On Monday March 5, the Webgrrls community gathered to talk about the different social media tools that people use and why. During the Twitter Chat, we explored and shared answers to the following questions:

• What are some of your favorite social media tools to help manage Twitter & Facebook?
• What are some great tools for social media analytics and reporting? 
• What are some tools you use to find new followers?
• Niche site = more targeted audience. Dog clothes designer will get better ROI at @Dogster. What niche sites do you use? 
• What tools do you use to find and aggregate resources and content?

Below are some highlights from the event with answers to the above questions

Related posts:

1. 70% of the Webgrrls say they leverage or are totally immersed in social media
2. Great Social Media Enterprise Tools to Investigate
3. New Marketing Summit: What’s next in Social media

During the Twitter Chat, we explored and shared answers to the following questions:

• What does networking mean to you?
• What is your primary goal when you network?
• What are some things that you do to maximize your networking time at events
• What are the three stages of the networking process?
• What are some tools that you use to streamline your networking and follow-up process?

Below are some highlights from the event with answers to the above questions

Related posts:

1. NYEBN Presentation: Tips for Using Twitter more Effectively
2. How to: Create a Share on Twitter link for WordPress Blog
3. The Power of the ReTweet on Twitter

2 Ways to Win

1. Attend the NYC Webgrrls The Art of Less Doing & Networking event on November 7.  We will randomly choose a winner at the event. Note: you must be present to win.
    
2. Enter to win online.  You must be a member to participate…so, if you are not a Webgrrls member or your membership is not current, please Join or Renew your membership now.  We will randomly determine who receives the ticket for the event and will email you if you are the winner. 

All Webgrrls receive 30% Discount to Attend!

All Webgrrls are eligible to receive a 30% discount to attend the event. Be sure to enter discount code: WEBGRRLS-30 when registering.

See you there!

Related posts:

1. Enter to Win Full Pass to BizTechDay in San Francisco
2. Enter to Win Full Pass to Blog World Expo 2009 in Las Vegas
3. Enter to Win Full Pass to Interop Las Vegas 2009 Conference

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March is Women’s History Month, the theme is empowerment through education. As I started to consider what I knew about the role of women leaders throughout history, I decided to come up with a list of 75 inspirational female leaders through time, some of these are for fun others are truly admirable women …. Some I knew of, others I got to know while researching this list – ALL are fascinating and brave who have contributed to our history.

Please share this list with your friends, sisters and daughters – and come up with one of your own, the more we know about women, the more we are empowered with “her-story”.

1. The women in my family who emigrated from Cuba with nothing, and managed our family in exile
2. Asmaa Mahfouz (1987 – ) Egyptian activist, founder of the April 6 Youth Movement
3. Sheryl Sandberg (1971 – )
4. Arianna Huffington (1950 – )
5. Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice, Supreme Court (1954 – )
6. Zaha Hadid, First Woman to Win a Pritzker Prize (1950 – )
7. Michelle Bachelet (1951 – ) Ms. Michelle Bachelet Under-Secretary-General Executive Director of UN Women, former President of Chile  

1. Angela Merkel (1954 – ) Chancellor of Germany
2. Kazuyo Sejima (1956 – ) SANAA Japanese architect 
3. Wangari Maathai (1940 – 2011) Founder of Green Belt Movement and 2004 Nobel Peace prize
4. Hillary Clinton (1947 – ) US Secretary of State, former First Lady
5. Madeleine Albright (1937 – ) Former US Secretary of State, first woman.
6. Isabel Ayende (1942 – )
7. Benazir Bhutto (1953 – 2007)
8. Mother Theresa (1910 – 1997)
9. Margarret Thatcher (1925 – )
10. Gloria Steinem (1934 – )
11. Sirivamo Bandaranaike (1916-2000) Sri-Lanka, First elected woman prime minister
12. Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers (U.F.W.) (1930
13. Antonia Coello Novello first Latina Surgeon General of the United States.
14. Julia Child (1912 – 2004)
15. Princess Diana (1960 – 1997)
16. Margaret Mead (1901 – 1979)
17. Rosa Parks (1913 – 2005)
18. Indira Gandhi Prime Minister of India (1917 – 1984)
19. Golda Meir (1898 -1978)
    
20. Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, USNR  (1906 – 1992) Computer pioneer
21. Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954)
22. Gertrude Stein (1874 – 1946)  
23. Valentina Tereshkova (1937 – ) Cosmonaut, first woman in space
24. Amelia Earhart (1897 – 1937?) 
25. Florence Nightingale (1820 – 1910) 
26. Juliette Gordon Low (1860 – 19270 Founder of the Girl Scouts 
27. Marie LaVeau (1801 – 1881) Voodoo Queen of New Orleans and famous herbalist.
28. Harriet Tubman (1822-1913)
29. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 – 1896) 
30. Pocahontas (1594 0 1615) 
31. Joan of Arc  (1412 – 1431)
32. Madame Curie (1867 – 1934) The Nobel Prize in Physics 1903
33. Wilma Mankiller  (1945 – ) First woman to lead the Cherokee Nation
34. Susan B. Anthony (1820 – 1906)
35. Clara Barton (1821-1912) Founder of the Red Cross
36. Frances Perkins (1882-1965) First woman member of the presidential Cabinet 
37. Mary Lyon (1797-1849) Founder of Mt. Holyoke College, first college for women in the US
38. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651 – 1695) Mexican poet, writer
39. Anne Bonny (1698-1782) Female pirate 
40. Marie Antoinette (1755 – 1793)
41. Isabella I of Castile Queen of Spain (1451 – 1504)
42. Queen Victoria (1837 – 1901)
43. Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122 - 1204)
44. Elizabeth I Queen of England (1533 – 1603)
45. Queen Sukda of Mandara (Cameroon) (Around 1500)
46. Regent Dowager Empress Eleni of Ethiopia (1507-1516)
47. Governor Sayyida al-Hurra of Tetouán (Morocco) (1510-1552 )
48. Maria Theresa of Hapsburg (1717-1780) Empress of Austria
49. Queen Regnant Anacaona of the Maguana (early 1500) Taino Tribe Hispanola
50. Catherine the Great Empress of Russia (1729 – 1796)
51. Verónica I of Matamba ruler of Ndongoand Matamba (1681-1721)
52. Lady Isabel Xipaguazin Moctezuma of Tacuba (1525-1550) Mexico
53. Regent Dowager Duchess Chiara Giorgio of Athenai (1451- 1454) Greece
54. Female King Atotoztli of Tenochtitlán (1466-1472) Mexico
55. Princess Regnant Bigum Hatun of Qara Quyünlü (1435-67) Iran/Iraq 
56. Governor Lucrezia Borgia of Spoleto and Foligno (1480 – 1519) Italy
57. Queen Regnant Paccha of Quito (Cara) (1487-1488)  (Ecuador)
58. Empress Theodora  (500 – 548)
59. Wu Zetian (690 – 705)
60. Cleopatra (69 – 30 BC)
61. Makeda, Queen of Sheba (10th century B.C.)
62. Chieftainess Sharifa Fatima of the Zaydi (Yemen) (1450-1500)
63. Taoist Priest Empress Zhang in China (1493 – )
    
64. Empress Liu (Wu) (318–349)
65. Kubaba (only queen on the Sumerian King List) (2500-2330 BC)
66. Sapho (580 – 570)
67. Esther from the bible
68. Deborah was one of the Judges of Israel

Do you know another woman leader that I didn’t mention? please let me know in the comment section.

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Related posts:

1. Inspiring Women Series – Female Internet Heros
2. What I learned (and didn’t) about leading as a woman in Business School
3. Can women entrepreneurs help save the US economy? YES!

The Current Trends in Mobile

The Business Insider’s team kicked off the conference with the discussion on the current trends in mobile…the growth of smartphones and tablets, the platform wars, and how consumers are using mobile devices. 

Last year the number of smartphones sold exceeded the number of PCs sold and the potential for growth in mobile is still enormous and in fact, we’re still early (835million SmartPhone users vs. 5.6billion DumbPhone users).

 View the Full Slide Deck.

The Future of Mobile Apps

Simon Khalaf, President and CEO of Flurry showcased the current trends in mobile apps and talked about how mobile app businesses are disrupting industries, mobile app usage, and how app developers are monetizing mobile apps.

