculty often controlling who appears on a paper and in what order. (Note: I will never forget witnessing a senior faculty member repeatedly assign himself first authorship at the expense of his students—until he secured an endowed chair. Only then were his students "allowed" to be first.) This intuition—that power matters—is confirmed in a recent Journal of Management article. But it’s worse than just senior scholars exploiting younger researchers. The study finds that women are systematically more disadvantaged than men in authorship order. Key Findings: * Women report more disagreements over authorship naming and order. * Women feel less comfortable discussing authorship and credit allocation in research teams. * Women are more likely to be placed lower in the author order than their contributions warrant. * Women experience more instances of gift authorship (inclusion of undeserving authors) and ghost authorship (exclusion of deserving authors). * Men tend to receive more visible and high-status authorship positions. * Junior researchers and doctoral students—especially women—are disproportionately impacted by ambiguous authorship guidelines. What’s even more concerning is that the study highlights how small gender-based disadvantages early in a career can accumulate over time, leading to long-term disparities—a pattern I’ve personally witnessed throughout my career. What Can We Do? We need clear standards and transparency in how we assign authorship order. Yet... The study reports that no universal standard exists for determining authorship and credit allocation: * Different disciplines have inconsistent norms regarding author order. * Different institutions apply authorship rules inconsistently. Shockingly, 76% of U.S. Research 1 (R1) and Research 2 (R2) universities lack formal authorship policies or dispute resolution processes. So, Is the Problem Unfixable? Not necessarily—but change starts with us. (1) Reflect on your own practices—Are you being fair to everyone? Especially students? Especially early-career women? (2) Reflect on your colleagues—Are you comfortable with how they assign authorship order? And. If the answer is no—do something about it. Because everyone deserves a fair shake. Citation: Banks, G. C., et al. (2025). Women’s and Men’s Authorship Experiences: A Prospective Meta-Analysis. Journal of Management, 0(0). Link: https://lnkd.in/eFhTCh6F

On performative feminism, the creator economy and International Women’s Day. As a communications professional, I've had the privilege of contributing to and witnessing the evolution of International Women’s Day campaigns over the years. Whether crafting these campaigns or engaging as a guest speaker, it's been an enlightening journey, connecting with diverse audiences and witnessing firsthand how the concept of feminism resonates differently across generations within the communications sphere. While celebrating the strides made by women in breaking barriers, I can't help but worry about the phenomenon of performative feminism in certain online campaigns. Sometimes, in the pursuit of creativity or adherence to guidelines, there's a risk of losing sight of the day's true essence – to spotlight areas where progress is still needed. Here are a couple of critical points I believe deserve more attention in our collective online discourse this year: 1️⃣ Recognition: It's essential to amplify the stories of women who have made significant contributions across various industries, from STEM to literature. All too often, these trailblazers remain invisible, their achievements overshadowed or even stolen. As someone who only discovered many of these stories in adulthood, I'm passionate about ensuring that future generations have access to these narratives, inspiring them to dream bigger. 2️⃣ Diversifying Content Creation: Women content creators often find themselves confined to stereotypical categories like fashion or lifestyle. When they venture into other topics, they face disproportionate criticism and hostility, perpetuating systemic biases. While constructive critique is necessary, the vitriol directed at women creators about their gender and bodies is unwarranted and inhibits their ability to thrive in the digital landscape. I hope that in this post-pandemic, post-recession creator economy, we will continue to do better in our roles, to consume, engage and create ethically.

There, I said it. I will not diminish the work of feminism and the incredible strides the second wave feminists made in opening up work opportunities to women. But in proving our worth in the workplace we cast undue shame on any women who chose or needed to be at-home for a chapter. We left these women back with a caricature stuck in the 1970s. And we created a stark black and white notion of the “working” mom and the “stay-at-home” mom, suggesting the latter was defending tradition. When I chose to pause my career, the harshest judgments I felt was from women. And I love women so I really hate to say that. And it wasn’t their fault. They had inherited the flawed belief that I was somehow giving up on my ambition and feminism. But I’d never felt more ambitious and feminist than before. I was making the right choice for right now and I trusted I’d find my way back to the professional and creative world on my own terms. Like so many modern ambitious other women I met who were pausing and shifting. We deserved a new narrative about a fluid experience between work and family — one where we could make the choice to shift toward family for a season without shame and penalty. For too long women have been pitted against each other and we deserve better and we are going to come together to create a new world of work and family together. That will be our work of feminism.

