Top Talent – Engaging A Diverse Workforce in Difficult Times

Published on October 18, 2009 in Interesting. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

I just read Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s new book called ‘Top Talent‘. It deals with how businesses can ensure to retain and motivate diverse talent in the crisis.

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This is a small book but filled to the rim with useful examples of what businesses can actually do to engage their people in these difficult times. It reports on the research and the high powered network meetings that Sylvia Ann Hewlett holds for the members of her Hidden Brain Drain Task Force of the Center for Work-Life Policy. It is a quick and easy read. A must for everyone who needs to be inspired by how gender diversity can remain top of the agenda when business is down.

How to Address Gender Fatigue in the Workplace

Published on October 17, 2009 in Interesting. 0 Comments Tags: .

The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report states every year that no country in the world has yet managed to eliminate the gender gap. While gender inequality continues to be a strong feature of the workplace, my research which has just been published in the Canadian Journal of Administrative Science has shown that men and women find it increasingly difficult to talk about gender inequality. The research is based on a detailed qualitative analysis how people talked about and addressed gender inequality.

Employees from both companies claimed their organizations were gender neutral and that employees were evaluated based on merit. With further questioning, men and women interviewed could describe past situations where gender bias occurred against women, but limited it to happening 10 to 20 years ago, from contacts outside their own organizations (i.e. customer contacts), or to an isolated male colleague from another generation. Instead of denying gender discrimination, workers acknowledge it can happen but construct it as singular events that happened in the past, placing the onus on women to overcome such obstacles.

I have called this phenomenon ‘gender fatigue’ where individuals tire of acting upon gender discrimination in spite of the fact that incidents of gender bias either occurred at one time within their organization or could occur again. The problem with gender fatigue is that it prohibits productive discussion regarding inequalities between men and women, making gender bias difficult to address. If we believe that we work in gender neutral workplaces, seeing and acting upon gender inequality is becoming very difficult.

Lady Geek in the Times

Published on October 16, 2009 in Press Coverage. 0 Comments

I have been a bit slow getting all the press coverage of Lady Geek up onto the site.  So here’s the latest piece in the Times featuring Lady Geek.

The Management Today pieces to follow soon…

Connections

Published on October 8, 2009 in Women in Business. 0 Comments

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I have tended not to go to conferences or events in the last year unless  I am speaking at them.   I used to go with high expectations- hoping to be provoked, dislocated in some way.   The reality is that all too often, I was hearing the same old stuff (albeit with a new flickr image) said by the same old people (mostly 40 something men), done in the same old way (one way broadcast).  And if I am going to sacrifice putting my children to bed, I want to feel a connection.

Last night was a real exception.  It was The Next Women Funding and Pitching event.  The first part of the night was inspiring female entrepreneurs such as Sarah McVittie (founder of Texperts) and Karin Loeffen (founder of Libersy) who told their story from the heart.  The mistakes they made.  The challenges they faced.  The lessons they learnt. The hard way.   And the sacrifices and trade offs they had to endure.

It was real.  It was from the heart as well as the head.  No ‘commandments’.  No ‘5 principles’.  No ‘long lists.’  Real stories.  From real women.

And just when I started to feel guilty about the bedtime story I should have told my children, things hotted up where ‘Pitch-Preneurs’ who did a 3 min pitch for funding in front of angel investors.  I watched in awe at some of the great ideas presented.  I felt empowered.

I felt part of something.  I felt a connection.

Innovation is thriving.  Its an exciting time to be in business.

Honest advice

Published on October 7, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I was chatting to a smart single twenty-something about dating. She wants a boyfriend but is too shy to go onto a dating site and feels uncomfortable touting her wares and telling everyone how beautiful she is (interestingly even the most unattractive men do not seem to suffer from this fear).

She told me that she’d been using a site called datemyfriend.net: The idea is that your friends write your profile. Instead of having to blow your own trumpet, your friends showcase your talents and acts as your honest-broker. This is a much more comfortable way of approaching the dating scene because your friends can take care of the most frightening bits leaving you to focus on the pleasure.

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This aligns to how many women I meet have a fear of technology: There is an embarrassment and guilt that surrounds not knowing the difference between a megabyte and megabit. Between not knowing if you are connecting via a network, Wi Fi or 3G. The tech companies have been confusing and bamboozling us for decades. There is an opportunity to take the fear out of technology for those women who are not technology-literate and dread buying technology.

