From Here to Autonomy

Femalities: A breakdown of SXSW and a lot of other stuff from a woman's point of view

Don't know what it is--the fact that I've just emerged from a weekend at SXSW, it was International Women's Day on Friday, I got snubbed by a "prominent" male investor/entrepreneur that in the virtual world I respected, though in person not so much--but I am feeling my womanness of late. And no, guys, it's not because it's that time of the month. If anything, it's the world who's experiencing a hormonal shift.

A digital analyst that I bumped into at SX in the lobby of the Hilton asked me what struck me as the big story at SX. I gave him a safe answer that belied the unbelievable growth the BlogHer Network has experienced on mobile platforms </shill for my company> and realized there's a better, more encompassing answer: WOMEN.

You know, those people at SX who like to hug, code, and grab coffee. They've been at SX before (we partnered with SX in '06, developing programming for them around women and have been involved as attendees or board members </shill my business partner> since). They're not really that new in the space. Like content marketing they were around in the Web 1.0 days too, but there are new distinctions that folks seem to be making, in part because, like Facebook, some broke out and went public.

Yes, we don't need to say Sheryl SANDBERG or Marissa MAYER out here. Everyone knows who you are talking about when asked, "What'd you think about Marissa's decision?" or "Lean In, you agree with Sheryl?" It may have been International Women's Day on Friday, but it seems the celebrating here in Austin was delayed for the official launch of "Lean In" instead.

Even my ungeeky friends have reached out and asked me, "So do you think this Lean In stuff is valid?" For the record (and since I was supposed to represent BlogHer on a CNN panel to discuss this Friday, but the topic was bumped to today and we talked about DOMA and Justin Bieber instead) I want to put what I thought was a damn well-conceived opinion out there, to the two of you reading my blog:

I love what Sheryl has done with her platform as resident SV untouchable badass to highlight the issue of women and work. It seems that when women who haven't taken companies public try to do so, the media responds with a tad less enthusiasm. And while I understand the criticism of some of the fembloggers who feel that Sandberg's privileged background makes her an unreliable advocate for those of us who actually have to work, I think someone had to get this conversation started. My hope and intention is to invite others to the conversation who have lived in fear of being fired and feel they have to fake leaning in, or who don't have the resources to lean in without keeling over from the exhaustion of having a full-time career and being a caregiver.

I don't believe that women have an ambition problem. When it comes to having a family and high-powered career they have a power problem.

I attended Jessica Coen's Interview of Anne-Marie Slaughter and felt for the first time in a long time like a pig in shit at a SX session. My people! And I saw plenty of men in attendance at her panel. One even approached me after I asked Anne-Marie my question (Do you think men are equally at risk of having difficulty on-ramping back into the workforce after being at home raising the kids?) and told me how he managed the transition. Finally I can come back from SX with some takeaway for my amazing Stay-at-Home Husband.

And I attended a panel led by John Gerzema that walked us through the research done for his book The Athena Doctrine--which provides powerful examples of men and women who have manifested massive change in the world by adopting feminine qualities such as flexibility, intuition, generosity, and empathy. Gerzema argues that it is the embracing of feminine traits (defined as feminine via a global survey of thousands) that is required to be effective in today's political, economic, and societal realms (and to the "professor" who took issue with Gerzema's omission of his female research partner--who did not co-author the book--on the cover: Consider the maleness of your body language and accusatory tone and Gerzema's open, accepting, perhaps FEMININE response to your attack. Personally, I prefer that he have my back).

And I capped off a long day having dinner with some crazily inspirational women who got where they are (at the top echelons of their companies and running their own) via a killer cocktail of chutzpah, yes, but also of being tireless connectors and interpreters of what the rest of us are going to care about in the future. None of them had the asshole personal interface that I experienced on Saturday, as mentioned earlier that I experienced from an investor entrepreneur who speaks a whole lot about the need to empower women entrepreneurs, just so long as he doesn't actually have to SPEAK or LOOK at any of them at SX. I must say, I've attended countless investor meetings with all-male VCs, tech conventions with mostly male attendees, board meetings with mostly male members, and never have I felt disrespected like I did when I encountered this person and said hello. (To place in Evernote in a file I've reserved for notes on a book I one day intend to write that explores the correlation of assholeness with effectiveness as a visionary. Sadly there often is one, but I'd like to make a case that there doesn't have to be).

