My 40-Over-40 App

The 40-over-40 Women To Watch celebrates women over 40 who are disruptors, role models and makers...creating momentum and changing the world.  It's an initiative by Dare, Dream, Do author Whitney Johnson and 40:20 Vision founder Christina Vuleta. Excerpt from my application.  

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How are you disrupting professionally, whether in business, tech, media, entrepreneurship, social good, science, academics, creative arts, or politics?

Are you creating growth, jobs or new products, ideas or services?

My startup GlobalNiche works to train women to use the social web and mobile technology (what we call digital literacy) in alignment with their vision for the world they want to live in order to make that vision a reality both through their own work and through the connections and collaborations they make with others through their web platform. We show them how to do this.

In showing people how to build an effective online presence to connect with broader networks and opportunities, and build social capital, I help people appreciate and tap their own assets and the potential of online spaces to find or make their own jobs.

Along with my cofounder Tara Agacayak, I created a 6-step multimedia program and training system that shows women how to lay a foundation on the web for the work they want to do and the life they want to live.

In our experience, even with the availability of technology, extremely capable women stumble when it comes to sharing their expertise, knowledge, ideas, cause, or voice on the web because they feel uncomfortable using the technology or they feel vulnerable calling attention to themselves or joining a public conversation or taking credit for their ideas. We address these issues by bringing them together in a virtual environment that allows them to interact with one another, learn digital literacy skills and test them out in a supportive community, and encourage them to take the steps toward realizing their vision.

When offered to individuals, our program works to empower their vision for their own life. When offered in community, our program supports the community’s shared goals.

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What are some of the outcomes of your work?

What would suggest your greatest achievements are ahead of, not behind, you?

The world is just waking up to the future I’ve been living in. The future I’ve been solving for, and have now created distributable, teachable, learnable, actionable steps for.

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How are you a positive role model to younger women: innovating around work/life issues; promoting women for leadership?

Are you innovating around work/life issues; promoting women in leadership, or simply willing to make tough choices?

As a longtime expat and pro in culture, media, I’ve been forced to create my OWN GLOBAL LIFE/WORK SOLUTION …because it didn’t exist yet.

Younger women share that I have validated their instincts, helped them contemplate their own possibilities, and provided them much needed support & structure to operate.

• A young work-at-home mother says “I am getting organized both in the real world and in my mind. For the first time I am making visual representations of my work and my ideas.”
• A 30-something author and educator says my support community “became my think-tank, support group, go-to team, and more.”
• A 30-something global curator tells me “When I hear you talk about identity and multiple cultural personalities and finding your creative outlets no matter where you are, I feel understood.”

I wouldn’t say I’m a positive role model to just younger women. I work with women older than I am and they tell me

• I “Love the personal & pro growth spurt it’s providing!” in the words of a 60 year old women’s life-transition coach.
• A university instrucutor also my senior says “I felt smarter and more empowered to make decisions” after receiving my training.
• While a 50-something global mobility expert and real estate agent says training “generates introspection. It will open your eyes to the potential of online spaces.”

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How have you disrupted yourself personally?

How are you personally reinventing or creating a new path? Are you applying your prior experiences in new ways?

My current town of San Francisco may be a tech-forward location but that’s not why I’ve increasingly been turning to technology to help me be where and who I am today. Since living in 30 homes in 4 countries -- talk about personal disruption, try serial personal disruption as a lifestyle -- I’m a globally mobile individual and rely on social & mobile tech for my total, global operation.

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Why do you think you are about to 'take off'?

Because after a lifetime of existing in the wilderness, I am finally on-trend.

My custom life-work solution seems torn from today’s headlines and bestseller lists on the topics of future work skills and work-life fit solutions.

• “Leaning in” to your own life, your own preferred way of living and working.
• Optimizing your online presence in the age of the personal platform & personal branding, the global microbrand of you, content marketing, the social era.
• Being recruitable (quotable, invited to speak, hired, you name it) based on the appeal and impact of your web activities in the beyond-the-resume Google age.
• Your digital footprint IS your resume.
• Building global community through expression of your interests in the age of resonance and new world order of the interest graph — people who share your interests.
• Taking charge of your life’s trajectory in the age of the Start-up of You & disrupt-yourself and the ‘everyone’s an entrepreneur of their own lives’ times we all now live in.

Why am I about to 'take off'? Because I have turned to entrepreneurialism, education, and online spaces in order to share what I know more widely.

On the GlobalNiche Bookshelf: Global Dexterity. Reinventing You. The Impact Equation.

Building your global niche is a 21st century skill. For work. For life.

International business, human resources, the future of life & work bestsellers and new releases from Harvard Biz Review are stacking up on our bookshelf at Pinterest.

Finding cultural effectiveness. Career reinvention through social media and your own content. Achieving impact via your platform and social networks. Adopting an entrepreneurial mindset.

These are all GlobalNiche mainstays going mainstream. Click here to tweet about this.

What does it mean to be a global worker and a true "citizen of the world" today? asks author Andy Molinsky in Global Dexterity: How to Adapt Your Behavior across Cultures without Losing Yourself in the Process.

It means you're able to adapt your behavior to conform to new cultural contexts without losing your authentic self.

"Not only is this difficult, it's a frightening prospect for most people and something completely outside their comfort zone," writes Molinsky, an associate professor at Brandeis University's International Business School. He straddles the psychology and organizational behavior departments.

