Outlook for Women

Bleak outlook for women looking for top positions in Chicago workplace but for women who wish to start and run a business, the outlook is good.

Here's what Hedy Ratner, co-founder of the Women's Business Development Center in Chicago says:

According to Ratner, more women are starting business for themselves instead of trying to move up the corporate ladder because of the resistance they face there.

Read more.

Why It's Time for Women to Lead in America

A hat tip to Tom Peters for turning me on to Vicki Donlan and her new book which I have not read yet so I cannot comment on its content. However, you may read more about it here.

... Donlan argues that women are poised to shatter the glass ceiling ...

Contributions of Women Business Owners Have Long Gone Understated

A new two-part study by the National Women’s Business Council examining the economic impact of both women-owned and women-led firm reveals that the contributions of women business owners have long gone understated. For the first time, these reports include data on women-led firms, where a woman owns a percentage of the business at least equal to any other owner and where a woman or women managed day-to-day operations.

According to the studies, there were over 1 million women-led businesses generating in excess of $300 billion in revenues in 2002, or about 3% of the U.S. GDP. These firms employed 2.5 million employees and paid nearly $56 billion in payroll. Combined, women-owned and women-led (WOWL) firms totaled over 7.5 million in 2002, employed 9.6 million people and generated nearly $1,240 billion in revenues, or about 12% of the U.S. GDP.

Click here to learn more or here to view both reports.

Work Life Balance

I am so tired of issues pertaining to work life balance for women at the top of the ladder. Have you ever seen an article, "What It's Like for Men At the Top of the Ladder? Is work-family balance possible?"

Why can't we focus on just getting things done? Isn't that what entrepreneurship is all about?

It's Not a Glass Ceiling,

It's a Sticky Floor: Free Yourself From the Hidden Behaviors Sabotaging Your Career Success.

I served as a panelist today on the topic of "Going Global with Your Idea" at the Ninth Annual Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Conference at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship. When I was done with the program, I visited their bookstore and found all sorts of new books that I was unaware of.

It's Not a Glass Ceiling, It's a Sticky Floor is one of them. Looks interesting. Haven't read it yet. Check it out.

Here's what Publishers Weekly says:

Forget the old boys' club: women are the ones holding themselves back from top-level career success, advises Shambaugh, president and CEO of consulting firm Shambaugh Leadership. Though more businesswomen are in successful positions of power, they are still lagging behind men at the highest levels: more than a third of Fortune 500 managers and more than half of those with multidisciplinary master's degrees are women, yet women hold only 13% of Fortune 500 CEO positions. This lack of forward motion is due more substantially to women's own career-inhibiting behavior than to cultural impediments, Shambaugh claims. Women are more likely than men to shy away from leadership roles, to get bogged down in perfectionism and to avoid career-boosting changes out of a misplaced sense of loyalty. Through a series of exercises and self-appraisals, Shambaugh guides readers with executive suite aspirations through an evaluation of their own behaviors and skills, gauging which serve their ambitions and which are holding them back. Emphasizing strategic relationships, communication and the elements of executive presence, she writes in an encouraging tone with a refreshing lack of blame, making this a satisfying read for women stuck in middle management limbo.

This is definitely not a read for women entrepreneurs or women business owners. We know better.

All The More Reason To Become An Entrepreneur

When Valerie Frederickson, a Silicon Valley human-resources consultant, heard Hillary Clinton assert that she could "take the heat" after getting pummeled by opponents in a recent debate, she recalled the times in her own career when a roomful of men disrespected her.

Once, at a national sales meeting for a large construction-products company, a male colleague passed around photographs of her in a bikini that he'd secretly taken on a prior business trip. "Instead of quitting, I focused on being better, on outselling the guys three-to-one," says Ms. Frederickson, who later founded her own firm, Valerie Frederickson & Co.

This is why we started this blog. Go Valerie! Stop worrying about gender and move on to doing your own thing.

Global Entrepreneurship

U.S. Commerce Department and Kauffman Foundation announce public-private partnership on entrepreneurship! The new web resource and symposia will advance entrepreneurship and economic growth in United States and throughout world.

What's Ahead In Our Brave New Cyberworld

See for yourself. But it definitely applies to global entrepreneurs. My favorite part of this post for the Small Business Trends blog is the Express Yourself video. After all, isn't that what we are doing everyday as women entrepreneurs?