I hung out in pubs with men and women who talked about their kids as much as their work projects and who had thoughtful commentary on Marissa Mayer's decision to reverse Yahoo's remote work policy (for the record I'm in the "she's a CEO first" camp. In the future I hope she will address the MANAGEMENT problem that led to the degradation of morale among the remote workers and re-institute flexible work policy.)

Last night, I didn't sleep, and for the first time in a long time, something other than an infant kept me up all night. I had a realization, borne of this combination of aforementioned events, that women are on the cusp of big reckonings. I can feel it pulling me out of my 5-year blogging slump.

I remain true to my belief that being a woman doesn't keep you from getting VC funding--a shitty business plan and weak management team do--and entrepreneurism is accessible to all (Steve Blank, whom I finally got to meet in person at SX, I continue to bow to you). But there continues to be a lack of respect for things female. Note again, I didn't say WOMEN, I said for things/traits female. I think that is going to change. And pretty soon.

The Parasite Economy

Who would have thunk that Gymboree could shed light on the dilemmas of tech and media businesses?

As I do every week, I was with my daughter at a play class for 2 year olds. She has a thing for picking up balls and tossing them into a bin--something I don't discourage. She's rather obsessive about it; she likes to pick up EVERY ball, even the ones in the far corners of the room. I watched her pick up on behalf of the rest of the kids, and just as she was about to toss in the last ball, a little boy intercepted it and carried it away.

My daughter looked at the boy as if to say, "Asshole, I was nearly done here." But she didn't cry. Too many times when something like this happened I'd say to her, "Share the balls, Liv." She knew she had to share.

But the incident did give me pause. This was a harmless example of interception, but what if all the balls had not been Gymboree's but actually hers? What if the kid who had intercepted the last one had not been a member of Gymboree, but some kid whose parents snuck him in and was planning to take the balls home with him? Of course, any parent would intercept and ensure that the kid did not take the balls home, let alone sell them on eBay.

As social technologies (blogging) came into the mainstream picture seven, eight years ago, we treated the Blogosphere like one big Gymboree, and everyone was a member! Everyone could start a blog! Everyone could reference each other's content and play with each other's toys (just so long as we gave the toy owners credit). The burgeoning social networks (Facebook, Linked In) were free and asked you to invite all of your friends to join in the party. We all were encouraged to share, share, share!

But now I begin to wonder how we maintain that ethos of sharing and still get credit for bringing the toys and cleaning up. I just read an interesting article--one of many lately--explaining how, as social media behemoths are evolving business models, they are also regulating the usage of their technology and limiting the open relationships they once forged. You don't get to play with the toys unless you are paying for that Gymboree membership, and even if you are, there are limits to how long you get to play with the toys--you don't get to take them home. You can't rely on unlimited access anymore, let alone the ability to profit off of them.

Companies like Buddy Media knew this would happen and got bought. It couldn't build a business off of Facebook alone; the door to building proprietary technology off of someone else's platform was closing. Lucky for the company it was able to find an acquirer before Facebook shut the door and said, our platform, our rules.

Perhaps this is what Yammer CEO David Sacks was talking about when he said (post $1B+ acquisition of his company, Yammer, by Microsoft) that there really not any new ideas brewing in the Valley, just new exploiters of those ideas. Now the real work of tech companies is not to build amazing technology, but to figure out how to own it. (A reason why, Silicon Valley, it doesn't hurt to bring in a few media/business types who are really good at keeping things for themselves).

I see this in digital media, which continues to disaggregate. The technologies that have made it so easy to share content build in value, but even now these technologies have to own something; if not the content then the means of aggregation. We've found that, after years of watching folks walk away with our toys we can't make them free anymore.

It makes me wonder what the lessons will be for my kids in the future, when they start bringing their own toys to the party. Will they be wise to share them and trust that they will get value in return?

The World Haunts Me Today

Olive has been sleeping later this week; she's still adjusting to the hour time change. It's still dark when she wakes up, and it's been gloomy in the mornings, as we've had days of much-needed rain in Northern California.

