May 16, 2008

Women 2.0 Conference - The Rest Of The Story

So here’s the rest of my Women 2.0 Conference story.  If you want to see tons of pictures (which sadly I and my deep pink Banana Republic shirt don’t appear) please check out the official Women 2.0 Conference Wrap Up post.  You can also see Sophia Perl’s (another semi-finalist) post on it here.

Friday - May 9, 2008
I took my rented yellow car and drove around the Palo Alto/Menlo Park area to meet some people.  I met Jeff Nolan, who was one of the venture investors in my first company, for lunch at a place called Buck’s.  We only just got to know each other while at my last company before I left, but he seemed to be one of the good guys.  I mentioned him in a post I did about angels and venture capitalists a while back.  We might get to work together again and this time in hopefully a more creative and collaborative way.

I tried to meet up with Guy Kawasaki later that afternoon but he had something mildly important to do like make some sort of silly book submission deadline, so we traded tweets and emails instead.  Then I went to the Stanford mall.  I’m not a big shopper, but since I had a few hours to kill, and my husband wanted me to get him a Stanford t-shirt (It’s one of his alma-maters) I wandered around a bit and read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, but was not feeling in the “now” at the time so didn’t make much progress.  So I got some hot chocolate, my rings cleaned, and happened to find a couple of light-weight jackets at really good sale prices to protect me from the Bay Area cool evenings!

Later I had the pleasure of meeting up with Maryam Scoble for wine and fabulous brie with a flakey crust. Yum! Maryam and I met through our blogs.  I initially heard about her and her husband Robert Scoble from our very own Austin based Connie Reece.  Robert even did a Qik video of me at SXSW but I don’t think that many pregnant moms or parents with newborn babies, preemies or twins are watching those videos.  Go figure!

Saturday - May 10, 2008 (conference day)

You can see the agenda for the conference here.  It was an interesting day in a tent near the Stanford golf course.  Walking in grass was a challenge for many of us who were wearing heels.  Those wearing pointed heels especially suffered by sinking into the grass/dirt, but since I would trip and fall on my face in pointed heels, I wear more flat ones.

The most interesting sound bites, in my opinion, came from the Power Panel: “Igniting the spark through strategies taught and lessons learned”

Terri Ghio, Unique Solutions and TBS Connect said: Make sure you have an audience, a secret sauce, strategic alliances, and ability to build the blocks and barriers for success.

Amy Love, Protégé Performance Group said: Build an inner circle, share your dream, think big, and have the confidence & energy to move forward.

Dr. Jwala Karnik, JwalaCo said: Be open to inspiration, tell people what you want to do, and just take the first step!

Dr. Maggie Haertsch, VOICEMAP said: Have passion and be totally committed, focused, and fearless!

Pat McEntee, AuxoGlobal said: Women entrepreneurs are different and that’s OK.  Women look at things they want to spend their time on differently.  Women build different companies. The fact that many retail companies are currently dominated by men is not going to last long, but women should build companies that men feel comfortable in.  By the way, Pat is a guy!

I mentioned the winners of the napkin business plan challenge in my yellow car post, so I won’t mention it here again, but I did want to mention one company and founder who was on one of the panels: Erica Estrada of d.light design.  She is impressive and her company is very cool!  They make affordable, small, solar power lighting units for people in third world countries who have no access to electricity.  So the kids in who live in shacks can study/read after dark and parents can cook or work after dark without having to use a kerosene lamp that not only stinks and has to be bad for your lungs, but also doesn’t last very long.  I really do wish her and her company great luck, good partners, fabulous investors and perfect timing!

I ended the day by eating sushi with the friends I was staying with.  They even took a picture of me (see below) drinking this huge cup of sake! The waitress finished the bottle on me, so the sake overflowed into its holding bowl.  I was glad I wasn’t the one driving us home in my rented yellow car.

Coming soon I’ll post an update on my SEO experiences, so you might want to subscribe to read more about the birth pains of a web business.  It’s not pretty.

May 14, 2008

A Yellow Car and Women 2.0

So I lost the memory stick with the pictures I had taken while in the Bay Area for the Women 2.0 conference.  That’s why it has taken me this long to do my first post about it.  OK, so it’s not that long because I got back Sunday and it’s now Wednesday, but it feels long in Internet/blog time!  I had to harass the friends I stayed with to email me the pictures I took with their camera because, yes, I forgot to take my camera with me.  I guess when your brain is also trying to keep up with two kids, things like cameras get forgotten from time to time.  Thank goodness we live in a time where lost memory sticks can be backed up by good friends and email!

