I get this. It's what I am experimenting with moving from Expat Harem book and blog to GlobalNiche's methodology for being a global citizen.
Brainstorming With Darlene Crane To Advance Careers & Lifetime Earnings For Women
Own your value and take it to market.
That's the message Darlene Crane wants to bring to women in business. She wants us to pursue our greatest ambitions with clear purpose. Seek power, and use it to generate benefits for the broader population. Crane urges us to "embrace ownership, and entrepreneurship."
All messages that resonate with me, a newcomer to the business scene but already feeling like an old hand at embracing ownership of my ideas and content, and very familiar with the entrepreneurial spirit.
What also resonated was what Darlene says too many smart, educated women are missing. The opportunity to drive the future economy, and win their own healthy financial life in the bargain.
I met Darlene Crane, the business growth and sustainable finance consultant at the second meeting of her new discussion and action group -- named, for now, "The $700K Club" -- which aims to gather women to create a supportive new business culture. Thanks to Cynthia Mackey, the founder of the web strategy company Winning Strategies, who invited me, and to Tiffany Roesler's Women Inspire Tech group which brought me and Cynthia together.
The first meeting in February teased out this statement from Darlene:
The recent media blitz on the stalling of gender equality and leadership pushed me to challenge the focus on behavioral issues. Could the challenge be valuing our inherent talents, education, experience and ambitions to move markets and create the opportunities we seek? Imagine if the lifetime earnings of women with college and graduate degrees actually earned as much as a man with a B.A. Each woman could on average increase lifetime earnings $700,000 -- which could finance a small business, start saving for the long-term and purchase real property. If all 30.1 million women with degrees in the U.S. earned an additional $700,000, we would contribute $21.5 trillion to the economy. With a thriving economy families from all communities could experience improvements.
Opening the discussion sponsored by edu-tech entrepreneur Mary Jean Koontz at SOMA Central tonight, Crane referred to Sheryl Sandberg's LEAN IN advice. "We're still asking permission or trying to fix ourselves. We need to reframe the discussion. "
"Women are stalling in this economy and there's a huge economic cost to tolerating this situation. This is a positive response to that."
"Product is what makes money in the future. It gives you IP and control."
Takeaways:
- Product is what makes money in the future. It gives you IP and control.
- Ask how can you make money so you can have freedom of choice.
- Economic freedom through ownership ensures meaning is a part of your work.
- If women pursue their ambitions know that it can effect the marriage relationship.
- If you're married, get a line of credit ASAP and pay it back to show you have a track record of repayment. Get a bank credit card in your name only.
- Find your public voice. Honor who you are, on a spectrum. Practice in safe spaces. Call on your trusted network to help find your authentic voice.
- Ask for what you want.
- Build on your strengths AND get comfortable doing the uncomfortable.
- Don't knock bank debt, which is long term. Get to know a banker now.
- Women need to learn the venture capital model. Investors are pattern matchers. You need to develop a network to groom you to get private investors attracted to your idea and do an offering.
- Young women are at risk. If you don't define your career by 35 you're cut off at 50.
Resources for women business owners mentioned in the meeting: Women's Initiative. Working Solutions. Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center which helps you bank borrow. Score Small Business Development Centers. Catalytic Women. Astia.
Darlene's initiative aims to have quarterly meetings which are invitation only. If you're interested to join the $700K Club, please contact her directly.
"POWER OF MONEY" was scrawled on the white board in the SOMA Central recreation room when we arrived. It fit Darlene's notes for the evening. To be continued.
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/
Using Pinterest As An Author
Literary agent Amanda Luedeke posted at Jane Friedman's blog about using Pinterest as an author.
Here's how I use Pinterest as an author.
I have a board for a memoir WIP which is a way to keep it active as a project (and something others can peek into the themes of) even when I am not writing.
Here's what I pin.
Comparable titles. Images of people who remind me of characters. Expressions and sayings that capture major themes. Images that capture what it feels like to be writing the book.
I have pinned news items and fashion pictures that would be of interest to my subject (my best friend, who's deceased).