I let her sleep on me for a minute before putting her limp body on the changing pad. I opened the blinds to let in the growing light. It was enough to open Olive's eyes. She pointed to the window next to her dresser. We've placed a tiny stool at that window for her so that she could step up and look out the window every morning. It's become a ritual.

I changed her diaper and stood her in front of the stool. She climbed up and held the bottom of the window pane to give herself support. She looked out and declared what she saw:

"Dog!"

"Cah!"

I coax her into sharing more of her words: "What else do you see LIv? What else to you see?" But she's done sharing her words. For now, she just wants to look out at what to her is the rest of the world.

I look at her tiny back and feel sadder today than most mornings. I woke up this morning, as usual, to NPR news. And I heard from the comfort of my bed about children accidentally shot dead inside of a car because a sibling was playing with a gun he found under the seat. I heard about an Army sergeant's rampage in an Afghan town, killing 16 sleeping people, including children. I hear of a bus carrying vacationing children in Europe crashing and killing all onboard. I hear about accidents and non-accidents. And I try to lessen the burden on my psyche by rationalizing that the accidents could not have been prevented. That they are random occurrences in the universe, leaving just the non-accidents to grapple with.

I think of the pain so many have by experiencing tragedy in everyday life. So much of it happens without even leaving home. Why do we choose to compound it with violence? By keeping guns around and courting it?

I look out the window with Liv, and I worry. I worry that there are no accidents; or worse--that everything is an accident, making everything we do dangerous and potentially tragic.

Intellectually I know that this isn't the way to think about the world. I need to open the blinds and let Liv see as much as possible. But once in a while I prefer to keep the room dark, and to let her sleep a bit longer, not knowing what's out there.

The Disappearance of Downtime

Before becoming an entrepreneur, I set out to write for a living. This sounds like a fantastical existence, but it was actually hard, even if joyous, work. I woke up early in the morning, walked to a coffee shop, and started reading--anything. It didn't matter what I read; the process of focusing on something unrelated to my writing task and caffeine constituted the formula required to tap my creative well. After 45 minutes or so thoughts would bubble up, and my only job was to collect them. Editing would come later in the afternoon, when my mind was tired out and drained of inspiration for the day. I knew to give myself the entire morning for the creative process, even if it yielded only 100 words. Looking back, this process was a pure luxury.

Later, when my company was new--no employees yet, just us founders--I used to plan my day around optimizing productivity, and gone were the mornings that I dedicated to creating. Since much of my work involved communication with sponsors and partners on the East Coast, I reserved the mornings for "busy work"--calls and email primarily. And creative tasks that required more uninterrupted focus time, such as writing proposals or blog posts, I reserved for the afternoon. We didn't have an office, so if I wasn't meeting with my partners in person at a cafe or one of our houses, I did my busy work primarily at home and my uninterrupted work at nearby coffee shops.

Of course, as the business grew, this separation between busy and focus time became much more difficult to maintain. People--God forbid--would occasionally call me back in the afternoon, in the middle of my focus time. Increasingly I found I always needed to speak with people when they called, and I de-prioritized my focus time to the free crevices in my afternoon, which didn't really exist. I tried to schedule in time for creativity like I did appointments--in a short and specific timeframe. I could no longer wait around for ideas to percolate in my mind. I had to force them to come during the period I'd designated to briefly focus. Creative ideas were stifled, deprived of the air they needed to be really great. This bothered me for a long time, but, I reasoned, most professionals have to deal with the pressures of meetings and deadlines. If I was going to grow my business effectively I had to be more productive. I had to back away from things like writing blog posts and reading to stimulate creative thought.

When we received venture funding and hired employees we moved into an office, taking away the change of scenery that normally signaled my uninterrupted focus time, and new activities--meetings, and normal face to face interactions with people--began to fill in. I found pockets of time to sit and think, usually during my hour-long commute to and from the office, but as our East Coast staff grew that time was increasingly used to touch base with clients and colleagues. I would get to our office parking lot not even remembering the drive to work.

