Consider leaving work at 3:15 - after all, that may be all you are paid for!

Women across the country will be walking out of work at 3:15 tomorrow, after completing only 78% of their work day.

This awareness-raising campaign was arranged by NOW (National Organization for Women) to commemorate Equal Pay Day (which is tomorrow, April 20th).

Since women on average still only make 78 cents on the dollar, NOW is encouraging women to take a stand and for just one day to show employers that you get what you pay for.

The lifetime impact of this pay disparity is devastating on many front, particularly for women's financial security and stability.

Read the data about the impact and reality of unequal pay here.

Though it is a bit difficult to walk out of work when you work for yourself, we support NOW and want to call attention to this very important issue.

Not just because we believe in the principles of equal pay but also because we believe that pay disparities have a direct impact on women's ability to become entrepreneurs or self-employed and to properly capitalize a business should they want one.

We are seeing more and more women leave the corporate ranks to strike out on their own only to again experience less financial security and bring in smaller earnings.

We know how bleak the average revenues are for most women business owners (and have written about it before) and we know that women business owners typically start with less capital and experience a higher turnover rate then male entrepreneurs.

In our minds it is clearly a problem that has wide and serious reverberations.

So, help raise awareness about this issue. Consider leaving work tomorrow after 78% of your work day. Reflect on the impact of pay disparity in your own life and in the companies that you work/ed for. Spread the word and support Equal Pay!
posted by Adelaide Lancaster

Advice on working virtually to Inc. Magazine staffers from In Good Company Workplaces

Starting this week the staff of Inc. magazine started an experiment. For the month of February, they will all be working virtually and then writing about their experiences.

We love this initiative! We asked some of the ladies of In Good Company to share their advice and tips with these newly untethered writers.

Posted below is what some had to say . Do YOU have advice for the Inc staffers? You can tell them here.

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1. I've converted all of my email to be accessed entirely electronically on any computer. I run my work email through gmail which sends it via my work email's pop server so that recipients can't tell that I'm sending it through gmail but I have the web accessibility (and endless storage!) that gmail provides.

On a personal and non-technological level, a key benefit of virtual working is minimalism. It made me recognize how few of the office supplies, papers and the other mountains of activity that used to accumulate on my desk I actually need. Now, the contents of my office are pared down to a couple of well-organized file boxes, a laptop, a moleskine notebook and a little nerd-sac filled with the bare bones of requisite clips, post-its and pens. I also have a redweld folder of stationery, folders and envelopes for sending packages. All of this fits into the equivalent of a small gym locker. And I can't remember a time in the last months where I needed something that wasn't contained in that tiny space.

Alexandra Machinist
Linda Chester Literary Agency

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2. I find that the best way to be productive working at home is to create an area at home that’s specifically for “work” only and block out a chunk of hours to devote to a specific project etc – so you’re not constantly distracted by the laundry you need to do or your sink full of dishes. Turn off email alerts if possible and get situated to crank out a few solid hours of whatever it is you’re working on. Creating a daily schedule for myself (coffee — and sometimes laundry breaks included), even when I’m at home, is beyond helpful!

I have also found that working virtually has definitely allowed me to be much more “green” without necessarily realizing it. I print less paper, have fewer file folders and am able to stay organized more effectively.

Working virtually and not being in an office or corporate environment with a computer guru on-hand can be a little daunting and often frustrating. One of the most helpful additions I’ve done with my business is to have immediate access to great computer assistance over the phone and/or online with Help with a Smile, a virtual or in person computer service. The guys are always available when you call and can jump into your computer virtually to solve any minor (and some major) problems quickly. Having a similar service is peace of mind if nothing else (and that means a lot when you’re working on your own!).

Marissa Lippert, Founder of Nourish Nutrition Counseling & author of The Cheater’s Diet (April 15th)

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3. If you've always worked in an office setting, having easy access to co-workers may be something you take for granted - until they're not there!
Think about your preferred ways of breaking up solitary work time throughout the day. If you are someone who enjoys and gets energy from socializing, brainstorming or grabbing a quick coffee with colleagues, working on your own can be a major adjustment.

