Boss Lady Panel Podcast
Finally the podcast from the panel I did at SXSW in March is up. Listening to it I felt really proud (yes, even with the embarrassment of realising I talked about vomit) of all that we said in it. The advice that Emira, Lauren, Jenny and Vickie shared I think is really valuable and I hope the fun we had really came through.
“Successful, creative and self-taught entrepreneurs (from graphic designers, to producers, to crafters) will discuss and offer advice on what it’s really like to be the gal running the show. With experience running their own successful businesses on-line and off, each of these women has a wealth of information, advice and success stories to share. The panel will explore what makes business different from a female perspective, the particular challenges the panelists have faced, how to create/maintain a business with/without employees and how to achieve financial success all without boas or pink markers.”
Where are all the women?
In response to Jeffery Zeldman’s Women in Web design:
In 1984 I received my first Apple II computer and coded endlessly with “the turtle.” A few years later I begged my parents for a computer (just a blank PC) and they thought I was crazy (a pretty little cute 14 year old girl wanting a what? This was 1987 after all). I began coding games in DOS Basic in between rounds of playing with Barbie and learning how to put on rouge. Then I got into BBS’ing – 300, 1200 oh my word 9600 baud! It was pre-web at that point but I was connecting to people from around the world at a very slow pace and loved every minute of it.In 1995 I created my first web page using Netscape Navigator and began writing a daily online journal in 1996. My personal site became instantly popular (I assume because at this time, there wasn’t much personal stuff on nor was there many females). In 2001 I began my own freelance career which I chronicled on my site, GirlatPlay.com. I ended up creating more sites, branding things, creating a loyal audience, and having 2 SXSW Web award nominations.
I’ve worked in New Media and technology for a lot of years yet I’m almost never invited to speak on tech subjects (I usually am only asked to speak at writing and “creative” conferences which I mostly pass on). Although I’m 33 with this 20 year solid online history, I look quite young, I’m very blond, I wear dresses, I laugh whilst speaking, I’m not uber-competitive with others and I still maintain a life outside the web. This, I think, makes it hard to get taken as “serious tech geek who has authority” amongst a whole bunch of men and a few pant wearing women – the same 4 women that seem to get asked over and over again to speak.
I think people often have a perception of what “geek” is, what “authority” is and what “serious” is and if one doesn’t fit it, they’re out. I know all the “cool kids” who speak at these conferences, I am connected with my peers yet I don’t have their “look” nor do I blog 24/7 about it. I think that has a lot to do why I – along with other women like myself – do not get invited to participate at conferences. We can talk about “being creative,” our “feelings” and “wearing pink boas” but we don’t really get to talk about the meat of things very often. And that’s frustrating. Especially since I don’t think we have to be one or the other – we can be both. And I think those of us who don’t just make a living blogging 24/7 about tech or just going to conferences as a full-time job might be a little more in-touch with the outside world and have a fresher perspective than the people who keep making the same rounds.
It’s why I initiated and helped put together a (very well-received) panel at the 2007 SXSWI called “Boss Lady” – showing women can be smart, creative, funny, personable, driven, and geeky. Because I know I have something to offer and I’m not going to wait to be asked to share it anymore.
Freelancing isn’t for everyone
Last week at SXSW I was on a panel called, “Boss Lady.” At the end of that panel a young woman approached me with the question of how to start her own company. At the moment she was working full time, had a really busy life and a family that depended on her to keep those two things going.
I offered her the idea of treating her new business as a part-time evening gig; working after all her other things had been taken care of. Her face squinted up at this. This, she said, seemed a little hard because she was already busy. I gently explained that working on your own is one if the hardest things you can do – especially at first. The effort, sacrifice and bravery required are often more than when you start a job with a company that has everything laid out for you. The cushion of a 40-hour work week with weekends off, sick benefits and coworkers to tag team with does not exist. Her face squinted more because she didn’t like the sound of all that work; that’s not what her idea of being self-employed was.
She had the “9-5 grass is greener” syndrome. The one in which you imagine that if you were on your own, everything would be easy peasy or at least easier. You’d have freedom, creativity, total control, late mornings, time off, possibility. And while you do get to have these things, there is a price to pay for it and that price is not for everyone.