As I traveled more I realized that there were built-in periods of disconnectedness when no one could reach me, and I could not reach them even if I wanted to. During these times I finished presentations, sketched out strategies, caught up on business trades, perhaps even wrote a blog post or two. Having this time was what made traveling constantly for the past five years bearable. I knew that once I got off the plane there would be no time to focus anymore; my life would consist of a brief and intense series of trains, taxis, meetings, working lunches, and periods of "downtime", in between used to catch up on email and make calls.

Every year at this time I look at my schedule while it is only marginally complicated compared to how it looked at the end of the previous year, and I ask myself the same question--how do I build in more uninterrupted focus time? And why, during the holidays when I make time to relax and reflect, do I find it so difficult to focus? The blog posts that I expected to ooze out of me have more like sputtered out incoherently. When I have periods of crucial time, like now, I think of all the small quickie tasks that I could be knocking out instead. I check email, my Facebook page, my Twitter feed, my calendar. I realize that I am out of practice.

And I realize that there is an ongoing argument occurring in my mind--the more eloquent side sharing that the multitude means of communication that exist today are not only personally convenient and enriching, but justify my work in social media. I've succeeded because of this shift in the balance of downtime and our obsession with being always on. And I've been plagued by it--the time that I used to take to allow creativity to manifest has evaporated into busyness. Will we, as a society, have a decreasing capability to create because we've erased unplugged reflection from our lives?

Pico Iyer wrote in the New York Times this week:

In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them — often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug. Like teenagers, we appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much all but overnight.

He shares how a premium has been placed on opportunities that allow us to unplug--fancy spas, even moves to rural areas. But ultimately we have an inability to sit still.

In the early days of my company we had the challenge of proving to sponsors and advertisers the value of social media. While we suspected that recommendations by digital influencers were valuable, there was no tangible proof for years that social media could move the needle for marketers. Now they are convinced. How, similarly, can I make the case for unplugged reflection time? How can we show that it ultimately makes us more productive?

 

Do Nice Girls Self-Promote?

I got to see a ton of bloggers I haven't seen in a long time at the BlogHer Holiday Party. One, in particular, inspired a post.

She's one of the "old-timers", meaning she's been blogging for more than five years. And like many of the women I met in the early days of BlogHer, she sticks to her knitting--posts a few times a week, uses Facebook and Twitter as tools, is adept in audio and videoblogging. And she considers herself a "professional who blogs," not a professional blogger.

There's a big difference here: Some bloggers put a good deal of their energy into monetizing their blogs and are successful at it--those are professional bloggers. Others use their blogs as a means of building opportunities, but by no means make their living off of them, or are known for them; those are professionals who blog.

My friend falls into this latter group. She earns her living as a consultant, who often helps others build and even monetize their blogs, and her blog content is useful in helping others develop professionally. But her blog itself isn't a revenue driver. And therein lies her problem--she wants it to.

"I see so many blogger/guru types who are successfully building their businesses by selling their books and eCourses on their sites," she said. "I don't think I'm capable of talking up my work in that way."

She was referring to bloggers who have no problem posting requests on their blogs,

"Go check me out here!" …

"Sign up for my teleclass!"

"Go see my piece in Parenting magazine…"

And they have no problem sharing their good news --

"I just made Babble's Top 50 Moms list…"

"I just got a TV deal …"

I understood my friend's dilemma. Her mojo was much more "talk about others' great work" not "talk about my great work." And yet she cannot deny that self-promotional birds get the worm. And she's a media skeptic, like myself. She knows too much about how the promotional sausage gets made to want to serve it up to her beloved readers. Earlier this week I learned that I was included in Working Mother Magazine's Most Powerful Moms in Social Media list (Note: I don't actually provide a link, proof of my neurosis). Normally I don't care for lists; for every one I make there are dozens that I don't, so I maintain any sense of self-worth by not investing too much stock in them. And as a general rule we stay away from them at BlogHer, as some can drip with link-baiting intention meant to inspire more debate than appreciation. But shucks, I knew that my family would get a kick out of seeing my mug up there. And I actually agreed with their inclusion of some of my favorite bloggers, even if not all of my favorites were included. After bullshitting with myself that I was doing this for the love of Momblogging, not out of any self-interest, I posted a link to the story on my Facebook and Twitter page; it took restraint the next morning, when I saw a list of congratulatory comments on my Facebook wall, to not write back to each FB friend personally and apologize for gunking up their update feed with my business. I had to say to myself, "Wait--what the hell is social media for, if not to share your good news?"

