Naomi Simson - Founder and CEO, Red Balloon Days

From marketing to entrepreneurship, Naomi has taken her passion for pleasure seriously as a career option, creating the #1 Gift site in Australia and New Zealand four years running.

Marissa Mayer - VP Search Products and User Experience, Google

Ten years after becoming Google’s first female engineer on staff, Marissa now leads product management on all search related products – web, maps, desktop, earth and more.  Marissa is an example on how sticking with a company willling to groom and train their employees can create shining stars.

Esther Dyson - Independent Investor and Entrepreneur

From writing for then flipping EDventures to CNET (thought reclaimed the name for personal business), becoming the founding chair of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to publishing a book on how the Internet affects individual lives, she has influenced a lot of people on the web.  She now dabbles in many different companies, often becoming an early investor or board member of online startups, which have included Flickr and del.icio.us.

Alex Beauchamp – Independent Consultant, Girl at Play

Alex is noted to be one of the first females to create a personal web site back in 1995.  She now owns a prosperous design company, having completed projects for many well known brands, including Disney, Washington Post and Anthropologie.

Lynne D Johnson - Director, Social Media, Fastcompany.com

Lynne is a professional journalist and blogger, having won numerous awards for her work, including the 2006 Black Blogger Achievement Award.  Before Fastcompany she held the position of General Manager of new media for SPIN, VIBE and VIBE Vixen.

Who are other Women of the Web Leaders who, famous or not, creating the technology supporting it or leveraging the web in new ways, have inspired you?

Related posts:

1. Inspiring Women Series – Female Internet Heros
2. Time management tips for working women in technology
3. O’Reilly’s Women in Technology series

But then I stumbled upon something a bit more tangible for me in Dallas – a recent research publication on Climbing the Technical Ladder: Obstacles and Solutions for Mid-Level women in Technology.  Here are four things the research points to as solutions that you should look for and consider doing if you are trying to foster growth and prosperity for the technical women within:

1. Professional Development

Leading or being part of a company that invests in each employee is critical to not just the growth of the employee, but of the competencies of the organization and the retention of employees.  Being in technology means staying on top of the latest trends and technologies, not, using what you learned 15 years ago only.  Find ways to learn, if not via internal training then by going to classes outside of the company.

2. Positive Culture

We need to be in an environment that has positive energy – not necessarily rewarding you for just getting out of bed and showing up for work but – one that can encourage you to deliver great results, foster team work and collaboration while meeting the company’s goals and objectives.  We should be encouraged to take risks and try new things, not getting our hand slapped every time we try something different.

3. Managers Who “Get It”

Managers need to understand that there IS a difference in how women and men behave and communicate.  They also have different support structures and needs due to their roles and responsibilities not just on the job, but back at home.  More may need flex time.  Or they need to be able to work from home.  But this may relate to men as well, so it is important that managers today understand the world as we knew it – 1 stay at home person while the other works – is not the norm but the exception now a days.

4. Diversity At the Top

To encourage women to stay and see a longer term path for them, it is critical to show that there are female senior leaders in the ranks to show it is possible to get there.  An all white male board says something completely different from a board of diverse professionals.  Again, you don’t want to just reward a woman for showing up every day and are now a senior executive, but you need to find those with the skill, experience and aptitude to deliver what the company is looking to deliver.

Now if companies were doing this before the bubble burst…

Related posts:

1. Solving the Tech pay gap between men and women
2. Facts About Women-Owned Businesses
3. Initiating and Sustaining Women Advancement Initiatives

1. Minimize Office Costs

There are many things you can do to reduce phone bills and save on electricity such as

• Using Skype or another VOIP product for long distance calling
• Make sure it’s “lights out” by a certain time of night to save on electricity bills
• Negotiation phone, DSL, electricity and other utility and other office vendor bill rates, or switch
• Print only when you have to and start to share documents electronically

While much of the above may be minimal, if you can get a large percent of your workforce doing the above savings will be seen.

2. Stay At Home Base More

At a minimum invest in a good virtual meeting product like WebEx or GoToMeeting (or a free alternative Califlower), where you can hold virtual meetings and web casts versus traveling to meet with someone.  While we know face to face meetings are valuable, saving $1000+ on multiple travel trips may be more important right now to survive the next year.  You can do things like virtual white boarding and sharing documents to work through to dos together.

