20 Inspiring Women To Follow On Twitter

I’ve become a big fan of twitter. For me it is a great example of how people want to share ideas and connect, it’s a huge social triumph. Every day I find new and interesting content and connect with very interesting people. It’s a great ideas portal and I hope someone is capturing the ideas and innovations that spring from this amazing phenomenon. The trick is to find the interesting people and cut through the riff raff of people telling you what they had for breakfast! Forbes magazine’sHalle Tacco (@halletacco) has written a great article based on research undertaken by Harvard Business Review on women twitter users and lists 20 inspiring women to follow. Interestingly she says that women are less loved on twitter and that men have 15% more followes even though there are more women users on twitter (55% to 45%). Men are also twice more likely to follow another man than a women and women are 25% more likely to follow a man than a woman…Personally I’m off now to follow all these 20 inspirational women they sound great!

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Role models for a new generation of young women?

I am the father of three pre-teen daughters, which is why I am very interested in the role models currently fighting for the attention of adolescent and pre-pubescent girls. So far, Miley Cyrus is a clear winner. I’m happy with that – old fashioned family values, Christian heritage, sickly sweet country-inspired music with inspiring lyrics, and seriously rocking concerts… what’s not to like?

But, on another extreme somewhere is the apparation known as Lady Gaga. So far, I’ve just tried to ignore her (but 18 million album sales says that’s not a clever strategy). But then, I read an article by an elderly editor of a conservative Catholic magazine in The Spectator, and he had a different take. Altogether different, and he gave me pause for thought. I think I need to check out what Lady Gaga is doing. It might not be that bad for my girls after all. Read for yourself…

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School sport as an indicator of Talent

Malcom Gladwell’s book Outliers has been one of my break-through books of 2009 in the area of ‘Talent’. If it does anything to the reader, it will surely have them asking deeper questions around what talent is and how we should be assessing for it? It did at least that for me. I’ll confess right up front that I am a Gadwell fan. Yes I have read the critiques on him, and whatever you might say of him, he does one of the best jobs taking some very complex ideas and packaging them for the less educated, complex and deep, like me (and you if you’re honest).

The Wall Street Journal blog has a great article that plays in the ‘Outliers’ space, called Economists Link Athletics to Success in School, Job Markets. Wharton economist Betsey Stevenson has drawn a link between young women entering sports in high school in the US (a law change in 1972, significantly changed the ratio’s of young women in high school sport) and an increase of female college attendance and female labour-force participation.

This article adds, in my mind, to the increasing body of evidence suggesting that how we spot ‘talent’ is more complex than a battery of psychological tests, academic results and personality profiling (no matter how sophisticated they seem). There may be many other, far more robust indicators as to someone’s future value that we don’t know how to interrogate, have forgotten about, or are just not courageous enough to explore?

Title IX’s most pronounced effect was on athletics. Girls’ participation in high school sports went from 1 in 27 in 1972 to 1 in 4 in 1978. But it’s effect wasn’t uniform because states where boys’ participation in athletics was high were forced to increase girls’ participation the most. Ms. Stevenson was able to use the variation between states to tease out the effect of girls participation in sports from other factors. That allowed her to see how playing sports affected girls’ success later in life.

Her conclusion: A 10 percentage-point rise in girls’ participation in high school sports leads to a 1 percentage point increase in female college attendance and a 1 to 2 percentage point increase in female labor-force participation.

Maybe athletics should be added to reading, writing and arithmetic.

Maybe indeed…..

Marcus Buckingham takes aim at women

The guy is no fool.

Marcus Buckingham, author and strengths uber-guru, knows what he is doing. He first shot to prominence with a series of books about personal strengths. I think that his book, “Now, Discover Your Strengths” (also sold under the title of “Strengths Finder 2.0″ – see Kalahari or Amazon to buy it) is one of the best personal development books ever written, and I regularly state in my seminars that I think everyone in the world should read it.