"What's needed now," he claims, "is a critical new skill: global dexterity."

Global dexterity? It's what we do here.

This critical 21st century skill is exactly what we've been pioneering at GlobalNiche and expat+HAREM group blog and the Expat Harem book before it, as we have striven to make the limbo state and high cultural stakes of expatriate life a strength instead of a weakness. How to navigate your surroundings in culturally appropriate ways while also honoring the truth of who you are. That's global dexterity. Thanks to Andy Molinsky for the term. Back in 2009 we couldn't find many people talking about it at all, so we came up with our own term: "psychic location independence."

At GlobalNiche we've also come to the conclusion that this approach to a dexterous, global version of yourself  increasingly works for people everywhere, whether you're 'actually global' or not. You might be in your own backyard and need to navigate your surroundings in culturally appropriate ways and have your own, distinct truth to honor. You might not have a passport but can still benefit from becoming a global operative. In fact, being globally aware and globally functional has become an imperative in today's connected world.

"Use social media to build connections" is one of seven steps branding expert Dorrie Clark lays out to reinvent yourself professionally, in  Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future.

"Show what you know" is another of Clark's steps. She suggests you use your content to show the world what you care about.

Again, sound familiar? It should. Using your content online and off to get where you want to go is exactly how you build your global niche. It's why the GlobalNiche program at its heart is about content strategy. Your content and your online presence is the key to creating your place in the world.

Another title that is particularly useful for people building online presences to reach offline goals is The Impact Equation: Are You Making Things Happen or Just Making Noise? by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Brogan is a favorite of ours here at GlobalNiche.

The impact of our ideas is a function of the quality and similarity-but-distinction of the ideas, our ability to reach people and be understood, trusted, appreciated.

Impact = C x (R + E + A + T + E)

C = Contrast – having ideas similar to existing ideas, yet different enough to stand out

R = Reach – connecting higher numbers of people to your idea

E = Exposure – knowing how frequently you connect people to your ideas

A = Articulation – ensuring that your ideas are easily understood

T = Trust – based on multiple factors, such as credibility and reliability

E = Echo – connecting to your community in a personal way

As Brogan explained in a fun January 2013 Twitter chat I participated in (#BizBookChat a virtual book club for the actionable books community by Alyssa Burkus), "The Impact Equation is about how to turn your goals into ideas, & how to get those ideas absorbed and actions taken."

To build a platform, Brogan says, "you've got to find how you can best tell the story and where you can reach the people you hope to reach."

"Start where you are," Brogan counseled us in the fast-moving Twitter chat. "But look for growth. Move your chips to the next table. Strive to reach who you need to reach."

Start where you are. That's your only option. Oh, and start your evolution today.

Evolution is exactly what Nacie Carson urges in The Finch Effect: The Five Strategies to Adapt and Thrive in Your Working Life. The Portfolio.com blogger and founder of TheLifeUncommon.net says it's your best bet in today's high-pressure economy.

Traditional career strategies spell professional extinction, she writes, but the fluid new gig economy offers tremendous potential for anyone willing to adapt.

Carson's five steps for ensuring professional success are all part of the GlobalNiche mindset and skill set.

• Adopt a gig mindset.
• Identify your value.
• Cultivate your skills.
• Nurture your social network.
• Harness your entrepreneurial energy.

Among many other notable titles on the shelf about navigating the world today is Mitch Joel's Ctrl Alt Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends On It. I hope to tackle this sometime soon. In the meantime, tell us which books on your shelf echo these 21st century life and work skills.

Old School, Part 2: Would You Take Twitter Advice From Someone Who's Never Tweeted?

I wouldn't. Let's get more specific.

How about taking advice on social media best practices -- for something serious with high stakes, like looking for a job, becoming visible to recruiters, re-entering the job market after a hiatus or otherwise attempting a career change  -- from an advisor whose Twitter account is empty?

Existent in name only.

How about if it's April 2013?

How about if it's the same month that the Wall Street Journal declared The New Resume: It's 140 Characters and @WSJCareers held a Twitter chat about using social media to get a job, concluding it's all about LinkedIn & Twitter & a digital footprint that shows your best stuff.

(I participated in this blisteringly-paced and totally on-target chat that featured The Daily Muse's Kate Minshew. Some of the tweets are Storified here. Search for more with the hashtag #WSJchat.)

No?

How about expecting to get guidance on the latest advances in online career development at an event conducted by someone who thinks LinkedIn is exclusively for connecting with people you already know well rather than people you are loosely associated with professionally and want to grow closer to? Someone whose policy lets connection requests go unanswered while, creepily, LinkedIn alerts us she's reviewed our info-rich profile and decided that's a no.

Again, I wouldn't. Yet these are things I have witnessed and experienced recently.

Do you see where I'm going? This is not helpful. This is place holding.

Old-school is occupying the space where actionable help is supposed to go.

And, if you find yourself thinking you don't need up-to-the-minute Twitter advice from a career advisor -- you're wrong.

Keynote Speaking At Women Inspire Tech San Francisco

Was pleased to speak tonight about my career arc to the young professional members of Women Inspire Tech's San Francisco branch at the offices of BBD&O.