Mobile Apps are eating software and the world? View the Full Slide Deck.

The Golden Nuggets

Throughout the day, we heard from many companies and VCs in the mobile space. Here are some pearls of wisdom that I heard from some of the presenters.

• “We’re not in another bubble…In 1999, there were 38 million broadband Internet users worldwide. Today, there are 1.2 billion people getting broadband Internet access on their phones” ~ Simon Khalaf, President and CEO of Flurry
• “Smartphones are enabling new markets. Postmates, which enables geo-located services like the ability to press a button and get a bike messenger or a truck, and Gigwalk, which is disrupting the temporary jobs market. You can get a job in a few minutes.” ~ Jeff Clavier, founder and managing partner at SoftTech VC
• “The leading edge stuff is usability … it’s not leading edge … it’s just sh*t we aren’t very good at.” ~ Dave McClure, founding partner at 500 Startups
• “It’s about going through false starts... Brbn was a false start. The best companies in the world have all had predecessors. YouTube was a dating site. You always have to evolve into something else” ~ Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagram   

  (Instagram originally started out as a check-in app called Brbn)

• “Hiring is a long-term process. Hiring starts a year before you build your company. It’s the network you build. The first five people we hired at Instagram were good friends. Trust is by far the most important thing. You’ll never find your co-founder on Craigslist” Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagram 
• “Great CEOs are made, not born. One reason Facebook has been so successful, is that Mark Zuckerberg has learned how to be a great CEO, which he wasn’t at the beginning”. Andreessen Horowitz, founder and partner Ben Horowitz
• “Zynga is a game company. We stopped looking at ourselves as a game company.It’s not just the launch of a game, it’s the launch of a franchise. It’s bigger than most movie launches in Hollywood. Rovio is one of the first brands to launch from the digital to the physical world” ~ Peter Vesterbacka, CMO  Rovio  
• “In technology, you are in the innovation business. In order to hit the next product cycle, you’re going to have to reinvent the company. If you look at long lasting technology companies – IBM, HP, Intel, Facebook, and Amazon – all of them are run by founders who play a prominent role in them. The innovation comes from the founder”. ~ Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz
• “Zynga has been good at buying companies early. We bring in teams that are a good DNA fit for our business. Also, games that bring good games into our ecosystem” ~ Travis Boatman, Mobile Chief of Zynga

Follow the #ignitionwest hashtag to see what other people tweeted at the event.

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Facebook announced, last week, that starting March 30, they are forcing all Facebook Business Page owners to convert to the new timeline format, which will completely eliminate the custom landing page option. In fact, a call to action on a Facebook business page will now be against Facebook’s terms and conditions! (see more details below)  (Note: you can still use your custom tabs in your Facebook Page).

New Facebook Page Layout:

(click to enlarge)

Cover Image

The cover image is the new representation of your brand on the Facebook page. The image dimensions are 850px x 315px. Unlike in the previous versions of Facebook page designs, this time around, Facebook has very strict guidelines against adding any marketing tactics and language on the cover image. Facebook’s policies state that cover photos cannot include:

• Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website.”
• Contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address, or information that should go in your Page’s “About” section.
• References to Facebook features or actions, such as “Like” or “Share” or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features.
• Calls-to-action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”
• Covers must not be false, deceptive or misleading, and must not infringe on third parties’ intellectual property. 

Since this is the only visual representation of your brand on the business page, the design of this image is pretty important.  To get your creativity juices flowing, check out these Facebook Timeline designs examples from SocialFresh & InspirationFeed.  You can also check out the Webgrrls Facebook page
 

Profile Picture

This is the image that gets shown next to each of your updates. You can use a logo or any image that is representative of your brand.  We, at Webgrrls decided to highlight our business members in that area.

Choose an image that fits 180 x 180 pixels and also looks good when scaled down to a thumbnail size of 32 x 32 pixels. 