Now, he has released his latest book, and it is aimed at the lucrative women’s market (and has gone straight to paperback, too). The book is called, “Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently” (buy it at Kalahari or Amazon). I managed to get an advance copy, and really enjoyed it. It’s typical of his style – maybe even more chatty than previous books. It’s simple, down-to-earth, but amazingly insightful. And I think it will fly off the shelves into the many women’s groups that meet around the world every day.

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Mom’s are big

Every now and then I discover thoughts from marketing experts exploring the value of women between 35-55 and in this example mom’s. Their research and observations remind the marketplace of the value of the people who match the criteria of these segments, and how over-looked they are from a marketing and communication perspective. They either have incredible spending power, or massive decision rights in their world, or are inhabiting a particular channel that isn’t effectively communicating to them.

The Israeli Diamond Industry web site has an article around social media and mothers titled, ‘Mothers use FaceBook, Twitter, Blogs more than average adults’, and again suggests the retail world is missing a trick if they’re not using these platforms to speak to them.

“Retailers who aren’t engaging customers through social media could be missing the boat. Twitter, Facebook and blogs are becoming increasingly popular with moms as they search for coupons or deals and keep in touch with loved ones. The web provides efficient, convenient ways for brands to stay in front of their most loyal shoppers and attract new ones.”

I am always left wondering if these segments have been overlooked for so long is it because there isn’t an effective way to single them out, or is it because companies aren’t wired to see them. Reminds me of that quote that goes something like this, “Do we look at what we see, or do we see what we look at?”

88 years old and mayer for 30+ years

Today is Nelson Mandela’s birthday. An international icon.

But this is not about Madiba. He’s never been mayor. He has been President of South Africa, and leader of the African National Congress (ANC), but never Mayor.

This is a video interview worth watching about Hazel McCallion, who’s 88 years old and been mayor of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada for 30+ years. She’s been re-elected 11 times in the 6th biggest city in Canada, and runs a city that’s debt free with cash reserves of $700 000 000.

It struck me while watching, that we’re a world that’s become so ‘young people focused’, that we so easily miss and don’t appreciate the value and contribution that ‘much’ older people do make, and can make in our private and public worlds.

So happy birthday Madiba and wow Mayor McCallion. Don’t stop teaching us. May we never stop learning from everyone we meet.

Can I help you pack Sir?

An amazing article appeared in the Business Day on the 8th July 2009. It was a Business Day interview with the former Anglo American deputy chairman, Graham Boustred, 84. It was an interview at his request in order for him to share his views on the current state of Anglo American. What follows has one suspiciously looking for the candid camera equivalent of the print media! Boustred states that Xstrata’s proposed bid for Anglo American is simply a mechanism for getting rid of current Anglo CEO, Cynthia Caroll who he goes on to describe as “hopeless”and implies that she is sexually frustrated. The then illuminates why it is difficult to find a female CEO: “It is because most women are sexually frustrated. men are not, because they can fall back on call girls, go to erectile dysfunction clinics. If you have a CEO who is sexually frustrated she can’t act properly”.

Boustred talks about the possibility of having an exit strtaegy should the wheels come off in South Africa. His prefered safe haven? The Isle of Man. His reason being that on the Isle of Man “there are no Muslims, no blacks”. There were compelling other reasons such as a good health care system but these are all too sane to be taken seriously.

The tone of Boustred’s ranting as reported is self-centred, arrogant, dogmatic, bigited and plain insulting. He represents a perplexing case study in past leaders grown old and begs the question of just how much of the present characteristics and opinions were in evidence during his leadership reign? He is aptly described in the interview as an “old man of South African business” where his world is “an anachronism that is growing smaller all the time”.

Oh yes, and the answer to Anglo’s current “disaster”? Well, for Boustred to return of course! reading to full article will have you queing to help the pensioner pack.
 

Millenials reversing the trend

It’s always difficult convincing an adult audience, that from a Generational perspective, the so-called ‘Millennials’ (Gen Y, Echo Boomers) are going to be more civic minded, more conservative (whilst being more aware), and focus on rebuilding the planet (amongst other things). Mostly because their example of a Millennial is often one of their own kids. And let’s be honest, what parent thinks their own kids are going to be some of those things? Their kids are teenagers, and generally speaking teens are going through a life stage in which pushing the boundaries and experimenting are part and parcel of what they have to do in order to develop into healthy contributing adults.