Turns out when you've got as many twists and turns as I have you end up saying things like "and then I moved to the other side of the world, and let's fast forward through five years of freelance writing and producing in tropical Asia, and then I was back and couch surfing in California til the snow melted in New York. Then I got an editorship at an Internet magazine even though I'd come from a technological backwater. What I did know is that the Internet can help you survive being isolated."

Takeaways?

If there's something you want to do that's not in your job description, do it anyway. Then at least you get the experience and can build on what you learn.

Also, if you get laid off, don't take it personally even if it may be to some extent. There are always bigger picture issues at play and you really can't afford to get wrapped up in why you've been asked to leave the tribe when what you really need to do is locate (or create!) a tribe that wants you *badly*.

A smart programmer told me about a program she built for sharing small diary-like snippets of her world flung, post-Harvard, scrappy life and times with a friend, how she's used it for three years and finds it so helpful for her emotional well-being and how everyone tells her they don't understand the concept and it's not strong enough to pursue.

"What do you think?" she asked me. "Do I have something?"

I don't know if she has something for others.

But I do know she created something for a need she had, and when new options became available (and pervasive worldwide, like Facebook and Twitter) she has continued to use her own solution and it works the way she needs it to.

I believe in her. If she wants to develop it further, she's the best person to do it.

Do you know a woman in tech in San Francisco? Let her know about this free networking & leadership group founded by talent recruiter Tiffany Roesler, who modeled her talent scoutingp prowess when she located me on LinkedIn and reached out to me to join her group.

New World Order Deja Vu

"We have built around us a borderless global society, without the need for proximity to connect," announces social business strategist Bryan Kramer in today's post "A New World: Proximity Redefined". "Social, mobile & online today has redefined how proximity inhibits our abilities to connect anywhere & anytime."

Globally unbound. Unconfined by traditional limitations. That's exactly what I've been saying and demonstrating for many years as an expatriate devoted to using social and mobile as a survival skill and tool.

But borderlessness is not just about using the tools. It's a mindset. And it's a need.

At GlobalNiche.net I teach others how to adopt this stance -- which, as Kramer points out, is a future work skill -- by committing to an intentional online life in which we see ourselves as unlimited, and build our social capital and connect to our broader networks for personal and professional development.

Kramer calls it a new world order.

That's exactly what I termed the phenomenon in 2009, of common interest and experience connecting us more than geography, nationality, and even blood when I introduced the group blog ExpatHarem.com to discuss the issues of hybrid identity, global citizenship, mobile progressivism, Third Culture.

With wider adoption of the technologies, more people can be here now. They join those of us who have been operating with this mindset for a long time already because it's a survival skill.

Thinking About Community Study Groups

my rough notes for GlobalNiche community study groups, the obstacles they mean to solve:  

not sharing what i am doing with community. not sharing what the community is doing with my wider network many to many, leader doesn't need to be there for ppl to talking to each other

leader has identified set of interests, etc. ppl gathered for that. we're going to facilitate access community gets to itself. connecting to ppl regrardless of where there are on ground and regardless where they are on line -- reason for connection is relevance/community=relevance.

we're faciliating connection. out of those connections come collaboration, dissemination

problem community leaders have ppl drift away or dont have time for them fight is for attraction and relevance nad activity and energy. growth. sustainability.

were going to make your community successful. the ppl inside it fulfilled and connected. were giving them the tools for that.

the community is distributed and virtual itself.

the movement the commtnyt meant to foster becomes visible and palpable. and its distributed everywheere. where all its ppl are. not just in this walled space.

high octane together, but what they bring out side is valuable to others

they are not alone/

Being A Year Ahead Of GigaOm On Future Of Communication

Mathew Ingram of the emerging tech & disruption of media site GigaOm.com tackles a topic close to my heart in his column today: "The Future Of Online Etiquette Is Already Here, It's Just Unevenly Distributed". Ingram comes to the same conclusion we arrived at in our GlobalNiche webchat series more than a year ago with our guest speaker and world citizen, international worker and multidisciplinary strategy consultant Shefaly Yogendra on Communication Styles of Mobile Progressives.

In that hour-long live discussion (listen to the recording at the link!) we asked,

Do your friends and family and colleagues think you enter an 'international cone of silence' when you leave their physical sphere?

Out of sight, out of reach. Apparently, that’s how our global existence sometimes feels to people who aren’t in the habit of connecting every which way like we’ve grown used to doing. Someone left me a message on my new American phone line  in 2012 saying “I’ve been waiting 10 years to talk to you” — yet I know I’m more connected now than ever.

The GlobalNiche community talked about this literal and figurative disconnect, and how forward-looking, world-flung types like us can maintain our connections across vast geographical — and perceptual and behavioral — divides.

Our conclusion, which GigaOm just got to?

The more progressive party has to communicate with people where they exist, and that may be somewhere in the past.

Interview With Yesilist About A Global Niche As Sustainable Lifestyle

"The new era is about believing in yourself and creating your own niche," writes interviewer Ergem Senyuva of Yesilist, Turkey's guide to sustainable living, after talking to me and Tara Agacayak. "GlobalNiche helps people realize their visions and reach their dreams." Read the entire interview here. Moving to a new place can be challenging for many people. What are your suggestions for them? Build your safety net before you need it -- that means creating a global niche even before you move to smooth your transition. Connect as soon as possible with potential peers in your new location. Take care of your personal and professional needs, you’re the only one who knows what they are.

