Volvo Concept car – for women?

I found this post ( http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050914/lawfns2.html?.v=1) on Volvo presenting it’s first ever car designed by women. My first thought was ‘At last! Someone’s done it’, but as I read through the article I couldn’t shake a nagging thought.

We all know that we’re moving into the ‘age of women’ – from our natural abilities which align themselves to the connection economy, to the fact that we make/influence a huge percentage of purchases, to the fact that most small businesses are being started by women… The list keeps growing. And so on the surface it seems that Volvo is finally getting with the programme and catering to its largest target market.

But then a warning light. ‘Because it’s a concept car, there is no assurance the car will ultimately be mass-produced for retail. Nevertheless, Volvo expects many of its ideas will find their way into future cars’.

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Working Mothers – the debate still rages

Michelle Conlin wrote in 2000 for BusinessWeek on how the turn of the millennial would not necessarily solve one of women’s age ol dilemmas – how to balance work, marriage and kids. It seems that men just get to carry on, assuming that the women will pick up the child care pieces. Whilst the attitudes of some men are changing, this is still probably the norm, and women bear get the raw end of the deal more often than not. Read her full article here.

She says: “Some 25 years after women started pouring into the labor force, you would think the work-and-family dilemma would have eased, or that the judgments women have about each other’s choices would have at least lost some of their sting. But in some ways, the tensions today are fiercer than ever, exacerbated by the New Economy’s demands on dual-earner couples for 60-hour workweeks on the one hand and the increased option for some to stay at home on the other…. It’s this can’t-win-no-matter-what dynamic that is distracting women from drilling down to the real problem: the way the workplace in Corporate America is designed. According to Joan Williams, co-director of American University’s Gender, Work & Family Project and author of the recently released book Unbending Gender, most jobs are centered around the notion of an ideal worker who labors at least 40 hours a week–and often 60–without ever taking a break or downshifting for child-rearing.”

Microsoft SA launches Women in IT website

I picked up a post (more of a rant) by Rich…! at the always entertaining Jo’blog site referring to Microsoft SA’s recent “Women in IT” website launch.

In essence the site is a community platform for SA women either interested in, or working in, the IT field. Built-in mentorship programmes, annual bursaries and forums are a few of the prominent features. Rich…! has a strong point to make about the stereotypical design standards of the site, but I’m more interested in finding out why Microsoft are focussing so strongly on women in IT.

Is it just a marketing tool, another attempt at building brand loyalty amongst the geeky (predominantly anti-Microsoft) masses? Is it a corporate social investment project? Is it a weak attempt at a social network, and to what end?

What impression do our esteemed female colleagues get from the site?

The Three C’s of the Connection Economy Women

Having watched the segment on working moms (premium content, requires free login) on last Sunday’s Carte Blanche, the subject of balance touched a chord, yet again. Very aptly put by one of the interviewees, we seek the “Three C’s” in career, cash and children and many, as in my case, are ever-optimistic about balancing the three. As we move into the Connection Economy, women have huge value to add, both within a work and social context, and are becoming increasingly aware of it too. And as our talents become more valued, so the demand on them increases as does the tendency to spread ourselves as thinly as possible to keep everyone happy (yet another of our many virtues!).

So where is the balance when there is a strong need for a sense of purpose, value and independence and simultaneously a committment to nurturing and raising balanced, secure children? It’s a juggling act like no other and working flexi-time from home makes it no easier. There are many days when I reflect on the amount of times I have had to switch roles in the blink of an eye from mom to wife to businesswoman to taxi driver to daughter to friend to grocery-shopper to sister to cook to employer to cricket/soccer/tennis player to… let’s not even go there!( Sam Cowan – I’m with you on that one, girlfriend!). The psychologist in the segment points out that one has to strike a balance which works FOR YOU which is where I realised there is a 4th “C” that essentially needs to straddle the others – “choice”. This is one hurdle that seems to face many women today in that we don’t feel we have a choice in forcing the balance.

Having been blessed with amazing multi-tasking abilities but burdened with a need to prove them (and often perfectionism to complicate things further!), we take on whatever comes our way and in doing so, the balance we seek is ever-elusive. Until such time as we are prepared to make the tough choices and say “no” to those tasks and responsibilities which threaten our own personal balance, we’ll never be those imaginary perfectly in control women! On that note, I sign off to tackle my list of 101 “have to do’s” before lunch.

The New Innovators: Mompreneurs

In an article on MarketingProfs.com, (August 16, 2005) Lisa Johnson talks about the new entrepreneurs – she calls them “mompreneurs”. These are the women behind the absolute revolution in baby and child care products, toys and related stuff. She says, “Diaper Genie creates a sealed chain of used nappies. There was a rocker with programmable nature noises, a sleek spinning mobile, state-of-the-art furnishings and a range of eco-friendly materials. Parked in the garage were the strollers—not one, but three different baby vehicles, including one for off-road trips. It was amazing to see the problem solving, innovation and Zen-like simplicity of these products”. I can relate.