Larger Page Tab Icons

The Page Tabs are now located toward the top of the page instead of the sidebar.  This, along with the increase of the tab icon size (111px x 74 px), allows you to highlight & showcase your tabs where users can’t miss them. Use this space to showcase your calls to actions and create a clear graphic that shows what’s behind the tab. For the Webgrrls page, we have created 3 graphics with text describing the tabs and these tabs now serve as our ‘navigation’.

Follow these steps to assign an image icon to a tab,

You can also set the order of your tabs by dragging them into the location that you want. (Note: the Photos tab location can’t be changed).

Larger, wider page tabs.  

Previously, page tabs were 520px wide, but with the new layout you have 810px of content area to use.  You should now go back to all of the previously created page tabs and ensure that they work with the wider width.

Stories – Star, Hide, or Pin 

Stories also got revamped. By hovering over individual stories, you can make them wider, hide them from your timeline (pencil icon), highlight them as important (star icon), or delete them. A great new feature is the ability to pin/anchor a specific story to the top of your timeline for up to 7 days. This means you can highlight specific posts with remarkable content, calls-to-action for your marketing offers, or events you want to feature. Pinning it to the top of your page will prevent the content from getting buried by more recent updates.

Messages 

This is a brand new feature which allows you to send and receive private message to your page visitors allowing you to can handle your customer service issues directly on Facebook.  

By default, the messages will be turned on.  To turn off messaging capability, go to Admin Panel, and choose ’Manage’ -> ‘Edit Page’ -> ‘Manage Permissions’ and uncheck the ‘Messages’ box.

Milestones

This is another new feature that allows page owners to tell a story….your business’ biggest accomplishments, awards, product releases, etc.  You can create a milestone through your status update box.  In addition to title, location, date, and story, you can upload a 843 x 403 pixels image 

Admin Panel

This is a new interface that offers page admins an overview of what’s going on with a page. Charts, new notifications and “likes”, check-ins, and more. Everything involved with managing your page and creating ads can be done straight from the panel.

 ________________________________________________________________

Please take advantage of the 25 days that you have to carefully plan and design your new Facebook Page so that when March 30th comes around, you are all ready to go.

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2. 8 Critical Ways To Protect Your Privacy On The New Facebook
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Last week during a conversation with a potential client, I was asked what aspect of my business I enjoyed the most – I didn’t hesitate a second and answered – COLLABORATION! Working together, as a team with the best people, who are subject matter experts in their fields can make for amazing, and sometimes unexpected results – and I find that fascinating and exhilarating. No doubt this has been an important part of my life, even during my EMBA program at Thunderbird, one of our mantras was “collaborate so you can graduate”.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TRADITIONAL HIERARCHY AND COLLABORATIVE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTS

In my business, ideas evolve and grow in COLLABORATION with our peers and subordinates – I have often worked with teams spread all over the globe, and the dynamic of collaboration can be real “magic” when everyone takes pride of ownership and responsibility. Being open to all ideas, and understanding that the next great one could come from a customer or a subordinate is really empowering. Unlike popular belief, however, working collaboratively doesn’t mean always playing nice and signing the same tune, it isn’t like group therapy – yeah, sometimes thing get messy when egos get in the way – this is when a strong and nurturing leader needs to step in and wrangle the cats errr… I mean team …

When I work with teams, our communication is open – unhindered by formality and “structure”. The point of this is to create an environment of mutual respect, where the interaction of diverse perspectives leads to an exchange of ideas leading to an an effective solution. This doesn’t mean that it is a “free for all”, there is always a clear leader, but the input of each member is valued equally. The leadership skills needed in a collaborative business environments are very different, somewhere between a kindergarten teacher and Margaret Thatcher, the goal is to guide the flow, and get the BEST out of each team member.

The distinct difference between collaborative groups and formal groups, is that collaborative groups function on the basis of shared power and management among peers, rather than an absolute directive from the top – think of it as managing horizontally rather than vertically.      

And thanks to the world of online communication COLLABORATION has grown even more in certain industries – writers often work in a team with an Art Director, Animators with Producers, business strategist with writers, Engineers with art directors, Directors with Producers and clients…. not all located in the same place but technology makes it possible to do work smoothly in COLLABORATION. 

To me, working COLLABORATIVELY is the only way to get the best ideas and results – collaborate to innovate – but this is NOT the way most business work today, and I wonder WHY? 

