The Downtown Women's Club womensDISH blog

Be a better blogger

Blogging has exploded as a communication tool and is a great way to increase your online presence and credibility.  If you're not using a blog to promote your business or yourself, then now is a good time to start doing so.

If you can write, you can blog.  You don't have to be a technical person to blog.  Being a good blogger means following the principals of good writing, but it also means following some special online protocols. 

My ten tips for better blogging are:

1.   Determine your target audience.  Like with any communication, you should first figure out who you're trying to reach and why you want to reach them.

2.   Decide your theme.  This should be related to your audience.  And, most importantly,  be a subject that interesting to your audience.  Just because you have a great interest in something, doesn't mean that others will want to read about it.

3.   Remember that what goes online, stays online. Sure, you can be controversial, but remember that web pages get archived and are visible in web searches, even if you've deleted your posting. So, you may want to think twice before ranting about your employer or trashing another person.

4.   Use a catchy, short title.  The title should make people want to read more.

5.   Be concise.  People will lose interest if you're too long winded.

The Far Side of Perfect: The Office - home edition

Ah… The joys of working from home.  No commute, no dress code, and no dealing with colleagues worthy of a role on The Office.  To those who venture into a “real” office on a regular basis, it does sound ideal.  Yet, over the years, I’ve waivered in my devotion to my home office. 

If you also work from home or are contemplating doing so, you’ll probably find that while there are a lot of advantages, at times it can be quite lonely.  It goes in stages.  However, just in case the isolation really starts to get to you, here are the top 10 signs that it might be time to turn your home office back into a guest room and lease yourself some office space.   

10. You take personal offence when the local Starbucks rearranges their interior layout without consulting you. How dare they?  Shouldn’t you have a say in what they do with your favorite conference room?

9. The only “water cooler conversation” in your life involves doing Tim Gunn imitations (“Designers … I’m worried.”) while discussing the Project Runway results on the phone with your mother.

8. You look wistfully at your closet full of unworn designer suits and high heels and think about how much fun it would be to play "dress up."

7. On a recent foray out to the Financial District for a meeting (wearing a suit that’s older than your children and tripping on heels that your Croc-spoiled feet can no longer handle), you’re astounded by the number of single men who exist in the world and are actually old enough to tie their own shoes.

6. You’ve given up rationalizing how you can possibly be home all day long and still not have a clean house.

5.  In a lame attempt to actually clean, you challenge your other “work at home colleagues” to bring over their robotic vacuum cleaners so you all can have “Roomba races.”

4.  You realize that Sven in Iceland and other Facebook friends know more details about the monotony of your daily life than your actual friends.

3. You’ve once again eaten your kids’ entire stash of blueberry pop-tarts, Scooby Doo fruit snacks, Spiderman cheese sticks and bubblegum flavored yogurt cups.

2. You are inexplicably drawn to Perez Hilton’s blog throughout the day just so you don’t miss the latest scoop on Britney, Amy Winehouse and those bobble-headed dolls otherwise known as the Olsen Twins. 

However, in my experience, the number one sign that it might be time for you to get out of the house and go back to an office is:

1.  You find yourself asking your children at dinner if they remember whether or not Mommy showered today.

by Diane K. Danielson

Reprinted with permission from the Cohasset Mariner

Getting into launch mode

This month's DWC Indicator article is an excerpt from the book "Ladies Who Launch: Embracing Entrepreneurship and Creativity as a Lifestyle" by Beth Schoenfeldt, Victoria Colligan, and Amy Swift. This article is from the Downtown Women's Club April DWC Dish e-newsletter. (Click here to register to receive the DWC Dish e-newsletterfor free).

Many women feel overwhelmed at the prospect of starting a new business. They ask themselves, "Where do I begin? How do I get there? What if I do it wrong? There's so much I don't know." These are the common questions and themes. But at Ladies Who Launch, our motto is, just start! Move in the direction of your dream slowly and in a fun way, and don't get stopped by thinking you have to write a business plan or have a million dollars or even that you have to know what you're doing.

Here are some tips for getting into Launch Mode:

1.  Jump into something unfamiliar. Say yes to an invitation you'd normally pass on. Get used to saying "yes" when you might normally say "no." Entrepreneurs are masters at exploring unchartered territory.

2.  Be unstoppable. Has someone said "no" to something you really want? Go for it again. Get familiar with finding your way around obstacles and being inventive and resourceful in the face of negativity or impossibility.

Online Networking Tip: Avoid online identity theft

Savvy Gal Networking Tip:  Avoid online identity theft.  We’re not talking about the online theft of your bank account, but someone innocently co-opting your online image.  It happens, especially if you have a somewhat common name.  The best way to stand out from the crowd is to populate the web with content by, or about, you.  You also might consider using a nickname professionally or your middle initial.  Both will help distinguish you from any online “twins.”

**Want to know about the other type of online identity theft?  Check out my friend George's blog at http://ivebeenmugged.typepad.com.

This tip courtesy of The Savvy Gal's Guide to Online Networking (or What Would Jane Austen Do?) available through Amazon or free with a Downtown Women's Club membership.

Facebook suffers growing pains

As of January 2008, Facebook had 59 million users and 2 million new ones join each week, according to The UK Guardian.   And, like any company with such rapid growth, it's suffering some growing pains.  Vauhini Vara outlines this in the 3/5/08 Wall St. Journal article, "Facebook CEO Seeks Help as Site Grows Up."

