Today’s tool is a little different from what we’ve presented so far. It’s a Gmail extension that highlights portions of sentences that don’t allow us to emphasize our message. As equity, diversity and inclusion professionals, we want our colleagues and employees to be able to express themselves fully. Here’s a tool that might help!
Just NOT Sorry is a free Gmail extension, created in 2015 by Tami Reiss, Steve Brudz, Manish Kakwani and Eric Tillberg that launched in just 3 weeks and ended up with 500,000 users in just 2 years (source: Tami Reiss)!
Once you’ve installed Just NOT Sorry, the plugin alerts you whenever you write minimizing words like “I’m sorry”, “I just came” or “I’m not an expert” in an e-mail, by underlining these portions of sentences in red. When you hover over the underlined phrase, the extension provides succinct advice in a pop-up window explaining why you should amplify your message and not minimize it. If you choose to keep the underlined words, they won’t appear underlined when you send your e-mail.
Where did the idea come from?
The idea was born following an event for female business leaders. Tami Reiss and her fellow women were discussing how often they found themselves using gendered expressions and language, particularly when apologizing. She wondered why a group of female CEOs didn’t write with the confidence of the people in those positions.
Although the idea was originally to help women express themselves more assertively, this tool is relevant to anyone who wants to become aware of how we position our message and amplify or diminish our voice.
Note
This Gmail extension works for the English language only. It’s a non-profit project that may have a few bugs. You can report them to the designers, who seem to answer messages regularly.
