Recently I’ve been doing a lot of networking at events, including one hosted by Network 25, our women’s network at Colt, and one of the things I find myself doing is rattling through the same old way of introducing myself: name, company, job role.
A colleague and I discussed this – the robotic nature of these introductions and how we’re actually more than just our job titles. We’re surrounded by incredible people that have equally incredible stories to tell, so why not share them and see what we can learn?
That’s how Humans of Colt was born. Inspired by the famous Humans of New York blog by Brandon Stanton, we wanted to create a series of written portraits of the people that we work with and the (sometimes unexpected) stories they have to tell. These aren’t networking introductions.
As humans, we’re always searching to find similarities with people to draw us closer together – liking the same band, graduating from university in the same year, taking our tea the same way. We’re taught that this is the way you build rapport, and in many ways it is, but where we actually learn from each other is not in our similarities, but our points of difference.
I feel so lucky to work in a global organisation with a very culturally diverse workforce, I can learn so much from the people around me every day. There’s an instinctive curiosity that I see in the people who work here, to explore new languages, cultures and ideas, to find the points of difference between themselves and others. It’s a place where people can be themselves.
I hope you enjoy reading our photoblogs here. We’re launching our first series today on World Cultural Diversity Day and we’ll be sharing more over the coming weeks and months.
– Rachel Collins, Senior Communications Specialist & Chair of Network 25
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