If that's the case, make sure to build time into your schedule, whenever possible, to engage in some of these activities.
If you are working from home, experiment with whether virtual contact via email, phone or Skype does the trick. If so, great. If not, try to find a public space with WiFi where other solo workers congregate and where you can go if you start to feel as though you're working in solitary confinement. You never know who you might meet! Or coordinate breaks with friends / neighbors who also work from home.

If you live in an area where coworking opportunities exist, consider checking them out to see whether they appeal to you. Depending on the types of packages available and the community of people who congregate there, you could wind up satisfying your need for interacting with others AND building your network at a price that doesn't break the bank.

Eden Abrahams
Clear Path Executive Coaching

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4. Aside from setting a schedule, I think it is really important for you to get out of the house at least once each day. It could be for coffee, a walk around the block, a trip to the post office, a meeting, whatever. Sitting in front of your computer all day is a sure way to kill your motivation and creativity. Not only should you break up your day , but it is important for you clear your head and get a change of scenery. I find that it is during these “down” times that my best ideas can come to me.

Amy Abrams
Co-founder, In Good Company Workplaces

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5. I find that I need to be very careful about defining “working” and “non-working” times. It is hard when you work from home or virtually to separate your work day from a regular evening at home. Where I have run into trouble is times that I have finished up work for the day and will be enjoying my evening and then somehow find myself looking at my blinking red blackberry, reading emails that have come in and thinking about issues that need attention and adding up to-do list items. Since I am not really “working” I can’t take action on anything, but I am distracted and un-relaxed. When this pattern is repeated I start to feel as though I am never off and never have any downtime. This doesn’t mean that I can’t choose to work late some nights, or take a break and then return to work after dinner, but I try to be clear with myself about what time is what. Non-work time is spent far from the blackberry and with my outlook closed.

Also, what works best for me is to schedule like tasks together. I try to put phone calls back to back, and group accounting and detail work, and then carve out time for more thoughtful work like writing. I don’t work well when I do 15 minutes of one thing, followed up by a phone call, followed by 30 minutes of writing, and then back to another phone call.

Adelaide Lancaster
Co-founder, In Good Company Workplaces

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6. As a business owner I often feel like there are dozens of things I need to be doing at any given moment. This often leads me into super over drive mode which can only last for so long before my brain waves get jammed and short circuit leaving me with little fuel in my tank for business projects and tasks. I have luckily discovered the perfect solution for getting my creativity, focus, motivation and inspiration flowing again. And living in NYC definitely helps. I just go on a little adventure. That’s right… sometimes in the middle of the work day! Over and over, I find it’s the best thing I could ever do for myself and my business. When I take an hour or two out of my day for these little field trips, I get it back ten fold. Just last month, I turned off the laptop and went directly to the Museum of Art and Design for a 2 hour field trip. The Slash exhibit there features paper cutting artist unlike anything I’ve ever seen! Another favorite is Papabubble candy shop… I find their creativity very stimulating! Or take a tour at the Tenement Museum, it really puts things in perspective. A mid morning stroll at the Highline is down right exhilarating! Immersing myself in these experiences is just what my brain needs to reboot itself and the positive side effects on my business are tremendous.

Erica Ecker, The Spacialist

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7. Schedule time for fun and breaks, not just time for “work” I often block out time to be in “writing” mode, or “blogging” mode or “client service” mode, but then if I spend ten minutes on HuffPo or shopping on gilt.com I feel, well, guilty. So now I actually schedule short 15 minute breaks for guilty pleasures (snacks, online browsing, phone calls to friends) so I don’t feel so indulgent about doing them and then I’m more diligent about getting back to work. Building in breaks winds up being more efficient /productive / effective then having them creep up on me—in my world, three minutes on YouTube often turns into thirty minutes online, ten minutes on the phone and twenty minutes in the kitchen and next thing I know I’ve lost an hour.

Jodi Glickman Brown, Great on the Job


Share you thoughts & advice!!

Women Business Owners Contribute a Total Economic Impact of $3 Trillion! And the Only Ones Getting Sold Short Are the Women.

(glass piggy banks by Roost from Velocity Art & Design)
(article in full posted on Huffington Post 12/1 - Adelaide Lancaster)

Apparently the independence we women entrepreneurs seek is coming at a big price. The benefits of entrepreneurship are driving more women than ever into self-employment, yet the financial rewards necessary to make this trend stick, still elude most of us.

