Women Superstars Are Portable, Men Less So

This is a point in my blog where I wonder if I'm deviating from the theme of my blog or actually iterating to fine tune the theme. I am personally motivated to encourage change in how technology can provide women with an improved quality of life whether it's for pleasure, work, balancing life, family, etc. I have been trying to focus on the pleasure and fun because there are many other sites that comment on how best to balance work/family etc. However to encourage technology companies to consider an audience so unlike the gender makeup of most technology companies requires a shift itself to be more attractive to women to want to join it. So this then leads me in the direction of wanting to include in my blog articles and commentary on why it makes business sense to improve the gender make-up in companies.
In Harvard Business Review this month there's an article on the portability of superstars in the work force by Boris Groysberg, it's a second article pulled from a large data set. The first article had findings that showed it was extremely hard for a superstar in one company to transfer to a new company and still perform at the same outstanding level. However the new article has looked at gender differences and determines that women can move successfully between organizations. There were two primary reasons, first, women have stronger external networks, which they've developed because internal networks can be harder for them to develop. This means when they switch companies they weren't as dependent upon that internal network for their success compared to their male counterparts. The second reason is that women are more likely to way up the environmental factors of moving to a new company: culture that is open to female talent, openness to individual style, and impartial performance measures, this contrasts to a man moving to a new company for financial rewards.

Take aways:
Developing an external network is important, for people who are starting their careers it's developing it outside their group, division, or organization if a small company.
A woman who is second guessing her intuition on whether to force herself to make a move based on compensation if she feels it's not a good fit should probably go with intuition.
A company hiring talent needs to consider how it operates to considered an environment where individual styles can florish. I say operates because I can imagine how a company could try to convey that individual styles are supported, but without the reality to back it up the high flyers recruited in will not continue to rise.

It's bizzare to read the short summary on the HBR site because it's so rare that I've read an article where it's highlighting what women do that men can learn from to be successful in business!

Wake Up Business, the Women Are Already Here

I've been planning to make a post here at some point that highlights the need that businesses need to play closer attention to women and their influence in the world today. However it's always hard to know when to do the pointing, I have gut intuition that it's a good thing but where are the facts. A new book has been published, titled "Why Women Mean Business: Understanding the Emergence of our next Economic Revolution" by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland. As the title suggests the book pushes the agenda that it's not a women agenda issue but a business issue to pay attention to. In a sample chapter they quote research completed by Catalyst that demonstrates that companies with a higher proportion of women in their senior teams outperformed those companies that had lower proportion of women. Women also dominate 80% of spending decisions. According to the Consumer Electronics Association women spend $55B of the $96B that gets spent on technology. There was an article on an Australian site recently that also showed that Women are the decision makers in the purchasing of houses as well, and more women are buying their own houses – the social balance of who has spending power is changing on both big and small purchases. So much change in the power of the female consumer and yet we have to see proportional changes in how companies are managed at the top levels.

I intend to get a copy of the book to understand their research and perspective more throughly, but it is motivating to consider what they layout in chapter one as a new time and place - women have finally been working alongside men in workforce for a couple of decades now, and women have also have increased their spending power, and women around the world are critical to the workforce unlike any other time - if companies don't wake up and figure out how to adjust their business attitude and method of operating to address their audiences then they will fall short.
We need to see more women making it onto board of directors, where we are pitifully represented. I was encouraged last month by seeing the new board member for Apple was Andrea Jung who is CEO for Avon. Now of course board members don't exactly influence product strategy but imagine a company like Apple who is known for trends thinks to harness the sensibilities of a female leader of a company that is completely targeted at the female population - interesting conversations might happen in the smoke filled room. Microsoft's announcement of it's new research lab in Boston also announced the director of the lab would be Jennifer Tour Chayes, who will be the first woman to head up a Microsoft research lab. I believe many of the large companies are trying to figure out gender issues but are not sure how to turn the corner - strategy corners are perhaps easier to turn than culture corners?
I'll take a look at the 'Why Women Mean Business:..' book and post a review later.

Pitch like a Women at Women 2.0 Open Mic Session

When I started this blog I wanted to call it Web 2.0 for Woman 4.0, as I head towards that age this year I really feel that there is this tremendous opportunity for more businesses to adeptly position more technology at this band of life and be successful. At the same time I realize that technologies are being developed predominantly by guys and they might not be of the right mind set to get creative in the this lucrative space for Women 4.0 (plus or minus).

I am excited to see groups like Women 2.0 get established to support women in the development of ideas and the nuturing of startups. To quote the quote on their site, “every day, 420 women go out and start their own businesses — twice the rate at which men do so. And these businesses are growing revenue, profits and jobs faster than business as a whole.” — Margaret Heffernan, Forbes.com." - there is tremendous innovation going on by women, and why shouldn't more of it be in the technology sector? I've watched panels on blogs such as Y-pulse that highlight CEOs who are barely out of school (both male and female), the cost of initial entry into a web-based business is so low that fledgling sites can exist and refine themselves before the big costs hit. More women need to embrace the lower cost of entry and give it a try.

Women 2.0 has Pitch 2008 coming up. This is an opportunity to network and get feedback on your napkin ideas - what are you waiting for? Take a moment to submit your idea, and make it more than a mental moment, what's the worst that can happen?