That’s right. We’re not building regl’a ol websites. We’re designing platforms where all your various media channels can live, even while you’re participating in social media.

What’s the difference between a platform and website? A platform is a website designed to amplify your message and create communities from the audiences you already have.

This means that you can create a platform for your stories your videos, your images, your posts and, yes, even your tweets while still participating in the conversations happening on other platforms.

So I’m changing the course to better suit your needs. You don’t have to know any code to design your own platform. You just have to have a cause, a message, a story that needs to be heard and a community that wants to hear it.

We will work together to create a platform that will help you amplify your story. You bring your stories, I’ll bring my tools and together we’ll create something amazing.

Sign up for the course asapually and I’ll see you in class this May!

Now, ten years later, platforms like tumblr make it easy to find beautiful Brown people doing reg’la people things in all corners of the world.

It’s been exciting to watch the web transform into a space more representative of the world we live in.

But we’ve got some more work to do. While we have these images and stories readily available, we as Brown people rarely own the platforms where they are distributed.

And we should. After all these are our stories, our experiences, our lives. And they are worth owning both physically and digitally.

The Benin Empire wasn’t built in a day, but step by step, iteration by iteration, it became one of the greatest empires in West Africa.

We can also build our modern platforms, one website at a time. And the best time for us to start is now. It’s time for us to own the content and the platforms we put them on.

And these days, you don’t need to know how to code or design to build a beautiful website that works.

Let’s build the (digital) worlds we want to see, one story at a time. I will teach you what I know!

The next class starts this month! Sign up for Let’s Build on Afrolicious.com

This is the nature of the web: services come and go. Even if you’re not on Posterous, you’re likely using Tumblr or Blogspot or even Facebook to spread your stories, your messages, your graphics and images. Isn’t it time we owned our platforms?

I get it. Ownership is expensive. But the cost of having your stories packed up under someone else’s brand is greater. Even if Facebook never goes down, everything we give them – our snarky comebacks, our photographed memories, our long-winded commenataries – is theirs. That’s what we sign up for every time we sign up for a new ‘free’ platform.

The best time to build and cultivate your own platform was five years ago, right around the time Posterous began. The second best time? Now.

I’ve built many platforms for individuals and organizations over those five years and I want to teach you how to build yours. Sign up today for Let’s Build, a four-week course that will teach you how to build a platform you own.

Let’s build the worlds we want to see, one story at time.

Onwards!

For me, it means making Afrolicious more awesome this year. There’s a lot to do but I get carried away not doing work (procrastination, woo!) and then finally doing work and then signing on to twitter to take a ‘break’ and never really signing off.

You know how that goes.

But let me tell you: the moments where I was building the thing I’ve been building for the past several months, I was excited. Even when things were breaking, the momentum was enough to keep me going, to keep poking and asking questions until I found a solution or created a different problem.

On twitter, I use the hashtag #DoTheWork to get folx (me, mostly) motivated about…well… doing work. For me, it’s not just about the work, but the way work heals. You see, I loved someone very much, but when things fell apart, throwing myself into my work – telling stories online and teaching others how to do the same – was one of the ways I pushed through.

Eventually, ‘Do The Work’ became my mantra and prayer as in, “Lord help me to do the work because I don’t want to strangle this mofoloko.”

Doing the work isn’t an entrepreneurial thing, or a self-help thing, or a capitalism thing, although it can become any iteration of those. We do the work to heal ourselves. We do the work to heal others. We do the work to build better worlds for generations to come.

You can buy the Do The Work posters here: http://afrolicious.bigcartel.com/product/do-the-work-poster

Onwards,
-a!

Last week I realized that for all the noise I make about telling stories, I hadn’t really told mine. I mean, I told bits and pieces of it on twitter, on the blog and to my friends, but I hadn’t really told it to myself. I signed off of twitter (and promptly signed on to Facebook, baby steps), retreated to a quiet space (church) and… found myself stuck.

Oh dear. So this is what it’s like.

Even though I had coached and cajoled and cheerleaded others into telling their stories either by writing or drawing or painting or actually talking, it had been such a long time since I’d gone through the process myself. I forgot what blank pages do to the mind. I thought the quiet of church would afford no distractions, but I still found ways to *not* write, to not do the work.

Eventually, I just started writing. And all the little tweets and motivational quotes came to mind: ‘do the work’ and ‘keep moving forward’ and ‘always be creating’. I became my own cheerleader and by the time I put my pen down, I had seven handwritten pages of what Afrolicious was to me.