This week, we take a look at M. Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty's Introduction to Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, and Democratic Futures. What is a genealogy? Genealogy, stemming from Foucauldian theory, is an analytic tool for uncovering historical events in a way that looks beyond one narrative to its affect and effect across multiple discourses, rather than detailing a linear timeline under one ideology. What is postmodernism? Postmodernism, rejects the idea of a "grand narrative" that is linear, choosing instead to recognize multiple, subjective interpretations of the world. Alexander & Mohanty chart the genealogies of the feminist intellectual project in US Women's Studies programs, the impact of postmodernism, and the importance of self-examination. They critique mainstream US feminist theory which has centered on white, hetero, cis, middle-class women's experience. While postmodernism has given us language move beyond essentialism (e.g. viewing all women's experiences as the same/equal), some critics argue that postmodernism has led to relativism, which can arguably dissolve categories of identity. Alexander & Mohanty contrast global/international feminisms with transnational feminisms, with the latter addressing key issues that the former does not consider, including: 1) thinking about women in similar contexts across different geographical spaces (rather than "all women are the same") 2) analyzing the unequal relationships among and between people (rather than international/global defined as an imagined set of characerstics to define non US citizens) and 3) including a broader analysis of the economic, political and ideological circumstances that center race and capitalism. The authors urge us to make the connections between local situations and the larger cross-national circumstances, replace the notion of relativism with "responsiblity, accountability, engagement and solidarity," and refuse to position third-world feminisms as a reaction to or in service of Western feminism's gaps. Rather, third-world feminisms is a theorization independent of white, Western feminism. They chart out a vision for a feminist democracy, identifying key features: 1) Understanding the central role that sexual politics play in governance 2) Understanding and transforming hierarchies of rule, their connections, and their impact on those most marginalized. 3) Defining women as agents of their own lives, but who are always connected to a larger feminist collective that advances a political culture of decolonization. 4) Drawing upon socialist principles in a hypercapitalist society. 5) Theorizing outside "the purview" of the imperial/colonial across transnational spaces of feminist struggle. Alexander, M. J., & Mohanty, C. T. (2013). Feminist genealogies, colonial legacies, democratic futures. Routledge.

How do we make climate communication resonate with the very people it affects the most? 💡 🌎 In my latest essay for Question of Cities, I reflect on this pressing question, drawing on my experience in journalism and storytelling, as well as research and fieldwork in the climate space over the last few years. The article outlines how dominant climate narratives often remain inaccessible, overly technical, and disconnected from everyday lived realities. Some key takeaways: 🔁 1. Translation isn’t enough—localisation matters. Efforts like the UNDP Climate Dictionary are welcome, but we need to go further. People don’t say “Jalvayu Parivartan”—they talk about rain delays, changing festivals, and crop failures. Climate terms must emerge from how people experience change, not how we define it. Climate must be framed as an everyday issue. For most people in India, climate change competes with daily concerns like food, housing, and livelihoods. 📚 2. Storytelling enables agency. We need to shift from policy briefs to bottom-up storytelling, where a fisherwoman in the Sundarbans or a tribal woman in Odisha becomes the knowledge holder. 🎭 3. Embrace diverse media and people’s science. From metaphor-rich language to theatre, dance, and music—creative formats hold emotional and cultural power. Even community-defined terms like “wet drought” offer nuance and should shape climate adaptation strategies. 📰4. Mainstream media must build capacity. At a recent workshop in Maharashtra, we saw how rural reporters struggle to differentiate between climate and weather. There’s little support for them—especially women—to cover these stories. Climate needs to be integrated into all beats, not confined to disaster or weather coverage. 🎯 5. Climate communications is not just outreach—it’s strategy. Too often, communication is underfunded and under-prioritised. But to build inclusive, impact-driven programmes, we must invest in grassroots media literacy, storyteller training, and long-term behavioural change campaigns. 🌏 In the coming years, we will witness a growing wave of efforts to communicate climate change in new and compelling ways as climate becomes centre stage in policy and mainstream narratives. But the real test of these approaches won’t lie in international recognition or polished campaigns. It will lie in how meaningfully they resonate on the ground—in how a coal worker in Jharkhand or a landless labourer in Maharashtra understands, imagines, and navigates a world that is 1.5 degrees C warmer. 🔗 Read the piece here: https://lnkd.in/dGG8ZNZn A big thanks to Smruti Koppikar and Shobha Surin for trusting me with this piece. And of course, this would not be possible without Asar and all the fabulous work that I have got to be a part of in the last 3+ years! #ClimateCommunication #ClimateJustice