Can you please briefly tell us how you became part of Global Niche.  Even though we’re from the same San Francisco region in California, we met in Istanbul through a professional women’s group in 2009. Then we took an expat professional women life design class together and learned more about our commonalities, and noticed how our backgrounds complement each other. Anastasia is a media person with experience in Hollywood and New York, and Tara is an information tech person who designed databases for the US Department of Defense. Combining the media and info tech, we were both early adopters of social media used as a survival tool -- especially Twitter, which brings the world to you -- so in 2009 we started talking to groups of international women about becoming visible in the world through a professional web platform. That’s an online presence meant to support you as a professional person.

GlobalNiche.net was an off-shoot of Anastasia’s cultural producing work at the ExpatHarem.com site for global citizens. ExpatHarem was a group blog and discussion site, and GlobalNiche was meant to take all that philosophy and put it into practice. We wanted to give people the practical skills and tools they’d need to thrive. Tara came on as chief operating officer in 2010 and in 2011 we started having monthly webvideo conversations to discuss the issues of being at home in the world. Now we have a program and two monthly live webvideo events and a private Facebook support group for people in our program.

You live in different continents and different time zones. What are the obstacles you run into while you are running the operational aspect? We use Basecamp, an online collaboration software, and Skype for weekly conference calls. We’re connected daily on an asynchronous basis through Twitter, email, and the other social web services we use. We have an ambient awareness of the other’s activities through all that social media. Even though it’s nice to be able to work around the clock by passing the baton back and forth to each other, the biggest obstacle is often the time zone. We can’t always connect when our energies are at similar levels.

GlobalNiche operates online. Do you sometimes believe you are missing the warmth of face to face communication? How do you compensate for it? Live web video has the warmth of face to face communication. We use the Linqto app for that. We also make the effort to see each other and members of our community when we are in close proximity to each other, with planned and impromptu GlobalNiche meetups around the globe. We’ve had gatherings in San Francisco, New York, Istanbul, London. We also know that virtual life is just as real as actual life, and what’s most important is not the exchange of molecules but rather the depth of our human connection.

How do you see Global Niche evolving over time? This is a solution whose time has come, and the problem will only continue to grow as people move around and the economy remains weak. We’d like to continue to listen to the needs of our community, develop even more robust products and services to help them overcome these huge life challenges. We hope to continue creating a nurturing environment, providing tech-savvy, globally-aware, culturally-sensitive support. We’d love to add some live bootcamps to speed people through the process. Get them on their feet, and doing what they love, right where they are.

Use Everything You've Got

"I crave change," writes UK blogger and expat extraordinaire in Sydney, Russell Ward. "I used to be something of a change embracer.  Over the past decade, I changed location, house, even my passport. It's not always been smooth sailing, often emotionally fraught, generally riddled with unknowns. On balance though, change has been a good thing and key to the process of moving forward.  I've found one aspect of my life difficult to change. My working life." I hear you, Russell. 

Thanks for inviting me to comment on your post to share a little about my work on this topic. That's what I've pasted below.

You're right, location independence is a very attractive concept.

I started following the lifestyle design and location independent movements a few years back, because they were pioneering a solution to a problem I'd long had as a serial expat/repat/person who moves a lot and has what I call multiple cultural personalities.

How to bridge all those worlds, how to be myself and live a life that feels right even if/when I have no support around me to do that. Ultimately, solving this problem has become my work.

I pinpointed that location independence works best for people like me by allowing us to remain where we are and yet live a life unlimited by that.

We're here for lots of reasons. Kids's school. Close to family. Some choice we made in the past that we're not ready to dissolve today. Lots of reasons.

But just because we're here and it's not the ideal place for us to pursue our dreams doesn't mean we have to defer our dreams. We've got a lot of tools available to us today that help us hurdle limitations like geography and time zone and culture.

Anyway, that's a bit of why Tara and are focusing on helping people live better where they are.

How?

By reshaping our opportunities with the social web & mobile tech. We created an empowerment program which takes you through the process we've developed based on a combined 25 years of expatriatism, and our professional backgrounds in culture, media, info tech and psychology.

Sound like quite a stew? Yeah, creating your global niche is about using everything you've already got.

I am rooting for you, Russell, and everyone else who wants to do what they love no matter where they are.

Location Independence Begins At Home I Tell HSBC Expat Explorer

My tip for HSBC's Expat Explorer guide:

In career & personal life, location independence begins at home. No matter where you are for how long, keep contributing to your communities.

Commit to social media/mobile technology to stay centered.

See the tip and many others from expats around the world.

Led Cisco's Connected Women Roundtable on Personal Branding

I was pleased to facilitate a table of women in a discussion about using your online presence to create and sustain your personal brand. Held at Cisco's San Jose campus, the event was  part of Cisco's Connected Women series of professional development gatherings for women from Cisco, Citrix, Intel and EMC.

My top 3 take-aways:

1.  a personal brand is what you want people to know about you to help connect you with the opportunities that are right for you 2.  embody your brand -- show-it-not-tell-it -- on a daily basis, using your online presence at social sites 3.  demonstrate your expertise, your thought leadership, the talents you bring, how you operate by sharing news and information and being helpful

My GlobalNiche team member Tanya Monsef Bunger joined me at the event, pictured here.The roundtable event aimed to provide actionable insights into specific topics while enabling attendees to meet other women who are interested in that particular topic.

