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August 28, 2007
Time
Photo by Shuna Fish Lydon
Someone sent me an email to request a conversation with me tomorrow at 2:00 pm. Ever since I stopped wearing a watch with regularity a couple of years ago I've been struck by how tethered we are as a culture to the idea of hours and minutes. Time, as in the time of day, days of the week, is so woven into the fabric of our lives that we have a hard time organizing ourselves without considering it. We have difficulty imagining what a day would be like if it weren't broken up into hours and minutes.
Slots to be filled with useful activities.
So, when someone wants to have a phone conversation with me, instead of just picking up the phone, they send an email, and try to find a particular slot, bounded by numbers, in which I might be available to talk with them, in a particular slot, bounded by numbers, which works well for them.
Don't people just pick up the phone and call anymore?
The problem is that now that I work for myself, building a business that requires just my creative attention, not a consulting business that is bonded to time constraints of clients, I have a hard time with doing anything at an appointed time, and submit to it only because it is necessary and important to others. There is also TV; Dr. Who comes on at 8 pm on Friday and if I miss it, god help me if I can find a rerun. I get almost a little panicky around the hours that I need to remember, because so out-of-time-consciousness am I that I easily, completely forget. Yet when I need to wake up at a specific time, I can do so, without an alarm. Can you?
Days are a bit easier. Wednesday in the food section. Saturday I can usually get some work done because I'm not bombarded by a hundred emails that need answering. Sunday is church, whether I go or not. I'm addicted to 2 TV programs at the moment, but I don't usually remember that they are on until a half hour before. Monday dinner, "oh, the Closer is on." Friday dinner, "Yikes! Dr. Who starts in 5 minutes." (Except when it doesn't. Half the time our cable company shifts it to another time slot on Friday. Ironic. Dr. Who is a time lord.)
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March 30, 2007
BlogHer Business 2007
Last week I was in NYC participating in the first BlogHer Business Conference. Since its inaugural conference in the summer of 2005, BlogHer has been a focal point for women's voices in the blogosphere, both in its conferences and on the BlogHer website, an effort which I am proud to be part of.
As a business woman and a woman with a blog that has evolved into a business, what better place to meet peers and share ideas than at a women's conference devoted to the more professional aspects of blogging. Diva Marketing's Toby Bloomberg and I have been to all the conferences so far, and we shared a moment or two of awe at how far things have come, since July 05.
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December 3, 2006
Theft Deterrence
We have a pomegranate tree in our front lawn, pretty close to the sidewalk. Although we live on a quiet, sheltered, cul-de-sac, that doesn't keep people from driving by, hopping out of their car, nabbing a few poms and speeding away. Last year we woke up one morning to find half of the tree stripped - basically all pomegranates within reach.
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August 31, 2006
WSJ Article Neglects Women Bloggers
On the first page of the Marketplace section of the Wall St. Journal today there is an article about blogging that is of great interest to anyone who considers herself an active blogger: No Day at the Beach: Bloggers Struggle with What to do about Vacation (see this link if you don't have an online WSJ subscription). The article explores a topic near and dear to our hearts - what happens to our blogs when we go on vacation? Many us just end up bringing our laptop along, lest we risk losing our regular site visitors.
Important topic. At least to us bloggers.
The problem? Let me see, out of the eight bloggers mentioned - Andrew Sullivan, John Amato, Jim Romenesko, Mark Lisanti, Jeff Jarvis, Kevin Drum, David Weigel, and Michelle Malkin, only one of them is a woman. What's up with that? Here we have a medium where it has been documented that there are at least as many women blogging as men, the writer, Elizabeth Holmes, doesn't bother to scratch beneath the surface of the Technorati top 100 to bring her article into some semblance of balance. Heck, she could have at least interviewed Heather Armstrong of Dooce. Dear Ms. Holmes, The Technorati 100 is not even remotely representative of those of us who blog. Those sites may get a lot of press attention, but even Technorati's CEO David Sifry would point out that those top 100 blogs only represent a tiny fraction of the blogging activity on this planet. Given the length of the long tail of blogging, there is so much more of interest going on outside of the top 100 than within, I encourage you to look a little deeper the next time you want to talk about bloggers. Heck, with over 19,000 feed subscribers, my little food blog gets more traffic than many of the Technorati 100. That I can assure you. Please. Next time provide a little more balance in your reporting. And if you happen to want to learn more about some great blogs written by women, stop by BlogHer.org.