So it’s with a smile of satisfaction that I point you to some research coming out of Canada (Project Teen Canada headed up by Reginald Bibby, a University of Lethbridge sociologist) that shows that today’s Millennial Generation are reversing some trends that you probably wouldn’t expect them to. Sex, Drugs, Family Values, having children, smoking.

This reversing trend has been captured beautifully in a short video clip entitled ‘Lost Generation‘. If you’ve not seen it, it’s worth a trip to YouTube see get a first hand view.

There are some thoughts about the role parents are playing in the reversing of these trends, but the article is summed up like this:

In the end, the kids will likely follow their own instincts. While they might be taking silent cues from their parents—and might even seek help in times of crisis—they’ve little time for adult authorities who worry about their futures. Jesse Lupini, the 17-year-old from Victoria, summed up the sentiment in a recent guest column for his local paper. “Adults have generated a number of teen stereotypes,” he writes. “Teens are irresponsible, untrustworthy, rude, sexually obsessed, loud, inclined to drink to excess, take drugs, eat badly . . . ” But how about the adults who lie, drive drunk and do drugs, Lupini asks? What about the corporations run by adults that market junk food and sexualized clothing to youth? What about the parents who buy that stuff for their kids? “Frankly,” he concludes, having worked up a rather adult-sounding rant, “it’s a wonder we’re coping as well as we are.”

TomorrowToday has been researching, exploring and communicating Generational Theory through our edutaining presentation ‘Mind the Gap‘ for 7 years now. We’re still as convinced as ever that it’s a framework every organisation needs to include in the multiple frameworks it uses to understand people dynamics and interactions.

Barbie is 50 years old this week

Yes, Barbie – the doll – is 50 years old. As a father of three young daughters, I know Barbie. She (and her clones) are in my home. Is this good or bad? Too much rubbish has been written about this.

But, then in the New Statesman magazine, I read this fantastic little piece that put it brilliantly! By the way, this week’s edition of New Statesman is awesome! It looks at the crowds that changed the world in 1989 – get it and enjoy a brilliant magazine!

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A Place for Mom to Work

This was sent to me by email yesterday:

In the same way that freelancers are flocking to shared working spaces, stay-at-home moms are happy to find a third space that accommodates both them and their offspring. In London, private members clubs like Maggie & Rose and Cupcake Mom, offer mothers a place to convene and relax, where they’re welcome to come and go as they please, 7 days a week.

Maggie & Rose, based in Kensington, features several play areas and offers children’s lessons in art, cooking, dance and more, as well as a weekend movie club and birthday party services. Parents are catered to with a comfortable and quiet café (with wifi access, of course), as well as seminars and access to a family advisory service: “well researched info on nannies, tutors, schools, holidays, etc.” Memberships are priced at GBP 500 per year.

Set to open in Wandsworth next month, Cupcake also aims to provide a grown-up but child-friendly environment. Its focus, however, is mainly on pregnant women and new mothers. In addition to a crèche and an organic café, Cupcake also offers personal trainers and a spa. The top floor of the club, where the spa is located, is a “baby-free zone” and features treatments tailor-made for pregnant women and new moms, from the “Cupcake in the Oven Massage” to the “Mermaid Wrap.” Cupcake also plans to install a sleep pod for much-needed powernaps, and will offer a concierge service to help busy moms complete their to-do lists. Membership is GBP 149 per month. Founded by Karen Hastings, an American MBA graduate who lives in London, Cupcake is backed by Trapezia Capital, a UK venture fund that solely invests in women-led businesses. Hastings plans to open clubs in affluent areas across the country. We’re pretty sure British moms (and dads) aren’t the only parents who would gladly pay for access to a being space, a community of peers and the opportunity for some pampered me-time. Entrepreneurs across the world: start planning.

