Not what you have been socialized to connotatively recognize.
For years, I have done my best work by grappling with the grating feeling of existent, sometimes normalized and legitimized constraints. This started with a core desire to focus on solution-based journalism on the University of Ibadan campus, exploring stories that matter to the people’s overall wellbeing as students, and subsequently tasking team members to take on such stories as I assumed the role of the Editor-in-Chief.
When I ventured into marketing for early-stage startups, I grappled with the conventional model of prioritizing outreach volume for quick wins and traction, leading me to focus on a brand-first approach, based on the singular theory that a startup that can build and differentiate its brand, and attract early product adopters, will have those adopters become eventual brand evangelists. These brand evangelists will eventually spread the brand’s existence to their networks, thereby leading to long-term, sustained traction, upon which more structured, market-share-gaining marketing can then be built.
In my work with nonprofit organizations, I grappled with the conundrum in which organizations were constrained by scarce resources and public expectations of nonprofit operations, yet needed to market themselves to be better known and attract more supporters, all within the conventional cry against nonprofit marketing or outright promotion. By developing a brand-first, low-cost, and agile framework, I have helped small and lesser-known nonprofits become known names within their sector.
Across all these endeavors, the strongest catalyst for change has been my misfit with the status quo, the accepted norm, or the constraint that must not be named, but is known, and to which other things are being adapted to run as best as they can.
What I am grappling with.
The world’s problems are interconnected. Better still, my interests in the world’s problems are interconnected. It all boils down to one thing: structural inequalities, and designing models or frameworks to help the structurally marginalized gain some advantage.
Civil societies such as nonprofit organizations are rising to the task of complementing governments’ work in the welfare of the world’s citizens. They are working to give the structurally marginalized an advantage. But even these civil societies are structurally marginalized by mediated platforms. One of my lifelong missions is to solve the visibility problem faced by the sector at scale — take the theory beyond a handful of organizations where it has been implemented and design an adaptable, scalable framework for the nonprofit sector.
Nonpartisan organizations at the forefront of AI safety and governance, healthcare organizations, human rights organizations, and other civil societies are duly affected by this structural problem. They are investing their time, resources, and efforts into making the world a livable place.
To solve the visibility problem for the sector would mean to solve the information diffusion problem faced by these AI safety and governance organizations too. The risks of a post-AGI world could be very real. Yet, the asymmetry between communication about AI risks and communication about AI capabilities would mean our world is ill-prepared for the likely risks of AGI, leaving the people unaware of the risks at a disadvantage compared to the few who are aware of and prepared for the risks. The disadvantage gap may keep widening as AI advancements happen at an exponential rate.
This structurally asymmetrical information diffusion is what I am grappling with, an asymmetry worsened by the advancements our world has seen; an asymmetry that may be putting you or your organization at risk . I solve for it via three pathways: in my work with nonprofit organizations; through AI risk communication; and through marketing for social enterprises or social-impact organizations.
Nonprofit Visibility AI Risk Communication Social Impact Marketing