The practice of COLLABORATION, which is so common for some businesses hasn’t gone mainstream, most traditional businesses never get “it”, and still allow their executives to engage in more territorial and competitive practices – these often lead to what I call sandbox “turf wars”…… unlike COLLABORATIVE leaders who share control and give credit for ideas, and who facilitate the process of problem solving through diplomacy – refer to my previous comment about Thatcher. COLLABORATION is not common, but what if it where?

Some companies like Mozilla, Linux, eBay, Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Amazon, are structured around collaboration and team leadership that really works, so what makes for this difference in leadership?

TOP QUALITIES OF A COLLABORATIVE LEADER

Here are some of the top qualities of a collaborative leader:

• Drive – Recognizes the right opportunities to increase collaboration
• Clarity – About context and purpose, the kind that enables trust and loyalty
• Vision – Imagining the possibilities/outcomes that do not yet exist and aligning teams towards that.
• Fairness - Attributes and credits success to those who merit it.
• Inclusiveness – Inviting participation rather than demanding participation.
• Collaborative Mindset – A team approach and belief that collaboration is the best approach while working with a group to resolve an issue.

BEYOND BUSINESS – A NEW WAY FOR HUMANITY?

Although author Howard Rheingold’s “Smart Mobs, the next social revolution” published this book over 10 years ago, his discussions about the “new era” for human development through collaborative interconnectivity is very relevant today – as we have recently witnessed grand changes such as the “Arab Spring” and the “Occupy Movement and the 2011 collaboration between scientist and gamers to solve a decade-long protein structure mystery that could help in developing a cure for AIDS. 

Check out his Ted speech 

Click here to view the embedded video.

I believe that with increasing global connectivity technology-enabled collaboration will continue to increase, and allow for the ability to work collaboratively across disciplines to resolve business and world wide problems.  It’s time for traditional business cultures to catch on and move from a hierarchal leadership to more collaborative leadership.

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Related posts:

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2. Creativity in Business
3. When Did You Last Plan Your Succession?

I work in a creative business – the business of creativity to be exact, and I see how difficult it is for some business people and academics to understand HOW a creative approach can help a business grow. But in today’s business environment, I can’t imagine a thriving business that is not looking at their business in a creative way.

The subject of creativity in business has been on the forefront lately, discussed in business blogs and articles in serous publications. There is no question that the term “CREATIVE“ is getting some major traction, according to LinkedIn (based on 135 million professional profiles in several languages), in 2011 “CREATIVE” was the most overused buzz word on user profiles in the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, Netherlands, UK.  But what the heck does it REALLY mean in business ?  

What does creativity mean in business?

Does this mean that executives should immerse themselves in afternoons of finger painting in order to find their inner creative mojo? (I am sure this wouldn’t hurt in the least). For the most part business people have been indoctrinated to draw inside the lines, and to ask them to reverse this way of doing things is quite radical, so how can you change this?.

In one of my favorite business books, Daniel H. Pink’s A Whole New Mind , Pink suggests, that the era of “left brain” dominance, and the Information Age that it engendered, are giving way to a new world in which “right brain” qualities-inventiveness, empathy, and meaning-predominate. But how do we make this change that Pink describes? How do we transition from the predominance of the left brain into the right brain?

Click here to view the embedded video.

There is no doubt, that we are experiencing a major departure from a time when there was a distinct separation between business and creativity, when there was little room for creativity in “serious” businesses, and creativity was something relegated to “free thinkers”. This change is evident as even more conservative companies like Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Sears, are hiring creativity consultants in the hopes of helping to develop a culture where original ideas and innovation are stimulated. Thankfully, we are also seeing a great change in business schools, as they are starting to recognize the importance of creativity, and the role that it plays in fostering innovation and entrepreneurship.

There is no doubt that creativity is one of the most important ingredients for a successful startup.  And it is also one of the most important success criteria for anybody involved in business leadership. Evidence of this can be seen in IBM’s survey of more than 1,500 Chief Executive Officers from 60 countries and 33 industries worldwide, who overwhelming stated their belief that creativity is the number one most important quality to successfully navigating an increasing complex world.  But how does a business go about making this part of it’s culture?