As you may know, I was selected as a semi-finalist but not a finalist, and decided to go to the conference anyway.  I’m glad I did.  I saw the 5 finalists present and was quite confident that my company, and several others I met while there, would have probably been better (i.e., more fundable) than at least 2 of the teams that presented.  But hey, it would be hard for most people to decide what teams are the best based on a one-page summary and 2 minute video.  

Koollage was the winner and their tag line is Kool, Kolorful snippets of your digital world to go.  The People’s choice award was Gaiagy and offers residential and commercial building owners recommendations for how they can most economically make their operations more eco-friendly. To see a full write-up on the winners on TechCrunch go here.  But I digress.

It all started with a yellow car.  I reserved a car at Hertz and got a pretty good $22/day rate and the lady at the counter asked me if I wanted a yellow car.  I had expected a compact Hyundai or something so I said sure, but what do you mean by yellow?  She said it was sporty and the notes said it was yellow.  She told me if I didn’t like it I could exchange it for something else.  I half expected it to be some sort of light yellow, champagne color, but it was in fact bright yellow and here’s the picture to prove it.  I smiled when I saw it and figured everyone could see me so chances of my being hit in California traffic would be significantly reduced so I took that Chevy Cobolt, sporty, 2-door with sun roof car and headed towards highway 101!

Stay tuned for the rest of the Women 2.0 and yellow car story by subscribing to this blog.  I’ll be writing about who I met and what I learned in the days to come.

May 11, 2008

Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day!  I put this poem I wrote for Mother’s Day in a previous post, and wanted to share it again here.  I hope you enjoy it along with a picture taken by a good friend of mine, Sandy Blanchard.

Motherhood and Childhood

What does it mean to be a mother?
Is it love?
Is it fear?
Is it feeling dear?

What does it mean to be a child?
Is it love?
Is it joy?
Is it having a favorite toy?

As mothers we hope for our child’s happiness
We pray for our child’s health
We hope they are treated with kindness
We pray our children find peace in the world

As children we live for today
We anticipate a life of fun
We hope for a million tomorrows
We cannot imagine a world without our mothers

As mothers we cannot imagine a world without our children
We are one and the same…

Aruni Gunasegaram
March 2008

May 7, 2008

Going to Cali for Women 2.0

You might have heard, I was a semi-finalist for the Women 2.0 napkin business plan competition.  Well, they informed me on May 3, I didn’t make the finals.  Sigh.  But trying to look on the bright side, I’m actually kind of relieved because now I can focus on networking and learning instead of being stressed out about giving my pitch!  I’m starting to think I’ll have to get a job to support my entrepreneurial addiction.  Too bad I didn’t get rich off of my first entrepreneurial endeavor…

I’d like to profusely thank Sylvester Becker (a.k.a. German Cowboy) of Dana Lynn Media for helping me pull together a very cool 2 minute pitch video which I can’t share with the world yet, but maybe soon.  Sylvester was awesome to work with and so creative!  We used crayons.  We used Little People to illustrate our future customers as well as small figures of Dora the Explorer and her friends Boots and Benny.  Although I think Boots got cut out in editing.  My daughter loves Dora and in fact some people say she looks like her especially now with her new haircut.

I had already decided that even if I didn’t make the finals, I was going to the Women 2.0 conference (check out the site for the fabulous list of panel speakers - entrepreneurs and venture capitalists) this weekend in the Bay Area where the skies are blue, the weather is usually predictable, the money made in tech is gigantic, and everything is way too expensive.  Except for, oddly, the reasonably priced rental car I got from Hertz.  Thankfully, some friends are letting me crash at their place so I can save money by not getting a hotel.

Anyway, in case you are interested in the names of the finalists, here you go:

I’ll do a post about it after I get back, so Subscribe Now so you don’t miss a thing about my sure-to-be idyllic, fantastic, jaw dropping trip to Cali!  I wonder if I can find a way to eat some sushi while I’m there…

We Are In Baby Heaven a.k.a. Babies “R” Us!

We have some exciting news today that I just had to share!  We did a press release with UpSpring Baby about our partnership to offer free subscriptions to Babble Soft web and mobile applications for customers who purchase their milkscreen product in Babies “R” Us!  UpSpring is a great company with awesome women/mom entrepreneurs at the helm.  Please let new parents know how they can try two cool products for the price of one.  It’s sort of like you buy one, you get the higher priced item for free.  Don’t you love those kind of offers.

