Pause

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Time Management: How to Pick a Brain Properly, and How to Selectively Allow Yours to Be Picked -- Part I

Having people ask to "pick your brain" can be the ultimate compliment to an entrepreneur. It makes us feel like we're experts in something, or that we've been successful enough at something that someone values our thoughts. But brain picking comes in many shapes and colors. Some brain pickers (BPs) are just looking for inspiration; talking with you stirs their own ideas. Others want resources--money, contacts, insider knowledge that will help them with their endeavors. None of these are inherently bad, but none of them are good if you aren't getting something out of the sharing.

I used to love it when people asked to pick my brain, especially early into the business. I might not have been drawing a paycheck, but by golly! Someone wanted to talk to me about something. It was a small sign of traction.

Today it's different. I still love helping people, but I've been confronted with the limits of my time and energy. I've had to be brutal at times about how I prioritize "non-business-related" requests. And I feel badly about it, I mean what entrepreneur doesn't include in her war stories a paean or five for the big shots who threw her a bone--a contact, and introduction, or an informed opinion--her way that made all the difference. Since becoming an entrepreneur I've become more determined than ever to pay it forward.

But paying it forward can't be confused with sucking yourself dry. Even while helping others with their endeavors, I see no reason why we can't always strive for win-win situations. I hope that the following ideas stir your thinking--both brain pickers and pickees. I'll write this up in installments this week. But let's start with a few:

• Brain Pickees: It's OK to say, "Not a good time." Even if you want to help someone, sometimes you can't. I recall respected peers asking for business intros and advice when it just wasn't appropriate for me to provide it. Perhaps my company was in the midst of a negoriation with the requested company, or sharing my info would compromise others. It sounds like common sense to respectfully decline, but it really is a tough lesson to follow, especially because of the "pay it forward" thing we entrepreneurs tend to ascribe to.

• Brain Pickers: Make giving you help as easy as falling out of bed in the morning. I have a pal who is a budding, but successful, entrepreneur. She runs a women's community. "I knew that things were starting to go well when people started reaching out to me, asking me for help," she says. A doctor and artist, she's had many different career lives and experiences, so she was asked about just about everything, from "Do I have H1N1?" to "How did you start a business?" At some point, the requests began to hinder her everyday work. She decided to create a filter, if you will, to separate the quickie information seekers from the serious people.

"I ask them if they will join me for a hike," she says. Some background: my friend lives in what could best be described as a remote area, near the lovely, pristine Marin coastline. She's committed to hiking an hour each day. I've joined her, and it ain't a quick jaunt or drive.

"The right people will make it out and help me kill two birds with one stone," she says.

Likewise for me. If I am approached by someone who is seeking information that is not a part of my daily business plan, they must be willing to call me in my car (as my commute hours are often the best place to reach me), or make it to my office. If you miss the time that we've agreed upon for a chat, please let me know in advance, and give me a good reason. If you miss the time, I won't be calling you to reschedule. In some cases, if the person seems to be disrespectful of my time, I won't respond to requests to reschedule.

Again, it's not about being cruel or mean, it's about saving time for the good stuff, and for the people who will use your time well.

More to come later this week.

The Secret Handshake I Still Don't Know at United Airlines

I fly a lot on business. A lot. A couple of years ago I started actively flying on United because it's a major airline at my local airport, SFO, and it flies regularly to the cities I fly to most often: New York and Chicago. And I started doing the math and realized I wasn't doing myself any favors by constantly changing my airline and finding myself booked in the back of the plan, next to the bathrooms, every time.

I'm not sure what my total miles are for this year, but as of this date I've amassed about 240,000 miles and 40 upgrade segments. This is my balance after paying 45,000 miles for a Red Carpet Club membership and spending some of my segments on upgrades. If the demand for upgrades by other frequent fliers were not a factor, I would get to upgrade to business or first class every time I fly.

This year, despite my "1K" status, which I love to throw around when I want something from United (like a guaranteed upgrade) there are some things that still elude me. Even when I book well in advance, I get upgraded to business or first class maybe 50 percent of the time. And about 40 percent of the times that I do get upgraded, it's on a plane with what I call "lame first class"--an antiquated model that only affords bennies like a slightly wider seat and no charge for a snack box (the flight attendant even pre-opens it for me, so I don't break a nail trying to get the plastic off.) Despite the claims that some flights have wireless, I have yet to experience one, and only a handful of planes have charging outlets (and of the ones that do I need to contort myself like a Cirque du Soleil performer to reach it, feeling under my seat for the two indiscriminate holes where an outlet is rumored to be.)