3. Have Extra Office Space?

Rent it out to a team looking to save costs this year too!

4. Reduce Agency/3rd Party Service Provider Fees

Need that marketing agency at $15000/month, or are you better off hiring someone by project?  What about tech recruiters – can you use tools like LinkedIn, Jobster or Facebook instead to hire new team members?

5. Outsource Jobs That Are Not Core To Your Business

Do you really need a staff of HR, IT Support, Lawyers and Accountants to help you run your business?  Outsourcing companies in these areas are specialized to serve these needs economically for any type of business.

While the above tips may seem obvious to you, the key isn’t 1-2 people or department doing the above, it’s the whole company.  Internal communications should go out encouraging the above behavior such that it is rewarded when times are better again – for example, movie tickets or gift certificates you may be able to get donated for the biggest cost cutter.

Related posts:

1. What are you doing to promote creativity at your company?
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The usual medical jobs (nurses and technicians), along with some new ones like career counseling or public relations professionals who can handle crisis communications, software developers were also noted to be in the top 10.  But with one caveat – software developers who can stay on top of change with the rapid pace we are going through for technology convergence and new device deployments around the world.

So how do you not just accept change as part of your career, but embrace it with everything you do?  Here are some tips to stay ahead and keep a job in these fast pace times.

1. Stay On Top Of Industry Research

Stay in tune with new channels for communications, and the particular industry vertical you serve – be it manufacturing, retail, energy or something else.  There are many ways to get information now, from the heavy hitting research firms (with heavy hitting prices – ask your company if they have a subscription you can tap into) of Gartner and Forrester, to online data sources like CNET, to individuals who have a passion for blogging on tech, like GigaOm and Guy Kawasaki.  (and of course the Webgrrls blog!)

Make it a habit to stay on top of different writers and points of views either by scheduling a daily catch up on your calendar in the morning or evening, or, focus on catching up on the weekend.

2. Write

Volunteer to write white papers for your company, for a reputable provider of content online or your own blog.  This will force you to continue to do your homework while getting your name out there for being knowledgeable on the next cutting edge widget.

3. Your Process to Develop Software

How “agile” is your software development process?  You don’t have to adopt full blown agile approaches like scrum, but you can modify parts of your process to be more open to change as you learn more about the goals and objectives of a project you are working on.  While you may kick off a project today that is due in a year, you may find along the way that there are 4 more devices that are coming out you need to support, and 2 being sunset.  So make sure you can, at a minimum, adjust for changes along the way.

How are you planning to embrace change in 2009?

Related posts:

1. Four Tips to Keep Rolling In the Business
2. Leverage your Gender in Job Negotiations
3. Free online meetings with Mikogo

1. Thank Yous

It’s what mom taught us…thank yous….but not the verbal kind, SMS text, nor with an eGreeting.  It’s the old fashioned, pull out a pen and note card, and write someone a thank you note.  When was the last time you sent a personal thank you card to a client, co-worker or industry colleague?  Here are some tips on how to save time writing personal thank you notes.

2. Pitch 3 Things

What three things make you stand out above the rest?  Remind colleagues, your boss and prospects what 3 things you and/or your business are great at doing and why they need to keep you around.

3. Incorporate Asking for Referrals Into Different Processes

When someone registers for your website or newsletter, do you ask them to refer others?  What about networking internally or within your industry networking group?

4. Reconnect with Someone Once a Week

Has it been a while since you chatted with a highly respected former boss?  Senior executive you have a relationship with?  Someone else you enjoy partnering with?  Make it a habit to re-connect with someone once a week to continue fostering relationships within and outside of your business.

So who are you sending a thank you card to today?

Related posts:

1. Tips for following up with contacts after a meeting or conference
2. Tips for managing your Social Networks
3. Time management tips for working women in technology

1. They’re Results Oriented

Women not only do they focus on achieving, if not beating, bottom line goals, they are able to consistently meet if not beat results year after year.  They don’t talk big then not deliver, they deliver with a team willing to help them make those goals.

2. They’re Pragmatic

They do things that are logical, not emotional.  They look at facts and historical information to make decisions and judgment calls.

3. They’re Strategic

They don’t just think about the operational side of the business.  They are creative and think big.  They connect dots with what the market needs to what the business could deliver to fill that need.  They identify opportunities that are good strategic decisions for the business before other leaders see them, and then steer the business in that direction.