What if you could go to a neutral broker and give her your requirements online? She could come back with a series of recommendations as to what most suits you. What if you could have a planning meeting once a year with someone who would come to your home and assess your current network and requirements, and make you a “technology roadmap”? This person would be like a “personal shopper” for technology. An ITA, sort of like an IFA but for technology.

Whilst technology companies are realising the advantages of post-sales support such as the Apple Genius-bar and Carphone Warehouse’s Geek Squad, no-one is taking the fear out of the pre-sales process, certainly nobody who can offer independent strategic advice.

With women spending more on technology than ever before, it might be a good place to start.

I am not quite good enough

Published on September 29, 2009 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

Like many women of my generation, I thought of myself as not quite good enough for the various powerful positions in politics.

Baroness Shirley Williams talks openly on radio 4 about how she and many women always think about themselves as the Deputy…the deputy eduction minister but not the education minister, the deputy prime minister but not the prime minister…

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Why do so many women although qualified, never put themselves for the top jobs?  Why, when asked do women say they make a good no 2 but not a good no 1?  Why do they often say they are not visionary or entrepreneurial but are more happy just doing the job?

If you go back to show and tell in American schools, more often than not the boys are the first to put their hand up to’ show.’  As girls, we are often taught not to put ourselves forward but stand back and watch from the sidelines.

I have some wonderful, smart confident female friends.  None of them think they would make great leaders or could run their own business.   I am convinced that this has nothing to do with their ability. It is more about the way society and their families set expectations about what girls should do.  Rather than what they could do.

The reason for this perceived lack of ability, according to Baroness Williams, is that women perceive men as ‘giant size’ and themselves as ordinary human size. She concludes by observing that it took all her political life to realise that while those men had projected a giant size image, they were not themselves giants either.

Whatever the reason, the fact remains that while women are not represented in the higher echelons of corporate life (62% of FTSE 100 companies still have NO women on their boards), men continue to dictate what products and services are available to women, particularly in areas such as technology and science which are still dominated by men.

We must ensure women have a voice, if not a seat, in the boardroom.  We must raise the agenda collectively and make sure women are seen not as a ‘niche’ audience but as the future drivers of growth and profitability.

New Book on Gender in Technology Work Published

Published on September 26, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

A new book looking at gender in technology professions has just been published by Palgrave.

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Performing Gender at Work develops a new understanding gender: that gender is not something one is but rather something one does. This means that we perform gender and are performed by gender. Drawing on detailed academic research in the IT industry, the book outlines three implications of performing gender for the workplace.

First, many skills that are needed for at work today have a gender dimension. Skills like listening and nurturing are said to be perfect for building teams, creating networks and fostering innovation and they are also seen as feminine. However as this book shows it is not women who profit from showing feminine skills: it is men who are valued for performing what is seen as atypical gender behaviour.

Second, telling your own career story is something that is increasingly important in the workplace. The book argues that there is a gender difference in how men and women perform their career stories. Women tend to tell their careers as if they were due to coincidence and luck, whereas men appear to be on a mission to success. Organisations tend to expect the latter in their hiring and promotion decisions.

Third, the book explores the sentiment that gender problems are solved today. We live in a time of ‘gender fatigue’ where we know of the importance of gender equality, but people lack the energy to talk about and address gender inequality. Because of this gender fatigue, we do not have the right language to address gender inequality leading a situation where gender inequality exists but cannot be talked about.

The book urges us to think about stereotypes and biases when we evaluate skills, to give validity to different career stories and to develop a language, which allows us to address gender inequality. The book illustrates vividly how gender is something that is performed in the workplace and which implications this has.

The Female Economy

Published on September 23, 2009 in Interesting and Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

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This month’s HBR echoes  much of what Lady Geek has been highlighting for the past 18 months-perfect timing for my upcoming Symbian talk.  Firstly, that women represent the largest market opportunity in the world- in aggregate, the opportunity is bigger than China and India combined.

Secondly that despite this, most companies continue to market to men and fail to explore how they might meet women’s needs. Or they target women as an afterthought through patronizing initiatives.  Dell’s Della being a perfect example.  The NY Times said Dell needed to go to the ‘school of marketing hard knocks.’

And namely, that those companies that can offer tailored products and services are in prime position to win, when the economy recovers.