So yes, even though I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to build OTHER bloggers' and brands' traffic to insane levels, the thought of applying some of these tactics to my own platform embarrasses me. And if I get a "hit" in the form of a spike in traffic or a congratulatory note I will immediately question whether I provided enough content value to deserve it.

In fact, I, too, have sat with this question around self-promotion. While it's absolutely critical to promote your work and accomplishments to garner recognition and more opportunities, how much self-promotion will have a diminishing effect on your credibility with your readers and community? How much of this concern is really just my issue with feeling my work is not worth promoting if it's about me?

As someone who tends to gravitate toward personal and professional development blogs, I know my share of gurus, through their work and personally. Most of them have embraced the requirement of promoting their work, much the way an actor embraces the need to show up to an audition. It ain't glamorous, but it's a necessary part of sustaining a living. "Here, folks, is a link to my new book. Now back to our regular programming…"

Others have taken the self promotion to a different level. Their accomplishments have become the content.

A subject of their latest blog post may be their latest dilemma: Guys, should I change the focus of my book for the fat deal with Random House?

Or a situation: I was sitting with my friend who shall remain nameless (@Oprah)..."

Or promotion as a favor to someone else who can promote your work later: My pal Magda is the BOMB! Take her teleclass now, tell them I sent you, and get 50% off!!!

This sort of copy always appears in my brain in bright red letters and huge exclamation points, even when it's done tastefully. It's like noise to me and, rather than be alienated by it I tend to tune it out.

I said to my PR-averse friend, "You know, maybe YOUR readers aren't as interested in special offers and announcements."

She didn't buy it: "But I still see plenty of people who fall into the more audacious camp, and they have tons of readers, and they actually make money off of their various projects. I have to wonder if I'm in denial about what it takes to be successful in this increasingly expert-saturated space."

Honestly I don't know the answer to that. Perhaps the challenge isn't learning to become more comfortable with being self-promotional, but rather learning to play within the range of what your community considers acceptable (defined by your own bullshit meter).

That means if you tend to feel uncomfortable promoting your work, endeavor to squeeze in a bit of personal PR thoughtfully and remember: There are some real freaking crazies out there who actually want to read your stuff, see the pics of your trip to LegoLand, take your teleclass. And who are YOU to not deliver?

You see? It's really not about you.

On being a content creator

Due to a confluence of blogging events of late, I've been around a lot of digital influencers, online platform builders, content creators, call them what you will.

"What is your blog URL?" I'm asked, and I reply with my boilerplate response.

"My blog is old as the hills; I never write anymore. The irony, I suppose, of having co-founded a company by and for bloggers." This is meant to somehow prequalify me as a card-carrying blogger without actually being one.

A friend's wife started a blog and sent me a link to promote, which I was happy to do--she wrote a great piece about traveling with babies on airplanes. It came at just the right time, as we were trying to determine whether to pre-pack Liv's milk or wait until we got past security. I could't help but notice how gorgeous this woman's site was. Not bad for a newbie. Time was, you needed to get some serious help to have a site that professional looking. Now bloggers are building them on their own.

Naturally this got me thinking that I should probably rethink my blog design. My design isn't bad--it's just not what I would call optimized. No newfangled features or optimization. I worked within the templates TypePad gave me--no offloading. I started to plan what I needed to do to re-professionalize. After all, maybe if I had a good looking blog, I would find more time to update it.

But I realized something--a personal truth. The business side has always been easier for me. I can always reach out to people, insert links, optimize for the search engines, establish co-promotion partnerships, pitch myself for syndication, make my site more advertiser friendly. This mode is my default. It helps to distract me from the hard work of getting back in flow.

So this blog will remain boring, er, simple. I won't distract myself and consider what I do manage to write to be wasteful because it wasn't given the ultimate SEO send-off. I need to continue to rev up and not slow down to seek out which parts of my text are linkable, or which posts are visual and need pictures. I need to keep my focus on the foundation and just write.