4. They’re Efficient

They have a system of processes, people and technology in place to filter the important from the not so important.  They delegate effectively so progress can continuously be made.  They pay attention to what matters the most so ensure balls don’t get dropped.

5. They’re Responsive

No matter how much they have on their plate, they are responsive to the needs of the organization.  They are known to not sit back and let things happen, but take action.

6. They’re Out Spoken

They are willing to go out on a limb and speak up when things don’t seem quite right, or, stick up for an idea.  They will fight for what is right for the business.

Are you results oriented, pragmatic, strategic, efficient, responsive and out spoken?  Do you have role models at your office or in your community you look up to?  Is there an area you feel you could work on to help you get to the next step in your career?  Have you asked your local women executives to mentor or coach you?

Identify one of the above characteristics, find a mentor and improve on skills to help you move to the top in 2009 – if you have what it takes to get there, then what’s holding you back?

Related posts:

1. Initiating and Sustaining Women Advancement Initiatives
2. Plan to Obtain Your 2009 B.A.G. Now
3. Facts About Women-Owned Businesses

From productivity tools like Open Office to numerous free wikis on the market, open source software has become more mature and ready for prime time in a year where CIOs will be looking to cut enterprise costs where possible while keeping teams intact and productive.

So where are the options to go from vendor to open?  Here are a few to consider either for yourself or for your department/business:

Open Office

Open Office is Sun’s response to Microsoft Office, just free.  Five basic applications are provided, which are equivalent to Microsoft Word (Writer), Microsoft Excel (Calc), Microsoft Power Point (Impress),  Microsoft Access (Base), and Microsoft Visio (Draw).  While this is close to being an apples to apples comparison, the main productivity feature that lacks, which may cause some companies to shy away from Open Office, is the lack of shared calendaring and other advanced calendaring and spreadsheet features Microsoft offers.

Zoho

For a small business or independent consultant, Zoho will pretty much provide all the collaboration tools you need for free to manage your business, from CRM, Microsoft Office equivalents, to free web conferencing (sorry no toll free number included, but, just use Skype for free voice over IP long distance!).  The only catch is to not go above 5-10 users to keep the free version.

Moodle

How are you keeping your teams learning and growing so you can continue to add value and survive the recession we are in?  Moodle, though used in education, can also be used to help manage and track educational process while delivering virtual classes.

GNUCash

Don’t want to buy Quick Books?  GNUCash has been at the top of 2-3 other open source accounting software technologies out on the market for the last few years.  It provides double-entry accounting, invoicing capabilities plus many other features and functions to run anyone’s personal finances on or small business.

Google

Google has become a major player in the hosted tools market, going beyond their search and Gmail capabilities to provide a number of Google Apps to help run one’s business.  It’s not free, but $50/user (versus $1K+ for many desktop alternatives and reduction of needing inhouse IT staff to manage the desktop version of these Software as a Service – SaaS – options)

So what should trigger you to switch or deciding on free versus commercial when kicking off your new independent consultancy this winter?  Common reasons are anywhere from being fed up on paying exhorbatent fees for software that is available for free, usability to having a philosophy that supports open source to how much or how little end user support you want these vendors/communities to provide to you and/or your employees.  The other benefit of most open source software is you can build in your own features if you are technical enough.

For example, an acquaintence switched to Open Office when Microsoft finally nailed the coffin on free Microsoft Office upgrades with Vista.  He could upgrade Microsoft Office for free previously when he upgraded the OS, but not any more.

Remember there are options to continue digital productivity you do not have to pay for!

Related posts:

1. Top 10 New and Improved Apps of 2007
2. What Venture Capitalists Are Investing in for 2009
3. Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business

No matter where you are right now, you will probably agree that we may have some more shaky times ahead in 2009 before we completely see the bottom.  It’s predicted that CIOs will look to help companies save money by cutting consulting, hardware and software expenses.  This means some software purchases may go on hold or less licenses maintained, equipment being returned or refurbished, and staff members taking on work consultants normally take on for longer hours for staff and less work for consultants.

But, there are also lots of opportunities and more to come.  Here are some things to consider looking into so you stay off the reduction list:

1. Refurbish any equipment lying around

While it may not be of use to you, others will more likely be on the market for cheaper yet equivalent technology in older hardware skins.  See if you can add more memory or a better processor to make it more appealing to a new more expensive equivalent.