If you are a blogger, know a blogger, or a journalist who might be interested in telling their readers about it especially since it’s so close to Mother’s Day, I would be truly grateful if you mentioned it to them.  Or even a Stumble of this post, would be so appreciated. 

The press release is below and is also on our site and on PRWeb.  I think it’s kind of cool that a Consumer Packaged Goods company and a Tech company are offering solutions for new moms, together in Babies “R” Us!  

Babble Soft and UpSpring Baby Offer Free Subscriptions to Baby Insights for Milkscreen Customers

 Customers who purchase a Milkscreen 3-pack, available at Babies “R” Us, will get a free subscription to Babble Soft web and mobile applications.

AUSTIN, TX - May 7, 2008 - For a limited time only, customers who purchase the Milkscreen^TM 3-pack at Babies “R” Us and other retailers for $4.99, will get a free 3 month subscription valued at $19.95 to Baby Insights^TM and Baby Say Cheese^TM!

“We are thrilled about the opportunity to provide our customers with access to Babble Soft’s unique web and mobile applications!” said Lisa Williamson, founder and CEO of UpSpring Baby. “Our customers use milkscreen as a simple, two minute test to detect alcohol in breast milk.  Every woman metabolizes alcohol differently so milkscreen allows Mom to relax and remove the guesswork and Babble Soft’s Baby Insight’s product helps new moms keep track of their breastfeeding and pumping schedule as well as how much pumped milk they feed their baby.  We feel that giving our customers the chance to try out easy-to-use tools to help them manage their breastfeeding and pumping schedules is a huge plus for busy moms.”

“Our goal at Babble Soft is to help make the transition into parenthood easier by taking some of the worry away about whether baby is getting what he/she needs.” said Aruni Gunasegaram, founder and CEO of Babble Soft. “We are excited about partnering with UpSpring Baby to not only offer their customers an easy way to try our Baby Insights application to help them track pumping and breastfeeding, but also our Baby Say Cheese first year online baby album with milestones and family tree.”

Baby Insights helps caregivers gain insight into baby’s breast & bottle feeding, sleep periods, diaper changes, medicine doses, immunization records, as well as mom’s breastfeeding, pumping and medicine intake. Having important information stored in one location makes communication between parents, their nanny, babysitters, grandparents, or doctors seamless and reliable and gives new parents insight into their baby’s patterns to help with crucial baby care decisions.

Baby Say Cheese lets you create a wonderful online baby’s first year photo album with milestones such as ‘first crawl, first smile, first word’ and family tree that you can share with friends and family.  You can even send fun, cute picture postcards of any of your baby’s milestones to anyone with an email address!

About UpSpring Baby

UpSpring, founded in 2005 and based in Austin, Texas, is a premiere parenting and child consumer brand that consists of popular labels such as Walking Wings^® and Milkscreen^TM. Founded by momprenuers, the company is dedicated to offering parents and children the most innovative and trustworthy health, wellness and safety products available in the baby care industry. The founders are inspired by how many unmet needs still exist in the childcare industry and how many great ideas other parents have to offer. UpSpring, has worked with designers, medical experts and testing laboratories, to ensure fresh and more natural product alternatives that are safer and supportive for every facet of babies’ early childhood.  To learn more, please visit us at http://www.upspringbaby.com.

About Babble Soft

Babble Soft is based in Austin, Texas and creates products that help make the transition into parenthood easier.  Whether you need breastfeeding support, are experiencing baby sleep issues, are expecting twins, or taking care of a premature (preemie) baby and would like to create your baby’s first year album, Babble Soft offers unique, easy-to-use Web and Mobile software solutions that improve communication between caregivers.  Babble Soft makes a great baby shower gift that you can easily send via Email to any new parent anywhere in the world!  To learn more and purchase Babble Soft applications, please visit http://www.babblesoft.com.  