At some point the bells and whistles will come.

 

Something

The other day I was in NYC for a new conference BlogHer launched for writers named, well, BlogHer Writers. I had learned to disassociate myself with the content of our conferences long ago, back when I sensed frustration at having to run, versus attend, my company's events. While I very much wanted to sit in and enjoy sessions, I knew that more realistically I would be running over to a sponsor to make sure they were pleased with their investment, or run back to the press room for an interview. After a few years, it just became understood, or rather, assumed, that I would be doing things other than attend the conference.

BlogHer Writers was built for bloggers seeking to publish. Yes, these people exist. We haven't sucked every vestige of traditional media into our vortex just yet. But publishers like Penguin have become smart to the ways of the new, new writer, who oftentimes now came to print via blog success first. There were many familiar faces in the room--women I'd come to know over the years who had slowly built a platform and who, over time, came to call themselves writers. There were other faces in the room as well, faces of people I'd known even longer, who hardly recognized me. After all, I hadn't stayed for very long. I was 21 years old and had moved from the Midwest to work at a book publishing house--Penguin, actually. My goal had not been to be an editor, or even to work in New York. It was to become a writer.

"Nice company you have here," one of them told me.

"Amazing to see things come around full circle," I said back to her. And I meant it. So many times we see life as a series of lost opportunities, or failed attempts. And yet my attempts, while being short of the goal I had set for myself of supporting myself by writing, had sparked a fire elsewhere, causing that original trajectory I used to look up at, wanting to realize, to melt and warp in my direction. The worlds I had wanted to become a part of had somehow come to me.

In the morning we hosted panels of experts in the publishing world--agents and editors--who could speak to how to get a book published, what they looked for, how to have your book stand out. Agents attended to meet writers. One told me, "I have to be here to meet writers. You all have PLATFORMS! That's half the battle." I recall a much bigger battle being waged five years ago, when I tried to sell my book and getting a contract if I could accept changing my target audience. I recall another publisher saying that they wish I'd gone more Cosmo and made my stories more how-to. I recall a publisher sharing with my agent that I didn't need to write a book so much as see a therapist. After founding BlogHer I recall an agent who came to speak who left a stack of business cards on a table before leaving--she didn't want to be mobbed by a bunch of bloggers wanting to get published.

I recall waking up in the morning and going to a coffee shop with no wireless by design so that I would not check email as I hammered out pages and pages of copy. I had no job, I simply wanted to write and get a book published.

Things have changed.

"You are at an advantage," one of the speakers from the publishing side said at the conference, "you all are in the habit of writing every day."

I look at the date on my last blog post and wonder how that happened. The sad reality is that it wasn't hard not writing. I knew how encompassing writing could be. I knew how when I got into writing everything else tended to fall away. Where would I start? What if  had nothing to say?

One friend offered up a nice metaphor: Creativity is a muscle. When you go running for the first time, you feel like shit. But keep going every day, and slowly it starts to feel good. You start to run faster and more efficiently. You know how to inspire your creativity. You re-learn how to call it up.

"Just write short," friends have told me, "just get something up there." That's what I tell other people. But I'm really not very satisfied to do that.

I saw a friend this weekend when I was out in the neighborhood with my one year old.

"You inspired me to blog," she said. She's been actively blogging and consulting in the social media space now for five or six years. "It makes me sad to go over to your blog and see nothing there."

She challenged me to write a blog post while on the plane flying home from business trips.

"I've tried that," I said. "I have a lot of stuff I need to finish. I don't know if I can commit to that."

"Just write something she said."

Today I saw an email she left in my inbox. The subject line: It's Blogging Day!

Glass ceilings hardly matter when you've left the corporate building

Many well-intended people are compelled to ask why aren't there more women running Fortune 1000 companies, or getting VC funding, or taking our companies public? Surely, ambitious women would want to do these things, yes?