There were 10 tables of 10 people, each with their own topic, so the evening was like attending a miniworkshop at a conference. Work-Life Fit. Mentoring. Thinking Big. Developing Cool Designs. Thinking Outside the Box. Career Development. You can imagine I made my table all about Twitter. Twitter is my answer for everything. I’m joking.

I wanted to make personal branding all about Twitter — and social media in general — since it’s the most effective way to form and communicate your brand widely.

But many of the corporate women at my table weren’t on Twitter and had their reasons for not wanting to show themselves and their expertise much online, including in company bulletin boards and chats.

That’s a different blog post for a different time. It’s a serious issue.

I got a lot of questions about stalking and security, but none about the opportunities of being optimally online.

What's A Digital Nomad?

Would consultants or other professionals who are constantly traveling be considered digital nomads? This is my answer to the question on Quora.

I think the main definition of digital nomads is being people who make their nomadic lives work through digital means.

Those techniques are being picked up more and more by people who are not really nomadic, but merely in transit, or location independent in general.

Like me.

I live in a particular place, but I partake of a wider world of opportunity through digital means, and envisioning myself as independent of my surroundings.

We all have the potential to be digital nomadlike, or use digital nomad strategies to make our lives more seamless.

Elections When You're A Digital Global Citizen

This appeared in The Displaced Nation, November 7, 2012. Global citizens follow the US elections closely; some even see American politics as a spectator sport. For today’s post, we asked Anastasia Ashman, an occasional contributor to the Displaced Nation, to tell us how she felt about the 2012 elections. An expat of many years and an active proponent of global citizenship, Anastasia recently repatriated, with her Turkish husband, to her native California.

Rather than drifting away from the American political process when I was far from my fellow citizens, it was during an expat stint that I became most deeply involved.

My involvement had a displaced quality, of course.

I have always been on the edges of the American experience, hailing as I do from the countercultural town of Berkeley, California. The first time in my life I owned and brandished an American flag was after 9/11. It felt like a homecoming after a lifetime of being the outsider.

Even now that I’m back in California, my political involvement continues to have a displaced quality because I know what it’s like to be a citizen on the front lines of our nation’s foreign policy. For most Americans, the issue of how the rest of the world perceives our country is distant, amorphous, forgettable — but not for those of us who’ve lived abroad.

Clark for President!

I’d discovered Wesley Clark on television after 9/11. A four-star general, he was talking about the world we’d suddenly plunged into like a polished, collected and thoughtful world-class leader. It was easy to feel a kinship with the philosopher general even though I’d grown up in a household that vilified the military. Instead of activist or escapist pursuits, I chose to join him in geopolitical chess.

During the months between September 2003 and February 2004 when Clark competed in the presidential primary to become the Democratic candidate, I campaigned for him from afar. My email inbox soon filled with security warnings from the U.S. Consul urging Americans to keep a low profile.

If I had been able to get my hands on a campaign poster back in 2003 and 2004, I wouldn’t have displayed it publicly in my Istanbul apartment window. We were invading Iraq, and Istanbul was the site of four al Qaeda-related terrorist bombings that November. Avoid obvious gatherings of Americans, the emails cautioned. No mention of red, white, and blue “Clark for Democratic Candidate” campaign posters plastered on your residence — I had to extrapolate that.

Instead, I became active in online forums and wrote letters to undecided voters and newspapers in numerous states for my choice, the former N.A.T.O. Supreme Commander Wesley Clark. That was all I could do.

Obama for Re-election!

I’ve now been back in the USA for a year and have followed this election cycle, like the last one, mostly via social media. Online is an ideal place to become disconnected from echo chambers you don’t resonate with, and to stumble into rooms you don’t recognize. Both have happened.

But for the first time in the American political process, I don’t feel displaced. I feel like I am right where I belong.

Maybe it’s the San Francisco environs, which, although they may not match my concerns, don’t rankle too badly. At least I’m not in Los Angeles being asked to vote on whether porn actors must wear condoms. (They should, obvs!)

I feel less displacement in this election because of the resonant connections I’ve made online in the last four years or more. I’m in open, deep geopolitical conversation with Americans, American expats and with citizens of other nations, all over the world.

During this election I’ve been using my web platform, my digital footprint, to gather political news and opinion, enter discussions, and raise awareness. I’ve been reconciling my patchwork politics by weaving together who I relate to, and what I care about, and what sources I pass on to my network and what conversations I start. I now know that I am

• A woman from an anti-war town who campaigned for a general!
• A Hillary supporter who’s backing Barack, and
• An adult-onset Third Culture Kid who understands how and why Obama’s Third Culture Kid experience confuses the average American.

What I have chosen to share on social media during this election cycle is a processing of all that makes me a political animal. I feel I have participated in this election cycle as the whole me, and that is all I can do.

I’ve shared that I care deeply that

• Independent New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed President Obama, citing climate change as a top issue of our time.
• A top Republican pundit spanked Mitt Romney’s cynical talk of 47% of Americans as freeloaders as the talk of a shallow campaign operative rather than a necessary sophisticate at the top of national politics.
• Certain business owners have felt they could tell their employees how to vote and threaten that a vote for the wrong candidate would jeopardize their jobs.
• Women’s rights were under attack.

I am buoyed that these abominations are leaking out and being countered. I was edified to hear others share my disapproval of eligible voters who choose to throw their votes away.

