Discussion Divas

Moms in Transition: Tips for Staying Current

Pinterest. Tumblr. You gotta know 'em.

I've been helping Moms and women (and a good number of men!) keep up with the news for many years, truly believing it is important to know what's going on in your neighborhood and world even while you're busy doing other things. If you're a Mom who is taking time out of the workplace, you know how important it is to keep up with your industry, too.

But now, with job postings calling for a "web presence" or "at least five Pinboards," there's another mountain looming--one of time-consuming things to learn and do if you want to stay competitive in the workplace now or in the future--things beyond Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn (which you should already be using one or more of anyway). 

So, let's start a dialogue of what's needed to stay current these days, and add to it over time. Be sure to add your thoughts in the comments, please. Again, this won't be an exhaustive, but it's a start!

1. Know Tumblr (super easy blogging software), Pinterest (the latest Web phenom where you "pin" things you find intersesting), Google Docs (it's all about sharing in the cloud these days), Dropbox (transfer large files), TaskRabbit (find people to do things for you like go to the grocery store or put together Ikea furniture) and Prime (meaning Amazon Prime).

2. Understand the growth and power of sites like Gilt, OneKingsLane, Groupon, LivingSocial, RueLaLa, and the many others that are popping up just like them (hint: all offer deals).

3. Understand how important Facebook is to companies like Zynga (gaming company that derives majority of revenue from Facebook) and Airbnb (rent a room in someone's home for the weekend) and Branchout (find a job).

4. Try to read Top 10 publishings now and then, like this one from FastCompany: http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2012/industry/webinternet  

5. Pick a site or two to read daily (or at least a couple times a week - even reading the headlines will help!), like WSJ's Career section: http://online.wsj.com/public/page/news-career-jobs.html?mod=WSJ_topnav_careers_main

6. Read our weekly-ish EMAIL! You'll walk away smarter in five minutes or less. SIGN UP

What are you doing to stay current?

- SD

 

Two sides of the working women coin

“She’s gonna change the world. She’s gonna make the world a better world.” - Sesame Street It says a lot about my life when I’m linking the week’s news to a catchy Sesame Street ditty about girls changing the world (watch the video... it will stick with you!).  But it’s ringing in my ears as I digest the recent data on employment, which shows that while women as a whole are helping push the economy forward by joining the workforce in larger numbers, some with higher-earning spouses are also quitting.  The stats on those getting hired In the last two months, more than twice as many women as men have been added to the workforce (see chart), according to NYT.  The Times credits this growth in part to the high number of new female college graduates and the strong demand for educated workers, and also to the specific sectors that are currently hiring, such as health care and education. Overall the economy has added around 245,000 jobs a month for the last three months--strong numbers--but at the same time, more people jumped into the active job search pool, which is why the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 8.3% in February.  The stats on those getting out Meanwhile, in another part of the working world, an upcoming Federal Reserve report is said to show that well-educated women who marry higher-income earners are leaving the workforce. From Reuters:  --It shows that between 1993 and 2006, there was a decline in the workforce of 0.1 percent a year on average in the number of college- educated women with similarly educated spouses. That contrasts with growth of 2.4 percent a year between 1976 and 1992. The result: the labor force in 2008 had 1.64 million fewer such women than if the growth rate had kept up its earlier trend, slightly more than 1 percent of the total workforce in that year.-- The Reuters article goes on to say that during the recession of 2007-2009, the number of educated women leaving the workforce stalled. But the exit picked up again as the economy improved, with this trend happening at various income levels, not just among the wealthy. So what does all this mean? There are many ways to look at this information: Education begets higher incomes, begets the luxury of one parent not working to take care of children, run the house, etc. Or, the high expenses of childcare render a spouse’s (often the woman’s) salary a wash, so the woman stops working.  But it also prompts an interesting discussion about whether women who can afford to leave financially do so because they don’t want to work, or because they can’t find the right kind of work.  One conservative WSJ columnist summed up the Reuters story saying the opportunities afforded by the feminist movement have made way for the “unchained woman”--a woman who isn’t tied to her desk everyday, and the emergence of a two-tiered culture--those who are unchained and those who aren’t.  We all know that when it comes to working and raising children, flexibility is huge. My theory is that in many cases, highly educated women who can afford to not work quit because they can’t find a work scenario that works for them. If one is chained to the desk, there's no flexibility.   It’s too bad when highly educated women leave the workplace--their skill set is valuable to the economy, and their experience can help younger women climbing the ranks. Corporations would benefit from letting experienced women step back for a few years to have kids and then rev up again--they don’t lose all the time and money they’ve invested in the talent.  Final thoughts! Of course I’m curious what you think, soplease share your comments (Did you leave your job? Why? Would you have stayed if you found a more flexible situation? If you work full time, have you found flexibility that works?)   Calling all Moms! I’ll be blogging more regularly about working Moms and Moms in transition (see post on networking). Please TAKE OUR SURVEYabout what the best online resource for working moms would look like to you!

