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This week May 5-11

Update fom my post: Single-Tasking:

My coat has been found! It was never lost, actually. It had been turned into the W Hotel before I had even started looking for it. But apparently there's the Lost and Found that the numerous staff checked for me and, like, a real Lost and Found. My friend Mariana asked if I'd picked up my jacket which she turned in for me, so I called the W again and asked them if they'd found my coat. The answer was still no. I said, "check again, please". They asked if my name was Jory, the name on the business card affixed to a black coat in the Lost and Found.

Go freaking figure.

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I was carded yesterday. I like when this happens; it makes me feel young. Though this time was a bit different; I was carded for buying cough medicine. That just feels kind of sad.

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BlogHer has some amazing initiatives happening now:

Donations supporting maternal health and relief in Myanmar through Global Giving

A Letter to My Body--this one has been up for a while, but I was just reading some letters this weekend and had to call this out.There are links in the widget in my right nav, or just click here.

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I've started blogging over at JackMyers.com about everything/anything that plays in the women's Blogosphere, for marketers and mediafolk who want to understand us better. Got ideas? Next week I'll talk about addressing body image with women who blog. Hint: Don't tell us we need to lose weight. You could, but you will die a digital death.

American Pilgrimmage

With BlogHer Business ending the night before, I felt a bit aimless Saturday morning, as I woke up, alarm free, in my NY hotel room. I felt groggy--is this what it feels like to have nothing to do on a Saturday morning?

I had decided to stay in NY over the weekend, because I have meetings on the East Coast this week. Julie, my sister who lives in NJ, had a wonderful suggestion. Her daughter--my niece--Bella has become enamored with the concept of tea parties, and Julie thought it was time to "do tea".

"Where are you thinking, Julie, the Plaza?"

"Don't think she'd appreciate the Plaza, but there was this place that the women on Housewives of New York went to with their daughters that I think would be perfect."

I thought, not anymore it's not.

And there was one other thing, Julie said, that we'd have to do. She'd been thinking about doing this for some time, but she wasn't sure Bella was ready. Now, she thought, it was time to make the trip. To Little Girl Mecca. The American Doll Store in Midtown.

A doll store, in Midtown?

"Jor, you have no idea," Julie said. "I see moms on the train when I commute in for work with their daughters, having left the American Girl store. This isn't an afterthought. This is a trip to be planned." Julie lamented that she wasn't prepared to spend a buttload on a doll and accessories just yet, but she'd made it clear to Bella that she could look and pick out what she'd want for her birthday in July.

This was an advantageous situation, Julie said, especially since she hadn't made a hair appointment--for the doll, that is--and it took months to get one.

We entered the store not knowing where to begin; Julie and I simply followed Bella from display to display, ogling doll outfits and doll pets. Julie glanced at the price for Coconut the little dog.

"Criminy. If we can get outta here for under $500 ... Bella, hun, for your birthday, OK?'

We wandered to the in-store doll hair salon, where dolls were placed in salon chairs, draped with a smock around their three-inch shoulders and then done up by human professionals. These women worked furiously--spraying, teasing, curling, trimming--and occasionally explaining to the dolls' owners what they were doing.

I turned to Julie, "Is it me, or are these dolls not even that cute?"

"Doesn't matter," Julie said. "Just wait."

We browsed the doll outfits, which were accompanied by identical, human girl outfits.

"You want to match your doll," Julie explained. I realized how brilliant this manufacturer was, perpetuating the razor/razorblade business model of ongoing revenue stream by creating more incremental sales opportunities.

I looked hesitatingly at the second floor escalator. Bella had beaten us there and made our ascent a foregone conclusion. At the Mezzanine Level we encountered the doll "Hospital". I can only imagine that this was a clever way of accepting exchanges for faulty merchandise or fixing broken girl parts.

On the second floor were rather engaging displays of the "character" American Girls--one for each American era. For example, there was Kaya, and American Indian girl, from the 1860s; there was Molly, from the 1940s. Bella's favorite was Julie (her mother's name, which is likely why she kept calling the doll Juliana), from 1974.

"I just love the period ones," Julie said, trying to get Bella to look at the 1904 doll. But Bella was determined to stick to Juli(ana).

"Here's the one, Mama," she said. She had the presence of mind to take a spare catalogue, so that she could further research her preference.

The third floor featured American Girl babies, including twins, which I thought was particularly brilliant of the manufacturer: now you can sell two identical dolls at once. I wondered if they had triplets.

We stopped briefly in front of the American Girl Theater. This was where real humans played the dolls. For SAG credit, I wondered? The sign outside the theater read: No food or drink allowed inside the theater, for both real people and doll people.

We stole looks into the accompanying cafe. Again, we'd missed the sit-down times and were told we had to make a reservation. Julie cursed herself a few times, and I reminded her that she was still a good mother. We stole a look into the cafe. At every table there sat a girl, her mother, and in a small booster chair, her doll. The ultimate mother-daughter-plastic-daughter bonding experience.

"Don't worry, Bella. Next time Mommy will call in advance," Julie said.

Though Bella is only four and a half. She had no problem asking for what I couldn't ask for until I was 35: a taxi.