So I suggested that perhaps she wasn’t made to be an entrepreneur and I could tell she didn’t like that answer because she was not happy where she was. And the opposite of unhappy is happy so the opposite of corporate must be freelance, right? Wrong.
I know a lot of people who work for corporations, company’s and star ups that are extraordinarily happy because they have found the right fit and the right company. These people know how they work, what they want to do and then target companies and other people that match their values, ideas and work ethic. And these people who go to offices each day are happy office people – they’re sometimes happier than a lot of self-employed people who struggle every day.
I asked the woman if she liked the company she worked for. No, she said. I asked if she even liked the role within the company. No, she said. I asked her if she had thought of defining who she was, what she could do and then taking that to a company that matched and she said no. She hadn’t thought of going to a different company with a different job. She had believed (as I once had), that every job would be the same. Every office would be the same. And the only solution to cubicle hell would be to leave.
It was the answer for me at the time, but it’s not the answer for everyone. Especially someone like her who really needed financial security to meet so many responsibilities and who also did not want to really work all that hard on something else. But when the idea of finding a different company in a different area and taking on a different career came to her, she smiled and shook her head “yes” for the first time in our conversation.
Sometimes when a person isn’t satisfied with something they tend to daydream about the total opposite – if you’re single you think being married would make you happy. If you have children that are driving you crazy you think about being childless. If you’re in a job you hate you think about going on your own. But I don’t think swinging to extremes is ever a really good idea because it’s usually just you reacting and not really thinking. You’ll end up with the same issues (perhaps more) if you just go to the opposite instead of figuring out what would really work best.
There are great things about working for someone else just as there are great things to working on your own. If you’re deciding weather or not to become an entrepreneur, writer or artist, you need to be honest about the amount of work that you’ll have to put into it without outside help – especially until you can afford to hire an assistant, a manager, an accountant or land an agent. You’ll have to ask if you’re prepared to work more than 40hours a week (and it’s true, you’ll be working in an area you love so perhaps it won’t feel like work, but then you run the risk of blurring the line between work and play. Burn out can be a problem). You’ll need to ask yourself if you require financial stability which can be hard to come by, especially when you’re first starting out. And you’ll have to understand how you work – because no one will be handing you work and giving you yearly reviews. You’re your own boss.
If you need freedom, creativity, the need to be of service, be independent, run your own ship but can’t quite make the leap to freelancer, see how you can rearrange your current life. Can you switch to another job within your company, can you go to a different company, can you work 4 10-hr days and have Friday off, can you go part-time, can you work in an entirely different area, can you work for an entrepreneur or a start-up to gain experience?
Going out on my own was the right thing for me to do at the time and it’s worked out extraordinarily well. All the challenges have been so completely worth it because the rewards were more than I expected. But it’s not for everyone. I think we all want to do work that we love and feel good about it at the end of the day. And for some working on their own is the way to do it whilst for others it’ll be nothing but a miserable time. Vice versa for working for someone else. The trick is just to be truthful about what you need, how you work, and what you are willing to do. Maybe that’s starting your own company or maybe it’s working for someone else.
Neither is better than the other – it’s just a question of what works for you.
(For another perspective, read Summer Pierre’s Artist in the Office series.)
Being Financially Sound
Women today make up nearly half of the total workforce in [the U.S.]. Over the past thirty years, women’s income has soared a dramatic 63 percent. Forty-nine percent of all professional – and managerial – level workers are women. Women bring in half or more of the income in the majority of U.S. households – a growing trend that made the cover of Newsweek and was front-page news in many of the nation’s newspapers. Women-owned businesses comprise 40 percent of all companies in the United States. There are more women than ever before who can count themselves among the country’s millionaires, more women in upper management, and more women in positions of power in the government.