Needless to say I have been disappointed in my United 1K membership, despite having flown with them an estimated 40 times this year (and about 120 times over the past 3 years), including international trips that required connecting legs on partner airlines that didn't always honor my miles (or made it difficult to redeem them), dinky puddle-jumping legs from one of their hub airports, and the standard flights to New York or Chicago.

I'll say upfront I'm not always loyal to United. Our office manager won't book me on it if I'm not flying their more common routes and have to pay a small salary to stick with them. I've flown Delta to Florida, Atlanta, and Cincinnati, which saved me time and money. I've flown Southwest to LA, San Diego, Phoenix, and Las Vegas and see no reason why I should pay more for these quick jaunts. But still, I would say I qualify as a loyal United customer because I fly them most often.

So imagine my surprise today, as I'm checking into my flight from JFK to SFO, when I ask the attendant at the check in counter what my chances are of getting upgraded:

"You are fourth on the list."

"Really. Do you think my chances are good?"

"Mmm depends. You have two other 1Ks and a Global Services member ahead of you."

I've heard of "Global Services" and see that these folks get preference over 1Ks, but I've never been sure why.

I ask the attendant, "What does it take to be a Global Services member?"

"You have to be invited."

"REALLY! And what does it take to be invited?"

"I really don't know, ma'am."

I could feel the surface of the soapbox materialize under my feet. You have to be INVITED into this club? And the criteria isn't public? Naturally, I don't take this as a final answer.

"C'mon, you must really know: Do I need a certain number of miles?"

"I don't know, ma'am."

"Do you need to spend a certain amount of money?"

"Again ma'am, I don't really know."

"Do you need to be deemed important somehow?"

The attendant shrugged his shoulders, and with this gesture I backed off. I told him,

"I'm going to find out why I haven't been invited to be a Global Services member. Mark my words."

And I say to all of you. A gal who has built a business grounded in meritocracy: Mark. My. Words.

Encounters: The Aviator, or what I want to be when I learn to play

(Caption: Our view of Big Sur)

I met Kareem because we needed a contract script writer--badly. Copywriting was not Kareem's only career strength, and not exactly a career passion, but the project was temporary, and he had just come from a digital agency with too much experience on his resume to get picked up immediately in a downsizing economy.

Prior to meeting Kareem I'd spoken on the phone to another writer with an agency background. She was ready and eager to jump into our project. Shortly, after being briefed about the aggressive deadlines and requirements of the client, she reconsidered and backed away, mid-script. We were supposed to shoot the following week.

In ideal circumstances, we strive for a sane approach to project management, where we plan such things as scriptwriting and shooting schedules way in advance, but being in this Webby world we're in, projects are often inked close to launch. Some people thrive in this kind of environment, some fight it and give in begrudgingly, some reject it outright. I needed to see how Kareem would react early, before hiring him.

I was brutally frank in our interview. Our "co-created" project with Brand X was exciting stuff, but it was not without client oversight and last-minute changes. I said something that I wish I hadn't,

"I need someone who's comfortable with user-generated content that's not all user-generated...I mean, it is, but with an eye toward the brand... not that they want to influence the script, of course...it must be authentic, but brand-friendly..."

I decided to look up from staring down at Kareem's extensive resume; he remained smiling and calm.

"Yes, I think I understand," he said. He told me of several on-set projects he'd done as a creative director. The personalities he'd encountered, the seemingly contradictory directives. It was clear to me that, from a production standpoint, he'd seen it all, and he understood the dichotomous nature of client work--something that often relied on a paradoxical act of creating authentic connection. He didn't bristle when I told him we were shooting next week and still needed scripts to submit for approval. And these scripts depended on the availability of his script subjects, whom had yet to be selected, let alone contacted.

"No problem," he said.

The following week, he arrived for a briefing meeting with snacks for the team. Shortly thereafter, scripts written and approved, he arrived at the set early with props that our producer had trouble procuring. Everyone who had arrived on-set had been briefed by him and was ready to go. He got along famously with the camera crew and director. Later, when the rough cuts were complete he adeptly knew where to cut and even how to retroactively make guests look more comfortable than they actually were. Client requests that may have overwhelmed another writer/producer were creatively integrated with no complaints.