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August 8, 2006
BlogHer 2006
Arianna Huffington after the closing panel at BlogHer06. Photo by Elise Bauer.
Well, a week has passed since BlogHer06, and I have finally recovered my voice, worn hoarse by two days and 3 nights of almost non-stop interaction with the hundreds of intelligent, interesting, expressive, and opinionated people, mostly women, who made up the conference. Why do I love the BlogHer conference? The reason is similar to the epiphany I had the first time I attended a women-in-business conference at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where I received my MBA. Having worked in the technology field for twenty years, and having attended countless professional conferences, my world, at least in work, has been almost entirely made up of men, and with it men's interests and attitudes about the world. Sitting in the classrooms which are usually occupied mostly by men, it was almost magical to look around the room and see bright, open, intelligent faces of women, women more concerned with contributing to the discussion and connecting with others than sounding smarter than everyone else.
I have four younger brothers, I have worked in technology, and I have trained in martial arts (mostly with men), for most of my adult life. I enjoy the company of men. But sometimes, it's just more fun to hang out with women. We tend to be more supportive of each other, and therefore more willing to take risks, e.g. display more vulnerability, in front of each other.
So this is the appeal of BlogHer for me - relaxing, engaging, and talking about subjects that interest me profoundly, with women. Every other conference geared toward the web, blogging, internet technology, etc. is top-heavy with men. And often the same men too, doing the speaking rounds at all the conferences.
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June 12, 2006
Tina Seelig - What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20
Tina Seelig, Executive Directory for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program
Here is the link to the video of Tina's presentation, starts about 5 minutes into the presentation.
Tina Seelig is the Executive Director for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, and one of the most truly brilliant and creative people I have ever met. In addition to a PHD from Stanford Medical School in Neurology, she's written many books, educational cards for kids, and is a serial entrepreneur. I recently listened to this talk she gave at Stanford, and then played it again just to take notes. She has great advice for those legions of young women and men starting out their careers, including (my notes in italics):
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September 5, 2005
76 Cents to the Dollar?
There's a piece in the NYT today, labor day, called Exploiting the Gender Gap by Warren Farrell, author of Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap - and What Women Can Do About It. In it, Farrell explore the facts behind the statistic that women earn on average, 76 cents for every dollar a man earns in this country. I'm delighted by this article as it shows that there is much more to this one particular statistic than meets the eye.
Perhaps, I thought, male bosses undervalue women. But I discovered that in 2000, women without bosses - who own their own businesses - earned only 49 percent of male business owners. Why? When the Rochester Institute of Technology surveyed business owners with M.B.A.'s from one top business school, they found that money was the primary motivator for only 29 percent of the women, versus 76 percent of the men. Women put a premium on autonomy, flexibility (25- to 35-hour weeks and proximity to home), fulfillment and safety.After years of research, I discovered 25 differences in the work-life choices of men and women. All 25 lead to men earning more money, but to women having better lives.
High pay, as it turns out, is about tradeoffs. Men's tradeoffs include working more hours (women work more around the home); taking more dangerous, dirtier and outdoor jobs (garbage collecting, construction, trucking); relocating and traveling; and training for technical jobs with less people contact (like engineering).
My experience in the working world has shown me that women often have a very hard time asking for what they are worth. I remember a few years ago asking a smart and talented young woman I was interviewing for a position in my start-up company how much salary she wanted. Her reply, "Well, I'm making $28,000 a year now, and if I move to LA to start this job, I'll need a car, so I'll need to make $35,000." I nearly fell off my chair. I motioned a time-out and gave her some woman-to-woman coaching. I explained that what I was about to tell her, no one ever was going to tell her again in a job interview. It is the employers job to hire an employee at the lowest possible salary. It is the potential employee's job to get the highest salary they can. So if she asks for only what she thinks she "needs" and it happens to be lower than what I am willing to pay, much lower in this case, that's what I'll give her. "Women tend to sell themselves short. Don't ever ever do that again. You are clearly smart, talented, capable, and completely qualified for this job. When I ask of your salary requirements, give me what you want, what you think you are worth, not what you need, and error on the high side. Okay, end of time out. I'm going to ask that question again. What is the salary you want?"
