The December cover story series of Association Meetings just hit the Internet, and I have to say they were the hardest articles I have ever written (they are called Bias? What Bias?, 17 Ways to Be More Inclusive, and Can't We All Get Along?.
I did more thinking about my ways of doing things while writing this series than I can even begin to explain. I agonized over this series, because I knew that no matter what I did, it wasn't going to satisfy everyone—I couldn't be totally inclusive even in my writing. So how could you possibly manage it in your meetings? And a lot of what I heard from one person would be negated by another; what one found offensive, another did not; what one person thought would be inclusive, another found exclusionary. And there was a tendency to focus on race, when there are so many other ways in which we categorize ourselves. I talk about some of this in my editor's note, which also involved a lot of soul-searching.
Anyway, I'd love to get your take on these articles, my editor's note, or the topic in general. Please leave a comment below (you can register as anonymous if you prefer), or if you'd be more comfortable, feel free to drop me an e-mail. This is too big, and too important, of a topic to cover in the pages of a magazine. Let's talk.