My wife and I are both oldest children, and we had our first daughter, Amy, 6 years ago, we amazed our parents with the goodies and products that we bought to make the task of parenting easier. Now, our third daughetr Rebecca is 3 months old, and we ourselves have been amazed at the further innovations that have taken place in just the past few years. Who do we have to thank? Well, it seems that there is a growing league of moms who are key to this innovation – many of them working as entrepreneurs.

In the article (click here to read it in full), she explains a number of reasons for this new phenomenon. (Also check out http://www.mompreneursonline.com/).
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EVEolution

Tom Peters highly recommends the book, “EVEolution:The Eight Truths of Marketing to Women” by Faith Popcorn & Lys Marigold (buy it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net).

In his generic presentation on Re-Imagine, Peters extracts some key learnings for anyone who takes women seriously as a market (and everyone should!). Each of these thoughts links marketing to women very strongly with the connection economy mantra we preach here.

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Communicating in the connection ecomony

A few days ago I got a bit of flack on the Quality debate. I’m bored with that topic, so I won’t go there, but a few interesting things came out of that posting (and a few in the past that have been turning over in my mind), that I felt I wanted share with you as a community, especially as understanding and promoting the connection economy is so integral to what the TT.biz community is about.

My biggest soap box in business is relationships. It is not necessarily about liking the person or relating to them, it is about trusting and respecting them. When you have that you can achieve so much more, less painlessly and more efficiently.

We all know that the connection economy is about forming relationships, often with people that we may never set eyes on. So how we interact with them on the forums available to us, determines how successful that relationship will be. That means the tone of the emails, the blog posts etc will determine what sort of relationship you form. When we say something – are we smiling, are we frowning, can it be interpreted in another way? When I first started using the chat forum I hated those “silly� emoticons (I am so not a frilly funky nick nacky person), but I soon started to realize that I need them to convey what I was saying. I am very assertive and can be very intense, so unless people can see my face, they don’t know whether I am being serious or pulling their leg, especially those that know me.

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The world of dads

I just saw an article in the Mail and Guardian, “Saint Dad” (requires login).
This article talks about how raising children should be just like breathing for fathers.

What I’m finding interesting is that we are writing and talking more and more about women in business and there are also so many more opportunities for women in business. If she is fortunate she has a new contract (check out bright young things, and if not she is still in the boxing ring (Check out Keith’s post article in the e-zine about women and the boxing ring).

So my question is as these opportunities come up for women, are more and more men also taking care of the kids, are they becoming “stayhome dads”? Is there also a new space for dads, new qualities they are bringing to bringing up kids.

Imagine this as a presentation called “The world of Dads”……well well well

The Art of the Woman Warrior

In the latest Inc magazine, there is a small piece about a new style of offsite meeting (“bosberaad” for South Africans). Its a team build/leadership development process for women, led by two ex-Marine women (click here to read it). I have not looked into any more detail beyond Inc’s summary of their offering, but it strikes me that this is the dangerous thing that we talk about in our World of Women presentation.

Although they say that teach women to be women, and not to act like men, it appears as if this is very superifical (don’t try to be macho, don’t speak with a gruff voice, etc). They then go on to say that you should never apologise, or show weakness. I am not sure that this is what “being a woman” is about. As we say about “World of Women”, “As we look at the workplace of today, and the emerging workplace of the future, women must understand the unique perspective they bring. Too many women try to succeed in the workplace by acting like men, and try to take men on at their own game – the power-based, competitive, testosterone-filled, dog-eat-dog, workaholic game. It’s not that they can’t compete – if they want to, they can. We argue its that they shouldn’t compete. Rather, women should see their function as changing the workplace to exhibit more feminine characteristics. This is the challenge that lies ahead for businesses – and it is one that they MUST understand and respond to. Today’s generation of young employees and customers demand nothing less.”

Women in the Connection Economy

There are some great comments and discussions going on at TomorrowToday’s e-zine from this past month. Keith Coats wrote about Women in the connection economy, and the comments added to his article have really been great additions to this thinking. Check out Keith’s post here.

Did you hear?

Seeing as contributions to the “World of women” category have been poor of late … courtesy of FM June 24:

Nedbank, as part of its “women’s forum” series of occasional events and courses to empower its female employees, is avertising the following to staff:

“Courses for July:
8: Dr Loretta Giorcelli, ‘Humanity, community, responsibility for modern children and teens’
4-15: St Mary’s Life Skills Camp
20: Vehicle safety/spanner & wench workshop”

A wench workshop seems a little old-school for these liberated times.

Smart Women Don’t Box: Leadership in the Connection economy

The , exploring the subject of women and leadership, carried an article titled, ‘Women can beat men at their own game’.