For more information, please contact:

Gillian Robb
Upspring, LLC
(512) 828-7988
Gillian(at)UpSpringBaby(dot)com

Aruni Gunasegaram
Babble Soft, LLC
(512) 961-6002    �
aruni(a)babblesoft(dot)com                                                                                 �

May 5, 2008

Missed Baby Camp But Still Got Some Goodies

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it to Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Camp but fortunately they sent me some goodies.  My kids aren’t babies anymore so some of the items I’ll probably give to some friends with new babies or maybe even use them myself!  They wrote a nice note saying they were disappointed I could not make it to the camp and sent me some of their classic and new products:

Baby lotion
Moisture care baby wash
Baby cream
No more tangles® shampoo + conditioner - straight hair
No more tangles® shampoo + conditioner - curly hair
2 bottles of no more tangles® leave-in conditioner

Smelling the scent of their classic line brought back memories of when my kids were babies.  Sigh.  Nice for a moment of nostalgia, but I’m thankful those early days are over!  We still have an almost empty bottle of their original baby shampoo that we sometimes use on our daughter.

Here are links to some of the posts other bloggers who attended wrote about the baby camp:

Mom’s Favorite Stuff: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

Plain Jane Mom: So why did J&J send me to New Jersey anyway?

SoCal Stuff: My Mommy Went to Baby Camp and All She Brought Me Was This Lousy Lightup Mirror

Maryamie: What happened at Camp? Johnson’s Camp Baby Report Day 2 and 3

From dates to diapers: Camp Baby

Marketing Roadmaps: Camp Baby Post Mortem Part One: The Mom Bloggers’ Perspective  (a long, but good one!)

The LadyBug and her Blogging Mama: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

Wow, I even found the Flickr J&J Camp Baby pictures and J&J Camp Baby blog they set up for the event!

I’m sure there are more posts out there about Johnson’s Baby Camp, so please leave the link to your or someone else’s post in the comments below and I can add it to the list.  I would search the Internet endlessly myself, but I’m home with a recovering sick kid and wondering how I’m going to get caught up on all of my other work.  Plus, I’m feeling a bit achy myself.  Bleh!

I only have one request for J&J. Please give me more than a few weeks notice next time because I will take any excuse to get pampered!

May 2, 2008

Moms Gone Viral

I was planning to write a post updating everyone on our search engine optimization experience today but the real world injected itself with a sick kid at home.  High fever and rescheduling meetings doesn’t leave much time for writing long, heavy posts.  Plus I had to sneak in a nap in the afternoon while our daughter napped since we didn’t get much sleep the night before.

So instead, while my husband takes care of the kids this evening, I thought I’d write a post on the example of an unanticipated, viral marketing story with a mom twist.  So here it goes…

Once upon a time I met a friend on the Internet.  I found her blog and commented away.  After some time, we realized we had similar visions and she invited me do a guest post on her blog called Entrepreneurship: A Blessing or a Curse.  We kept in touch, spoke on the phone a few times about ways to work together, became twitter pals, and finally met in person at SXSW here in Austin back in March and clicked even more. 

While at SXSW she got further proof of what she already knew which was that the name of her blog, then called eMoms at Home, was not really reflective of the demographics of her readers and would-be readers so she had a mini-meltdown, picked herself up and came up with a cool new name called Sparkplugging!  Since she was and still is an advocate of entrepreneurs and especially those who work from home, her cool, new name opens the door wide open to many of us who are moms or not but like to spark up ideas and play with them until something happens.

So after SXSW, she went home and saw a post about dads on twitter and decided to do one for moms.  Within hours she got tons of replies and created a post called The Ultimate List of Moms on Twitter that started with 250 moms.  I commented and subscribed to comments on that post and every day new moms would leave a comment with their twitter name until May 1, 2008 that is.  Twitter sent out an email to everyone yesterday, May 1, and in it they included:

Mother’s Day: On The Way

We’ve noticed a trend of parents twittering the moments of their baby’s birth so we know there are some new moms on Twitter. Are you a mom on Twitter? Is your own mom on Twitter? Maybe you even made “The Ultimate List of Moms on Twitter”? Mother’s Day is just around the corner so don’t forget to @reply the moms you know with a thoughtful phrase–but keep it under 140 characters, moms are busy people.

List of Moms on Twitter: http://tinyurl.com/6cxgp5

And today I had 150+ comments in my inbox and they are still coming.  Now she has close to 400 comments on that one post! Did she do anything extraordinary to make it happen? Not really.  Did she tell people on twitter about it? Yes, of course.  Did she know others would tell and re-tell more people about the list? Possibly.  Did she know twitter would pick it up in their mass email to everyone? Doubtful (but I don’t know what went on behind the scenes).  So in hindsight what played in her favor to have a post she wrote on April 8 (before her name change) take on a life of its own?  Here’s what I think:

• She took the initiative to do something that ended up being quite time consuming, but she saw from the responses it resonated with hundreds of moms on twitter that it was a worthwhile endeavor. 
• She told her friends about it who re-tweeted and blogged about it. 
• The tweeters kept the link going within twitter and in the blogosphere. 
• Mother’s Day was around the corner and the guys (I think they are all men) at twitter saw the activity and might have said to themselves “Hmmm. How can we mention a major holiday, get brownie points with our wives/mothers, and promote twitter at the same time” and voila a mention was born!