I can’t even describe the thrill of that moment, of what it felt like to flip through those pages, trying to decipher some unfortunate moments in my handwriting, knowing that most of the story was there, out of my head and in my hands. Literally.

I want you to feel that. I want you to be able to hold your story in your hands and know its truth. It won’t be perfect. Trust me, when I send off the typed up versions to my team, I expect them to rip it apart. But it’s out now and I can dream even bigger. I can keep moving forward because I am moving forward. And that’s the thrill.

So. What’s your story? Have you written (painted, told, sang, drawn, photographed) it? What’s stopping you?

This week on Afrolicious I’ll be sharing tips on how to tell a story, my thoughts on what a story is in the 21st century, and people who are telling their stories in all sorts of ways. Will yours be one of them? Send me a link to whatever you’ve got: ann@afrolicious.com

Onwards,
-a!

What do you believe?

I believe images and words have the power to transform the way we see ourselves. I believe the internet will be the platform through which these ideas will spread. I believe my ideas about transformation are radical and will work.

What do you believe?

The question now is how? How can Afrolicious help you tell your story? Whether you are an individual or representing an organization, you’ve got to get in front of your story or someone else will tell it for you.

Soon at Afrolicious you will find the digital tools you need to tell your story, to own it and to share it with the people and communities who need to hear it. There are thousands of resources available out there so I want to make sure we’re creating tools that are relevant and useful.

So what will you need to get in front of your stories? To own them? To share them far and wide? After building on the web for eight years, I’ve got some ideas but I want to hear from you. Drop a comment here on twitter!

Onwards,
-a!

As a young girl who grew up in the spaces between being American, being Nigerian and performing Blackness, I found Achebe’s stories to be a refreshing difference. They gave me something of my Nigerian-ness that I couldn’t get anywhere else. And, ultimately, they made me proud to be African.

Today we celebrate his passing with quotes and tweets, but the best way to celebrate this great writer is to tell your story. Write it boldly, sing it loudly, wear it through your fashion, or paint it fiercely on forgotten canvases. Just tell it.

Peace to Chinua Achebe. May the worlds he created with his words continue to be filled with wonder.

Technically, this blog was started on twitter and a good part of its archives and community is over there. I mean. That’s HUGE.

I’ve had amazing conversations on twitter and those conversations are evidences of our histories, whether we realize it or not. When I was first setting up this blog, Wale had gotten the #thatsafrican hashtag to trend, which was promptly trolled by racists and censored by twitter. And so the champion of the other story (that’s me) was born.

But it’s not enough to tell these stories. We must own the messages and the media and the platforms on which they sit. That’s always been my goal: to see the margins collectively owning the channels where our creative labor is distributed. I remember telling this to a former co-worker; he scoffed. “That’s never gonna happen,” he said. Little did he know: Black girls are from the future.

And in that future, our words are precious. Our words create and destroy, often at the same time. So I want my words to take root where they will flourish, where they will transform lives, and where they will inspire. I want to cut through the noise and really see the signals people are sending back to me; I want to be able to respond to everyone who is participating in the conversation, and amplify them accordingly.

So sign up for Musings from the Margins, a weekly conversation about the work we’re doing at the margins, facilitated by me. Every month I’ll have a guest facilitator, and if you’re interested in sharing your thoughts about your work, you are more than welcome to facilitate a week. We’ll start the conversation Sunday evenings and continue them throughout the week. If you already signed up for an Afrolicious mailing list, you’ll be merged into this one. One email per week from me: promise.

And that’s all I got! See you at the margins!

Onwards,
-a!

I have a few magical moments where I catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror and I admire the cheekbones, the gap between my teeth and, yes, the big, big lips. Some weeks, these moments are close together and numerous; some weeks, they never appear.

So this movement, Afrolicious? Brown is Beautiful? It’s mostly for me. Real spit. And it’s for you. There aren’t enough messages telling us how brilliant we are, how beautiful we are, how worthy we are. We have internalized the violent words of this world and even our minds collude against us in the relentless battle with fear, generation after generation after generation.

Well, I’m here to let you know you are brilliant. You are beautiful. You are worthy. You are love. There’s nothing you could do to make you less worthy and nothing you could do to make you more worthy.

I hope the stories I share, produce and amplify work to cancel out the noisy lies and let us see ourselves for the amazing spirits we truly are.

Brown people: you are beautiful and brilliant. Act accordingly.

-a!