I have been able to be an active digital world citizen during this election cycle, someone who votes for the bigger picture, not just at the ballot box, but in everything I do. And that feels like home to me.

Being A $100 Changemaker With Other Digital Nomads & Global Entrepreneurs

Natalie Sisson of The Suitcase Entrepreneur asked me to be a $100 Changemaker in her $100 Change Program. It's an ecourse designed to get you to take action on your dream idea, project or business to make it a reality in 100 days or less.

I’m joined in the program by 100 other entrepreneurs, digital nomads, thought leaders, TED speakers, authors, and artists from around the world, to share what it really takes to start something, make it happen, and create real impact and success.

Other changemakers include Chris Guillebeau, Danielle LaPorte, Janet Hanson, Chris Brogan, Michael Stelzner, Cameron Herold, Steve Kamb, Laura Roeder, Jonathan Fields, Clay Collins, Pamela Slim, Amy Porterfield, Corbett Barr, Lewis Howes, Pat Flynn, Nathalie Lussier, Dane Maxwell, Christine Kloser, Adam Baker, Johnny B Truant, Pam Brossman, Derek Halpern, and Alexis Neely.

 Here are my answers to the $100 Change interview.

If you had $100 to start a creative project how would you spend it? Get Internet access. If I had that already, then invest in more access (like wi-fi, or a mobile device to facilitate using the web for more things, in more places).

What is your daily ritual for setting yourself up for success? You may not be ready but you'll be so much further along (and figuring it out!) if you simply get started right NOW.

You'll also be in community with your peers, and your clients will be lining up when you launch.

Build those relationships years before you "need" them.

What I'm doing now with my startup GlobalNiche I've actually been doing for years but didn't make it available to as wide an audience as I could have way back then.

Get started, go wide. Share the process. Don't wait til it's perfect, or when you know everything you need to know. That day will never come.

What is worth paying for? I'd pay for nitty gritty details and big picture advice from professionals who specialize in certain areas.

Legal advice, accounting guidance.

The opinion of a high level editor on a massive writing venture.

A consult with a brand messaging expert.

These kinds of things can unfreeze you, set you on the right path, and help you avoid lots of pain in the future.

What's a saying of yours we can put on a poster? A nugget I can offer from GlobalNiche's combo of microbrand building, creative entrepreneurship, global community development: polish your ideas in public.

That's how you're going to build a borderless community you love, and tap into a deeper sense of yourself.

What key methods do you use to stay focused on your priorities? Committing to making sense of what I do.

I'm finding the last mile of taking my ideas to market has been about GOING BACKWARD to meet my larger community.

Letting go of the coinages and jargon I love but that confuse the uninitiated.

For so long I've been pushing forward and existing on my own leading edge -- which is necessary to evolve in your field -- but now I need to make sense of how I got here and why any one else might want to join this journey.

I think of it as leaving a trail of bread crumbs they can follow.

In committing to simplifying my message, and charting a path others can follow, I am both getting to the heart of my thinking, and reaching far more people.

How do you stop fear from allowing you to do your best work? Do your thing in public, and invest in yourself.

Volunteer to get access to opportunities no one is offering you otherwise (for instance, if you want to go to a conference but can't afford it and Twitter-attending won't suffice, ask to work there. You'll make contacts and open new doors.)

Don't keep your best ideas on a shelf -- you want to be known as the person with all those good ideas.

Keep them flowing, more will come and they'll be even better developed.

Learn the basics of pitching your ideas to people more established than you are. If you nail that etiquette (know their work, which part of your idea is right for them, and you're able to be brief), you're going to find success.

Your Content Adds Up. Now Make It Discoverable, Too.

We're born content producers. The more prolific among us are literally volcanoes of content.

Yet, what you’ve generated probably isn’t working for you.

It’s probably not laid out as a path where you want to go, nor presented as an invitation to other like-minded souls and interested parties to join you in your journey. It’s not contributing to the discoverability of you.

Do you have shelves full of:

• paper, boxes and binders, clippings, photos, slides, sketches and notes
• memorabilia and scrapbook materials

What about in the hall closet, and all that stuff in the basement?

• floppy disks
• hard drives
• external drives
• CDs, cassette tapes, video tapes

I bet you have a bunch of content stored here, there and everywhere. There’s a reason you haven’t gotten rid of it.

That mountain of stuff represents your effort and interest, and independent research. 

That mountain represents the things you chose to do because they make you feel alive.

Think of all the activities you’ve poured yourself into and how you’ve retained the evidence of them.  Anything that represents your experiences, your thinking and feeling on certain topics. All those photos of people and places and things that hold meaning and jog memories, yet haven’t seen the light of day in practically FOREVER. Some of it may represent creative failures. False starts. Ancient history. That's okay. Include it.

Maybe now you’ve got a mental image of your piles of creation, content associated with the life you’ve lived and the things you’ve loved (or hated, who knows).

At GlobalNiche we believe it’s forgotten gold. (Don’t feel too badly. We all have similar piles that we haven’t used for much of anything. YET.)

So, next question.

Are you sitting on that mountain of content -- and also wondering how you’re going to make ends meet, effect a career change, or achieve a goal?

Maybe you’re thinking you can’t do what you yearn to because you live in the wrong place and don’t have the right contacts and there’s no opportunity to pursue that interest where you are. As an expat for 14 years, I spent a lot of time wondering if my location was a disadvantage to what I want to do. The answer was "yes" most of the time. But no longer.