Ninety percent of women who participated in a 2006 survey commissioned by Allianz Insurance rated themselves as feeling insecure when it came to their finances. In the same survey, nearly half the respondents said that the prospect of ending up a bag lady has crossed their minds. A 2006 Prudential financial poll found that only 1 percent of the women surveyed gave themselves an A in rating their knowledge of financial products and services. Two-thirds of women have not talked with their husbands about such things as life insurance and preparing a will. Nearly 80 percent of women said they would depend on Social Security in their golden years. Did you know that women are nearly twice as likely as men to retire in poverty? – Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny by Suze Orman
So there you have it – both the good and bad news about women and money. We’re making more of it, there’s more opportunity out there for us, it’s just when it comes to keeping it, making it grow, or getting more of so many are failing.
Often when there’s talk of making a living as an artist, the focus is on how you feel, the journey, the blessings. Art and money seem to be exclusive of each other for so many people. Not for me. I want to be creative but I also want to make a great financial living as well as have a great retirement income. Being happy drives me, doing what I love drives me, but if I do not financially make it, if I do not look after the money I make and invest it wisely, than I will not be happy and I will most likely lose the ability to choose what I do for a living. I think a lot of women – especially creative women – don’t look at it that way.
Blogs with Ads
When I began blogging in 1996 (before there was the term “blogging), everything I wrote and created online was hand-coded. There was no “publish” button to make things easy, no archiving system. There wasn’t any other blogs out there so linking and building community wasn’t really easy. But I believed in writing and putting things out there so I kept going.
In 2001 when I left my 9-5 gig to freelance, there wasn’t other artists blogging about freelancing, creating, dealing with the day-to-day struggles so I decided I would. I wanted to share information to help someone who might be in the same position as I but, like myself, could not find the info.
Now, in 2007, blogs are everywhere. Everyone and their mama has one (my 63 year old mother just signed up for one!). It’s now become acceptable to blog and, in some areas, weird not to. There’s some blogs we’ve come to depend on for information or entertainment; we check these blogs daily, wanting more updates – quicker, faster, more! Because blogging has become a way to reach a large audience, advertisers are wanting to get in on the action. Having a “sponsor” never used to be an option but I’m actually glad it’s become one. For someone who wrote for years and years without receiving a direct financial benefit (I reference direct as in being paid for each visitor to the site. I’ve made a living indirectly from this site by landing jobs), it’s nice to be financially recognised for the work that I have and continue to put in.
And for some bloggers, blogging has turned into a full-time job because there’s an audience that craves their words. And for those bloggers, advertising is how they are paid for those jobs. After all, don’t most of us work to be paid? How many people go to work, come home and then say “man, so nice that I put in all that effort and received nothing!”
You might think for the people/sites that update a lot, ads might be OK but you might still hold prejudice against smaller blogs or sites that advertise. You might think it interferes with content that the author “sold out,” that the ads are ugly, that it removes the legitimacy of the blog. I believe these are ridiculous reasons and usually have less to do with the actual advertisement and more to do with personal beliefs and judgments.
Dan Rather Keynote – SXSW
One of the highlights for me at this years SXSW was Dan Rather’s Keynote. It spoke a lot about truth in media which is something I think about a lot as both a reader and a writer.
I found it very enlightening to hear the differences in reporting from twenty years ago and now. The biggest difference that I found was how at one point reporters banded together. If a reporter asked a question to say the President and the President didn’t really answer it, the next reporter would have said, “Mr. President, you didn’t answer So & So’s question.” Now, if that happened the next reporter would just ask a new question – no one holds the President accountable for answering it. Journalists to a large degree, have become afraid to stick up for one another or press questions or find the truth. And, as an audience, we have become lazy about questioning what we read and if it’s the truth.
Hearing this keynote inspired me to really write as organically and truthfully as I can. And I’ve been thinking about advertising and how that plays into it and I think if you have personal integrity, if you keep at something that is important to you, if you believe in truth and true creativity, then nothing should get in the way – not working for a big news corporation, a small corporation, an advertising company, or for the President. It’s all about personal responsibility and beliefs. And I just love the way Dan Rather puts it all together.
How to apply for a job.