Of course women have something to offer companies. Of course we can add diversity to small businesses. Of course we can add perspective.Sally Helgesen and Julie Johnson point out that we often ask this question under the assumption that women in corporations want the same things as men do. And this isn't likely the case. In researching the reason for why women aren't well-represented in high corporate positions:

Our conversation kept returning to a phrase that each of us had heard from women who had either left high positions or were considering doing so: “I decided it just wasn’t worth it.” ... What does this mean? It means the women we spoke with did not perceive the tradeoffs their companies were asking them to make—in terms of time, stress, lifestyle, relationships—to be adequately compensated by the rewards offered in return. It does not mean that the women were unwilling to sacrifice their time or live with the adrenaline rush we all experience when we’re over-extended (or thrillingly involved). It does mean that they did not find their company’s traditional reward system sufficiently compelling."

 

I've stopped asking where are the women in these various "corporate" roles. While I'd like to hear about how any high-achieving woman broke through the glass ceiling, I've become more interested in hearing stories of women who don't have a ceiling. These women don't all run companies, or even work for themselves, though many of them do. Some of them maintain a thriving yoga practice while building their consulting business. Some work around carpool hours. Some quit their corporate jobs and are feeling their way around work that moves them. Some reserve an hour to bake cookies during business hours. Some don't have "jobs" in the traditional sense, but are creating empires of influence. They have managed to circumvent what we once thought was the only way to professional relevance.

You may think that the je ne sais quoi that impresses me is an ability within these women to multitask or take risks, but it actually goes deeper than that. These women have identified certain "must have" aspects of their lives and have built their work around them. These women are autonomous.

While there are women who reach the upper echelons of (typically) male dominated industries, far more reach the OUTER echelons of "corporate" work, finding our own unique niches for ourselves and then marketing back into these companies as consultants, suppliers, coaches, etc. What they want is not a space at the top so much as a space of their own.

Yvonne Divita recently wrote a spot-on piece about business media's obsession with addressing women in business via their proximity to the glass ceiling, and power lists like this one that focus solely on women in corporate roles.

The Women of the Fortune 500 are women of worth. There is no disputing that. They deserve our appreciation. They’ve proven that the glass ceiling is a window into tomorrow, not a limiting factor to success. Their hard work is worth congratulating, and yet… I can’t help but wonder what the average woman business owner has in common with them? I skim articles about these women and sometimes catch their TV interviews and other than the fact that they represent an ideal to work towards, I do not find their experiences or their advice helpful. They are as far removed from me and my needs as a college professor is from a kindergarten teacher. Both are educators, but in vastly different classrooms.

I would never turn away an opportunity to be recognized as a powerful woman, but I do question the value of these "Power" lists. At best, I can learn from them how women maneuvered in male-centric industries. What I'd really like to know is how women discovered their unique niche in the world and built lives that sustained their vision.

In his book Drive Daniel Pink identifies AUTONOMY as a primary motivator in the workplace. We don't all need to be starting our own businesses, or not working for others, to be happy, but we do need to be self-directed in our efforts. This is why we hate micromanagers, and why we glorify flex time (though even flex time does not guarantee autonomy if we cannot dictate how we use our flex time to complete a job). And while money is a factor in deciding to take a job or project, all things being equal, we prefer work that allows us to do a job on our terms.

Autonomy is really the key to unlocking the potential of women in business, whether they be in a board room or in their home office. Where are the women in business? Ask instead, how may we promote autonomy?

Pregnancy Journal, Week 36: Working with my feet up

A friend of mine called me from New York. We talked for a while about his new job--I may be one of the few people who enjoys discussing with my friends the intricacies of their day to day work.

He asked me, so how are you?

I had to preface my response with a disclaimer,

"Nothing's wrong," I said. "But things are different." My friend probed to determine if I was unhappy.

"Nope," I said. "I'm just getting used to this change." I felt inarticulate, like when I had nightmares as a kid and my mom came into my room and asked me what I was afraid of, and I didn't know. One time I told her, "I'm feeling something skinny; a skinny string." I still get the sensation, but I don't know what it means.

By "change" I think I mean all that has shifted since becoming pregnant. For years I've been told about how the focus of energy shifts when you become a parent. I've held off on my decision to have children knowing this shift occurs. 