In October the Center for Women's Business Research published the first ever study on the economic impact of women business owners in the US.

The following data were rightly heralded by many media outlets as a great triumph:

* There are approximately 8 million women-owned businesses nationwide

* Women-owned businesses employ 23 million workers (16% of total US jobs)

* Women business owners account for approximately $3 trillion dollars of total economic impact

Pretty impressive stuff.

As someone who strongly believes that entrepreneurship is an important economic and employment vehicle for both women and the US, I am thrilled to see the growing national economic contribution by women-owned businesses confirmed. Understandably then I was disturbed by one underreported statistic.

According to the study, 87.5% of all women-owned businesses are without employees - perhaps a dramatic majority, but not necessarily a problematic one. Let's not forget that flexibility is the third most motivating startup factor for women business owners, according to a 2006 MasterCard survey, and many such women feel that the responsibility of managing employees would impinge upon that.

What is disturbing upon further examination of these statistics, however, is that the projected average annual revenue of these non-employee firms is $27,000, compared to the average annual revenue for firms with employees of $910,000. This means that 87.5% of women owned businesses are only making 17% of the revenue.

READ MORE

Entrepreneurship continues to be a preferred professional destination for women

(photo courtesy of Simon Le)

IGC member and speaking coach extraordinaire, Jezra Kaye, brought to our attention the fact that it is National Women in Business Week (yahoo!) and in the process let us know about a really interesting organization Moms Rising.

The piece that Jezra sent was Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner’s post Woot! 23 Million Employed by Women-Owned Businesses, which thoughtfully highlights and documents the draw of self-employment and entrepreneurship for women who are dissatisfied by current professional options. We are clearly on the same page and this is something we often write and talk about – most recently, Entrepreneurship for the Rest of Us May Also Be Employment for the Rest Of Us.

An excerpt from Kristin’s post:

Many are asking, “Are you surprised by how quickly the number of women-owned businesses has been growing?” Our answer? Well, no. Moms know that the general lack of workplace flexibility, family leave, sick days, and affordable and high quality childcare in most companies can make worklife balance a nightmare. Plus the fact that women are paid 77 cents to a man’s dollar, and moms are paid just 73 cents to a man’s dollar is a strong incentive for business ownership. So, we’re not surprised that many women are taking their education and skills to Main Streets and boardrooms across our nation to do it their own way. In fact, women-owned businesses are more likely to offer supportive, family-friendly benefits like flex-time, family leave, sick days, and profit sharing!

With these stats in mind, it’s no wonder an increasing number of women are taking matters into their own hands and starting their own businesses where they can pay themselves equal pay for equal work, and also provide family-friendly policies in their own workplaces.
Read the rest here...


We believe that working for yourself is an increasingly important skill for women to learn, as entrepreneurship and self-employment are increasingly becoming the professional destinations of choice.

In Good Company Workplaces is committed to teaching women and girls this craft and all that comes with it (so that women can really create work that works for them) and also to highlighting the range of entrepreneurial experiences that exist (Entrepreneurship for the Rest of Us).

If you want to begin learning the best practices involved with working for yourself you can join us for two upcoming seminars that we are holding for Global Entrepreneurship Week. They are free and open to the public, though an rsvp is necessary.

Re-Incarnation and The business lifecycle

There were two throught provoking articles in the New York Times magazine this weekend. The first, “Facebook Exodus”
by Virginia Heffernan, was a great read as it articulated why many members are moving on.

Heffernan profiled several members who left facebook for reasons that included the discomfort of having facebook knowing too much about you, overexposure about your life to others, a waste of time, and a feeling that facebook is stalking them.

Facebook is still a growing giant, attracting 87.7 million unique visitors in July. The article made me think about the lifecycle of businesses and wonder if facebook, like other business that grow very quickly and have a lot of hype will be sustainable in the long run.

I then flipped the page to find that Rob Walker’s article, “Cleaned Sheets” continued this line of thinking. Walker’s profile of Linens ‘n Things is an insightful view into a fascinating business model.