After our final shoot he suggested we go grab some coffee. Already I was trying to think of how else we could work with Kareem until a more suitable position opened up for him.

It was a hot day; I sipped ice-coffee in an air-conditioned Starbucks. He asked me, "Do you fly much?"

Option 1: Work more; Option 2: Work less; Option 3 ...

Kris at The HR Capitalist caught my attention with his post, "Being a Star - Either Put In More Hours Than Others, or Start Eliminating Stuff (But Stop Whining)...." He says:

Work/life balance is a choice.  You won't be able to be your version of Bono with work/life balance as your goal.  More and more, I run into super sharp people who are amazed at the entitlement culture of talented folks who say they want to be stars, but won't put in the time to outwork others and are outraged when told that's what it takes.

If you are not inclined to put in more hours, Kris says, "you need to start eliminating things that you don't think matter, the things you can get away with not doing, not being involved with at work."

This is the choice of anyone seeking success, but notably of the entrepreneur. As my company has grown, my time management strategy as evolved--or devolved as the case may be:

• Phase 1--The first date that won't end: You have a crush on all the excitement that your business is providing for you in life and unwittingly give it all the time that it needs. Other things need to happen, like sleep, so you just add more work hours to your day and keep plugging after dinner, or after your spouse knocks off for bed. When opportunities present themselves, you drop everything.  For instance, someone you've wanted to meet with for some time wants to connect for breakfast at 7:30 a.m. the next day in New York City, and you are in San Francisco. No problem! Sure you don't feel great after taking a red-eye, but you make it there. And you've set up other back-to-back meetings to get the most out of your time. By the time you are back at the airport you realize you might not have mentioned your whereabouts to your spouse but know he'll understand. And you know that this phase can't last forever, but you must take full advantage of every opportunity now, while you have it.

• Phase 2--The Trade-offs: You realize that other things--hobbies, friends, wellness--are being impacted, but hopefully now you are experiencing some growth and cannot imagine losing momentum in order to stop and smell the roses. Also, expectations have been set. Clients on the East Coast expect that you will be available during the wee hours of the morning on the West Coast; you've told them to call you if they wanted to talk--anytime; they're just taking you up on your offer. All those opportunities that you have been pushing for are now happening; and you must be there to implement them. You can't imagine having others do it during such a delicate, relationship-building phase. You plan to eventually build replicable, delegatable processes, but you must trail-blaze for how.

You try to fit it all in, but even with extended hours you can't. So you compromise on everything except your business. You skip those biannual physical exams, you whittle that full workout into a few sit-ups before bed, you spam an eGreeting card to your address book this year instead of sending individually written cards. That quality time you book nightly with your spouse or the kids is spent responding to email while sitting next to him on the couch. You don't have to meet with people in-person today, so you forgo showering and getting dressed--time is money, people! The first time you skip these things it feels bad; the second time you can justify it as something you're sacrificing "for now", the third time you've re-identified yourself: "I guess I'm just going to be 10 pounds heavier." "I've never been much of a home cook." "I'm just not a neat person." "I'm the kind of person who always has to be doing something." ...

You start to fear that your tradeoffs are becoming more and more visible. You look older. You have creaky knees and your neck hurts. You indiscriminately hand people not associated with your business, like your drycleaner, your business card. You develop this glassy look that signals to your domestic partner that you are assessing what else you need to get done today, not listening to his suggestions for what to have for dinner. You meet up with friends you haven't seen in ages, and when they ask how you are doing, you update them on your calendar and on your competition.

• Phase 3--Signs of wear and tear: You have much to show for your hard work--both good and bad. You are still pushing hard; forget about cruise-control. But you can speak confidently about the future of your business.

Through accidental situations, like delayed flights and malfunctioning electronics, you find yourself with small pockets of unscheduled time and have no idea what to do with it: Pick up a newspaper and at least familiarize yourself with the happenings in the world, pet your cat, or call people? You realize you don't know where to start and defer to doodling in your notebook. You go to the dentist and they declare you're in for a year of orthodontics due to stress-induced jaw alignment issues. You understand the urgency but just don't know how you can fit that sort of thing into your schedule at this time. Pain is also very time consuming--feeling it, preventing it, containing it. You plan another appointment in several months--hopefully enough lead time to plan around it. You later realize that you do have a conflict but you do nothing. Maybe the other party will cancel. You meet up with friends you haven't seen in ages, and when they ask how you are doing, you have nothing to say. You say, "Hanging in, and you?