Websites: www.maggieandrose.co.uk — www.cupcakemum.com
Contacts: studio@maggieandrose.com — info@cupcakemum.com

Women in Parliament

The Inter-Parliamentary Union tracks women’s representation in the world’s Parliaments on an ongoing basis. You can see the latest stats here.

The top 10 ranking countries are: (10) Mozambique, (9) Argentina, (8-) Spain, (8-) Cuba, (7) Netherlands, (6) Denmark, (5) Finland, (4) Norway, (3) Costa Rica, (2) Sweden and (1) Rwanda. South Africa is 14th, the UK is 51st, and the USA 67th. Afghanistan is 25th.

The global average is. See global stats here.

In 1985, 189 governments committed to ensuring women’s equal access to and full participation in power structures and decision-making in government. Since 1985, this has seen a 0.6% increase annually. At this rate, it will take 72 years to achieve this goal!!

But some countries are doing better than others. Spain, for example, has recently moved up this list quite dramatically – see a report below.

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Battle of the sexes

I thought we lived in an enlightened era … where men and women exist together in harmony. After reading this article (link below) I’m not so sure?

The article that kick started this raging debate … Why men shouldn’t marry career women.

However it was on glancing through some of the “reader comments” that I got a glimpse of what I can only describe as shocking, childish, petulant and sad. I hope that this reflection of comments is representative of a minority of people. Else we’re in trouble deep!

http://www.forbes.com/home/2006/08/23/Marriage-Careers-Divorce_cx_mn_land.html

The merits and demerits of being a black woman

The joke goes that the easiest person for a personnel agency to place in South Africa these days is a disabled, lesbian black woman with tertiary qualifications. Not a very good joke, I’ll grant you, but indicative of the struggle to rectify the imbalances of the past in my home country. The point being that there is inherent, systematic discrimination built into our systems, and we can only change this by being intentional and conscious about our actions and attitudes. There is no easy way to fix discrimination, or to develop true diversity.

The difficulty is that the starting point is within us. Most of us are not even aware of our discriminatory bias. Ask yourself: “when a taxi drives like a maniac and pulls in front of you, nearly cutting you off the road, who do you mentally picture is driving that vehicle?” Depending on your city, you might answer: Johannesburg: young, black male (unlicensed, arrogant, rude, and probably armed); Sydney: middle-aged, Asian (can’t speak English); London: middle-aged, Pakistani; New York: unknown origin, but “not from here” and can’t speak English (maybe even an alien?). In each case, we might be right, but we could also be hopelessly wrong. Yes, we can have a bit of fun with the issue of discrimination… But, lets be aware of our own latent prejudices. That’s the starting point, and its more difficult than we can ever know to overcome them.

That’s why external pressures have to sometimes be imposed. In South Africa, right now, that means that being a talented black woman is a great thing to be. Yet, the prejudice might stop your career reaching the heights it should.

In an article entitled, “Subtle Forms of Discrimination Driving Women of Color from Top Law Firms” on BlackAmericaWeb.com, Monica Lewis reported on 7 Aug 2006 that the American Bar Association and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago released a report last week during the bar association’s annual convention in Honolulu. The report found that women of color frequently experience subtle forms of discrimination in US law firms, prompting them to leave lucrative and coveted jobs with some of the nation’s best law firms. (Read more below).

Our view is that it is absolutely essential to build real diversity muscle into an organisation. This doesn’t just mean getting people with different skin colours or anatomical bits into your boardroom – because its all too easy to subtly (and not so subtly) promote only those blacks and women who act and think like white men. And its easy for them to start doing so once they learn the rules. To put it another way – its often the best ones that leave, because they see the game and refuse to play it. NO. We need REAL diversity – of worldviews – hard coded into our companies. That is a key ingredient to resilience, multi-national and multi-market success, and to a sustainable competitive advantage in the future.

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A Reflection on the Tour de France

One of the more difficult Connection Economy concepts for people to get their heads around is the concept that Edward de Bono dubbed, “co-opetition”. This is defined as the ability of competitors to co-operate.