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June 27, 2005
Barack Obama - Knox Commencement Speech
Barack Obama is at it again. This man is the best speech writer/giver of our time. From Knox College commencement speech, 2005:
As Prime Minister Tony Blair has said, in this new economy, “Talent is the 21st century wealth.” If you’ve got the skills, you’ve got the education, and you have the opportunity to upgrade and improve both, you’ll be able to compete and win anywhere. If not, the fall will be further and harder than it ever was before.
So what do we do about this? How does America find its way in this new, global economy? What will our place in history be?Like so much of the American story, once again, we face a choice. Once again, there are those who believe that there isn’t much we can do about this as a nation. That the best idea is to give everyone one big refund on their government—divvy it up by individual portions, in the form of tax breaks, hand it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, their own education, and so on.
In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it—Social Darwinism—every man or woman for him or herself. It’s a tempting idea, because it doesn’t require much thought or ingenuity. It allows us to say that those whose health care or tuition may rise faster than they can afford—tough luck. It allows us to say to the Maytag workers who have lost their job—life isn’t fair. It let’s us say to the child who was born into poverty—pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And it is especially tempting because each of us believes we will always be the winner in life’s lottery, that we’re the one who will be the next Donald Trump, or at least we won’t be the chump who Donald Trump says: “You’re fired!”
But there is a problem. It won’t work. It ignores our history. It ignores the fact that it’s been government research and investment that made the railways possible and the internet possible. It’s been the creation of a massive middle class, through decent wages and benefits and public schools that allowed us all to prosper. Our economic dependence depended on individual initiative. It depended on a belief in the free market; but it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, the idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we’re all in it together and everybody’s got a shot at opportunity. That’s what’s produced our unrivaled political stability.
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March 14, 2005
Where are the Women Bloggers?
Chris Nolan has recently posted a insightful entry on the media's perception of the lack of women bloggers in response to Newsweek article on the subject. Chris lists the obvious culprits - blogging is a new technology medium adopted by techies who are mostly male, men like to read blogs by people like them, media covers political and tech blogs that are mostly written by men, etc. My favorite reason of Chris' is her number 4,
4)Anna Maria Cox. She's prettier, younger and more entertaining than most other writers – male or female -- on the web. And she spends most of her time writing about sex. Her male readers – and that's her audience, trust me on this – think that's really cool. It's a cheap trick but it builds an audience. Since she's got an audience, Big Media think of Cox as "the" girl blogger. Since they've got one girl blogger in their rolodex, they don't think they need any more. Particularly since she's pretty and she talks about sex which makes them all feel better about how bloggers aren't really a serious threat to Big Media.
I must say I find Ms Cox's Wonkette silly, vapid, and a complete waste of time. She enjoys writing about who's screwing who on Capitol Hill and picking apart politicians. So what?
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March 3, 2005
Vengeance and Being Born Again
Tonight at dinner I was reflecting with my father how vengeance seemed to be such a driving force in the world. I've just finished reading "Charlie Wilson's War" about how US Rep. Charlie Wilson had almost single handedly procured billions of dollars of appropriations money to fund the Afghan rebels fighting the Soviets who were occupying their land. To Charlie it didn't matter that tens of thousands of young Russian men were being sent home to their mothers in body bags, often after brutalizing deaths at the hands of the Afghans. To him it was revenge for Vietnam and the Soviet-backed North Vietnamese. For Gust Avrakotos, Charlie's Greek colleague in the CIA, his actions were also motivated strongly by revenge, part of his Greek heritage. The Afghans were brutal to the Soviets they caught - raping them, skinning them alive, etc., all for revenge.
