This blog ain’t for you … or is it?

Let’s be realistic: We all have individual characteristics and experiences that inform and, to a certain extent, bias our perspectives. This universal human tendency — to interpret information in a manner that is biased toward personal identity and experiences — has the potential to polarize, or to unite. However, before Greater Madison can realistically convert this potential energy into positive business outcomes, we must confront the individual biases (and privileges) that obstruct our ability to relate to people we perceive as “others” or “different.”

If you are the type of reader who is unwilling to test or expand your bandwidth for understanding minority (in the quantitative sense, not in the racial sense) perspectives on business and socioeconomics, then this blog ain’t for you. (Yes, I did just use non-standard English, but we will explore that, later.)

Let’s be honest: In order to continually mitigate my personal biases, I try to honestly share aspects of my identity that might limit my ability to understand or relate to diverse perspectives. For example, I am a young black male who hails from the great (and terrible) city of Chicago. Likewise, there are particular times when I am communicating with fellow Madisonians and feel as though my expressive style either is, or is interpreted as, particularly “youthful,” “male,” “black,” and/or “Chicagoan.”

Although there are myriad characteristics (including, but not limited to, “entrepreneurial” and “lawyerly”) that comprise my (real or perceived) identity, I believe that my style and my perspective are primarily governed by the attributes that I have elected to share with you today. If you are the type of reader who shies away from critical self-reflection concerning your relative position within the status quo of Greater Madison’s business sector, then this blog ain’t for you.

(Continued)

Let’s be prudent: Based solely on the select demographic keywords that I have chosen to reveal, it would be premature to draw too many conclusions about my perspectives. Would it alter your perception of my journalistic or business bona fides if you did not know that I consciously and purposefully use the word “ain’t” because I believe that important nuance is lost in translation between using “is not” and using “ain’t?”

Managing diverse modes of communication and interpersonal style is not just a social challenge within Greater Madison, it is also an issue of business prudence and economic development. If you are not interested in innovating the ways that our companies and consumers conceptualize and interface with diversity and multiculturalism, then this blog ain’t for you.

Let’s get started: Via this blog, Minority Biz Report, I hope to guide my readers along an uneasy odyssey through their personal biases — to ultimately challenge readers to consider the validity of unconventional perspectives on business development and consumer protection in Greater Madison. Minority Biz Report is designed to present business perspectives that are likely to be unpopular and, at times, outré within the cultural bounds of Greater Madison.

In a sense, Minority Biz Report will operate by applying a philosophy of discomfort to the prevailing business practices and cultural habits that limit our capacity for economic development in Greater Madison. I cordially invite you to journey with me, through the discomfort, to arrive at newfangled business and consumer practices that will likely benefit the (numerical) majority of Greater Madison. If that sounds like an intriguing value proposition, then this blog is for you.

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