But even knowing that I am supposed to slow the centrifugal force that has tied me to a grinding schedule for so long, I find that I still give myself a spin or two to stay in motion, even during times of physical exhaustion. I wonder if I do this out of habit; being in motion is all that I know. Or because the slowdown scares me; all this momentum, what would it take to start up again? What if I fall in love with slow? What if slow feels like a skinny string?

A trusted friend--a powerhouse, even to other powerhouses--tells me that her desire to work, to achieve, didn't change when she had her son, but her reason for working did.

"I did everything because of him," she said.

Some might bristle at that thought, especially since working women are encouraged to have their careers "for themselves". But some of us have been working "for ourselves" for a very, very long time, at the risk of having no perspective and losing the meaning behind what we do. For me, the thought of working for someone else is liberating; it opens possibilities. It bends the rules I set in my mind of the way work must be.

Still, the rules run deep. My business partner said to me last week that if I may not want to bother commuting these last few weeks before the baby is born. Makes sense: an hour-long commute (on a good day) is hardly safe or desirable should I go into labor a few weeks early. After five years of working together (two of those virtually) she knows the work will get done anywhere. But I struggle to take her up on her suggestion. I've always valued physical, tangible presence. Presence is being in motion.

Another co-worker suggested that I use the couch she has in her cube--something she's integrated into her space for extreme back issues. I thanked her and wondered, when would I think to put my feet up? My first job out of college, when my boss traveled I'd sneak cat naps in her office. Why was it so much easier to acknowledge exhaustion when I was 21?

At the BlogHer conference I promised my colleagues and husband that I would put my feet up regularly. It took my husband physically guiding me back to my hotel room 14 hours after I started the day to do what I'd promised. As I sat there, propped by pillows, feet up against the wall, tired and restless, I lamented that it was still so early--I was leaving first thing in the morning and still hadn't seen or done everything I'd wanted to do.

I am hardly a sadomasochist or born with more energy than others. I just don't know otherwise. I suppose I will learn. And I will learn how to channel that energy where it needs to go. And rather than look upon these offers of support suspiciously, I will learn to put my feet up and note that there are moments that we work and moments that we work FOR.

And that skinny string that keeps us tethered to a life in which we've done very well won't break.

Women's work?

Part of my experimentation with my new neighborhood involved trying a new place for a mani-pedi. This didn't come with a small amount of apprehension; a good mani-pedi place is hard to find.

I got comfortable in my chair, settling into the warm pool of water at my feet. An Asian man--not older than 35--lifted my right hand.

"What shape?"

"Short and square," I replied.

"This color on your hands and feet?" he asked, holding up the bottle of deep red that I had picked out when I walked in.

"Please."

I watched this man study my cuticles and start trimming away at my nails. This was most certainly a first for me--having a man give me a mani-pedi. I've seen more men come to salons to receive services, but never had I seen a man giving them before.

I noticed my judgements: Can this guy do a good job? Will he bungle the polish? I watched him work, when normally I would sit back and zone out.

But why would a man who's trained to give manicures do a bad job? This incident made me think about work, and more specifically, women's work versus men's work. What kind belongs to whom anymore?

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I hand H-band a piece of notebook paper with a list of tasks.

"For the week," I say to him, dubious that he would internalize my requests.

"Yep, thanks."

"What are you doing today?"

"Got some work out back, some shopping, and a call at lunchtime," he says.

I'm uneasy with his answer, "But what about the list? When will you get to the list?"

I wonder if, since leaving his company, he'll be efficient with his time, or productive. When we both worked full-time we divided tasks accordingly: He did household tasks like the dishes and most of the cooking. I paid the bills and planned things like travel and dinner parties. I gravitated toward things in the future; he handled things as they came up.  Now he was taking on everything at home: the immediate, the planned, and, when the baby comes, the primary caregiving.

I remind myself that he's good at this. I come home, and he's made dinner. I know that with our daughter he will do what comes naturally and keep her safe, fed, and loved. But I can't help myself: I plan.

"When will you call the insurance people?" I ask. "Will you hang the pictures today?" "Who are you meeting with today?" I want to make sure he really wants to do this. And I have to ensure he's structured, that he's in movement, that he still thinks of his future.

I need to watch him work because I question his instincts in this realm, even when they are more highly honed than my own.