Lesson one: Leadership Makes Errors
Lesson two: Accountability for those Errors is Critical
Lesson three: If you can correct your error and exceed expectations, do so.
Two weeks ago I was running out the door for work, but was excited about the new Korean Movie Night tote that I just received in the mail that morning. I quickly shot an Instagram Boomerang with my new swag and added a celebratory AANHPI Heritage Month sticker, or so I thought, to the image and posted it on my personal Instagram stories.
Is it me? Am I the drama?
Yes. I was the drama. Shortly after I posted to my stories I noticed my snafu, then I received a message from a dear friend and colleague saying…
“Not Ricki with the Native Hawaiian erasure in her stickers.”
The next morning I posted a correction with the ONLY AANHPI Heritage Month sticker available on Instagram published by the Peace Corps. reading: *Correction from yesterday’s post with an “AAPI” sticker which should have been an AANHPI sticker. Making sure we have Native Hawaiian visibility & inclusion as we celebrate this month!*
Within minutes, several of my Native Hawaiian friends and colleagues liked the correction post. It was all the confirmation I needed.
Beyond Correction, Creating Solutions
As a firm, NUNA works daily to combat the invisibility, omission, and erasure of Indigenous communities and communities of color. To say that this was a *facepalm* 🙈 moment is an understatement.
With a simple Instagram story I had contributed to a global problem. If anyone has the direct skillset and knowledge on fixing this problem. It would be us.
So, I brought this to our team to create a solution along side our Kanaka Moali graphic designer Nadia Kawehionapua Le’i.
In a week, the NUNA team was able to create and publish four new stickers via GIPHY that are now searchable on all social media platforms with a GIPHY sticker feature.
All of the artwork is based on traditional patterns from Hawai’i, Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia with a little nod to NUNA’s Korean heritage for the Asian American sticker pattern. We also made sure to include Indigenized vernacular of the communities being celebrated (I.e. Kanaka Maoli Heritage Month and Pacifika Islander Heritage Month) as part of the suite of images.
Soft launched on Friday, May 26, 2023 via my personal social channels, we saw an initial increase of 311% with specific use of the Kanaka Maoli Heritage Month Sticker being the highest viewed sticker of the suite. As of today, our suite of stickers has been viewed/used over 5,300 times and still counting.
Search AANHPI or NUNAVERSE to use our stickers over the next couple of days as the Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage month.
Feel free to tag us on Instagram & Facebook (@NUNAverse) or Twitter (@NUNAGroup) or send us an email with your thoughts.