Earlier attempts at creativity in business – “Thinking outside the box”, OR the MOST overused expression ….. ever

In an effort to foster creativity and innovation, in the late 90′s we overused the term “Thinking outside the box” (I cringe when I hear this expression), this concept was meant to help develop creative thinking, among business people, and a creative way to look beyond what is tangible and present, and think beyond boundaries and envision POSSIBILITIES. There was a great deal of conversation about this concept, but few business people actually grasped the meaning of this, much less the implementation of what is learned when really “Thinking outside the box”. 

I really believe that most people like knowing what is outside of the box, but few actually embrace it, and that could be because it means change, and most people are uncomfortable with that. 

Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.
~Howard Aiken

Creativity in business is not only about product innovation, but can help businesses create ways that help us work smarter and improve the quality of life, think about Apple, Google and Facebook. Let us not forget that true creativity spawned these companies, and they are helping to redefine our world.

I believe we are all creative, the expression varies, to me it is not second nature IT IS my nature. As a result, I probably developed more right-brain thinking skills and so, creativity and creative thinking are the way I think about everything from taking brushing my teeth to problem solving. But how can people who are not accustomed to thinking in a creative way, learn to do so?

Adding structure to creativity is how you codify your ideas

It’s true that creativity can lead to innovation, but sometimes……. it just leads to doing something with no particular quantifiable results other than providing a great deal of personal satisfaction, in business, where ROI measures success, this can be unsettling. But the truth is you can’t force creativity or innovation in business, it has to be a part of the culture, and it has to be “native” to the people in the company – you can’t just make a shift to a creative culture happen over night. 

One of the first systems I learned about that helps to give structure to the creative process is Julia Cameron’s “Artists Way”. It has tools for creative people, one of the most important is a daily ritual called “Morning Pages’. And even though this process was created for artists, I wholeheartedly encourage anyone to try it.

There is little mystery, like anything else, creativity takes practice, to become a music virtuous it takes practice, to become a great painter you must paint tirelessly…. so allow yourself the room to practice being creative – even if it means finger painting in your office when no one is looking! 

Related posts:

1. Online Destinations for Boosting Creativity
2. What are you doing to promote creativity at your company?
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A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of. ~ Jane Austen

Money doesn’t buy happiness – or maybe it does ???

This is a question that has been on my mind, because I have noticed a widening chasm between the happiness of the “haves, and those that have less”. People who are comfortable financially and are financially stable seem to be MUCH happier than those who are not, they seem unscathed from the stress of these difficult times. Is their money like an invisible shield that keeps unhappiness at bay?

As the middle class dwindles, and the overall happiness rating in the US drops, I wonder if happiness will be reserved for the 1% of our country OR will we be challenged as a society to redefine happiness? 

There is no doubt that across the board a desire to be happy is prevalent in not just the US, but in our Western culture, and a happy life is very much the preferred life. People who are considered successful, have influence, economic power, stability and tend to be happy.

In a study conducted in Britain, by the Institute of Economic Affairs called “The Pursuit of Happiness”, determined a direct correlation between happiness levels and the amount of wealth a person has accumulated. The study goes as far as to say that CASH can make us happy – and that CASH, is the most important factor in a person’s happiness.

Another study conducted at Princeton, goes as far as to claim that the threshold in the US for happiness is a $75,000 household income (even in high-cost cities), the study analyzed information gathered from 450,000 responses to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index (GHWBI).  

Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer

The big question is - Does happiness lead to success or does success lead to happiness?

In a study by LYUBOMIRSKY, KING, AND DIENER they actually evaluated the success of happy people, and concluded that happiness DOES lead to success. This makes total sense – who wants to deal with a miserable person with a gloomy outlook? I see this in sales all the time – people who are top performers in sales tend to be the happy ones.

A new way to measure a country’s success?

In the past 100 years, our world has become increasingly focused on the correlation of success = money = happiness. Even the way we measure the success of a country is based on their economic well being, and although the tiny country of Bhuttan may have invented the term “Gross National Happiness”, the governments of major economies including France and Britain, are coming up with measurements that may revise the meaning of success to include other criteria. Some of these measurements are based on studies like the Compendium of OECD well-being indicators which is an attempt to evaluate “well being” in developed economies, and takes into account factors like health, education, political freedom, housing and safety. The study helps provide a better measurement for the quality of life, inequalities that may exist amongst certain segments of the population, and how to provide better policies. 