When LNT filed for bankruptcy in 2008, they closed 586 stores throughout the country. They also had assets that creditors purchased during liquidation including a database of 5 million email addresses, the Linens’s and Things name (= brand), and trademark.

They formed a new online company called lnt.com and opened a few months ago with the same concept but exclusively online. Imagine opening a company online but starting off with a database of 5 million customers that already know (and perhaps trust) your brand. Genius!

Taking these two articles made me think that in some cases, re-incarnation is the most important step in a business’s lifecycle. Even if Facebook would lose some of it's novelty, their database and information would most likely be repackaged.

Perhaps you can look at your own business and evaluate if it is time for a re-incarnation? Or what your possible reincarnations might be?

Setting a Good Example? Marketing Campaigns to Remember...

This month Inc Magazine included an article on “Great Marketing Moves”, which features some 30 “classic examples” of ways that entrepreneurs who have little cash but lots of creativity have gotten noticed. The list of examples cites examples as far back as the early 80s.

The list is interesting and many do highlight innovation and creativity but I have to admit that I was surprised by some the examples included. Several were shock value campaigns such as the infamous Go Daddy Super Bowl ads, while others had a strong tone of aggression.

More than specifically competitive, some of the examples are clear taunts to competitors including one that actually unintentionally incited vandalism at Starbucks and another campaign rewarded customers from ripping a Dominos pizza add out of phone books.

Reading this list of example got me wondering how many of these "great marketing" examples I would actually want to use. Some, but certainly not all. I am sure that it isn't that hard to cite 30 great marketing campaigns that are all based on creativity rather than shock or competition. I wonder why some of these examples seemed so impressive?

When I was in graduate school I remember hearing about the marketing campaign of the leading depression drug who wanted to find a way to boost sales that didn’t require the medical laundry list that most commercials mandate. So the company decided to advertise about depression in general. They knew that their promotional efforts would lead to a spike in sales of their drug over other drugs, but rather it would likely lead to an increase in all depression drugs, of which they were already the leading seller. This tactic is a far cry from tearing out competitors’ ads from the phone book.

Reading this also reminded me of a post that I wrote last year on the advertising rules for public radio spots, which prohibit the use of superlatives and force companies to advertise with integrity and focus on qualitative information. Read the quidelines here.

* At the very least this serves as a very helpful exercise...What would your public radio advertisement say?

Second Thoughts: Rational vs Emotional Decision Making

Did you ever have a brilliant idea only to late exclaim, “what was I thinking?!”. A recent post on LiteMind can help guide you in evaluating and auditing your ideas and thinking before you make the wrong moves. "10 Thinking Traps" highlights 10 mindsets that can hinder your ability to think rationally about a subject or decision.

The list inevitably takes the reader on a trip down “bad decision” lane and forces you to ask: “which of these traps am I currently stuck in and would I know it?”. The Status Quo trap? The Sunk Cost trap? The Recall Trap? I was sold on using this list as a guide to better rational decision making.

Interestingly, however, Fast Company also has an article about the differences in rational and emotional decision making.

The article cites a recent study that showed that if given the choice subjects would rather put their fate in the hands of someone they’ve been told is a rational decision maker (versus an emotional one) but that the outcomes were dramatically better for the subjects if they had chosen the emotional decision maker! In the study those decision makers that were encouraged to rely on their gut and emotion were more trustworthy and ethical.

* So is rational decision making better?
* What kind of decision maker would you trust more?
* How do you make sure that you are making sounds decisions?

Is Anyone Out There?? Radio Silence in the Web 2.0

A few weeks ago a really interesting article by Douglas Quenqua in the NY Times entitled Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest talked about the status of the blogosphere and bloggers today.

The article cited data from Technorati that shows that 95% of all blogs have effectively been abandoned (weren’t updated for more than 120 days).





Why?

Some bloggers never really took off, others got too busy, others felt too exposed and shuttered their blogs in order to regain a shred of privacy, others felt web 2.0 changed the nature of blogging favoring shorter posts versus longer more journal-like styles.

Some had thought their blogs would bring them fame or fortune or both, and left their blogs when those dreams went unrealized. (For more on the money myths of blogging read this article that reports that the average ad blog makes only $5k per year.)