"My feet hurt Mama! I wanna taxi!"

Finally I hailed one and we made our way up to the Upper West Side, to the tiny, charming cafe Julie had seen on Housewives just a week earlier, Alice's Teacup.

There was a 90-minute to two-hour wait.

The hostess had a heart, "Would you like some pixie dust while you wait?" she said to Bella. Bella nodded and then was asked to close her eyes while glitter was sprinkled on her head.

"Make a wish!" the hostess said. "Now shake your head!" Bella marvelled at the shimmery dandruff that fell to the floor.

"I don't think we can wait that long," Julie said.

"But Mama," Bella said. "Don't you want my wish to come true!"

Yes, Mama said, eyeing the pastries at the cash register and picking some for takeout. But we would be taking this wish to go.

Back to my Roots: The Ladies who Launch Conference

For the past year now, I've spoken quite often about crossing the chasm between advertisers and bloggers. Earlier this year I was asked to sit on a panel for a Ladies Who Launch event in San Francisco to speak about, well, me, and my entrepreneurial journey--such a departure to discussing the merits of blogging, or the power of word-of-mouth marketing!

And yet, this event appealed to me in a way the others didn't. It reminded me of my days of yore, when I actually wrote about the seeds of creation, what brought me to starting a business with Lisa and Elisa, a pivotal time when your foundation for moving forward is built. A time when your previous world has blown up--it has to be blown up, or you'll spend too much energy trying to keep the past intact and not moving forward.

The event was not in any way a traditional conference-like format. Sure, there were panels and interviews, but in back were small businesses selling merchandise and lots of shopping. It turned me off initially--why do we always assume that if women are involved we need to have jewlery and cute things lining the place? But as I got to speaking to the women in the booths I realized they were a re-enforcement of the message behind this event: Anything is possible, and we can help each other get there. What better way of telling the story of your business than having your business brought to the event?

I spoke on a panel of media experts, including the hilarious Randy Peyser, CEO of her own business and author of Crappy to Happy, and The Write-a-Book Program: How to Position Yourself as an Expert by Writing a Book, and the epitome of Chutzpah. She told her story of following her dream and having nothing to show for it initially--except for a single box of baking soda in the fridge (been there!)--she opted to stand out on the highway with a sign "Editor seeking publisher." Incidentally, it worked.

The lesson from her story: It usually takes an act of faith (and insanity) to make a dream happen. And by the way, I could tell that being crazy was not a typical thing in Randy's life; she had to aspire to being crazy. A lot of people think that some people are born with the crazy gene and some aren't. I subscribe to a different theory, we are all born meant to be awake and alive, and those who go through this life without asking themselves if they are passionate about what they do are the ones who are crazy.

When asked about advice I had to making an entrepreneurial vision happen, I had a fairly amorphous answer; this is what I wanted to say: We are born with an obligation to ourselves to do what we are meant to do. Seeing our lives failing to commit to ourselves is often what pushes us over the edge. Personally, I couldn't stand myself any longer, and neither could the people who worked next to me. I brooded and complained once a quarter about not being utilized fully. Be warned: expect to be utilized on the entrepreneurial journey, OVER-utilized, in fact. Expect to have to do some outlandish things like get on airplanes and talk about things like you are the expert. Realize you are the expert and just do them.

Also on the panel is a woman I've been wanting to meet for quite some time--Kate Everett Thorp of Real Girls Media. Being the head of a digital media company, I thought I knew her story, but I didn't. Hearing Kate describe how her mother was instrumental to helping her commit to things at a young age, and how her husband left his work as an engineer to take care of their three children, I realized there are no easy peasy ways of becoming an entrepreneur. Some of us sacrifice more than others, some of us get funded sooner, but none of us had an easy ride. None of us did this without help. The more we tell our stories, the more we free up other women to take the plunge.

A handful of women came up to me, I had assumed, to ask me about blogging. Some did want advice. And three asked me, with shyness, what's a blog? I had to laugh appreciatively; I came equipped to tell of how blogging would increase entrepreneurs' visibility, but it seemed that my expertise was less interesting than my experience. The part I don't share in keynotes--how freaking hard it is to start something no one has done before. Working through uncertainty and learning much more about what you want through discovering what doesn't work for you.

One woman approached me whom I hadn't seen in years. I found it ironic that she'd approached me, since years ago I'd seen her speak, and later she'd become one of my inspirations. In fact, I wrote about her when I embarked on a previous entrepreneurial journey. Here's a snippet:

What does a career look like when you have nothing left to prove?

It felt a little bit sinful, talking to R on a Wednesday during work hours. We'd been trying to catch up for nearly two weeks, and she had found a pocket of time to call me during her commute on the East Coast. Of course I wanted to talk with her, but my conversations with R were never brief. Since college, and the few times we'd connected afterward, time stood still. Life was moved to the side. 

My business has propelled me so quickly forward these days that I've had a hard time looking sideways at what's going on around me, let alone behind me. But the universe conspires sometimes. Much of my business travel has brought me back to New York, where I cut my teeth in publishing, or to Chicago, where I grew up but never stayed long enough to appreciate it. This blog has been a conduit to people that knew me at very different junctures in my life. These people have reached out and re-connected. I have been forced to see how much--and how little--I've changed. R had found me via the blog and wanted to pick up the thread where we'd left it years ago.

