Entrepreneurship & Social Media As The New Women's Movement

I'm seeing mainstream articles tackling my topics, especially at the intersections of women/invisible groups, entrepreneurship, platform-building, work/life and social media.

Like this "social media is the new women's movement" at the New York Times, last week's "entrepreneurship is the new women's movement" at Forbes.com, and the power of networked reality at The Atlantic last month.

As Tara Agacayak says, "What I'm seeing is the trend toward more customized, flexible, personally fulfilling work with the technology to facilitate it."

There's this "Why work-life balance is a crock" at CBSNews.com: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500395_162-57342505/why-work-life-balance-is-a-crock/

Women leaving mismatched corporate culture for work on their own terms:http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2012/06/08/entrepreneurship-is-the-new-womens-movement/

Seth Godin calls platform building "a longterm shortcut": http://archive.feedblitz.com/720389/~4194314

Microsoft buys Yammer for $1.2B for the same reason GlobalNiche urges us to enter the conversation on our topics:

"You cannot underestimate the power of "working out loud" with social tools. So many conversations get trapped in the one on one world of email and instant messaging. With open sharing, new ideas emerge, experts are found, and teams are formed from the groundswell. Serendipity happens when conversations become public and others are encouraged to listen and contribute their ideas, all within the safety of the company walls."

http://socialmediatoday.com/jimworth/559907/why-yammer-worth-12b-microsoft

people "who reluctantly socialize via online methods due to skill or cost or personal disposition may well find themselves *left out* of conversation." http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/social-medias-small-positive-role-in-human-relationships/256346/

Plug in better (includes "unplug from disconnection"):http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/plug-in-better-a-manifesto/252873/

(altho the below link is hardly mainstream, it's exactly what GlobalNiche is all about): "disadvantaged groups have tools to reach out and organize across geographic boundaries" http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/04/23/sherry-turkles-chronic-digital-dualism-problem/

And thanks to global women's health doctor Nassim Assefi for noting that the forward-looking approach to life and "the American Dream" mentioned in this article is what I show people how to do in my GlobalNiche program and in general! We are way on the cutting-edge. http://www.more.com/women-new-american-dream

Content Curation Is The New Black & Scoop.it Is The New Squidoo

Announcing Scoop.it.  Anyone who wants to demonstrate their expertise in a subject area will benefit from this new tool to scoop web content into a graphically-displayed archive. Takes minutes to get started. It makes those bookmarks enticing rather than a list of text links. I believe this is an improvement on Squidoo's "lenses", it's not as complicated and easier to share. "If you can't be the source, be the resource" is the thinking....but you can also be the source.

Here are some related links:

IS CONTENT CURATION THE NEW BLACK? http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/curation-is-the-new-content-black/

CONTENT CURATION: WHY THE NEW CURATORS ARE BEATING THE OLD http://curationservices.com/content-curation-why-the-new-curators-are-beating-the-old/

CURATION IS THE NEW CREATION http://lindaziskind.com/curation-is-the-new-creation

And a Scoop-it page of one of GlobalNiche at LinkedIn's creative entrepreneurs:  Jan Gordon

http://www.scoop.it/t/content-curation-social-media

Magical Thinking: Reaping Results Of Our Invisible Ties

I've been thinking about magic. Even though I'm reading Joan Didion's memoir about the year she spent pondering how she might reverse her husband's death, I don't mean that kind of magical thinking. I'm talking about context. In its absence, everything looks like magic.

David Blaine's TEDmed talk reveals the training behind the endurance-artist's 17-minute feat of holding his breath under water. Rather than illusion, the magician relied on science.

"What will the world be like 10 years from now?" asks the Shorty Awards interview. (I'm honored to be nominated this month for producing 140-character, real-time content). I'm afraid the future will be divided: digital-natives and -immigrants on one side, and the other group mystified how we know so much.

In much the same way, philosophies about our interconnectedness will also separate us. Look at the release of marketer Seth "tribes" Godin's latest book this week. Among a hundred positive ones by people who donated to the Acumen Fund to receive advance copies -- resulting in a slew of pre-publication synergistic footwork among his tribe -- the top critical review on Linchpin's first day suggests the Amazon review system has been gamed.  Shillery.

When we invest in research and relationships (with online alliances even more invisible to the unconnected) our results can seem like wizardry.

Which magic are you going to think more about?

I Dream Of GenY: In Sync With Today's 20-Something Worldview

If you're over 30 (OK, over 40) you probably don’t yearn to recapture 20-something days of gritty uncertainty. It’s even less appealing if you’re from the tail end of the Baby Boom, a generation gap in itself. My birth year alone meant I’d always occupy an entry-level position in that cultural generation.

Last week a visiting friend and I reminisced about our salad days in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Now Sex and the City types fill its fashion showrooms, art galleries and wine vaults but in the late ‘80s -- when our loft went Hollywood in the film Fatal Attraction and Madonna launched her naughty picture book from the basement nightclub -- it was a no man's land. Motorcycle gangs. Transvestite prostitutes. Bloody meatpackers in white coats and industrial rubber boots. You know, affordable. Plus, our landlady (a dominatrix!) didn’t complain about the party noise.

Unconventional freedom after-hours compensated for our brick-wall career prospects in mainstream media, entertainment, architecture and advertising. Unlike the disaffected GenX slackers a couple years behind us, my downtown loftmates and I refused to embrace the fact we'd never build equity with our marquee employers.

We still had our eye on the ball! Just. Needed to. Get. A foot. In. The door. No surprise the rising tide of GenY and its status quo rebellion has recently uplifted me.

Even with today’s dismal economy, the blogosphere is abuzz with possibility for young adults. A location-independent lifestyle design site launched this week challenges us to “live an awesome life on your own damn terms” while top blogs of young entrepreneurs spearhead social renewal.

The idealistic, brazen careerist mindset resonates because I'm old enough to have faced the corporate cubicle and young enough to frolic with a novel and unbounded reality.

Time travel to GenY’s brand of 20-something grit is a trip I'm willing to take. Ever felt in sync with a different generation?

Who Owns Polish -- And, Is Accessibility Superficial?

Growing up in a countercultural town, the presentation and packaging tactics of Madison Avenue and Hollywood, and the protocol of the diplomatic world seemed like subversive tools of the establishment. I often think of a brilliant local character known as a founding father of California’s rich architectural history who wandered the streets of Berkeley barefoot, his red beard and hair wild, beer belly protruding from a ripped t-shirt. Where might his speaking career -- and wind of Berkeley’s astounding architectural heritage -- have taken him, if he hadn’t appeared to be a vagrant?

Marketing futurist Seth Godin talked about the decisive role of cultural wisdom -- or sophistication -- in business, and asked why we don’t take it more seriously.

Is poor presentation a death sentence for a good idea?

I polled my online contacts.

LinkedIn said yes (66%), to be successful an idea demands professionalism. “Presentation is EVERYTHING!” effused one person.

Facebook was split, debating what professionalism means and the harm of over-marketing, with craftspeople and small business owners shouting “Hell no!” Commitment ranked as the top factor in success. One pragmatic man observed “Professionalism works in dull markets,” while a fellow Berkeleyan admitted we have to ”be able to engage with the status quo enough to be able to transmit a new concept.”

Here at the blog, 50% thought if the idea was winning people would forgive a shaggy package and one respondent likened presentation to the booster rocket that gets the Space Shuttle in to orbit.

Is superficial accessibility superficial? Or are movements we think of as “fringe” on the periphery not just because their beliefs are minorly held, but because they refuse to persuade from within general convention?