So, with no shortage of blogs and bloggers out there, it seems we are at the next stage of the blogosphere life cycle. Blogging has been around long enough to have grown in awareness then popularity, to have myths built up and exposed, and to shift in the fundamental usage. We are at an evolutionary moment.

Perhaps these people are using less social media overall, or perhaps they are just are abandoning blogs and moving to the more-portable and more immediate facebook or twitter applications.

Perhaps casual users will all move to these other mediums leaving the blogosphere more dedicated writers, story tellers, or information sellers. Perhaps blogs will continue to fill the journalistic space where the print media field dissolved.

Perhaps blogs will just be the new “home base” where all these communication mediums are docked and stored.

Quenqua also quotes Richard Jalichandra of Technorati who said that at any given time there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs on the Internet, but “it’s probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs that are generating most of the page views.” He added, “There’s a joke within the blogging community that most blogs have an audience of one.”

This reminded us of a similar report on Twitter. Now obviously Twitter is a newer technology that is by all accounts just taking off, and certainly most people are just getting comfortable with it.

Nevertheless... A study conducted at Harvard Business School looked at 300,000 random twitter users found that:

* Among these users the median number of lifetime tweets is one!
* & the top 10% of twitter users account for 90% of all the tweets
(& interestingly though men and women follow a similar number of people, men tend to have 15% more followers than women)

However, for those that are still eager to start or build a blog (for a larger audience than one) here are some good resources that can help you learn from the ground up - (not that we are speaking as experts here, we know we still have a long way to go!)

ProBlogger: 31 Days to Build a Better Blog
(used to be a free email-a-day program and now is a (not-free) e-book. 14,000 bloggers have done the program, which really breaks the gargantuan task down into bites sized chunks.)

Quick Sprout's Search Engine Optimization for your Blog

Women's Work: Driving Wealth Towards Charitable Causes

(In the last couple weeks, we have written about how women are influencing the professional landscape, how women may have impacted the evolution of our society, and how women as a chosen vehicle for investment are impacting global social change.)

Next up: the impact that women are having on the world of philanthropy.

Installment 4 of the women’s work series focuses on the extent to which women are reshaping the world through philanthropic donations and leadership, and charitable contributions. There has been lots of news coverage recently about women and philanthropy, sparked no doubt by the very sizable (about $100M) and mysterious and anonymous donations given to at least 20 universities in the last year. The anonymous donations are earmarked for scholarships for women and minorities and were all given to schools whose presidents are currently women - thus raising suspicions that it is a woman or group of women who is behind this intriguing show of force. More on donations here.

However, I also learned that aside from large initiative like this set of higher education donations, Women Moving Millions, and the Women’s Donors Network, the numbers are showing how women’s accumulated effort and impact is really driving change.

Joanna Krotz shared with me an article she wrote for Town and Country that indicates that:
* single women are more likely to give than single men
* married women influence their spouses to give more (than they otherwise would)
* more and more of the worlds wealth is being held by women (both due to increased earning power and life expectancy)

This conversation echoed others with Lauren Katzowtiz Shenfield, who stresses increasing importance of women’s philanthropy and who has been asked for her opinion by the media on the anonymous college donations numerous times.

Similarly, Momentum writes:

"Now, for the first time, women are in control of money on a large scale, according to the Boston College Social Welfare Research Institute, making up 53 percent of the workforce with their net worth at nearly $2.3 trillion. And with the enormous generational shift that will take place in the next half century, a majority will fall into the hands of women, who regularly outlive men. This likely means more giving. One study, conducted by the Center for Women’s Business Research, found that 47 percent of women versus 39 percent of men feel giving is a moral obligation."

It exciting to read that women’s increasing philanthropic influence is a growing trend and ongoing cultural shift.

With all the exciting ways to give and get involved, it seems that whereas historically the question we might ask ourselves would be “should I give?” and now it is becoming “how should I give?, where should I give?” and “when should I start giving?”!

Great Business Case for Daydreaming!

A few weeks ago we read a summary of interesting research in The Week. Similar to the news that sleep is good for the brain and supports the integration of memories and knowledge - profiled in our post The Business Case for Sleep - this recent research from the University of British Columbia concluded that daydreaming corresponds with a lot of brain activity in regions dedicated to high-level thought and complex problem-solving.


