Archive for December, 2007

I’ve come across a number of women’s networks and blogs online recently, with the focus on business, enterprise and professional networking. This seems to be a growing niche - and no doubt, a fairly large market niche - and will be of interest to businesses and communicators who are looking at connecting with the female market. And especially given the research from BurstMedia in June 2007 which finds that the web is women’s favourite place to shop.

You may like to explore some of the online women’s networks below:

REAL Women
An online community for Rising Entrepreneurs And Like-minded women.

This is a community created by Zena Hockley, a British entrepreneur based in the Netherlands. The site features business-related articles of interest to women and interviews with real women entrepreneurs, asking them how they developed their businesses, the challenges they faced and their advice to other business-women. It’s good to read real stories from business women who are not necessarily celebrities but who are talented and persevering, sharing their experiences and advice.

Diva-Biz.com
The heart and soul of business - from a woman’s perspective

British entreprenuer Fiona Price created this online network for women in business, launched in Sept 2007. It features videos of interviews from women leaders such as Sarah Deaves, CEO of Coutts & Co as well as a forum, mentoring sessions, group discussions. It is currently free to join but they may charge a fee later as the project develops. Also, it looks like it’s not exclusively for women as “MEN who are interested in understanding more about women’s leadership style and what they contribute to business, are also welcome to join!”

Expat Women
Helping women living overseas

This is a fairly big, corporate-looking site - and very pink - developed by Andrea Martins, an Australian, and Jill Lengre, an American, to help expatriate women share stories, network globally and find resources. There are also volunteer mentors, forums and a huge women’s blogs directory (by country).

BlogHer

The community for women who blog

This is a huge and high-profile community of women bloggers with an annual conference in the US, founded in 2005 by Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins. It’s free and you can add your blog to a vast array of others, listed under topics ranging from Astrology and Horoscopes to Travel and World. It is strong on discussing blogging related issues with a women’s perspective eg monetizing your blog and business blogging. I’ve signed up my blogs and joined this community.

Do you know any other women’s networks that have a strong online presence or community? Please do add a comment or email me using the Contact link above.

Photo: shows the three founders of BlogHer, from their website

The ZenGuide Network has a new member - window display company PLANarama, with whom we’ve been working to develop and write their blog magazine. The design of PLANarama’s website and blog was developed by their designer Guy Boyle and we’ve been creating the content for the blog, working closeley with Managing Director Neil Ellis and his team of visual merchandising experts. We’re pleased to add PLANarama’s blog to our ZenGuide Network, which is a compilation of business blogs produced by our clients, associates and colleagues.

Our role is to bring out the stories behind PLANarama’s window displays, drawing out from their creators the inspiration and challenges that went into the making of the windows. It’s been fascinating learning about the skilled techniques that go into the design and building of the flagship windows for stores like Jaeger on Oxford Street. And it’s also been eye-opening to think about the work and project management that goes into rolling out of multiple windows across the country for a chain store like Carphone Warehouse - it’s a mini-military operation in itself, as project manager, Sabina Roberts explains in the article Christmas Warehouse on the PLANarama blog.

Neil Ellis and his team talk each week on the PLANarama blog about the secrets of creating great window displays. Neil, in particular, shares his in-depth experience of creating visual merchandising for London’s top retail stores like Ted Baker, Cartier and Marks and Spencers. For us, writing the blog has made us look at shop windows with new eyes, stopping to look at the detail of each display and stepping back to view the overall effect, asking ourselves what the intention of the creator was and noticing the themes and cohesion in the design. It’s like going to an art gallery and appreciating a sculpture or a painting or other great work of art - only we’re out on the street and trying not to get in the way of passers-by. We hope that when you read the blog posts, you’ll enjoy the behind-the-scenes look into a hidden high street art and perhaps pause awhile the next time you walk down your local shopping street and stroll through the mall.

Photo: thanks to PLANarama.com

I’ll be publishing posts on ZenGuide once a week, on Wednesdays or Thursdays, for the next little while.

by Angie Macdonald

Social media is changing the way we do things and one of the issues involved is that of control. Control is slipping from corporates when it comes to promoting their products and from conference speakers and college lecturers, who are no longer regarded as the expert with the final say on the matter.

One example of this phenomenon is “back channelling”. In the social media context, this refers to people at conferences, or students, blogging and/or Twittering while listening to a speaker. It can also involve instant messaging or chatrooms and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Channels. This is the “back channel”, where the audience engage in a different conversation, separate from the speaker directly in front of them.

At some conferences, a screen is erected behind the speaker, on which the audience can post comments directly from their computers. The speaker, facing the audience, cannot see the comments appearing on the screen behind him or her. From what I’ve heard anecdotally, the comments which tend to appear are generally negative comments on the speaker’s clothes, or how bored people are, rather than comments that further the debate. It is the equivalent of heckling, only here it is virtual and silent.

I’m sure there are some highly skilled people who are able to multi-task and keep with the programme. But most people are unable to give two things the same amount of attention at the same time. If you are trying to listen, analyse, remember, write and follow the conversation all at the same time, something’s got to give. You just have to think about the dangers of driving while talking on a mobile phone to realise that multi-tasking has its limits.

In an article published in the New York Times, David E. Meyer, a cognitive scientist and director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan is quoted as saying, “Multitasking is going to slow you down, increasing the chances of mistakes.” In the same article, René Marois, a neuroscientist and director of the Human Information Processing Laboratory at Vanderbilt University, when describing the ‘cognitive powerhouse’ that is the human brain, says “…a core limitation is an inability to concentrate on two things at once.”

What usually happens, is that by the time the blogger or Twitterer has finished writing or texting a particular thought, the speaker has moved on, the information that has been imparted in the interim is hazy, and the thread of the argument has been lost. This creates a knowledge gap which can result in misunderstanding, which in turn can lead to miscommunication.

Now, it’s fine if one individual has misunderstood. But what happens when that individual has published their misunderstood information online and millions of people around the world read it and get the wrong end of the stick? What are the repercussions? Where is the value in that communication?

Don’t get me wrong, I can see that there are advantages to back-channelling. It can be an inclusive behaviour too and means that those unable to attend a conference in person can follow what’s happening by reading updated blogs or receiving Tweets on their mobile phones.

It can also be a way to open up and encourage discussion and debate around a topic. So rather than information being delivered from one so-called expert in a top-down fashion, everybody who knows something or who has an opinion can join in and conference goers have an opportunity to learn from their peers. In that way, learning can become a more democratic process - a knowledge exchange offering instant feedback and reflection.

The danger is that in the process you may have to listen to people who think they are right, when they may be wrong, or people who love the sight of their words in print and subject everyone to their opinions whenever they can. As in the real world, sometimes conversations are inane, occasionally they are a waste of time.

We live in an age where children are being medicated for Attention Deficit Disorder and adults put their lack of success in life down to the fact that they were never diagnosed with ADD in school, and yet, here we are as adults, actively engaging in attention deficit behaviour. Not only that, but rather than being in the moment and giving it all our attention, we are taking a step back to observe and comment on what is occurring, analysing it as it is happening, rather than experiencing it.

There is no doubt that technology is changing social behaviour, communication and relationships. In spite of the advantages, I still think that in today’s attention-seeking world, perhaps the highest form of regard we can offer anyone, is to give them our full-blown attention.

Photo: thanks to jean djinni on flickr.com (CCL)

This post also appears on the EuroComm Blog today, where I am one of the blogging team.

I’m afraid I have very bad flu so I won’t be blogging for the next couple of weeks while I lie in bed feeling very sorry for myself.

Please do check back in a couple of weeks when I hope to be restored to vigour.