UPDATE: I sent a link to @Biz to this post and he informed me there are several women who work at twitter!  So of course I followed them.  Here is his tweet: 

biz @aruni awesome! I included the moms list because it was noteworthy - also, women who work at Twitter: @crystal @krissy @alissa @lane @sara

In case you haven’t guessed who this friend is, it’s Wendy Piersall.  I guess only Wendy can tell us if she planned all of this, but to me it’s another example of viral marketing that in hindsight makes sense but when started, the current result would have been highly unpredictable. 

To me, this is why it is so hard to orchestrate a viral campaign.  You can plan everything down to the “t” and still not have it work out the way you wanted.  It’s hard to predict when there are so many variables.  You can also just do something you enjoy doing that helps others and see a “spark” turn into a flame!  Way to go Wendy!

Oh and by the way, I am @aruni and Wendy is @eMom on twitter…

April 28, 2008

Give the Gift of Peace-of-Mind This Mother’s Day

I don’t often do a full on post about Babble Soft, but considering Mother’s Day is coming up on May 11, 2008 and we are offering 15% off of all subscriptions (click here for full press release) to Baby Insights and Baby Say Cheese using code MOTHER#1 on the Purchase Form through May 15, I figured it would be OK.

So for all the new moms out there who want a record of their baby’s newborn activities, who want a place to create a unique baby’s first year photo album with a family tree, who want a better way to communicate about childcare with their spouse, nanny, sitters, and family members, this one’s for you!

Gift subscriptions also make great Mother’s Day and baby shower gifts for those couples who you know will want breastfeeding support or see how often mom pumped and share when their baby ate, slept, and pooped!

I even came up with a poem that I had submitted for a local parenting related publication.  It wasn’t selected so I thought I’d share it here.  As you can tell, I didn’t major in poetry but I hope you like it anyway!

Motherhood and Childhood

What does it mean to be a mother?
Is it love?
Is it fear?
Is it feeling dear?

What does it mean to be a child?
Is it love?
Is it joy?
Is it having a favorite toy?

As mothers we hope for our child’s happiness
We pray for our child’s health
We hope they are treated with kindness
We pray our children find peace in the world

As children we live for today
We anticipate a life of fun
We hope for a million tomorrows
We cannot imagine a world without our mothers

As mothers we cannot imagine a world without our children
We are one and the same…

Aruni Gunasegaram
March 2008

April 26, 2008

7 Tips for Successful Breastfeeding

I babble about business, babies, and parenthood on this blog, so those of you who come here to read my posts on entrepreneurship but do not have babies, please forward this post to your friends and family who do have babies. For those who have babies and dabble in business, these tips might be right up your alley.  If you have babies and no interest in business, then send it on to the folks you know who are knee-deep in business and encourage them to have a baby!  To check out more baby advice, check out the baby tips category. 

7 Tips for Successful Breastfeeding
by Aruni Gunasegaram

My now 5 ½ year old son was born by emergency c-section making my post birth recovery time challenging because a) I was exhausted, b) he didn’t seem to sleep very much and c) I developed a breast infection.  Now a) and b) are par for the course when having a baby but c) knocked me senseless.  I didn’t want to take any more medication given that I had just come off of several after the c-section so I waited to see if the pain would go away.   When I reached the point where I would wake up from a restless sleep with tears in my eyes from the excruciating pain and I began having thoughts like “I wish I could die right now, but I can’t because I have to feed my baby,” I began a round of antibiotics.  Within a week or so I felt sane again.

Now part of the reason I contracted the breast infection was because I wasn’t breastfeeding correctly.  It took about 7 to 10 days for my milk to come in and then because of the infection probably 10 weeks for me to quit wondering how the human race survived before bottles and formula!  I ended up breastfeeding our son for about 7 months and our daughter about 9 months when it was apparent to me that we were ready to move on to the next phase of our mother/baby relationship.  Here are some tips that helped me establish a successful breastfeeding relationship with my children.