 

Calling all Working Moms, Moms in Transition

What would the perfect online resource look like to you? Take the survey and tell us! We're gearing up to help. CLICK LINK TO TAKE THE SURVEY: http://goo.gl/EhdMO

- SD

Working Moms: Strengthen those Networks and Raise the Tide!

 

One of the hardest things I have found as a working Mom is finding the time to keep up with my professional network, let alone my friends. When I am at work, I'm working - there's no time for power lunches. After work, I really want to be with my kiddo. The other days, I'm tired!

But keeping up those social AND professional networks is so key and can make a big difference when you're on the job hunt or when starting your own business. Turns out that men do a better job of referring each other and asking for help from their networks.

So what to do other than drink a lot of coffee and burn the midnight oil?! Some words of wisdom, tips and encouragement from a recent round-up of stories on this topic:

1. Understand the big picture: There's a lot of discussion about female representation in tech - the number of female start-up CEOs, the number of women in tech, and so on. At South by Southwest this year, there are a slew of women-related panels. In her post on Forbes, Meghan Casserly raises the point, does this type of focus underserve the effort? One of her sources says no, and offers a great quote:
   
   “But my theory is that if we continue to grow this strong network of women, well then, a rising tide brings up all boats.” - Tara Hunt, CEO of Buyosphere
   
   Here, here! Read the full post: SXSW 2012 Forecast: Let's Hear It For The Girls
    
2. Use your network to invent a job: Business Insider offers this great tip: “Start networking to create a job (and stop networking to find a job).” Love this. Don’t limit yourself to the jobs you see online. The best job I ever got was over dinner at a friend’s birthday when I wasn’t searching for a job. I just asked really good questions and was genuinely interested in the business we were talking about. The CEO called me a couple weeks later to explore a job opportunity, and I took it.
   
   Read more on tackling the job search in an innovative way: Find A Job Using The Same Skills That Build Great Tech Companies http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-03-07/news/31131130_1_job-search-products-ask#ixzz1oYoGOz
   td
    
3. Help other women by referring them: A recent report by the Anita Borg Institute encourages companies to ask current female employees to refer women in their network as a way to up the numbers. We should all think about this strategy in our own workplaces, tech or not.

Final thought: I think it’s best to set some goals to help keep up with friends and colleagues, past and present. 

• Reach out to one person you haven’t connected with in a while every week, by phone, email or LinkedIn or Facebook.
• Attend one networking event or get-together each month (I ALWAYS go to my Discussion Divas Current Events Club meeting, plus one other event).
• Attend an alumni breakfast or simply get together with some friends for a glass of wine.

No matter how you do it, get out there and strengthen those networks--for yourself, and for all of us. Raise the tide!

- SD

Andrea Jung and The List

Holiday prep and festivities are making me really late with this post--so apologies and Happy Wednesday!

Speaking of the holidays, thank goodness for online shopping and shipping. They’re saving me this year. And apparently I’m not alone: Shoppers spent almost $31 billion online between Nov. 1 and Dec. 16, 15% more than last year. That’s a lot of stuff bought... And WSJ reports retailers are extending the deadline for purchases that can still arrive by Dec. 25.

I’ve been ordering through Amazon Prime like a fiend, and love the new Slice app that alerts you when packages have shipped, are out for delivery, and delivered (full disclosure: my sister works there).

I’ve also become a user of Birchbox, a startup that lets you give monthly subscriptions of little makeup samples, a fun treat for all the girly girls out there.

I was thinking about Birchbox last week when Avon announced that Andrea Jung, who has been chief executive of the beauty and cosmetics company since 1999, would be stepping down. The company’s stock is off 45% for the year, and while a lot of factors are contributing to the pressures at Avon, it’s hard not to think about their door-to-door sales model versus the simplicity of an online Birchbox purchase (also run by women).

