marți, 1 februarie 2011

What's Going on With Women?


This week my Shifting Careers column, "Women Build Businesses Their Way," will appear in two places, its traditional online home at the New York Times online, and as the Thursday Small Business feature in the print edition of the paper. It's about Ladies Who Launch, a social networking group for entrepreneurial women, and the bigger subject of whether women run their businesses (and their lives) differently than men. As I reported this story, I could have taken quite a few detours since the topic was rich. And I have a feeling it's a subject I'll be circling around for a while.

A few interesting links I stumbled on while working on this story:
  • A great post at Blogher, about different approaches to corporate women's networks: "BusinessWeek Takes a Second Look at Women's Networks"
  • "The Real Reason So Few Women," a post from Marty Nemko (who has appeared in my Coach's Roundtable) about why there are so few women at the top. Perhaps it's just that women want different things than men, or that we have differing definitions of "the top." Marty's archives are encyclopedic. He's got an article or a handful of articles on pretty much any work-related topic you've ever thought of. And often, they are smart and provocative, like this one.
  • Penelope Trunk, whose archives are also rich with smart posts, wrote this post last week about male CEOS.
  • Commentary from The Center for Women's Business Research, that ". . . both sides (of the opt-out debate) ignore what at least some of these women are doing at home in addition to raising their children: they are starting businesses. Read more here."
I have a feeling we are closing in on a time when referring to a feminine style of doing business might be seen as a compliment.