1. Mentally prepare yourself that it can take up to 8 to 12 weeks. Some insightful person…maybe a nurse or my lactation consultant, told me “Give it 8 to 12 weeks before making a decision on whether you want to quit breastfeeding.” So I told myself ‘this is a marathon, breastfeeding is important to me and my husband, and I can’t quit before 12 weeks.’ I remember saying that to myself almost every day and when I was 10 weeks into it I realized “Wow, this isn’t so bad. In fact it’s pretty darn neat!”

2. It’s OK to supplement! I know I will be chastised by the pure breastfeeding advocates for saying this, but in my opinion it is OK to supplement with formula especially if you feel something is wrong with you or your baby. I was so afraid to supplement because I was repeatedly told that supplementing was the worst thing I could do, which of course made me feel like an awful mom. But let me tell you, if you are exhausted and your baby isn’t gaining weight, it is one of the best things you can do. After feeling guilty for a week because my milk wasn’t coming in and my baby wasn’t gaining weight, and trying to survive a breast infection, I decided to supplement just a little bit and what a relief because it helped me gain my confidence back. I had more confidence when our daughter was born 2 ½ years later. I smiled at the nurses who said I shouldn’t supplement and did it anyway for the first few weeks of her life.  UPDATE: Based on a reader’s comment below, it wasn’t clear that even though we supplemented in the first several weeks, I also continued to pump.  It is so true that if you quit pumping, your body will think you need to produce less milk. So I pumped and I took time to rest a little longer to build up my milk supply and that’s why my milk came in! Supplementing is not for everyone but in my opinion the sanity and health of the mom and baby are of utmost importance!

3. Don’t be afraid to take that baby off! Some well meaning nurses told me that when the baby is finished he will fall off. They didn’t know my son. He would stay on for over an hour on each side just suckling half asleep if I let him. I remember breastfeeding sessions that would last 90 minutes which when I had to start over again in an hour and a half reduced me to tears. I believe not pulling him off when I thought he was done contributed to my getting the breast infection. With my daughter I produced so much milk that after 8 to 10 weeks I was able to take her off sometimes at 7 to 10 minutes!

4. Keep a breastfeeding log. So that you have an idea of how much time you are breastfeeding and maybe even what position you are breastfeeding in, keep a breastfeeding log. When our son was born I used a form I created in Microsoft Excel to jot down often illegible notes. Fortunately when our daughter was born, we had an alpha version of our mobile software program, Baby Insights, available. I could easily keep track of my pumping and breastfeeding schedule which helped me understand her feeding patterns and how much milk I was producing.

5. Drink plenty of water. Drinking plenty of fluids, eating well, and getting good rest is a huge contributor to successful breastfeeding. In fact a vast majority of breast milk is water. Keep a bottle of water next to you when you breastfeed.

6. Ask and/or pay for help. Whether it’s a lactation consultant, a post-partum doula, your significant other, or a friend who has breastfed before, ask for help. A good lactation consultant can give you great tips on how to get your baby to latch on and feed properly. If you can afford a post-partum doula a few hours per week, they can be a god-send with both household and breastfeeding support. Ask your spouse to help you keep the breastfeeding log, bring you water, fresh fruit, snacks, and the baby!

7. Relax. I know this is easier said than done, but I found the more relaxed I was, the more my milk flowed. Lack of sleep and stress actually reduces your body’s ability to create breast milk. And worse you may start to resent the process and maybe even your baby! Watch a funny show or movie. Take a nap. Take a leisurely walk. Chat with a friend. Or just bawl your eyes out…we all know what a stress relief that can be!

Once your milk flow is established consider donating to a Mother’s Milk Bank near you.  I donated to the Mother’s Milk Bank of Austin with my daughter and it was a wonderful feeling knowing that my milk was going to help sick and premature babies.

______

If you like this tip, you might be interested in these too:

Increasing Breast Milk Supply by Carole Hayes at Alias Tex

15 Tips for Surviving The World’s Youngest Insomniac by Rose at From the Park Bench

Why Keeping a Daily Journal Is Important for Moms and Nannies

How To Properly Swaddle A Baby 

Tips on Co-Sleeping and Ways to use a Co-sleeper

Keeping a Baby Food Journal by Neena at A Mom’s Life at NeenMachine.com

Note to new readers: these tips are based on our experiences, as well as those of our friends and readers. Please always consult with your doctor before implementing any tip that might impact the health of your baby. If you have a tip you’d like to submit please send an email to blogger at babblesoft dot com.  Please check the ‘baby tips’ category to make sure your tip (in some form or fashion) hasn’t already been posted. If it has been, feel free to comment on that post and support the tip. We also welcome respectful challenges to the tips because as is noted in our inaugural baby tip ‘everything is relative!’ We will, of course, give anyone who submits a tip we publish credit and lotsa link love!