People call you successful and you wonder, "How so?" Even if you are, you are so used to the act of building momentum that you don't know what success feels like. Perhaps you've overcome it and it's now trailing behind, and you just feel something dragging. You assume it's another problem to attack. You remove your anniversary dinner from your calendar and enter "figure out dragging issue" in its place.

But back to HR Capitalist's two options: Accept that you are going to have to put in the time, or start taking things off your plate. The frustration of a later-stage entrepreneur who's had a few years to cycle through both options is "what else?"

One could say Option 3 is aspire to less. Let's just say for the sake of argument that this was even possible for the entrepreneur, that we could temporarily suppress this unquenchable ambition and could actually make a logical decision to dial it back a bit. I argue that our natures would kick back in, and we would become crazy about something else.

My friend and former coach Kimberly threw something out to me that was similar to Kris's advice, but offered in a way that I could actually consider.

"I'll bet you could back off about 10 percent and no one would even notice," she said.

"But I would notice," I said.

And I thought about that. There are types of effort: level one being "9-5" effort, level two being extraordinary effort, and level three being "Why are you afraid that level two won't suffice?" effort.

I am willing to consider level 2 may be effective.

Encounters: The Chatty Hygienist

I imagine in her line of work you get used to hearing yourself speak. I could hardly muster an "uh uh" with the suction thingie she had hanging out of the right corner of my mouth.

"Sorry, Hun," she said, when she accidentally pulled on the suction tube and yanked my head like I was a fish on a hook. Generally I was pleased with her work. She didn't believe in a patient feeling any pain.

"You feel anything you let me know," OK?

"Uh huh."

This line made me nervous; it opened the possibility of feeling pain, even if only for a second. She said every few minutes, "You are being so good. Really you are." I didn't think I needed that kind of validation anymore, at my age, but it made me feel good. I guess I still like to earn lollipops.

As she worked she talked. About everything. Her thirty seven years in dentistry, a career choice she'd made around the time I was born. Her trailer home and love of NASCAR. Her husband. How much more she made when she was working with patients than when she was doing admin work. Her husband's disability status and how she feared it made him depressed. 

There was a picture on the counter behind her on which I fixated while she drilled: a beautiful woman smiling at the camera while her patient looked askance. Her middle part and fluffy hair made me think it was an older photo, circa 1981. She noticed me looking.

"There we are," she said."Me and him."

There was a moment when I jerked reflexively from a hit nerve; not anything tear-inducing. She stopped to give me another shot. During the first shot of novocaine that she had administered about an hour before I had tensed up, even though I didn't feel any pain. I could still feel the needle going in, and just the thought of it made me nervous.

I never used to get nervous when I went to the dentist as a kid. Despite the cavities, the braces, the pulled teeth. There was an implicit trust of professionals. They couldn't hurt me. I went through procedures a little bored. But too much has happened since then. Root canals, filling replacements, more extractions, a bridge. I now know what's going on--even if I can't feel it. I expect pain, if not now then later.

She had asked me early on, "You nervous?"

"Uh huh."

"Yeah, I can tell from your saliva. It's ropy."

"Wiwee?" I filed this fact under random thing to share with my husband, as we liked to wow each other with this kind of trivia: ropy saliva = nervousness.

"Yeah. But you've got nothing to be nervous about. I've been doing this longer than these other guys have been alive." These other guys were the dentists that hired her.

I realized that my entire body was tense. I tried to release it in parts, thinking if I let my whole body relax at once while she was lasering my gums I might throw her off and she'd cut my lip or lacerate my face.

She talked as she cauterized the intentional wounds she'd created. I was amazed at how comfortable she was having relatively intense conversations with people who couldn't provide any verbal cues of concern or interest. I learned more about her husband; he did things for her, like heated the car every morning before she left for work and made her lunch. He wasn't working any more, but even when he did he was doing stuff like that.

A thought came to my mind while she spoke of her husband, whom she clearly still adored after 30 years of marriage: I consider myself a good wife, but was I someone that could commit to these sorts of gestures? I've committed myself to many things: email, my morning Starbucks, paying bills. But I haven't committed to much outside my own benefit. What would it be like to wake up and have your first task of the day be for someone else?