On a recent trip to Costco with my kids we stopped for a free frozen pizza sample, and a few aisles later, two of those pizzas were in our cart. As anyone who has experienced something similar knows, free samples are one of Costco’s most effective sales tools. Research suggest they can boost product sales by up to 600%. That’s the power of reciprocity: Give people a taste, and they’re far more likely to come back for more. The same principle applies to content marketing—especially for lawyers. Many lawyers worry that if they share their best ideas, they’ll lose their edge. But clients (at least the ones you want to work for) aren’t looking to DIY their entire legal strategy and execution. They’re looking for evidence that you understand their problem better than anyone else. Giving away valuable insights—through articles, LinkedIn posts, webinars—doesn’t weaken your position. It strengthens it. That's because: - People buy after they know the answer—not before. - Thought leadership builds trust and familiarity at scale. - In a world of information overload, the real risk is obscurity, not oversharing. By publishing thoughtful, useful content, you’re giving potential clients a small sample of what it’s like to work with you. You’re showing them how you think, how you solve problems, and where you focus. And over time, that sample turns into trust. Trust leads to conversations. And conversations lead to clients.

Your audience is no longer knowledge-starved With AI tools like ChatGPT handing out summarized answers in seconds, information is no longer rare. I guess that’s why many brands are running away from Top of the Funnel(ToFu) content types. Well, I wouldn’t say scrap ToFu totally, because what’s rare now is original thinking. And with original thinking comes the desired mindshare. If you want your brand to own mindshare and be the name your audience thinks of first when they need insights, your content must do more than inform. It must connect, challenge, and convert. Let me introduce what I call “Mindshare Magnet Content.” These are content pieces that stick in the minds of your readers because they offer: ✔Clear answers they didn’t know they needed ✔A fresh or deeper perspective ✔An experience they feel, not just read So, how do you create Mindshare Magnet Content in an AI-saturated world? Start at the planning(outlining/briefing) stage with this checklist of smart, intentional questions: These questions are part of the “Reader's Obsession Inventory” checklist I use during content outlining. ✅ What has my/our audience already known about this topic? ✅ What do they believe that's partially true but needs more context or a mindset shift? ✅ What new insight or angle can I/we offer that they won’t find easily in AI-generated content? ✅ How should my/our content make them feel or think differently after reading? ✅ What specific question or pain point do I/we want to own in their mind? ✅ How can I/we back this up with a personal experience, real story, or data? ✅ What would make them bookmark or share this piece immediately? The goal isn’t to outwrite ChatGPT. It’s to outthink it. When you plan content around these questions, you’re not just creating content. You’re creating authority, trust, and memorability. 🧲 And that’s how your brand earns mindshare in a world full of information. What’s your strategy for standing out in this AI era? Have you ditched ToFu content pieces in your content strategy? I’d love to hear from you. #techwriter #techcontent #thoughtleadership #freelancewriter #contentstrategy #saascontentwriter #createwithpurpose