Interviewing over 12,000 women about everything ranging from their jobs and education to their hopes and fears, BCG found that women are vastly underserved.  Women feel few companies have responded to their need for products and services specifically designed for them. Too many businesses behave if women had no say over purchasing decisions.  With the recovery in sight now, women will represent one of the largest opportunities and are an important force in spurring a recovery.  One of the findings echoes Wave 1 of the Lady Geek Brand Survey;

I hate being stereotyped because of my gender and age, and I don’t appreciate being treated like an infant.”

Interestingly, the research highlights that women are happiest in their early and later years and the lowest point is early and mid forties.  Women struggle to cope with both children and aging parents, so are most receptive to products that help them better control their lives and balance their priorities.

I could not agree more with their final point;

A focus on women as a target market-instead of a geographical target- will up a company’s odds of success when the recovery begins.

The Masculinity of Marketing

Published on September 11, 2009 in Articles. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

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I have sat in numerous meetings where clients and agency people alike have spent hours talking about what the rational unique selling point (USP) is of a product.  Very rarely have any of the products I have sold had a truly unique feature or benefit.  And in technology, any unique feature is quickly copied and therefore unsustainable as a long term strategy.

Whats much more unique is the emotional features of selling a technology product.  How it feels to the user.  The retail environment in which it is presented.  The feeling it creates in others who see you with your gadget.  And ultimately the meaningful human interaction and creativity it brings.

So why then do we insist on spending hours debating the rational USP of a product?  Comparing every tiny feature of a product with like for like competitor comparisons?  And talking about one specific rational feature as if it is going to solve every problem you have ever had in your life?

I propose we are asking the wrong answers and therefore coming up with the wrong solutions.  Take my previous article about Nokia’s N97.  Imagine the engineers and the marketing team’s conversation.

“The n97 has so many USPs.  Its sure to be an i-phone killer.”

“For a start it has a 5 megapixel camera.  The i-Phone only has 2.”

“Not to mention the FM transmitter…”

“And the fold out keyboard.”

The list goes on.  Nokia got so hung up on rational USP’s; they forgot about how people use the phone and the feelings it creates in the heart not the head.  A great product is more then the sum of its features. The tragedy of most products is that despite the brilliance of their specification, these features are not how women engage with technology.

One woman told me last week;

I love my i-Phone.  It somehow manages to capture the human expression of technology; whether its flicking the screen like i would with paper or browsing through my photos.  It just feels more human that other tech gadgets”

Pretty Little Head talk about how most marketing focuses on the Achievement Impulse- a male strategy which delivers competitive claims framed through a product advantage (largely based on Baron-Cohen’s work).  Most advertising claims talk about how technology helps men succeed.   In advertising we use ‘male’ language- military language of targets, strategies, campaigns, deployment and so on.

With the missed financial opportunity being at 0.6billion according to Jupiter, as a consequence of failing to connect with women, technology brands need to build marketing programmes around a female mindset and agenda.

Forgetting about USP’s is a good place to start.

My World is Pink

Published on August 25, 2009 in Ads. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Its official.  Ladies, get your pink handbags out.  The new ad from PC World and Dell is officially the most patronising ever.  It starts with the line

My world is fashion.  I just have to colour co-ordinate everything.  Even my laptop.  That’s why I love the new Dell laptop.

Pass me the barf bag.  Please.  It just gets worse.  Should I get pink to match my shoes….  Must I go on?  I am sure you get the picture.

This is an example of 2 companies who have money to waste.  2 companies who have no idea of how to talk to women and most importantly, no idea of the role that technology plays in a women’s life.

I thought that Dell would have learnt from their latest Della ‘for women’ website which seems to have such bad press that they have renamed it.  This is disappointing as the Dell Inspiron mini 10 is a  fantastic piece of kit.   I also thought PC world had made some progress with their latest work.  But alas, it seems a group of middle aged balding in marketing (sorry but it has to be) decided that “women are the answer.”

Here’s the logic.

Women like shoes.

Women like pink.

So to make women like technology, we need to pink it up and dumb it down and make it match her shoes.

Do me a favour.  None of the professional women I know (which is where the biggest financial opportunity is) would be seen dead with a pink laptop.  For most women over the age of 12, pink is definitely not their world.

And even more offensive is not the colour, but the positioning.   The women I speak to love technology.  The creativity and human interaction it adds to their life.  Not because it matches their shoes.

On the positive side, it confirms how much technology brands need specialists such as Lady Geek to put an end to patronising ads like this.