I once read a book called, "Don't Get Mad, Get Even." Very funny book, a light-hearted and creative approach to keeping oneself from petty victimization. Moral - if you attempt to cheat me, I will cause you public humiliation until you back off. Not so bad of a message; it's how we as a culture keep people in line, keep individuals from making life difficult for all of us.
But some people are really driven by vengeance, people who go through life spending their time looking for ways to mess up other people's lives for wrongs both real and imagined.
I don't experience this kind of vengeance. And although I would probably like to believe that this is because I'm a good person, it's probably more a result of never being deeply hurt. It used to be when I was hurt by someone, for example a "man who done me wrong", I would be very sad for a long time. As I've grown older I've discovered the healing properties of anger. I get angry, I create a wall shutting the cause of pain out. Eventually the anger dissolves. I let go, get on with my life, and ignore the parts that ever caused pain. But vengeance is something else, beyond anger to protect, it's anger directed to hurt or destroy. It's planned; it's methodical; it can last a lifetime.
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August 30, 2004
Technorati Covering the Elections
Technorati.com is the place to go to see the latest in what bloggers are saying about the national elections. Their Political Attention Index charts the most popular blog entries in close to real time. What we see on TV and read in the papers is filtered through many layers of editorial oversight. Reading weblog posts can give you a better idea of what issues people are really thinking about. Political bloggers tend to be unabashedly biased and open in their views - not always a good thing in my opinion if it creates more divisiveness in our already polarized country. But, interesting and informative nonetheless.
Kudos to CEO David Sifry and the team at Technorati!
Links:
Wired article on Technorati and politcal reporting
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August 1, 2004
Obama's Speech
The network television stations decided they had something better to do on Tuesday than follow the conventions. As a consequence the network news shows that evening missed a speech that may very well have historical significance one day. Barack Obama, candidate for the U.S. Senate in Illinois, gave a keynote speech last Tuesday night that rocked the convention, and anyone of the millions of people watching him on cable. I bet that millions of us thought what I did when I heard him speak, "that man will be president one day, and when he runs, I'll vote for him." Born of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, Obama was raised mostly by his white, midwestern grandparents. he went to Columbia University and then to Harvard law school where he was the first black editor of the law review. He has spent his career to date in public service in Chicago.
The following is a transcript of the speech by Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention:
On behalf of the great state of Illinois, crossroads of a nation, land of Lincoln, let me express my deep gratitude for the privilege of addressing this convention. Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let's face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father, my grandfather, was a cook, a domestic servant.
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July 26, 2004
I've Got Better Things To Do
A couple of summers ago I had the great fortune to be able to help a friend of mine a few hours a week with her Montessori pre-school. As the eldest of six kids growing up, loving children and not having my own, this experience was a welcome break from my usual high-tech reality. What so amazed me was that each of these 20 or so 3 and 4 year olds was a vast and extraordinary universe in and of him and herself. All of humanity's emotions, joys, despairs, and conflicts were played out every day in our little classroom.
My favorite student (and as much as teachers try otherwise, we all have our favorites) was a 4 year-old girl named Zoe. She sparkled with intelligence and enthusiasm and displayed unusual grace and maturity for her age. Everyone loved Zoe. So I was surprised one day when, during lunch, she asked to sit next to another student, Matthew (not his real name), and he ignored her, not letting her in. He continued to ignore her that day, even when Zoe asked him point blank, "Matthew, my feelings are hurt that you won't play with me. What did I do wrong? Why won't you play with me?"
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June 12, 2004
Awful Plastic Surgery
Or in the case of this gal, maybe too much botox.
Is it me, or are things getting out of hand with plastic surgery in our culture? I saw Patti LaBelle on Ellen the other day and the woman had no wrinkles! None. Patti is 60 years old. It just looks weird. If you're 60 you should be showing at least some signs of age. Same thing with Bette Midler. She was on the Actor's Studio and looked younger than she did 20 years ago. Is it botox? surgery? both? It's sort of creepy when celebrities you've known about for years appear to grow younger. Not to say that I'm completely down on the concept. My 93 year old grandmother had a facelift when she was 88. The surgery practically killed her (seriously!), but she was happy with the results. And after the initial tightness wore off the first 6 months or so she really did look radiant. People would stop us when we were shopping and tell her how beautiful she was. She would tell them it was years of healthy living. Right. That and thousands of dollars of surgery. But it made her feel happier and at that age, I figure she can do whatever she damn well pleases.