"You feeling that?"

"Mmmmmm ... naw wiwee."

This was enough to stop her immediately. She continued to chat me up while I wondered, has she stuck the needle in yet? I realized she had by the taste of bitter Novocaine that trickled toward the back of my tongue, bitter I couldn't feel. I looked at the table to her right and saw empty single-use vials of Novocaine, at least five. She'd been administering it before I needed it. Now I understood--I was bored and amused by design. By the time she had made it through NASCAR I was relaxed--and numb. The part of her conversation that captured me, about her husband, distracted me during the most surgical part--the part I had dreaded most.

Another strange thought came to my mind, as this woman worked with such precision on my teeth and my mind, for which she was paid $20 an hour more than when she handled the front desk: how oddly we compensate people. I did the math and wondered if it was enough.   

Learning to surf at work

When I was in Mexico earlier this year, I loved getting up in the morning, walking along the shore, and then body surfing the waves of the ocean--all before breakfast. H-band taught me a few tricks to riding waves that I never had an opportunity to practice in the relatively tame waters where I grew up. He could spot a wave coming from several hundred yards out.

"Here we go," he'd say, and I'd assume the position: Back toward the endless expanse of water, eyes focused on the shore, one arm out in front of me and one behind. When the wave approached, at just the right time H-band would yell, "Start swimming!" and I'd frantically freestyle-stroke like I was trying to escape a great white. About 70 percent of the time the wave would wash over me, and I'd emerge from the water with my hair in my face, disoriented. "Nope," H-band would say, "you didn't catch that one." The other 30 percent of the time I would feel this sensation of being lifted up and forward, and I would emerge yards ahead in the shallow water. That was catching a wave.

I never quite understood what made a wave surfable--they all looked pretty big to me, but H-band could tell if one would crash too soon to ride, or if it would grow. I look at what I navigate on a daily basis--namely, a business--and wonder, "How good am I at riding waves?"

No wave is the same. While there is a general direction they take, some swell disappointingly early; some bring a surprising sensation of warm or cold. Every day is fraught with some variation, even if it is moving in the same general direction of growth. Some days the meeting is cancelled--a small swell that dies too soon; or some breaking news in the blogosphere cancels out the regular business of the day--a deceptively large swell that pulls everything in the vicinity to the shore, exhausted.

The same thrill of predicting waves and riding them to my advantage compells me to get a handle on these random events that over time do not seem so random. Chaos becomes the norm, becomes cyclical, like waves. So why can't I spot them, estimate how powerful they will become, and then let them propel me forward, or wait them out while pursuing bigger, more meaningful, ones?

All I can do at the moment is wake up each day and assume the position: back to the ocean, eyes ahead, arms ready to paddle, paddle, paddle.

Blogging 3.0: Now, with more feeling

We sat in the cafe, a seemingly informal Sunday coffee date with a friend, but not as casual as I expected. We'd gone to a yoga class before and were now sipping lattes and picking on pastry (I had a bagel).

My friend has become very established in the social media consulting space over the past three years. Her life had changed significantly since we met at the bus stop located between our two homes. She had left her job to pursue career and nonprofit consulting opportunities. I had just left my job to consult in the social media space. I told her about blogging and she must have been ready to learn about it, because she took it on, to the point where she now speaks and trains people in it.

I had told her, for the umpteenth time, that things were changing for me. I was going to take my blogging seriously again. As seriously as I could anyway, considering I no longer had the stretches of time I used to to blog, and as seriously as I should, considering my role as a thought leader in the social media marketing space. The feeling of discomfort I've had about my blogging was like a sock that I put on early in the day that had something in it. I could feel something small in between my toes, but I just didn't have time to take off my shoes and deal with it. I've just kept walking with this thingie in my shoe. And over time I got used to the thingie, used to the annoyance, and yet I could feel it with every step.

I told my friend that I was going to revitalize my writing by redesigning my blog; she was only too happy to help. She'd started coaching independent proprietors, typically creatives, who were building social media strategies for their businesses. I had helped to build strategies for my business, and our clients' businesses, but had not built a strategy for myself.

My friend's questions were deceptively difficult.

"Who do you want to reach with your blog ... and don't say everybody."

"But men and women read Pause."

"I'm sure they did, but if you had to identify THE person that would be interested in your blog it would be ..."

"People interested in, you know, what I write. There isn't an age, per se ..."