If we consider that earlier output and experience not as failure or a waste of time, but instead a chain of events that make us who we are today, then we can start to get an idea of the arc of our lives and how what we’ve done in the past can help us get where we want to go in the future. No matter where we are -- with the help of the web and the platform we build on it.

What if you were prominent and findable in your chosen field of interest or activity? 

How might your opportunities change if you let your content support your aims? <---Tweet that.

Whether you’re positioning yourself to land jobs or funding or a book deal, or you’ve got a completed book or other product or service to sell, it will make a difference to your results. If you’re findable and well-represented, you have a chance. If you’re unknown, unfindable, and a jumbled mess when people DO happen to stumble on you, you won’t make much of an impression.

Whatever you want to do, you’ll need help and support. An important part of gathering support is going public with your process, to attract likeminded people to your cause and to involve them in your journey. The kind of people who are interested your vision and your way of thinking and feeling, parties who can help you develop your plan, the kind of peers and confidants and guides who will form the basis of your network.

We've entered a golden age for content creators. Do you know how to wrap your arms around your content, see the story it tells, and link it with your goals?

A version of this post originally appeared at Kristin Bair O'Keeffe's Writerhead, September 7, 2012

Tech Makes The Global Citizen, or Repatriation = Relocation With Benefits

San Francisco may be a tech-forward location but that's not why I've increasingly been turning to technology to help me be where and who I am today.

As a globally mobile individual, I rely on tech because of all the moves that came before this one. I rely on tech for my total, global operation.

++++

This originally appeared in The Displaced Nation, August 22, 2012.

Today’s guest blogger, Anastasia Ashman, has been pioneering a new concept of global citizenship. Through various publications, both online and in print, and now through her GlobalNiche initiative, she expresses the belief that common interests and experiences can connect us more than geography, nationality, or even blood. But what happens when someone like Ashman returns to the place where she was born and grew up? Here is the story of her most recent repatriation.

I recently relocated to San Francisco. Three decades away from my hometown area, I keep chanting: “Don’t expect it to be the same as it was in the past.”

Since leaving the Bay area, I’ve lived in 30 homes in 4 countries, journeying first to the East Coast (Philadelphia Mainline) for college, then to Europe (Rome) for further studies, back to the East Coast (New York) and the West Coast (Los Angeles) for work, over to Asia (Penang, Kuala Lumpur) for my first overseas adventure, back to the USA (New York), and finally, to Istanbul for my second expat experience.

My daily mantra has become: “Don’t expect to be the same person you once were.”

With each move, my mental map has faded, supplanted by new information that will get me through the day.

Back in San Francisco, I repeat several times a day: “This place may be where I’m from, but it’s a foreign country now. Don’t expect to know how it all works.”

What a difference technology makes (?!)

Today my work travels, just as it did when I arrived in Istanbul with a Hemingway-esque survival plan to be on an extended writing retreat and emerge at the border with my passport and a masterpiece.

I knew from my previous expat stint in Malaysia that I needed to tap into a local international scene. But I spent months in limbo without local friends, nor being able to share my transition with the people I’d left.

This time is different. Now I’m connected to expat-repat friends around the world on the social Web with whom I can discuss my re-entry. I’ve built Twitter lists of San Francisco people  (1, 2, 3) to tap into local activities and lifestyles, in addition to blasts-from-my-Berkeley-past.

I’ve already drawn some sweet time-travely perks. To get a new driver’s license I only needed to answer half the test questions since I was already in the system from teenhood.

After Turkey’s Byzantine bureaucracy and panicky queue-jumpers, I appreciated the ease of making my license renewal appointment online even if the ruby-taloned woman at the Department of Motor Vehicles Information desk handed me additional forms saying: “Oh, you got instructions on the Internet? That’s a different company.”

One of the reasons my husband and I moved here is to more closely align with a future we want to live in, so it’s cool to see the online-offline reality around us in San Francisco’s tech-forward atmosphere.

It doesn’t always translate to an improved situation though. Just as we are searching for staff to speak to in person at a ghost-town Crate & Barrel, a suggestion card propped on a table told us to text the manager “how things are going.”

So, theoretically I can reach the manager — I just can’t see him or her.

So strange…yet so familiar

It took a couple of months to identify the name for what passes as service now in the economically-depressed United States: anti-service. Customer service has been taken over by scripts read by zombies.

When I bought a sticky roller at The Container Store, the clerk asked me, “Oh, do you have a dog?”

“No, a cat,” I countered into the void.

He passed me the bag, his small-talk quota filled. He wasn’t required by his employer to conclude the pseudo-interaction with human-quality processing, like, “Ah, gotta love ‘em.”

What I didn’t plan for are the psychedelic flashbacks to my childhood. I may have moved on, but this place seems set in amber. The burrito joints are still playing reggae (not even the latest sounds of Kingston or Birmingham) and the pizza places, ’70s classic rock stations (Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle,” anyone?). The street artists are still peddling necklaces of your name twisted in wire. Residents are still dressed like they’re going for a hike in the hills with North Face fleece jackets and a backpack.

A bid for minimalism

The plan is also to be somewhat scrappy after years of increasing bloat. My Turkish husband and I got rid of most of our stuff in Turkey in a bid for minimalism. We camped out on the floor of our apartment in San Francisco until we could procure some furniture.