Watching the longest Tour de France stage yesterday (230 km’s!!), with an early breakaway of 5 riders, that eventually put more than half an hour between themselves and the peleton, it struck me that professional cycling provides a great example of co-opetation. Those five riders had to work together and co-oridinate their efforts in order to get ahead of the pack. But they all knew that about 5km from the end, one of them would break ranks and force the competition to re-emerge and dominate for the last sprint to the line. As soon as the first person broke ranks, the co-operation would be over. But until that point, they’d work well together and get an advantage.

Simple picture, but it works for me.

Grapevine marketing

We’ve all heard of viral marketing, product placements in movies and TV, and know the power of word of mouth. But now Proctor & Gamble (P&G) have taken this a step further. They’ve started paying hundreds of thousands of moms (literally!) to drop their products into conversations and subtly promote P&G’s brand in their everyday interactions.

“By crafting product messages mothers will want to share, along with giving them samples, coupons, and a chance to share their own opinions with P&G, [they're] using personal endorsements to cut through advertising clutter. ‘We know that the most powerful form of marketing is an advocacy message from a trusted friend,’ says Steve Knox. The program is a state-of-the-art method for reaching the most influential group of shoppers in America: moms.” Read the full story from BusinessWeek here.
Like network marketing, this might work with Boomers, but I wonder how Gen Xers are feeling about it? I wonder what I would think of a product that was recommended to me, and I later discovered the person was rewarded for recommending it? And, most importantly, I wonder what I would think of the person who made the recommendation – originally supposedly just out of friendship, but now I discover for some personal gain?

I’m interested to know what others think of this venture.

Complaining about discrimination

Last week, the USA Supreme Court ruled on the matter of Burlington Northern v. White, a sexual discrimination case. Basically, the woman involved had been verbally harassed by a male supervisor in front of her all male colleagues. When she ultimately complained, he was discplined, but she was essentally demoted, and trumped up disciplinary charges brought against her (she was off work for 37 days without pay). For details of the case, read the summary here.

The reason this had made it to the Supreme Court was so that a decision could be made about what constitutes unfair labour practice and discrimination. “The court accepted the case to resolve what is called a ’split’ among the lower courts: different appeals courts had adopted differing standards for determining the level of harm necessary for an action to constitute retaliation under Title VII. Some courts required an ‘ultimate employment action’ (firing, demotion or decisions with ‘tangible economic consequences’). Others required only that the action be ‘materially adverse,’ and still others required that the action be ‘likely to deter’ complaints of discrimination.” The Supreme Court had to decide where to draw the line in issues of workplace discrimination. The outcome has huge implications for women and all minorities in America.

The Court ruled last week.

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Men and women in the office

A small little filler in the BusinessWeek magazine, 29 May 2006 edition, caught my eye. It is about what different people want in the physical layout of their offices. Interesting read:

What Do Men Want? A Thermostat
By Elizabeth Woyke

To build a better work space, consult the worker bees. In a poll conducted by Knoll, a furnishings maker, and research firm DYG, 850 workers at companies with 100 or more employees were asked what surroundings made them productive. Some 45% said they work best in private offices. The rest prefer collaborative spaces (16%), their homes (18%), or other sites outside the office (22%).

Some 40% of Gen Y workers, aged 18 to 29, said they like open office plans. (Just 18% said they would choose cubicle-like stations with panels for privacy). “Young people are saying this is how we expect and want to work,” says Christine Barber, Knoll’s director of workplace research. “That’s driving a trend toward more creative, interactive work environments.”

Then there’s what might be called the thermostat factor. Women listed eight attributes as having a “high impact” on productivity, including privacy, natural light, and the option of personalizing a space. Men named just one: the ability to control the air conditioning or heat.

Original source: click here.

Women studying MBAs

It is a worldwide trend that women do not pursue MBAs as much as men. A recent Stanford lecture gave some insights.