Separately, any time one of the precious few female leaders of Fortune 500 companies departs, I think about “the list” and how many that leaves. Turns out, the list is at a record high in 2011. There are 18 women in the top job, with a whopping 8 new additions this year (some will take the helm in 2012, and Jung’s departure will leave 17). Fortune called 2011 a “banner” year for women.

Jung has been a fixture on this list (there the longest of any), and together these women control about a half trillion dollars in annual corporate sales across industries from tech to health care to retail, energy, food products and media. But as we see with Jung, it’s a list always in flux.

Already this year, Yahoo ousted Carol Bartz (in a story for the corporate ages, she was informed over the phone and then shot off a company-wide email telling everyone she was fired), while Hewlett-Packard brought in Meg Whitman (former eBay CEO) to run the huge but struggling company. 

On the whole, 2011 was a mixed bag for women in corporate life. Harvard and Wharton accepted the most women ever into their business schools -- 39% and 45%, respectively. But as the non-profit Catalyst noted last week, women in executive leadership positions held steady at 14%, so no progress there.  

 

Meryl Streep raised an interesting point about women in leadership in her appearance on “60 Minutes” this past Sunday, saying she took her latest role as Margaret Thatcher to have the opportunity “to deal with the deep, buried discomfort that people still have -- men and women -- with women in leadership positions.”

 
I’ve interviewed a number of female CEOs and many don’t think it’s helpful to call attention to the fact that they’re female in a sea of male CEOs. And they’re right on one level. But it seems to me the more there are, the more normal it seems, and that’s got to be a good thing when women make up 46.7% of the labor force. 

 
(Happy Holidays. We’ll see you NEXT week, just in time for the New Year.)

 

Polka dot optimism

(photo credit Andrew Noyes)

Thank goodness for the Fall polka dot trend to invoke a little whimsy in an otherwise serious state of affairs.

I’ve been wearing them all week. And it’s not just me. I’m seeing them everywhere--polka dots paired with polka dots. And why not? Who couldn’t use a little cheer sprinkled in with the news these days.

Reviewing the week...
It began Monday with Obama’s speech on how to fix the deficit--raise taxes on the wealthy, cut spending. More specifically, meet the proposed “Buffett Rule,” named for uber-billionaire Warren Buffett who keeps saying it’s crazy that he pays less in taxes than his secretary (17.4% rate vs an average of 36%).

Under the Obama administration’s proposal, taxes would rise (or come more in line with what middle income earners pay) for the top one percent--people who earn over $1 million a year. The New York Times looked at Treasury Department data and said 238,000 households filed taxes with over one million in income in 2009. About 60,000 of those households paid less than 15% in taxes on that income.

Cue the “class warfare” rhetoric: Republicans say the wealthy are job creators who already pay more than their fair share in taxes. Obama responds: “This isn’t class warfare. It’s math.” Rather than “gut” education and medical research spending, it’s time to prioritize, make tough choices and have those who can afford it pay more. And if we do nothing...

Moving on, a few more highlights from the week...

• U.S. hikers imprisoned in Iran for two years are freed. Maybe soon we’ll understand exactly why they felt the need to hike along the border of Iran and Iraq, but we’re glad they are free. WSJ commenters were tough on these two.
• The United Nations met in New York where Palestinian leader Abbas lobbied for a seat in the United Nations, asking to be recognized globally as an individual state.
• Hewlett-Packard named former eBay CEO and California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman as CEO. Her appointment brings the number of women running Fortune 500 companies back to 12, which had dropped when Yahoo fired Carol Bartz a few weeks ago.

And finally...
On Thursday, Facebook rolled out changes to its site, introducing Timeline, a feature that lets you enhance your personal profile--to tell the story of your life and connect the dots. I covered the event, dressed in my polka-dot shirt, happy to be working in the excited, super-charged atmosphere created by the developers there. Silicon Valley these days feels like it exists in a carefree bubble, but the Facebook event was a welcome distraction from troubles brewing elsewhere in the world. Even as people partied it up, the Dow dropped a terrifying 500 points on worries that Europe’s debt crisis threatens a global recession.

Here’s hoping the polka dot optimism will see us through to the holidays.

 

Awesome blog mention: Sites that make us smarter

Obviously we're thrilled to be included in this list of "Fab 5: Sites that make us smarter," along with some heavy hitters like the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian sites (love them too!). The CIA World Factbook is an amazing, amazing site and one we reference a lot. Check them out, and also check out www.dotcomsformoms.com, written by Rita Mauceri, who helps put information for moms at your fingertips quickly - something we like to do around here as well!