As the Week reports - “People assume that when the mind wanders away it just gets turned off,” researcher Kalina Christoff tells LiveScience.com. “But we show the opposite, that when it wanders, it turns on.”

So while you are seemingly distracted and unfocused, you may actually be letting your brain think through complex ideas or mull over decisions.

This further reinforces the importance of scheduling some down-time in your day and remembering not to overload yourself with tasks where you need to be “on” - whether that is a steady flow of client interactions or a constant stream of execution-oriented operational tasks. Instead of expecting to intensely focus over a long period of time, plan unstructured breaks so that you brain can continue to work on un(re)solved ideas and issues.

Women's Work: Women Chosen as Best Investment Vehicle for World Improvement

(Welcome to the third installment on a series about women's transformative influence on various societal aspects including the professional landscape, human evolution, social change, and philanthropy.)

Next up: the impact that women have on social change and economic development.

I had an interesting conversation a few weeks ago with Joanna Krotz (philanthropy expert, author of The Guide to Intelligent Giving, and editor at Town & Country) that focused on women as a source of both social change and global economic development. Specifically we talked about the extent to which women are being chosen as donation recipents as well as the climbing numbers of women who are donors themselves (more on this last point next week).

This conversation dovetailed nicely with two others (on reshaping professional landscape and influencing evolution towards a group society) prompting this series of posts on some of the more exciting and transformative impacts that women have collectively had the world as we know it.

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Recently the fields of international development and social change have shifted and placed a great deal of primacy on the education and promotion of women worldwide. This is in part evident through the surge in the number of women oriented micro-credit organizations such as Nest and ProMujer.

"As we know from long and indisputable experience, investing in women and girls has a multiplier effect on productivity and sustained economic growth. No measure is more important in advancing education and health, including the prevention of HIV/AIDS." - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, for International Women's Day, March 8, 2008

Also in 2008 Goldman Sachs conducted a robust global economic research study which found, among other things, that:

"At the macroeconomic level, female education is a key source of support for long-term economic growth. It has been linked to higher productivity; higher returns to investment; higher agricultural yields; and a more favorable demographic structure. The economic growth that results from higher education feeds a virtuous cycle, supporting continued investments in education and extending the gains to human capital and productivity."

In response to these findings, Goldman Sachs launched the 10,000 Women initiative, which invested $100M in the business and management education of women around the globe. This initiative seeks to go beyond the reduction of poverty at the very grassroots level and instead seeks to rapidly advance the economic growth of entire countries and regions.

How thrilling that Goldman determined that women were the best way to achieve this.

More articles on the iniative are here: NYTimes, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Washington Post

Women's Work: The 'It Takes a Village' Attitude Had a Bigger Impact than You Might Think

(Welcome to the second installment on a series about women's transformative influence on various societal aspects including the professional landscape, human evolution, social change, and philanthropy.)

Next up: the impact that women have had on moving us towards a collaborative group society.

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, a favorite evolutionary psychologist of mine since graduate school, has just come out with a new book, Mothers and Others, that, like her other publications radically shifts the paradigm on why things (relationship, life, society) are as they are.

Her latest book discusses the impact that mothers and mothering had on our evolution and the development of our cooperative, group society.

Mothers and Others proposes that “the evolutionary significance of warfare is overrated. What made us human-what transformed our ancestors into a uniquely cooperative, hypersocial species of great ape-were not the requirements of inter-tribal combat, as some anthropologists have long contended, but the demands of motherhood. For most of human history, says Hrdy, our population was so small and spread out that there was no reason to fight over survival needs. But human infants’ large, slowly maturing brains and need for large amounts of protein make them uniquely dependent, and mothers found they needed help from other women to raise their babies. That led to the development of group trust and communication not found in our simian relatives. So take a bow, grandmothers, aunts, and other female caregivers, says Hrdy. You enabled humans to conquer the world.” - The Week Magazine

What additional insights are gleaned from this new framework? A review of reviews will tell us:


What she found is that our unique mothering instinct, quite different from gorillas and chimpanzees, meant that the children most likely to survive were those who could relate to and solicit help from others. We evolved to be wired for empathy for, consideration of, and intuition into how others are feeling. --Jessa Crispin (Smart Set)