Here's a site that will give anyone pause before taking the surgical plunge: www.awfulplasticsurgery.com.
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May 15, 2004
Why is Chicken So Cheap?
A good case for free-range chicken. For more info, go here.
For a great case for range-fed beef, go here. Hat tip to Jen.
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April 6, 2004
Ride through Chernobyl
Ghost Town is a haunting chronicle of a young woman's motorbike rides through the dead zone of Chernobyl, her former home town. Well worth a look. Hat tip to Steve-Anna Stephens.
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March 31, 2004
Zefrank on Friendster
Zefrank's hiliarious take on Friendster and other social networking services. Quicktime required. If you don't know Zefrank, a few years ago he came out with the Pre-Date Confidence Builder. This guy should be doing stand-up somewhere. Hat tip to Peter Hirshberg.
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November 14, 2003
American Girl Beauty Salon for Dolls
A not-to-be-missed experience while in Chicago is the American Girl Store on East Chicago Avenue. The business of dolls has sure changed since I was a kid. Either that or the country has a lot more money to spend on doll culture. My favorite part? The American Girl Beauty Salon for dolls. Where for a mere 10 bucks you can have a skilled hair professional braid, pony tail, or otherwise manipulate and beautify your doll's coiffure. The dolls sit comfortably in their own doll barber chair, and don their own doll protective hair cape while the stylists go about their work.
Needless to say, I'm not envious of my friends with little girls who fork over hundreds of dollars for dolls and the extras. Though I must say I did see an Am Girl in a wetsuit with a bodyboard that caught my attention.
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November 10, 2003
Corporate Japan Drops Formality
Just picked this up from the NY Times: Japanese Workers Get Word From on High: Drop Formality.
... The 1,366 workers at Elpida's factory here were told to stop addressing each other by their titles and simply to add the suffix -san to their names.Yukio Sakamoto, the president and chief executive in Tokyo, believes that using titles like "department chief" impedes decision-making and innovation.
"To call someone `president' is to deify him," said Mr. Sakamoto, who was influenced by the 28 years he worked at Texas Instruments. "It's part of Japan's hierarchical society. Now that has no meaning. If you have ability, you can rise to the top and show your ability."
Many Japanese companies, traditionally divided rigidly by age and seniority, have dropped the use of titles to create a more open — and, they hope, competitive — culture.
The long economic slump has forced companies to abandon seniority in favor of performance, upsetting the traditional order. This has led to confusion in the use of titles as well as honorific language, experts say.
The shift also mirrors profound changes in Japanese society, experts say. Equality-minded parents no longer emphasize honorific language to their children, and most schools no longer expect children to use honorific language to their teachers. As a result, young Japanese have a poor command of honorific language and do not feel compelled to use it.
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July 18, 2003
City Life
Last night at 9:00 pm a friend of mine was attacked while walking up Grant Street in North Beach. My friend is 6' 2", over 200 lbs, and a black belt martial artist. He was struck from behind in the head, fell to the ground, and was repeatedly hit and kicked in the head by several people. He never saw his assailants.
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April 14, 2003
The Vatican has better things to do
The Vatican recently (Feb 2003) released a tome condemning everything remotely connected with "New Age". Apparently some group of researchers in Rome has been studying the Age of Aquarius for several years and has chosen this time, when Catholics world-wide have had their faith in the church rocked by widespread sexual abuse scandals, to denounce all progressive thought. Included in the list of baddies are yoga, acupuncture, transpersonal psychology, holistic healing, meditation, EST, Esalen, the Findhorn gardens, and Jung, all determined to be fundamentally anti-Christian. Absurd really. Galileo all over again.
A woman once asked a Tibetan Lama, how do I know if my spiritual practice is working? He replied, "it is working if you are becoming a softer, more gentle, more compassionate human being. If not, it's not working." This I think is the essence of living a Christian life. Practices that help develop this outcome are what should be encouraged, not condemned by Catholic leadership.
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