I have pins of settings in the story, and figures she liked and things she'd be interested in today.
In this way, the project is alive. The subject is alive. The whole thing can be interacted with, now, before it has been published.
And, the transmedia storytelling is taking place right now.
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.
Talking 21st Century Tools For Legal Careers
In April I'll be speaking to female law students and young lawyers about taking control of their career with the help of an intentional online presence. The event is a new 21st century legal skills conference launched by Alison Monahan of The Girl’s Guide to Law School and Law School Toolbox and Lee Burgess of Amicus Tutoring. Along with Adrian Lurssen of JD Supra and Titilayo Tinubu of JD Job Coach, I'll be a member of a Catapult 2013 workshop about using social media and online publishing to develop your career, build your personal brand, and expand your networks.
+++
Read my follow up of the conference, "Lawyers Online: The Merits of Taking Calculated Risks" and the handout I made for my social media workshop.
Identifying The Job Your Customer Wants Done; Why Survivors Of Dysfunction Make Good Entrepreneurs; Where We Fail In The Cycle Of Entrepreneurship; And The Cultural Relevance Of The Internet: Takeaways From Startup Grind 2013
Thanks to my fellow mindful-tech entrepreneur Pamela Day for the invite to Startup Grind conference this week in Silicon Valley. It's a 40-city event series in 15 countries to inspire, educate and connect entrepreneurs.There were many takeaways, from practical to philosophical, out of mouths of founders and incubators and investors, including The Lean Startup Method's Steve Blank, entrepreneur-turned-VC Mark Suster, and Udemy's cofounder Gagan Biyani.
Below are some of the big ideas I jotted down:
On selling: Harvard biz prof and author of "How will you measure your life" Clayton Christensen talked about achieving product/market fit (a core aspect of selling) as being able to identify what job your customer wants to get done.
Never mind the purchaser personas "who's my customer" issue, what is it that your thing serves their need by being, by doing?
Example: I need something to do during my commute that I can do with one hand, something that fills my stomach, something that doesn't spill or make a mess in the car, something that takes the whole 45 minutes to consume. This is the job done by a milkshake bought by a guy first thing in the morning. He's not buying it and comparing the price, or the flavor, to other milkshakes. He's comparing it to options like a banana (too fast, smelly, the peel!) and a donut (sticky fingers, not filling). When you know why they choose you and your product or service, you can better get that message out there about it. "So thick it takes 45 minutes to drink". (Or, develop product to get the job done).
Enter with great products, competitors will eat you. If you enter with slimmed down specs, they flee upmarket. (This is good to know, since many of us are in that boat of not being able to compete with established players...)
Here's Fast Company about the Clayton Christensen talk with a link to the video.
On founding a venture: ventures fail when they run out of $ -- and then can't keep going.
(The money thing is not the end itself!) They fail when the founders run of out energy to keep doing it. We need to take care of ourselves so we can keep doing this.
Also, survivors of dysfunctional families can operate at chaos, which makes them successful entrepreneurs.
Same was said about ADHD people. Regarding the psychological conditions for entrepreneurship, see this article on PandoDaily about the link between bipolar spectrum and entrepreneurship --"Building businesses can be a great way for hypomanic entrepreneurs to apply their energy and creativity."
Entrepreneurship is not job, it's a calling. Like being an artist, composer. We're driven to make something happen out of nothing. We need to make decisions out of passion, not fear.
From a now-billionaire who started by tutoring ppl at his house after work: Think big start small. Portion of your earnings belongs to creation of your future. You can only earn if you save.
The cycle of entrepreneurship, Carlos Martins says, is: Strategy->Plan->Execute->Assess->Correction->start again.
That correction -->strategy part is where businesses fail since what worked yesterday may not work today, what works today may not work tomorrow.
And from the brilliant guy behind icanhascheezburger: cultural relevance is resonance.
Creation no longer binary, says Ben Huh, my favorite speaker of the conference since he's talking about my culture-view of the Internet. It spans a spectrum of create, curate, remix. Internet culture will make the rock stars of tomorrow.Being weird doesn't mean you're alone. Internet and social media is matchmaking, surfacing connections previously unavailable.