Hrdy argues that unlike other apes, Homo sapiens could never have evolved if human mothers had been required to raise their offspring on their own. Human infants are too helpless and too expensive in their demands for care and resources. So human females have to line up helpers--sometimes extending beyond their own kin--to raise their young. That requires both males and females to invest heavily in social skills for bargaining with other members of their groups. Hrdy suggests that females in ancestral hunting and gathering groups may have thrived because they were free to be flexible in this way. Female flexibility was reduced when humans established settlements requiring male coalitions to defend them, probably leading to greater control of females by males. --John Odling-Smee (Nature )

Ill be reading this book on my vacation and will be sure to circle back with another insights and findings. In the meantime, WHAT DOES THIS NEW FRAMEWORK MEAN TO YOU?

Women’s Work: Our Impact on the Professional Landscape

(For some reason this week, I have been inundated with news, conversations, and information about women’s transformative influence on various societal aspects including the professional landscape, human evolution, social change, and leadership. Because it all together seemed so inspiring and fortuitous, I thought I would write a series of well-noted segments/blog posts detailing each of these insights. One will be shared over each of the next four weeks.)

First up: the impact that women have had on our professional landscape.

David Leonhardt of the NY Times published an article entitled "Financial Careers Come at a Cost to Families".
At first glance, the article bears some bad news. It turns out that women who have participated int eh financial and consulting sectors are likely to have experienced up to a 41% wage disparity if they have taken time off for kids as compared to their peers who haven’t.

The hidden good news however, is that women have reshaped many other fields and industries including medicine and law making them more work/life fit friendly and reducing “time-off” wage disparities to as low as 16%. While I realize that 16% may not be considered by some to be a "win", it is clear that innovations and creative solutions, such as group practices for Ob/Gyns, have enabled certain fields to evolve to become more compatible for professionals with families.

Further, the article underscores what both experts and research tell us, which is:
* that men too are benefiting from, taking advantage of, and enjoying flexible work/life practices on near equal footing with women. More and more we are seeing men indicate that work life fit is personally important and that existing policies and attitude pose professional and personal challenges. See Cali Yost's insights and findings.

* that work/life programs and initiatives are largely regarded as positive and a value add, not just by employees (male and female) but shareholders as well. See discussion by Freek Vermeulen

So, on the downside…women in finance and consulting, two supremely-hyped career choices of late have likely gotten screwed from a salary and work/life fit perspective.

But on the upside, women have pioneered significant workplaces changes, helping to create quality of life programs that have not only been enjoyed and valued female and male colleagues alike but also recalibrated the status quo for many industries reshaping the way that work is done. So, maybe finance and consulting are (just?) the last frontier.

image courtesy of faraharia

Well Said - great example of company-to-customer communication

Yes, the publishing world is in turmoil. Newspapers and magazines are folding, journalists are shuffling to different positions, and the fate of each print publication seems to be up for debate. I have been admittedly more thoughtful about my magazine subscription renewals after my devastation over losing Domino and Conde Nast’s unwelcome substitution of Glamour in its place, but have continued to renew everything because I really want them to succeed and because I value their content tremendously.

Last week’s issue of Newsweek was an emotional one, I was initially distressed about the departure of Anna Quindlen and then I noticed "Reinventing Newsweek" a piece about the future of Newsweek and upcoming changes to the magazine. Bad news fatigue instantly made me suspicious but I couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised! The article was written by Kathleen Deveny and was a terrific example of a company-to-customer communication.

Deveny did several things really well including:
* acknowledged the reality of the changing publishing industry
* restated newsweeks commitment to quality and reporting with integrity
* outlined the redesign that is soon to be launched
* reported how the changes have been designed to mirror customer feedback (more of this, less of that)
* indicated the requisite changes that will accompany the redesign (i.e. higher price, a more targeted audience)

Despite the higher subscription price, I am so pleased with this article. It is a well-articulated business case, which is equal parts reactive and proactive, focused on value, and grounded in strategic decisions. Even if you don’t read or subscribe to Newsweek flag this article as a great example to follow! We have!