April 24, 2008

Why Aren’t There More Rich Women Entrepreneurs?

That’s the headline of a Wall Street Journal blog post that came out yesterday: Why Aren’t There More Rich Women Entrepreneurs?  It starts with:

Recent studies show that there are more wealthy women than ever before. While a growing number are making it by climbing the corporate ladder, most of today’s wealthy women are still making their money through inheritance or divorce. A scarce few are making their fortunes by launching big companies - the most common source of big riches for today’s men.

and concludes with:

There are two explanations for the female shortfall, according to the USA Today story. First, starting a business usually requires capital, and men have easier access to the clubby world of bankers, venture capitalists and private-equity. Second, the article says, women are more devoted to their family and have less time than men to start businesses.

The blog post is interesting but the comments just blow me away because it’s like I was reading comments from people back from the dark ages.  Most of the comments were well thought out but several posted by people not choosing to put their name down were really shallow.  I mean do people really think like this:

There is this little thing called a brain. Most women are severely lacking in this department, and as such have been relegated to house duties for most of history. Now that women are clamoring for equality, we see that they really aren’t equal at all.

Talk about issues! Other thoughts from the commenters:

Seems to me that women are better at following rules than men, hence they do better in structured institutions (schools, large companies, institutions) whereas men are more intrinsically rule breakers and therefore on average do less well, but sometimes succeed spectacularly.  - Bill

While I agree that risk aversion plays a part, one also has to look at Analysis Paralysis. As ‘not trying to offend’ points out, men often “execute and follow through based purely on logic”. Women (and I am one, early 30s, well-employed, trying to start my own company at the same time) tend to need full answers before they act. - More than just risk aversion

Despite advances for working women, I think it is certainly the case that they are not supported by husbands. I am about to be married and my fiancee is asking me to quit my job to raise a family - despite making twice as much as him.  - so true

To be an entrepeneur one has to be completely comfortable with business risk. In my experience, women as a group
are far less willing to risk everything they have for a business idea. This may be a gender specific biological trait related to the female’s reproductive functions. - Orrin Schwab

Many of the paths to entrepreneurial success are only open to people who have college degrees in science or engineering. Most women don’t have them and it certainly limits their opportunities. - Kevin

I think women also tend to have their eye on the “big picture,” and define success much more broadly than in dollars and cents. This can lead to decisions like cutting back on work hours or taking less challenging jobs in order to have more time to spend on family or other personal pursuits. At the end of the day, this may lead to less money - but greater happiness.  - e c

Sometimes I can’t believe we are still having discussions and comments like this.  Why can’t we just get along and let women choose to do what they want to do without analyzing every thing about it? If a woman wants to stay at home with the kids full time and be CEO of the house, great! If she wants to work from home, great! If she wants to work outside of the home, great! If she wants to work part time, great! If she wants to work full time, great!  If she doesn’t want kids, great! If she wants to try to be Bill Gates, fine. If she wants to be the CEO of PepsiCo, awesome! If she wants to be head of the PTA, cool!

We are all (hopefully) doing the best we can. Us women were given the gift of being able to incubate and give birth to the future generation of humans, honestly that in and of itself is success! Sadly that ability is often sort of brushed aside as not being as valuable as being a billionaire entrepreneur/CEO.  Honestly, I can think of several former billionaire CEOs who would have traded their fate to be a woman/mom.

April 21, 2008

Nine Tips to Recession-Proof Your Career

I saw this great post in Renee Trudeau’s recent email update and asked her if I could re-publish it on my blog and she agreed!  Given what we are seeing happening around us in the economy, I thought this article was extremely relevant. 

Nine Tips to Recession-Proof Your Career
By Renee Peterson Trudeau

“You have the choice between being the victim of circumstances or being empowered through them.”  Carol Orsborn, author, Inner Excellence: Spiritual Principles of Life-Driven Business

Many of our clients are asking how to respond to the volatility and uncertainty in the current job/economic market. Here are some insights to support you:   

• Move into the driver’s seat. Job stability (and loyalty) are a thing of the past. Take control of your career path. You’re in charge, don’t hand your power (or your future) over to someone else. Read the book “Work Less, Make More,” by Jennifer White.