Relationships are now matched to your interest. Let your fans tell their story not yours. There are more of them than us, Huh says. Don't try to outshout them.
Rather than big social where we get our cues from big brands, ICanHasCheezburger is little social. We stand for something little and let our users build messages around our brand.
Embodiment of Internet culture is user driven, rather than transactional. I want you to understand me. We want to express our best selves and expression allows you to do that. It's like we're playing SIMS with our own identity.
I participate therefore I am. Now we can consume a world that is more personal and more real, have real convos with real people, our world view tweaked and challenged by our peers.
Other speakers let us know that people will try to discourage you.
Listen double hard to people who disagree with you on a particular point, you might be missing something. Otherwise, only listen to people who have successfully done this thing you want to do. Disregard other status signifiers like power & prestige & pedigree, these aren't good reasons to follow their advice.
There was also talk of outgrowing your mentors, and not giving away your power to partners and investors just to be "fair" or because you're flattered they want in on your thing.
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.
At TEDxBayArea Global Women Entrepreneurs, LinkedIn Headquarters - Mountain View
Happy to attend for the second time in two years this TEDxBayArea event organized by Tatyana Kanzaveli to celebrate women leaders around the world.
As Tatyana explains, "Speakers come from diverse backgrounds in the Bay Area and beyond, spanning half way across the globe. Our goal is to highlight a broad spectrum of ideas, thought leadership and business models, addressing a select Silicon Valley audience, while providing an engaging day full of presentations, entertainment and conversation in the renowned TED style."
Joined by Dahlia Krausse Stein (who I met at the 2011 event!), Tara visiting from Istanbul, fellow San Francisco entrepreneur Pamela Day, Google expert Jeris JC Miller, the founder of Tealet at 500 Startups, and speakers Singularity University's Vivek Wadhwa, fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff, Sumaya Kazi and finally got to meet in person Whitney Johnson, president of a disruptive innovation investing firm and author of "Dare, Dream, Do."
Doing Capitalism In The Innovation Economy With Bill Janeway & Tim O'Reilly
Happy to attend O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly's book launch event for venture capitalist Bill Janeway's Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy at the SOMA offices of Code for America, described by GOOD magazine as "the Peace Corps for geeks."
Legendary web browser engineer, entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen has described the book as "essential to anyone who wants to understand technology and how its creation will be financed for decades to come."
Code for America founder Jen Pahlka interviewed Janeway for the lunchtime networking event where I ran into Twitter acquaintance and director of Deloitte's Center for the Edge John Hagel, the author of the prescient The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion.
The white leather couches are pretty bad, too.
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.
Requests That Get A Yes
I get a lot of requests related to my Expat Harem book and other productions that I wish I had the time to say yes to.
Sometimes I get requests that I would have said yes to if the requester had spent a little more time setting it up. Make it really easy!
I heard from a travel writer developing a story about her own cross-cultural family experiences who needed expert sources to flesh out her query to an unnamed publishing venue. She gave me four questions to answer.
Four questions is a lot to ask, but her email gave me even more things to wonder.
Which venues she was pitching and by when did she need my answers?
I wondered why she was seeking an expert quote for a personal story (expert quotes in a pitch usually point to experts you're going to interview if you get the assignment). That would be like using my material to land an assignment to write about her own life! If she were to be assigned the piece, was she planning to interview me in more depth? It would have been good to hear that she only needed a one sentence answer for -- any of -- those questions.
An expert would want to see how she was going to be described in the query. This could be done by telling me why I am being approached. For instance, "because you wrote about your Turkish in-laws in the Expat Harem book and in Cornucopia magazine." Or, it would be nice to be asked to point to a description I prefer.
Assume people want to help. Just cover your bases and keep the ask as small as you can, so they can.
P.S. Be gracious when someone says no. When I let this travel writer know I wouldn't be able to help her out and explained what questions her pitch brought up for me, she let me know how sorry I was going to be for not doing what she asked.