Very difficult stuff.

"I noticed you've taken down your blogroll. You should get it back up."

I scoffed at this initially, guiltily. The truth of the matter was that I had taken down my blogroll because I hadn't added anything to it since 2005, back when I worked for myself and took the time to methodically check my feed readers. I used to make it the first thing that I did in the morning, but then the company started to really take off, and I woke up to emails and early morning meetings with people on the East Coast. I rescheduled my reading to afternoons, but gradually found that by 10 pm I was still finishing proposals, catching up on email, or checking into a hotel and desperately wanting to sleep.

"Do people still care about blogrolls?" I was embarrassed hearing myself, as I thought about the myriad times I shared with people who asked me, a few years ago, how to get started blogging. And my standard answer, "Read. You must read."

My friend started to ask me about what bells and whistles I would place on my new, revitalized blog. Save for my Twitter feed, all of my blog bling and traffic-generating features were circa 2006. I have a Facebook and Twitter account, which have grown through no effort other than accepting the invitations that have come my way. I don't have any philosophical issue with pursuing friends, fans, or followers, but more a fear of commitment. I recall days when I would spend hours trying to hack at a line of code in an old version of TypePad that screwed up my Typelists. I recall reading my posts many times before posting, just to make sure the punctuation was correct, and responding privately to every comment I received. I remember being vigilant about tagging and tracking back, working well into the night to make my beloved piece of internet real estate as inviting as possible.

Now, I kick aside cobwebs on the front porch. I feel embarrassed about the old furniture. I want desperately to be social, but don't want to invite anyone over, lest they see the tattered curtains.

"Where have I been all this time?" I said to my friend.

"You've been on the other side of things."

"The out of touch side?" I thought to myself.

I realized that I've let the blog go by choice. And I haven't added much to it because I haven't determined who I want to be as a blogger. I used to love being fairly naked, though I don't feel quite as liberal as I once was. Old age, maybe? Or maybe a few too many run-ins with people who later questioned me, or were even hurt. And running a business that involves others adds a layer of responsibility I haven't figured out how to navigate. So I've stayed away, sometimes angrily, like a victim who complains that her hands are tied. Sometimes with fear that I couldn't write powerfully like I used to. Sometimes I just don't know what I want to say.

A funny thing happened on my entrepreneurial journey: I became OK with just getting it done. Not talking about what else needed to be done, or about what I would do when I got there. I just did it. I still think about things I'd like to do, like spend a day watching TV, or going to Brazil. But I don't wonder what am I meant to do. I haven't answered the question, but my life is working on it. It's a paradigm shift that renders the many book proposals and soul-searching blog posts useless now.

Still, there are reasons why I want to continue blogging. Back to the thingie in my shoe: I spend an awful lot of time pondering where this industry as a whole is going, but I haven't really spent time getting re-addicted to using social media. I don't update my profile, or follow people. I read what others aggregate and send my way, but not what I discover. I've stopped thinking this was bad; I just would like to re-engage. I don't have more time for this and will have to be realistic about my output, but I don't need to be uber-consistent. It's not about the traffic. This will keep me thinking.

Stay tuned.

Why I hate Oakland

It started the day we got a ticket for parking in front of our house. Apparently we were parked the wrong way, despite the fact that the street is really only one lane, despite the fact that all the other cars on our street were parked in the same direction as ours, despite the fact that we'd parked our car that way, as did our neighbors, for over 5 years.

Then came the ticket for our new car, parked in front of our house, which the ticket said, had an expired registration. Guess the person who issued the ticket couldn't see the temporary registration in the front window.

We contested both of these, H-band having to leave work to do so. And they let the second one go, at least we thought they did. We never heard back after contesting. Though we just received notice that we're in violation of the law and will now have to pay double or my credit will be affected, or the car will be impounded, or worse.

The next ticket came when I went to the doctor and saw there was no parking meter for my spot. I didn't see one nearby, so I simply parked and went to my appointment. I came back and found some gal writing me a ticket. There was a meter she said, pointing down the hill, more than one block away. All the meters work this way now. If I wanted to contest the ticket I could. 

This week, as I started to write my check to the city of Oakland, I found myself losing it. In the "for" line I wrote "ridiculous parking ticket". And then I wrote a note on the back about how pissed I am at the city for doing whatever it can to squeeze revenue out of its inhabitants. I voided the check. I have more room on this blog.