Pursuing an MBA is a career choice. Its no use doing the degree without a plan for the next decade of career advancement. MBAs ratchet you up to a high-powered job, and career movement. And, MBAs themselves are particularly demanding courses of study. They require great commitment and understanding from families and friends.

Guest speakers at Stanford related stories about needing two nannies and a personal assistant to cope, and about not having set foot in a gym for 10 years. They also told stories of women deciding that you cannot have children and an MBA. “It can take 10 years to establish yourself before you feel you can take a maternity leave. Then you’re in your late 30s and infertility can be a problem.”

Such are the tradeoffs that women consider either before they seek an MBA degree or after they graduate. It’s the typical timeline for an MBA degree that most discourages some women from applying to business school. M.B.A. students tend to be about 27 years old, creating what one business-school official calls “a biological collision.” As they near 30, women who are focusing on marriage and children worry about how an MBA will affect their plans.

Medical and law schools attract more women in part because they can enter right after college, while most business schools seek applicants with at least four or five years of work experience. Some schools are starting to be more flexible to encourage younger women to apply, but it’s too early to detect any measurable impact on enrollment data.

Female MBA enrollment grew during the 1980s and 1990s, but has since leveled off at 25% to 30% at many schools. In its surveys of prospective students, the Graduate Management Admission Council found that women were significantly more likely than men to list the following potential reservations about attending business school: it might be intimidating or too stressful; it might force them to postpone marriage, children or other personal plans; it might require more experience than they felt they had; and it might severely limit available time for people who are important in their lives.

Women in Finance

In April, the CFO magazine surveyed 363 financial executives on their views about gender and finance careers. Some interesting survey highlights include:

• * Only 38% of men say that women are at a disadvantage in the finance. But 66% of women think they have a disadvantage.
• * 68% of women say that flexible hours are an important factor when choosing a job. Only 40% of men do.
• * 31% of women would prefer to work for a man compared with 28% of men.
• *16% of women aspire to be CEO vs. 24% of men (7% think they will attain the position, vs. 17% of men).

A report in the New York Business Wire, gives further information:

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Do women make better bosses?

Alan Lander reports in the Sunshine Coast Daily on a heated discussion on 14 June in his local community. Do women make better bosses? We’ve long argued at TomorrowToday (see our “World of Women” presentation) that women should be taking more of a lead in the 21st century. But we don’t mean that they should step into the testosterone driven, male dominated world of current reality. That would be playing men’s games like men. Rather, they should stpe up and start leading like women – actually changing the game. They should also be more gender inclusive – but they will be. So, as you read the report online here, or below, we actually side with both positions. Women should lead THEIR way, and not be drawn into a male leadership role. But they must lead, and men must learn to lead like them, too.
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Boomer women changing retirement

Anne Marie Owens, of the Canadian National Post, reports on 28 March 2006, that a new study indicates that women are coping better with the transition to retirement than men are. Read her report here (make sure you go to page 2).

She writes:

The generation of women who helped reshape the workforce by pushing for pay equity and work-life balance are now poised to dramatically transform the way Canadians retire….

The report says: “For the first time in history, we have a generation of women entering retirement who have worked in the labour force for most of their adult lives and who still have managed to provide the greater part of care for the young, and, now, for growing numbers of the very old…. These women, who have always juggled work and family responsibilities, will likely follow new routes into retirement, opting in and out of ‘retirement’ depending on caregiving demands.” ….

While women and men take on paid work after retiring in relatively equal numbers (18% of women and 24% of men), women’s patterns of re-employment seem to be more a form of “career progression,” rather than strict retirement reversal…..

They are the first generation of working women to have been in paid employment long enough to amass their own significant pensions, yet because conventional pension policies penalize typical female work patterns — described in the report as “interrupted work histories due to family responsibilities” — their pension benefits are not on par with their male counterparts.”