2. Focus on where you add value

What are you excellent at?  Continue to focus on and find opportunities to apply and show off your talents to show you are one to keep around when the next RIF occurs.  When your boss, company CEO and/or clients present you with their 2009 goals and objectives, determine where you fit in the picture and ask to take on a particular role or responsibility beyond what you are already assigned to do to help demonstrate your talents and capabilities being part of the team.

3. Gain new skills

Why wait any longer – look to enroll in either local college, training program or online options to obtain new skills.  Before doing so determine how you are going to apply those skills either on the job or on side or volunteer projects so you can prove to someone looking at your resume you really can apply what you learned in the classroom.  Also check to see if your company will pay for your education before enrolling – many do.  This will also show your employer or clients you are constantly willing to grow and learn.

Don’t forget about “indirect” skills you can apply on the job – for example I took a few creative writing classes last year to build up to writing a novel.  While I do have the longer term goal of publishing a novel at some point, shorter term I can apply the techniques I learned to write a novel to how I tell a story via a presentation to a prospect or sales audience about how my team did a great job adding value to a client of ours.

It’s 2009 – go have fun and stay ahead!

Related posts:

1. Plan to Obtain Your 2009 B.A.G. Now
2. When Did You Last Plan Your Succession?
3. 21st Century Superwoman – Fad, Fact or Fiction?

1. Cards Created and Mailed Online

It takes just a few minutes to upload a picture, slap on a message and enter mailing addresses for loved ones to hear how 2008 went for you.  Some options include:

• Card Store – Not only can you mail a card, but you can also mail a gift card!
• Ashtonishing Cards
• Picaboo
• Zazzle

2. Free eGreetings

Penny pinching?  Here are some eGreeting sites that provide free greetings to send:

• 123greetings.com
• ecardica.com
• Blue Mountain
• eGreetings

3. Throw Them a Sheep or Super Poke with a Fruitcake…

…or send an “O Christmas Tree” request, virtual Chicken McNuggets from McDonalds or one of other many eThings on Facebook.  Gotta love it!

There is really no excuse with the Internet today to at least say “happy holiday” via email, a text message or some other form of eLove.

Related posts:

1. Options to Send and Receive Faxes Online
2. Webgrrls’ Finds: Tips, tricks and tools to improve your work performance
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Safety Net 1 – Your Professional Network

When was the last time you either attended a meeting of a professional organization you are part of or looked to join a new one?  What about getting involved and volunteering for a committee, or for further visibility, lead a committee or run for a leadership/board position?

If you aren’t into the administrative side of professional organizations, what about focusing on thought leadership activities like blogging and public speaking – maybe you can be a keynote speaker at an upcoming meeting?

How about former colleagues from old jobs, how are you staying in touch with them?

Your professional network should continue to grow through your lifetime, and it is important to keep in contact with not just those you see often but past bosses and peers as you never know when you may have an opportunity to work with them again.

Safety Net 2 – Your Personal (Family and Friends) Network

When was the last time you consciously made an effort to befriend new people versus hang out with the same crew?  What about sending an email, card or picking up the phone with an old friend?  Or asked a friend if you could help them with something?

It’s important to keep lines of communication open with friends you cherish for life while finding new gems to spend time with and connect.

Safety Net 3 – Your Virtual (Career and Social) Network

Is your profile up to date on all personal and career web sites so you can be easily found when an opportunity that screams your name comes up?  For the tech women out there, here are sites to get to know, love and nurture with your up to date information:

• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• 85 Broads
• Monster
• Career Builder
• Dice
• Hot Jobs
• Jobster
• Meetup
• Local and National Recruiters Specific to What You Do
• You Alma Mater’s Virtual Presence
• Former Employer Networks (maybe a Yahoo! Group, Bright Star, etc.)
• Profile on Organization Websites
• WebGrrls!

Also, when you “Google” yourself, what are the results?  Are you happy with them?  If you are not here you may want to join more networking sites or throw in the towel and become a blogger, or at least join sites like Digg and give thumbs up to other posts out on the Internet.

Remember, you can’t build a network when you need it overnight, nor can you rekindle one overnight as well.  You have to build a network in great times to leverage when the times are tough.

Related posts:

1. Tips for managing your Social Networks
2. Building Credibility in the Virtual Information Age
3. Net Neutrality – Why Should We Care?