This past weekend I watched as a video we made went viral. In a little over two days it has been watched by over 300,000 people! The audience response has amazed me and it is still growing.
This video is part of a series of short videos we are doing about women who are breaking barriers and working in professions that were typically dominated by men. I am usually working on a personal project and many times it centers around a cause I am passionate about. In this case, I hope that these videos will create awareness and empower other women to pursue the careers they feel passionate about. Ultimately, I hope to eliminate gender bias from our conversation.
I’ve seen a lot of positive changes and opportunities open up for women since I entered the workplace some 35 years ago. It’s been a slow forward movement and I am very encouraged by the reach and impact that social media has.
I didn’t set out to make this video go viral 
and I don’t know if I ever could again. I merely took notice of a request from @Verticalmag to share the file so they could post it on their Facebook page. The file had already been uploaded to my Vimeo site and website but I opted to upload this particular video of Natalie Jones, a helicopter pilot with Erickson to the project’s Like a Woman Facebook Page. Then I passed the link to Vertical Magazine to post on their FB page. Within an hour the video went viral. Not only that, other videos from the project which were uploaded on the Facebook Page doubled or tripled their views.
My next step is to put out a call to action, asking people to pick up their phones and record a short message about what they are doing to break barriers so that gender inequality in the workplace is a thing of the past.
Journeys of a Hybrid 