The report was quoted in other media…
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The un-CEO

TomorrowToday.biz got a CEO last year. We elected someone within our ranks to take on the title of CEO. Essentially we wanted to know we had one person that the buck stopped at. Outside of that we’ve had a hard time working out what else we wanted our new CEO to do. And we continue to struggle with this. I smiled as I read an article on FastCompany today about an ‘un-CEO’. It sounded very TomorrowToday.biz like in it’s description of Terri Kelly, the CEO of a company called WL Gore and Associates.

In a decentralised, virtual and highly fractal organisation perhaps the more accurate description of the position is an un-CEO and not a CEO. That’s some of the problem with ‘lanuage’. It means something. And CEO conjures up stuff you want, stuff you don’t want, and even stuff you can’t hope to have in an organisation like ours.

Terri has some interesting stuff to say…

The idea of me as CEO managing the company is a misperception. My goal is to provide the overall direction. I spend a lot of time making sure we have the right people in the right roles. You know the joke, “I’m from corporate, and I’m here to help.” We don’t need unuseful, unvaluable corporate help. We empower divisions and push out responsibility. We’re so diversified that it’s impossible for a CEO to have that depth of knowledge — and not even practical.

Men should have more say

Should men have more choice when it comes to unintended pregnancy? In the US, the National Centre for Men is filling a lawsuit on behalf of Matt Dubay who has been ordered to pay child support for his ex-girlfriends daughter. Matt’s ex-girlfriend assured him she couldn’t get pregnant.

The gist of the argument: If a pregnant woman can choose among abortion, adoption or raising a child, a man involved in an unintended pregnancy should have the choice of declining the financial responsibilities of fatherhood. The activists involved hope to spark discussion even if they lose.

The National Centre for Men has been wanting to pursue a case like this since the early 1990’s, and they expect to lose.

It’s an interesting case this, as it’s not just about the rights of two adults, because a child is involved. An entire life, a whole future. It’s going to be a healthy discussion to raise some of the issues, especially because there are no simple clear cut answers.

“None of these are easy questions,” said Gandy, a former prosecutor. “But most courts say it’s not about what he did or didn’t do or what she did or didn’t do. It’s about the rights of the child.”

See CNN for the full article.

Its not just a “glass ceiling”, its a “maternal wall” too

“We have to stop letting businesses off the hook who talk about family values, but create policies where the employee, who puts caring for a sick child a higher priority than work, risks a promotion or their job”. So says, Ellen Bravo, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor (read full report here).

Bravo declared, “Now, repeat after me, ‘Housework is work to be done by people who live in the house. It is not mom’s work, with occasional assistance from others.’” She noted the major shift in American family structure. In the 1960s about 70 percent of families had a stay-at-home parent, almost always the woman – and dad was the sole wage earner. “Today, about 70 percent of families have both parents working and longer hours than other developed countries,” Bravo said. Men work an average of 48 hours a week and women 42, and that includes the 24 percent of women who work “part-time.”

Bravo urged companies to perform an internal audit to examine policies that may show a lack of flexibility when employees try to balance their work and family responsibilities. “This isn’t about doing a favor to women, but developing a better way of doing things and not losing talented women,” Bravo said.

Read more here.

Female Friendly Firms are actually Family Friendly

Around the world, a growing number of organisations are starting to realise that it is a massive loss to lose women in the 30s and 40s – women who opt out of the rat race in order to focus attention on family issues, including child care and ageing parents (see previous post on the Sandwich generation). To cater for some of the demands on these multi-tasking women’s time, some companies are starting to become more flexible about work hours, provide more services to employees and become more friendly to “personal” issues that need resolving.

These companies are often celebrated as “women friendly”, and there are many lists emerging now of women-friendly companies. Governments and non-profits are putting energy into raising awareness of these issues (e.g. EOWA in Australia – Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency).

The Age in Australia, reports today that EOWA is having the desired effect, with more and more female (family) friendly companies emerging – read the report here.

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Avoiding the Glass Ceiling

The statistics are very clear. The role of women as leaders in the corporate world is stagnant, and even declining in many developed countries. In America, only 7 of the Fortune 500 companies have women CEOs (down from 9 in 2004), and only 13% of Board members are women (many non-Executive). Similar stats emerge in the UK: only 1 FTSE 100 female CEO (Pearsons, which also has a female CFO); only 2% of Executive directors and less than 4% of all FTSE 100 directors.