• Pause. Then, take time to plan. Now is a great time to hit the pause button and ask the important career questions: What do I most want at this life stage? What do I do best? What type of work/environment is a fit for me? (Consider attending our Career Mojo Workshop to help you hone in on how to determine what type of work is a fit for you. Click here for more information.)

• Be prepared. It can take days to create a really outstanding resume. Update your resume (and cover letter) now and be thinking about references, even if you’re not ready to leap. Make sure and highlight recent awards/accomplishments/promotions.

• Stay connected and make time for networking. Over and over again I meet professionals who were so consumed by their current jobs, they lost touch completely with their community and contacts. Take time to build and nurture relationships and attend professional organization and networking meetings. Read the book “Never Eat Alone,” on authentic networking by Keith Ferrazzi.

• Know-and leverage-your strengths. Ideally, 80% of your time at work should be devoted to activities that you naturally excel at. Know where your brilliance lies and leverage your innate strengths. This is how you can bring the greatest value to your company AND how you substantially increase your income.

• Save and live lean. Give yourself as much financial flexibility and breathing room as possible over the next 12 months. Live below your means. Cut out unnecessary expenses. Enjoy free or low-cost leisure activities (there are hundreds in Austin!). Create a budget and stick to it.

• Be open to new possibilities. Layoffs, mergers, buyouts and outsourcing decisions don’t have to signal bad news. How can you take advantage of these changes? Where are there opportunities for new products/services? What niche can you fill? What problem is not being solved that you can address? Are there new internal opportunities within your company you should consider?

• Stay in the loop on changes in your field/industry. What are the biggest challenges facing your current industry? How has your field changed in the last three years? Where are the employee shortages in your profession? What are the reoccurring themes or headlines at your professional conferences or in industry publications? Learn to be agile.

• Take time to enhance your skills/talents. This is a great time to brush up on leadership or management skills, receive career or success coaching, reach out to mentors for guidance or sign up for in-house mentoring or training programs. Don’t isolate yourself-reach out and ask for help. People have a genuine desire to help others-we’ve all been there.

Finally, be kind to yourself. Realize that there is a lot of fear in the air right now due to all the uncertainty. Be discerning and own your feelings, not others’.    

Renee Peterson Trudeau is a career/life-balance coach and president of Austin-based Career Strategists, and author of The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal: How to Reclaim, Rejuvenate and Re-Balance Your Life.  Visit http://www.reneetrudeau.com/ to start/join a self-renewal circle using the Guide, receive monthly self-renewal and life balance tips or order the book.   For more information on Renee Trudeau click here.

April 17, 2008

I’m a Semi-Finalist for the Women 2.0 Napkin Business Challenge!

I made it to the semi-finals for the Women 2.0 business plan competition in California for my company Babble Soft! It’s so exciting because it’s a great opportunity to meet people who ‘get’ what I’m trying to do.  People in Silicon Valley live & breathe social media and social networks which is very different than here in Texas.  The grand prize includes some money ($1500) but more importantly access to a network of people with great experience!  Here’s the email I got this morning:

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the semi-finals of Pitch 2008. This is the next step you should take.

Please log into your application via Angelsoft and upload a 2 min video pitch. Any pitches that are more than 2 mins will be disqualified.

Upload your video by Apr 20 2008, 11.59PM (PST). If we do not receive your video pitch by Apr 20 2008, you will be eliminated from the competition.

If you have already submitted a video, please ignore this message. You are only required to upload a 2 min video pitch. Do not upload any other files or presentations.

Please RSVP to this message so that we know you have received this email. Thanks.

All the Best,
Women2.0 Team

I guess my napkin handwriting skills were better than I thought! My husband, who has much better handwriting than I do, didn’t have time to help me, so I ended up doing it myself.

Now I have to submit a 2 minute video for a chance to make the finals.  I haven’t done a video pitch for Babble Soft before so I’m not exactly sure what to do.  Actually, I have never done a video pitch.  Should I be formal about it? Should I have my kids in it? Should I walk through a slide deck? Should I beg, borrow, or steal a professional to help me with it? Should I just use our digital camera and record something in our house or should I do it outside, etc., etc., etc.?!?

Help!