Encounters: People who don't live in "phases"

A very close friend insisted that I meet a woman she'd just met. She just had a feeling we'd get along. After many fits and starts--business trips, cancelled opportunites and challenges getting into the city at the same time--we finally managed to be in the same place at the same time. I'm all for serendipitous encounters, but I've made far less time for these encounters than I used to.

I recall the salad days of the Dot Com bomb, when we had plenty of time and nothing to lose from meeting people who may or may not be helpful to us. I met people on searches, some similar to my own, and could listen to them talk about their endeavors for the sake of listening. Years later, with a small business to help run, time was at a premium. I've learned a new skill lately of folding in these occasional encounters with official business meetings.

This friend of my friend's was traveling far out of her way to meet me. She'd moved to the Bay Area not long ago and had some challenges navigating suitable places to park in the city. I could have gone to her, I thought, feeling a tad guilty.

Over coffee (or an iced latte; it was a hot day) we talked about what we were up to. Clearly our mutual friend thought to put us together for a reason. I knew that my coffee date was working on her third book. I guessed that my friend hoped I would be a potential reviewer of it when it was ready, or could help her with a blog promotion strategy. As she spoke, I realized she hardly needed my help. She'd practiced medicine as an OB/Gyn for years, then decided to follow her passion for art. After creating a national following (she shows in galleries across the country), she thought to expand on her passion for writing. She is now working on her third book, which had received competing bids from multiple publishing houses. She didn't need my help with online promotion; her growing online community was thriving. She had a staff to help her maintain it. Three years ago she had  a daughter, and her husband, a Harvard MBA, had stopped working to explore his own possibilities and now spent his days at their home near the ocean.

I thought to myself, she has everything she wants. What can I possibly do for her? Perhaps, it became increasingly apparent to me, it was SHE who would help me.

Geeking Out: Is blogging wrecking marriages?

I'm on the East Coast for some Labor Day kicking back and will be staying out here on business. But last week in SF proved to be quite interesting. I sat on a panel with people I admire, including Rick Klau and Siobhan Quinn of Blogger, Blogger Founder and now Twitter Founder Ev Williams and his Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone, Salon.com Co-Founder and author of Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters Scott Rosenberg, SocialVibe CEO (and Blogger partner) Joe Marchese, and geekblogger and often dead-on observationalist Louis Gray. The premise of the panel: A general discussion of the evolution of blogging, with Blogger's 10th anniversary as a time peg.

So what do a bunch of us bloggy/microbloggy types have to talk about? The press on the other end of the room had few, if any, questions. I think they (and Louis) wanted to hear more about the beginnings of Blogger from Williams and Stone. And the rest of us, who had built businesses and blogs around blogging, could provide commentary. I added some facts about how the role of blogging has evolved for women. Initially it seemed more a personal platform tool, or a journaling tool. And I still think that it is. But I've also seen it launch businesses for women, who grew their expertise on their blogs and built consultancies. Some launched book and blog-writing careers from their blogs. I've also seen another side effect, one that I can't confirm with data, but more one I've observed among women I read and who have attended the BlogHer Conference numerous times: personal empowerment.

It's not easy to describe, especially in this way, but I will try. I have met quite a few women and mothers who, after getting into their blogging, are getting divorced. One, a mother of two, told me quite plainly about her former spouse, "He couldn't take it. All that was happening because of my blog. He was no longer the big shot." In another instance with a mother of four, the blog didn't compete with the spouse, but it provided a means of expression, and an entryway to other women on the Web, who helped her to see that there was more to life, and that she could have more in a partner. (I didn't tell these stories on the panel; I cited some data from our Blogging benchmark study and mentioned that I've personally seen transformations that women have had as a result of their blogging, including in some cases divorce.)

"So then blogging is wrecking marriages?" Rick Klau joked I had to clarify, absolutely not. People wreck marriages.

But while we have a whole lot of data behind women's media migration patterns and usage of social media to show increased adoption, there's another effect, one no one has measured yet, that I'd like to explore. I'm sure someone like my sister Julie, a genderist and women's history professor, will one day uncover it (hint, hint). Here's my theory: This blogging thing has made us all more accountable. And if we've been living to half our potential, or are living half-truths, we can now see that unlived part of our lives out there, while sitting at the kitchen tables of the women we read, just talking.

Maybe that's fodder for Blogger's 15th birthday.