Great Business Case for Sleep

A recent Newsweek article, Sleep Now, Remember Later, underscored a couple really interesting takeaways about sleep and memory. I have always been pretty good about getting a healthy amount of sleep but this article helped to underscore the business benefits of doing so!

What we all know: Sleep is good. Our body tells us we need it by getting tired and starting to shut down. And our recommended daily dosage is about 8 hours.

But what is actually happening when you sleep? Why do we need it? How does it relate to our body? How does it relate to our minds?

When I get tired I start to forget things, I am less sharp, and my brain does not work the way it should. I go to sleep and wake up refreshed and clear headed (well, at least after coffee I am clear headed). Given these few pieces of data, you might think that your brain is resting when you are sleeping. Actually when you are asleep your body is resting but your brain is not. Your brain is really quite active.

Apparently, when you are sleeping your brain is, among other things, “down-loading” memories from the day to be stored in a more permanent place and making linkages between the memories of the day and other stored memories. This integration process often leads to those great aha! moments in either dreams or just after waking up. It also really gives credence to the phrase “let me sleep on it”. Basically our brains need us to shut down for a period of time each day to “make sense” of all that has happened. The article reports that for each 2 hours awake, we need approximately 1 hour of sleep.

The article also discusses that when we are sleep deprived we have a harder time hanging on to the positive emotions attached to memories that we do the negative ones. Perhaps this is because from an evolutionary perspective it was more important for us to imprint and record memories associated with fear or loss for protective purposes. However, in our modern day existence, this tendency sheds some light on why sleep deprivation can led to depression among other health problems.

This article served as an interesting prompt to reframe sleep as a time for mental processing and sorting reminder on why things that are so mentally taxing make you physically exhausted!

(image courtesy of prettyfnmess)

Time vs. Money

Thanks to the state of the economy we are all inundated with recession specials and discount pricing. In fact, many of us are loathe to buy something that ISN’T on sale. However, a new study from Stanford Business School entitled “The Time vs. Money Effect” learns that pitches that focus on the value of time are far attractive, enticing, and appealing than those that focus on money. The study, detail in the Wall Street Journal Article, Why Tie Marketing to Time Not Money, also seems to indicate that even post-purchase, consumers report about their belongings more favorably when prompted to consider their time and experience with the item rather than the value or monetary investment associated. This finding certainly seems worth taking into account when rethinking your marketing messages, pitch language, and promotions!

(photo courtesy of bluebicicletta's etsy shop).

SELF-EMPLOYED / SOCIAL SCIENTISTS

The SBA Office of Advocacy published an interesting report by economist Dr. Chad Moutray called: Baccalaureate Education and the Employment Decision: Self-Employment and the Class of 1993.

The study found that "College graduates who specialize in social science tend toward self-employment as compared to those with bachelor’s degrees in other subjects".

Interesting, no? Any other social science majors out there? As for me, I double majored in Sociology/Anthropology and Educational Studies...so this finding can certainly be generalized to me!

The study doesn't posit any theories on the correlation, but instead leaves us to our own musings...

* Perhaps it is because we social science majors are interested in the nuance and complexity of the social world. We see the interconnections and linkages between themes, patterns, systems, and people.

* Or perhaps, it is because most social science majors graduate asking the question, "What can you really do with a degree in XYZ?". And because of this we are left to our own creative devices when it comes to career development.

* Or perhaps it is because the study of social sciences instills in us an inquisitive tradition, encouraging us to go about the world asking "why things are the way they are?" and "under what circumstances could they be different?"

For what it is worth, Moutray also found "that business and management majors are more likely to work in for-profit businesses while those with specialized degrees such as health, education, or biology are more likely to end up working for non-profits and the government."

And, that "race, ethnicity, and gender did not play a large role in who became self-employed."

However quite humorously, the study found that a student’s motivation as measured by a series of “values” questions in 1993, closely tracked with employment decisions a decade later.

"Those who valued job-security were more likely to be government employees, those who desired intellectual challenge were likely to work in non-profits, and those who did not highly value prestige and status were more likely to be self-employed."

All of this seems so true to me! Although, the fact that the students didn't highly value prestige and status may have explained why they (we) were social science majors in the first place!

posted by Adelaide