You just happen to forget that a literary journal has submission guidelines. Please, oh, please send me your 75 page tome. Please send me your entire pile of poems written on scrap paper plus a few short stories thrown in for good measure. Please single space everything, submit in Comic Sans font, please draw little pictures on your submission. Because us editors make up these guidelines for fun, of course. A diversion between all of our projects, which should be ignored at all costs. We have SO much time on our hands. Of course you can’t be expected, writers you, to actually read submission guidelines, oh perish the THOUGHT. But of course, a staff of volunteer readers and editors should read every last fucking syllable of your work. – Felica Sullivan, Editor
I receive a lot of emails asking to work for me. A lot. I would say out of the thousands I receive, perhaps two of them I would even consider if I had jobs available, which at the moment, I do not. The letters I receive are almost always unprofessional, written to a BFF or from a “fan” point of view. A lot of them talk about “feelings” and “blessings” and the “journey they want to take with me.” I have people pleading, begging for a chance at something they think I have and that if I gave it to them, everything would be great.
Then I have people who want to write for the popular Girls Guide to City Life and yes, I do need writers there. However, it’s been hard to find great people because out of the hundreds of queries I receive again maybe only two are worth looking at because they did not follow the guidelines.
It’s not that I don’t receive queries from talented people – I do. There’s degree’s and experience coming from everywhere but somehow, all that goes out the door when it comes to the application process. The people who query almost never query the correct email (which is SUCH a pain because this site and that site are run separately and to switch emails and deal with it – well, I’m not going to). They never follow the guidelines and never submit the right kind of writing. A lot of people come across as insecure “please? Could I maybe write? I don’t write good but um, I’d like to if I could have a chance? I’m nice. My mum says so. Honest!”
I’m creative and, for the most part, like a relaxed atmosphere. It’s true that I have a chaise in my office for napping, I drink a lot of tea, I wear a lot of pink but I also run a business. And when I talk to people, I make sure I’m professional, I’m on the ball, I have the info they need and nothing less. I work hard, follow the rules at first (don’t think of even breaking them before you’ve worked with people) and that’s why all the work I get is referral based. I’m put together so people know they can trust me. They see me as creative but also as someone who gets the job done. I think a lot of people who want to run creative business forget the “business” part of it – especially women. They think if they’re nice that should be enough – it’s not.
When I have people apply for a job and write to the wrong address, I ignore it. If they don’t follow the guidelines, I delete. If they send me a business proposal that is terribly weak it’s out the door. I’m busy – I don’t have time to weed through potential and I don’t think anyone else does either.
I understand that when a person is starting out, you hope to be “discovered.” When I was young I used to think each time I walked past an on-location movie set that somehow the director would see me, come running over and say, “That’s her! That’s the talent we’re looking for!” I never got one movie job that way; studying the industry, connecting with the right people, working my ass off on every shoot or in every development meeting – that’s what got me in and kept me in.
It’s frustrating on my end because when I delete all these bad submissions I feel as though I’m destroying a little bit of hope in someone when I do. But at the same time, I don’t want to be “nice” and just say, “Sorry love, not today” because that doesn’t help anyone get any better.
I’ve said it many, many times that it’s great to have a dream but just dreaming doesn’t make things happen. You have to do to be and there’s just no way around it.
So my advice to those who want to write/work for me (or anyone else):
1. Be professional and put together. You can still have personality in your email/query (and people love when you do) and be professional. Don’t write as you would to your mother or girlfriend but to a stranger whose respect you’re trying to get. No smile’s, no LOL’s (I get that a lot), and please, for the love of everyone involved, no “blessings.”
2. Know the person and/or company that you’re applying for and figure out how you will add value to them. Inexperienced people always want a mentor, a guide, someone to show them the way. I can tell you that while I’d love to do this, I do not have the time to teach someone. But if an inexperienced person says, “I know how to file, to edit, to code to something you really need” then I would consider them because then they’re not a drain but an asset.
3. Follow the rules. There are guidelines for a reason people. Nothing pisses an editor or potential employer more than someone thinking they can “get around the rules.” I cannot tell you how many people write to me at this site for jobs I’ve posted elsewhere.
4. Be committed. If you start a job, finish it. Give it your all while you’re there – even if it’s not always 100% what you want to do. Trust me when I say you learn from every job. I don’t complain about corporate America anymore because without that experience I don’t think I’d be as successful as I am today. I learned a lot about marketing, meetings, communicating, structure, finance, and PR from jobs I thought weren’t my passion. Think of something you’re doing as a semester at college; it’ll teach you something so you can stand on your own someday.