Here's a summary of what Vara reported:

Cheryl Sandberg, a 6 year Google veteran, has been hired as Facebook's first COO.  Her mission will be to expand operations, revenues and the international base.  In 2007, Facebook reported sales of $150 million, but it's still using more cash than what it's bringing in.  Facebook will need to double it's revenue to $300 to $350 million.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's 23 year old CEO, is quickly finding that technical skills aren't enough and that his company needs senior executives with traditional skills like managing large staffs, working with large advertisers, managing the finances and handling public relations.

It's stories like this that make me yearn to be back in business school, studying these companies.  Even though the businesses have changed, the business problems remain the same.  The age-old questions of:

• how to manage growth
• recognizing that different skill sets are needed to run a company at it's different growth stages
• eventually, a company will have to make more money than it spends.

Nancy Loderick

Beware of bossy women

According to the Telegraph, a recent study showed that men want their manliness back:

Men said they "felt handcuffed" by political correctness - only 33 per cent felt they could speak freely and say what they thought, whereas two thirds found it safer and to conceal their opinions.

Harvey Mansfield, a Harvard professor and America's best known political philosopher, who tackles the topic in his book Manliness, says the issue is ignored.

"A man has to be embarrassed about being a man. I am trying to bring back the word manliness. It's not respected," he said.

According to the survey, men hold other men who speak their mind in high regard - the likes of Jeremy Clarkson, Jeremy Paxman, Bob Geldof and Gordon Ramsay. Their biggest hero is Churchill.

But four out of 10 are frightened of heights and spiders while a third are frightened of bossy women.

Hmmmmm.  Do they hold women who speak their mind in high regard?  Methinks the gentlemen doth protest too much.  But, I suppose that it's nice to know that I just need to get me some spiders and a penthouse apartment and I'll be able to frighten away most men.

Despite these fears, women don't always have the upper hand. For example, when it comes to careers, the Journal reports today that pregnancy discrimination is on the rise.

*** Addendum****

Seems there may be another explanation for the rise in pregnancy discrimination which was not covered by the journal:  www.malepregnancy.com.

Networking Not So Nicely - the podcast

A few months ago, Lindsey Pollak, author of Getting from Career to College: 90 things to do before you join the real world, authored a great article here on the womensDISH about "Networking Not-so-Nicely."  Today, she joined me on my radio show, Smash the Ladder with Anita Bruzzese and Diane K. Danielson, to discuss what not to do, as well as tips to avoid becoming a not-so-nice networker.  Listen in below.

Diane

I had Forgotten...

I just returned from a trip to Miami's South Beach. Other than discovering mixed drinks outside of my Cosmo staple - I did almost nothing. Ok, I did "do" a major spree with my two sisters (who, bless them, live near Miami). Mostly however, I was poolside in gorgeous weather, letting myself decompress - counting clouds.

I only checked in with work twice. FINE, three times, but that's it I swear.

I had forgotten, nose to the ground, feeding my work addiction, just how much a little R&R can rejuvenate, and just how fabulous a good hotel is.

What I learned:

1. Work can live without you, to think otherwise is to caution toward narcissism.
2. Clouds move really fast when you think about it.
3. Blackberry's CAN be turned off - I KNOW, I was shocked too.
4. Lounging is an art, best developed in a tropical setting.
5. The ocean is not sub-zero everywhere.
6. Travel keeps your world from becoming too small.
7. Sand can ruin a damn good pedicure.
8. Networking isn't just a local hobby.
9. SPF 30 doesn't work that far south - especially on very pale skin.
10. Red Bull gives you wings. Red Bull and Jäger gives you wings with no sense of direction.

Here's to vacations, long live.

Your favorite "recovering" workaholic - JT

New look for the womensDISH

As we get set to roll out our new Downtown Women's Club main website, updating the look and feel of our womensDISH blog was on the agenda.  While it will always be a work in progress, at least it now will coordinate better with our new site (which thanks to a poll we did of our members a few months ago - will NOT be pink.  40% of you thought it either perpetuated a bad stereotype or just plain old didn't like the color, pink).  Stay tuned for more details on the launch.

One interesting thing about updating the womensDISH was the amount of "widgets" and "buttons" that were DIY.  Here is a sampling of some of the tools I used to create my own banners, blogs and widgets.  Note that I use advanced templates here at the womensDISH, so while there was some coding involved on my end, several of these had options to automatically add them to standard blog templates.

• www.widgetbox.com for my Entrepreneur book review feeds.
• Amazon Associates for the members book shelf
• www.cooltext.com for the Downtown Women's Club home button
• www.puresilva.com to create the top banner
• Google adsense for the google ads.

Diane

Women supporting women in politics

I try to keep my political views out of the womensDISH and the Downtown Women's Club, but felt I had to comment today because I've been accused several times in the past few months of not being supportive of women, simply because I'm not a Hillary supporter.  Huh?  What's up with that?  Does the lack of my support for a particular woman running for office negate what I've spent 10 years building (a website and career network for businesswomen)?

In response to those who think I'm not supportive of female politicians, I happen to be supporting Annette Taddeo, a friend running for Congress in Florida.  What's really cool about her is that she's a successful businesswoman, willing to put her company on hold to do this.  This is a bit of a rarity among the few women who do run for office (often they come out of public service or have married into political families).  And while she's not even from Massachusetts, I think it's important for businesswomen to be represented in Congress.  Why?  Because I'm tired of the politicians and pollsters lumping all women together under the label "soccer mom," "security mom," or whatever "mom-label" is in vogue at the moment. 

This is why it's a bit frustrating after years of being mislabeled or ignored by politicians, I now have other women (who probably didn't like the mom labels either) labeling me "not supportive of women" simply because I don't support their candidate of choice -- now in my mind ... that's just not good business.