If it was a literal repositioning, it was also a conscious one — for a different set of circumstances. We’d expanded in Istanbul with a standard 3-bedroom apartment and “depot” storage room, and affordable house cleaners to maintain the high level of cleanliness of a typical Turkish household. In California, I intended to shoulder more of the housework.

I was soon reminded of relocation’s surprises that can make a person clumsy and graceless. I should have kept my own years-in-the-making sewing kit since I can’t find a quality replacement for it in an American market flooded with cheap options from China — and now have to take a jacket to the tailor to sew on a button, something I used to be able to do myself.

When the lower-quality dishwasher door in our San Francisco rental drops open and bangs my kneecap, I recall the too-thin cling wrap and tinfoil that I ripped to shreds in Istanbul, or the garden hose in Penang that kinked and unkinked without warning, spraying me in the face.

New purchases

“We’re getting too old for this,” my husband and I keep telling each other as we shift on our polyester-filled floor pillows that looked a lot bigger and less junky on Amazon. (We were abusing one-day delivery after years of not buying anything online due to difficulties with customs in Istanbul. Cat litter can be delivered tomorrow! Pepper grinder! Then I read about the harsh conditions faced by fulfillment workers in Amazon’s warehouses and cut back.)

One of our first purchases Stateside was a television. Not that we’re going to start watching local TV, but we did flick through some satellite channels. It’s something I like to do upon relocating: watch TV and soak up the local culture like a cyborg.

Since I last lived in the US, reality shows like COPS — where the camera would follow policemen on their seedy beats — have gone deeper into the underbelly of life, and now there are reality shows about incarceration.

The Discovery Channel has also gone straight to the swamp. That’s where I caught a moonshiner reality show featuring shirtless (and toothless) men in overalls called “Popcorn” and “Grandad.”

It’s an America I am not quite keen to get to know.

But I can take these reverse culture shocks lightly because my repatriation is part of a continuum. It’s not a hiatus from anything nor a return home. I’m not missing anything elsewhere, I haven’t given up anything for good. Being here now is simply the latest displacement. Today is a bridge to where I’m headed.

After Four Years, Analyzing My Twitter Audience

This week is my 4th year on Twitter. To "celebrate" I put my account through several of these Twitter measuring tools collected at Social Media Examiner: "ways to discover more about your audience with social media."

I appreciated Followerwonk's details about the longevity of accounts I follow and that follow me. Very few newbies on either score, in fact this was one of the only results that wasn't a bell curve.

This bears out two Twitter behaviors I am aware of.

1) I have always been hesitant to follow accounts that don't provide high value (because, why?) and

2) developing the instinct to provide high value on Twitter doesn't happen overnight for most of us.

Among the information about my overall usage of the service, I liked these piechart details about who I follow (high value users who've been on the service at least 2 years, ppl who follow 500-5k ppl, and are followed by 1k-50k, and have these words in their bios: writer – author – media – creative – life – social – world – editor – global – business – founder – technology – design – women – tweets – entrepreneur – marketing – book – news – ceo – people – blogger – culture – digital – science – ideas).

It was also interesting to see that Tweriod contradicted the info Followerwonk suggested to me about when my followers were most active.

Next up: find a tool that removes inactive follower accounts. That'll give me a better idea of who's actually my audience.

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

Formulating My Own Future Of Work

Talking about GlobalNiche with someone considering producing a Future-of-Work-themed TEDx in the Bay Area...this is what I told her.

I'm currently working on putting years of theory and practice into a marketable solution.

Basically, positioning the life hacks of internationals and other operatives who have found themselves at cultural disadvantage as an approach that many many people can benefit from -- from those who've never left their hometown but have dreams they think are impossible there, those who've been retired prematurely or otherwise lost their jobs, to those who just graduated and face a bleak job market, to WAHMs and others in nontraditional work settings.

Life Hacks Of Mobile Progressives Can Inform Everyone Else's Dislocations & Transitions

Location independence begins at home! ...some informal notes from a discussion I had with a TEDx future-of-work organizer, Joan Blades, the founder of moveon.org

At global niche, we're currently working on putting years of theory and practice into a marketable solution. Basically, positioning the life hacks of internationals and other operatives who have found themselves at cultural disadvantage as an approach that many many people can benefit from -- from those who've never left their hometown but have dreams they think are impossible there, those who've been retired prematurely or otherwise lost their jobs, to those who just graduated and face a bleak job market, to WAHMs and others in nontraditional work settings.

There is also the  dislocation of favorite identities, ppl close the book on them when they no longer are convenient or the prevailing culture. The lost aspect then gets buried as if it can no longer be alive, like ppl who enjoyed salsa dancing in college, or reading poetry all summer -- and no longer do. But with a global niche they can keep a toe in/reenter that conversation, follow the latest news and advances, meet up with ppl who are more active in these areas than they are (on travels, or in their current location).

When we speak of all the different worlds we belong to, for non-expat types this could be gap between work and life balance...you are not in the worlds and cultures you feel you belong. But you can be, regardless of where you are.

Mobile progressives come at social media from the side of really needing it to live our lives with possibility. not as a plaything. Our globalized selves easily use/adopt tech to continue to be global. But learning to be global is what people who come from the other side are struggling with.