5. Be Professional. Just worth repeating.
Authentic Marketing
In preparation for the upcoming Boss Lady panel I’m participating in at SXSW, I had a long, wonderful talk with Emira today about business. Talking with her was really good; it’d been awhile since I talked business in casual, candid terms with a friend.
We talked about how we worked, some of the challenges we face, what we do about it, what’s going on etc. Hearing her perspective on a lot of things was really helpful but the one thing that stuck out the most from the conversation is when she talked about “authentic marketing.”
Both of us run our businesses very similar; we both only work on referral only. We’ve never advertised and we don’t market. Everything comes to us by word of mouth and we both currently have more work than we can handle. The only time we have to really “market” is perhaps when someone calls us to work with us. Then we explain what we do but because we love what we do and are passionate about it, we don’t have to “sell” ourselves – it’s authentic marketing.
For me, this model is essential for my survival because I don’t want to be out there hustling. I’m not good at it nor do I don’t enjoy it. There are those that do but I’m not one of them. I love talking about the work or the process but I don’t talking about the who or the what of it all – especially with people outside of the business arena where it doesn’t matter. I don’t want attention for who I know or what company I work with but I do want to be known for the work I do – and I feel they are separate.
Room for everyone
[Larry] KING: Now you tried out for [Dream Girls], right.
[Fantasia] BARRINO: Tried out for the part.
KING: But you didn’t beat [Jennifer Hudson], she wasn’t on the same show you were on.
BARRINO: She was on the season with me. And like I said, I just felt like that part wasn’t for me, it was for her. It wasn’t my blessing. It was her blessing.
KING: But you beat her?
BARRINO: I did, I won.
KING: Have you seen the movie?
BARRINO: I did.
KING: What do you make of this?
BARRINO: She’s amazing. She was amazing on the show. So much talent on the show. Me, her and Latoya, we’re all still home girls. But even when we went on the show, I gave her, her props, she gave me props, I gave Toya props, they are both powerhouses.
KING: Because they were saying, Ryan, how did Jennifer Hudson not win? Nothing against Fantasia.
[Ryan] SEACREST: Nobody really loses if they become a household name on the show. If you make it into that final group, you don’t lose. It’s just a matter of what you can do with what you have been given. And, you know, I’m a big believer in hustling. I’m a big believer in work ethic. I’m a big believer in making things happen and being proactive. Any male or female that makes it into that group and I call it the group of household names, it’s really up to them whether they leave on the fifth week or the last week. It’s up to them to capitalize on a massive machine that is “American Idol.” That momentum is really unprecedented and it’s up to the individual to capitalize on it. And you know I believe in that. – From Live with Larry King, January 18, 2007
Why I love this conversation is because it does something not often done by people who achieve success – it has successful people discussing, supporting and showing that there is room for everyone to be successful – especially in the same field. There’s no “failing” if someone else does what you do. It doesn’t mean you’re less than or can’t support the other person. Some people have said that Fantasia “lost out” on the part to Jennifer Hudson, but as Fantasia so eloquently stated, it just wasn’t her part but she has won in other ways. They’re both signers/actresses and they will at times be up for the same roles, but if one gets one role and the other gets a different one, you can’t really say someone is less than, right? They’re both working, they’re both doing what they love, and they’re both successful. There’s no need to bitch slap here and be unsupportive in case “they take your role.”
I’ve known a lot of very successful people who, once they achieve success/fame, become very insecure about losing it. The thought of “losing out” to someone else is even worse and the things those with success do to try to “prevent” others from stealing their mojo is ridiculous. It’s also completely pointless because what they fail to realise it that someone else having success does not take away from their own. It can actually help it.
I’m not competitive at all; I can spend hours bragging about my friends, connecting them to the right people, giving them ideas and so forth. I feel very free in talking about my ideas with people instead of worrying that they’ll be “stolen” at any moment. Because of this, I think I’ve become more successful and enjoyed the road here so much more. Because when you opt to support others no matter what stage of the game you’re in, it’s bound to come back to you. Likewise if you try to make others look bad and fear the worse.