If you don't get the Diva yet, you should! Sign up - it's free and a quick read.

 

Is the age of the Superwoman over? Let's discuss!

Up for discussion: Is the age of the Superwoman dead?

 

Samantha Parent Walravens presents the case in Torn: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict of Modern a new book featuring 47 women searching for that career-life balance. Walravens finds that most discover it's not possible to "have it all," and says "the age of the Superwoman is dead." Do you agree?

 

  

PLUS: Calling all Mamas in the Bay Area! 

Join Samantha Parent Walravens, editor of the new anthology, TORN: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict of Modern Motherhood, for a Moms' Night Out this Mother's Day week (why should it only last one day?).

Where? Books Inc. 2251 Chestnut Street, San Francisco

When? Tuesday, May 3 at 7 p.m.

What? Samantha, along with Caroline Grant, editor of Literary Mama and Mama PhD, and Stacey Delo, founder and editor of Discussion Divas, will host a lively conversation about the struggle and juggle of motherhood today. Free and open to the public.

April topic: The Gender Pay Gap

 For this month's discussion, let's hone in on the wage gap. 

Recently we marked "Equal Pay Day," a day meant to highlight how women earn less than men on the dollar. This issue always sparks interesting debate and a couple items caught our eye.

In the first, the writer argues that there is no pay gap: There is No Male-Female Wage Gap

The other argues that yes, there is: Ending Equal Pay Day 

Let's discuss: Is the pay gap perceived or actual? Is the attention placed on a gender pay gap just part of a feminist agenda? Or real? Should women be punished financially for wanting flexible hours (if they do)? Would it be the same for men who want the same flexibility?  

Separately, McKinsey issued a report recently noting that women often don't make it into managerial roles because they lack career development resources necessary to get there.

Let's discuss: What's your take? Is it up to the employer to help you get there or is it simply up to you? As one woman asks in this piece, Where Are All the Women?

All this comes around the same time the Supreme Court recently heard arguments in Wal-Mart v Dukes, a class-action law suit that alleges Wal-Mart passed over women in pay and promotion many, many times over.  

I imagine everyone has some kind of anecdote they can bring to the table on these, and it should spark a good discussion. Feel free to bring or share any other items you've read recently along these lines!

 

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Brilliant timing of a government showdown

Most annoying week ever or important exercise on spending?
The political theater reached a frenzy just before lawmakers dodged a crisis and kept the U.S. government open for business.

The timing was brilliant
The dramatic right-versus-left showdown allowed lawmakers to save face and look tough while ultimately avoiding a shut-down. Some are saying both Democrats and Republicans won and can’t be blamed in the next election cycle for bringing things to a grinding halt.

The economy was likely a key factor in averting a shutdown
The fragile, recovering economy would likely have suffered in the wake of a shutdown. How would the markets have reacted Monday if there had been an impasse? And how would the so-so jobs picture have fared? When parks and places, like the National Mall or the Grand Canyon, close, so do the small businesses that rely on their foot traffic. Not only would 800,000 federal employees be furloughed, but plenty of private sector jobs would be too.

Congress has one more week to finalize the details, with a vote expected on Thursday
Here are a few key points from the Friday compromise: 

1. Planned Parenthood and Title X (which we wrote about last week) are safe for now but part of the deal requires the Senate to vote on defunding both next week.

2. The Senate will also vote on if to defund health care reform.

3. The overall budget only lasts for six more months--September 30 marks the end of the 2011 fiscal year, so get ready for 2012 budget jockeying to begin soon.

4. The deal cuts $39 billion (which Obama calls the largest cut in history) from the budget, making the final budget $79 billion shy of what Obama had originally proposed. All of these reductions come against the backdrop of anexpected $1.6 trillion budget deficit this year.

For more details on the deal see this report and this one, and for a good look at what’s next, read this. 

Truth behind the fiction

If you were following the news on Friday it felt a little nutty watching the media and political aides and politicians scuttling all over Capitol Hill, giving press conferences, setting the scene for the dramatic last-minute saved-by-the-bell deal. But indeed there is some truth behind the fiction in this story. We do spend more than we bring in, and some economists argue that was necessary in a recession. David Brooks of the NYT argues it’s time to wake up and realize that if you want public services, there are consequences--because they cost.

Image from www.whitehouse.gov