In South Africa, 6.2% of CEOs are women (this is heavily weighted in favour of State Owned Enterprises): 23.5% of SOEs have female CEOs. Only 1.1% of JSE listed companies have female CEOs. 10.7% of all directors in SA are women.

Yet, women lead the world in the establishment of entrepreneurial start ups. So, it can’t simply be that they don’t have what it takes to make it to the top. They clearly have what it takes to start their own companies – probably a harder job than working for a company. So, why do they leave?

In the Business Telegraph, David Bolchover has some great insights into this question: The truth about work: Women find the glass ceiling is one obstacle they can avoid.

North Country

A few years ago, Hollywood actor and Oscar winner (and nominee for 2006), Charlize Theron, returned to South Africa, the country of her birth, and shot an anti-rape advert. It was a hard hitting advert aimed at “the men of South Africa”, in which she berated us for not taking a stronger stand against rape. In her latest movie, North Country, she pursues the theme of abuse against women. The movie is inspired by the true story of the first major class action sexual harassment case in the United States — Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines.

Besides being beautifully filmed, and wonderfully acted by all the lead and supporting roles, this movie has a strong and important theme: the way women are treated in the workplace. Its a powerful reminder that even in these so-called enlightened times, we have yet to overcome our prejudices and abuses. Women are badly treated in countless ways, overtly and subtly in the world of work. This movie reminded me again how important the message of our “World of Women” presentation is, and inspired to tell it with even more conviction and passion.

The DVD is being released at the end of this month, and will certainly find its way into my collection. I have three daughters, and when the time is right and their ages make it appropriate, I’d like them to see this movie and understand the shoulders on which they stand. I truly hope that by the time my girls step into the world, the type of discrimination and victimisation of women depicted in this movie, will have been removed and stigmatised out of existence.

The Power of the Purse

I’m just finishing a good read looking at retail and the power of the women consumer market.

“Power of the Purse� by Fara Warner (get it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net).
The book looks at the power shifts in gender roles statically, and combines this with practical application taken from some of the biggest world brands, ie McDonalds and Nike. They work through the thought process and research that these companies used to get the competitive edge. Although the stats are all USA based. I think in South Africa we are moving into a similar situation at an alarming rate.

In dealing with generational and gender issues, this is a must read for anyone in retail, marketing or even product development, for insight into connecting or tapping into this growing market.

… Continue Reading

The Sandwich Generation

Increasingly, Boomers are being seen as the “sandwich” generation – simultaneously caring for their children and their ageing parents. This trend is exacerbated by the twin facts that (1) today’s young people are taking longer than ever to leave home, and (2) older people are living longer than they ever have.

In Spain, the government is running some public service adverts trying to get younger people to leave home. Not leaving home is causing entry level home prices to plummet, and is stopping the development of a materialistic consumer culture required in all democracies to make the economy tick over.

In Australia, just yesterday the National Carers Association was warned of the increasing burden on women of having children later (median age of childbirth in Aus is now 30.5 years), and caring for an ageing population. (Read the full report here).

Men and women aren’t even funny

Its fairly clear that men and women are different. In the world of connection – marketing, PR, comms, sales, etc – we don’t often take this seriously enough. So, I found it interesting to see a survey done on men and women and their responses to comedy. Apparently, men don’t find female comedians funny because their sense of humour is intrinsically different.

“In the week that readers of lads’ mag FHM voted the funniest women as ‘none of them’, research by global advertising agency JWT points to a divide in what the genders find funny.”

The main point of difference: “Women’s main source of humour is from the everyday, the little issues, stuff they observe and that happens to them. Men want to be funny to show off and to get people to admire them. It’s all about scoring points, whereas with women humour is much more a way of creating an attachment, bonding and getting intimacy with people.”

Read a report about this from the UK comedy guide here, or something from UK The Independent (online edition) here.