Check out this interesting interactive index which allows you to compare countries and criteria from the newly published report How’s life? Measuring well-being

Click here to view the embedded video.

Happiness in the US

In the US, where we are consistently ranked poorly on work-life balance, there seems to be a move by companies to consider the well being and happiness at the work place – all in the name of increasing productivity of course. But I don’t know of any company that is doing anything significant in this regard, I did find a list of the 50 Happiest Companies for 2012, you will be surprised by some of the organizations on this list! 

Of course, there are a few outliers like Zappos, Google, Facebook etc, but you don’t hear of any “happy employee” initiatives from major corporations. It is nice to think that one day there could be a Chief Wellness/Happiness Officer in the C Suite ….

I believe that being happy is in fact part of being successful, the road to true happiness is to focus on what makes you happy in the moment not on attaining it in the future. Living in the moment with an open and happy heart can open our minds to opportunities at work and in life to attain more of what we want.  It’s recognizing and taking these opportunities that will lead to success.

The successful and happy ones dance lightly with life.
~ Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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3. Where are the opportunities in the “New Normal” economy

In that weird time between Christmas and the start of the next year, I love reviewing the year. My 2011 has been quite remarkable, I accomplished many goals and ticked off a few things on my bucket list, including graduating from Thunderbird in Europe, attending Sundance, visiting India and Germany – and overall, just had a wonderful time of travel, friends, and family throughout. 

Now it’s time to read the Top and Best of lists for the year, and as 2011 winds to an end, and we start to get a peek at 2012, it’s time to review what 2011 brought us…. and some of the lists it has spawned.

Here is a list of some of the Best Of lists of 2011 that I have found… I would LOVE to hear some of yours!

1. 50 Economic Numbers From 2011 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe
2. 19 Biggest Social Media Moments of 2011
3. 2011 Top Ten Global Topics
4. Top Selling DVD’s
5. 2011 Best Companies to work for
6. The Best Movies of 2011
7. The Best Artists of 2011
8. Top 10 Songs of 2011
9. The Best Games Of 2011- Awards
10. The Best of Ted Digital
11. The Best Cocktails of 2011 and where to drink them
12. Top Cars of 2011
13. The Top 10 Marketing Infographics
14. Best Photos Of The Year 2011
15. The Best of 2011 by Discovery
16. 10 Best Commercials of 2011
17. 2011 Year in Review: Best in art
18. 50 Best iPhone Apps 2011
19. 2011 Top Ten TV Shows
20. The 50 Best Websites of 2011
21. Best Books Of 2011
22. 2011 Best Dressed Celebrity Women
23. Forbes Most Powerful People
24. Best Of 2011 Pop Culture’s Tastiest bits
25. Best of 2011 – The Superficial
26. Forbes Most Powerful Women
27. The World’s Best Hotels 2011
28. Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs
29. The Best Mixtapes of 2011
30. The Best of 2011: Job Search and Recruiting
31. The Best of 2011 – AOL
32. Best of 2011 Brands and Films
33. Most Admired list of 2011
34. Top 10 Wines of 2011
35. 2011 Best Places to live
36. The Most Viral Fortune 500 Brands

So the Myan calendar ends in 2012. So what? My calendar ends in December. I just buy a new one. ~ Mr. Youngblood Geography teacher

And in 2012, pending that the world won’t end, here are some interesting lists of things to look forward to.

1. Color of the year 2012 – Tangerine Tango
2. The Top 10 Franchises for 2012
3. Where to Invest 2012
4. 2012: Beginning of the End or Why the World Won’t End?
5. The List: 2012

Now as I am thinking ahead to 2012, making my resolutions, planning, strategizing and imagining what the year ahead may bring… I wish you all an amazing 2012.

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1. Top 10 Up-And-Coming Tech Cities
2. YOUR personal image is part of YOUR personal brand
3. Overwhelmed, Now What?