R wasn't a traditional "BFF"--we didn't do everything together. And after college, when our careers took us to very different places, we didn't make a point of visiting each other. But I've always held her in my heart as a close friend. I felt I was at a significant disadvantage when she emailed me; she knew about my exploits from the blog and I knew nothing about hers.

The last time I'd seen R was at her wedding, nearly 10 years ago. She'd invited a group of women that I had become close to through her--all but one of them were married, or had been married, and some were having kids. And then there was me--single, unemployed, and living in New York City, about to start another miserable job that was to last not three months. I felt far less grounded than the rest of the women, but R brought me back to the reason I was there--to attend the wedding of someone whose life was so different than mine, but with whom I'd shared a unique connection. Despite the very different paths we both knew we would take after college, we used to spend hours on the phone or at the 24-hour diner talking about everything--boyfriends, the ridiculousness of others, and wanting to be impactful and in control of our lives. 

R wanted to spend her last night of singlehood with her girlfriends. At the end of our evening out she drove me to my hotel, where I learned there had been a mistake with my reservation, and I didn't have a room.

"Don't worry," R said. "You can crash with me." We ordered some fries from the drive-thru of the Steak & Shake and went back to her parents' house, where she was staying that weekend before the wedding. I remembered what I found so remarkable about R--her lack of formality, despite her ambition. Most women I knew who were "career" women wanted everything in their lives just so; they needed to perpetuate an image of perfection. R had spent her last night of singlehood out until 3 am, eating cheese fries, and sharing a bed with me.

I'm taking the madness abroad: I'm speaking at the Women Business Blogging Conference in the UK

One of the questions I'm often asked regarding BlogHerCon is "Why a conference for women?" And I remind them, the event is for men, too. But we launched BlogHer in 2005 to provide a place for women where they could address their specific uses of social media. Sure, there are tech heads and gurus in our midst whom you'd see at the other blogging conferences, but there are also Mombloggers, personal diarists, knitting bloggers, food bloggers, you name it. And they want an event that connects them to others in their communities and provides discussion on their specific slice of the internet. Our approach to building community and addressing the many reasons why we blog is equally valuable to both men and to women, but it sprang from a need to incorporate the needs of women bloggers.

You might wonder, why do women need a business blogging conference? We showed at BlogHer Business that even in a field like business, where (for the purposes of this argument) men and women hold equal sway, there is something unique about how women approach the subject. By most reports BlogHer Business was as collaborative and practical as business conferences come. Men and women alike shared best practices, whether formally in sessions, or by scrawling a new tool on the back of a napkin. But it was a women's conference because it fully leveraged women's innate ability to share by example and through storytelling. And it offered up knowledgeable speakers who were women.

The success of BlogHer Business emphasizes the need I see for the Women Business Blogging Conference in the UK on June 8. Conference founder Sue Thomas, Professor of New Media, Faculty of Humanities, De Montfort University, has pulled together an event in conjunction with her department NLab (Narrative Laboratory for the Creative Industries) that brings much of what we've established with BlogHer to European academics, non-profits, marketers, and small business owners.

Time management: A more intuitive guide to productivity

The original title of this post on BlogHer was: "Put Down the Time Management Book and Back Away..." I guess I got a bit long-winded. My take on multitasking sanely.

Still Alive! Just back from BlogHer Business

Just got back from the marathon business trip that culminated in an absolutely awesome inaugural BlogHer Business Conference. I didn't know what to expect. Of course, we would have awesome speakers, but would we still be able to pull off the energy that is normally experienced at the summer BlogHer Conference (which I've dubbed, BlogHer Blowout)?

There's something about getting a bunch of women bloggers together, whether they are Mommy bloggers, business bloggers, or, as I learned, companies seeking to learn more about social media. Every woman (and man) that I met at BlogHer Business oozed curiosity. There was a generosity of spirit--attendees who offered up their best practices--and humility. Veterans mixed it up with the newbies. Publishers chit-chatted with consultants. The business bloggers ate Twizzlers with the agency execs. Media behemoths pow-wowed with tech giants. And there were shoulder rubs to boot. One big business love-in, without singing Kumbaya.

THIS is why I do this.

BlogHer Business conferences

Think negotiating for more money is petty? Hope you like your job

My latest on BlogHer. Yep, women get paid less, but we also ask for less.

Thanks Wayne!: My interview on Blog Talk Radio

Wayne, you ask really good questions. As for me, two words: Chatty Cathy. To listen to our hour-long chat about the challenges of soloing. Check out Wayne Hurlbert's radio program on Blog Talk Radio. We talk about Living without a Net, Entrepreneurial Sins, and BlogHer. It was a pleasure!

Finally! A corporate blog that shouts from the rooftops the secrets of successful career women

My latest on BlogHer: The secret? There is no secret. But there is a fat conspiracy going on that women are supposed to be able to do it all. Thankfully there's a place to discuss the scam on working women.