If you are linked to the BC Family Twitter account, you might have noticed the following Tweet:
Just registered for the Fortune Most Powerful Women Virtual Conference It’s free/looks like a great idea http://ow.ly/6MB6l
On October 4th, 2011 women everywhere who have access to the Internet will have a chance to listen in on – and to some degree take part in – the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit Virtual Conference. The conference will feature some of the most talented people working in their disciplines. Some of the guests include the CEO of Stella & Dot, Jessica Herrin, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, and actor Glenn Close, to name just a few. If you are interested in topics related to women in leadership, do check out the agenda online.
Whether you’re a Stay at Home parent who volunteers in your community; you work part time with a home business; or, you work full-time out of the home, it can be helpful and inspiring to hear how other women are getting along in the world. Year by year, as we get older, we increasingly realize just how much experience we have, how much we know, and how much we have to offer in our community, both in a private and professional capacity.
Today writer, coach and wise living coach Tara Sophia Mohr shared a poem entitled This is Your Time. In the conclusion she writes that [she] believes this is truly your time. The world needs your voice, your gifts, your light. On Tara’s website she writes about her beliefs regarding women today:
Most brilliant women don’t see their own brilliance and are “playing small” and they know it: not speaking up, doubting themselves, seeing themselves as “not yet ready” to launch the big idea, the organization, to put themselves at the table. The 10 Rules, and the other work I do with women leaders are about learning how to quiet self-doubt, clarify purpose, and become comfortable with taking bold action in the workplace and in the world. That is what I teach, and I love to teach it because I’m still learning it myself.
If Tara’s ideas resonate with you, you will be keen read the Fortune Magazine write-up about the virtual conference and the related invitation to women and teenage girls everywhere:
Fortune will stream all plenary sessions of the Summit to our virtual audience—plus customized sessions exclusive to the virtual audience. Join the conversation with most prominent women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, education, and the arts. Attend from wherever you are.
The best feature of podcasts, online shows and virtual conferences, for example, is that you can follow along as you go about your daily business at home or even at work. In the spirit of Tara Sophia’s poem, is this “your time to ask your big questions, without apology?”
Related
The Real Life Poems by Tara Sophia Mahr, Free Download
Have you checked out the conference yet? Such interesting content! I hope that Fortune magazine will put the videos from the conference on their fabulous site. (I often visit Fortune for inspiration.) The sessions are pretty tight on time, so it doesn’t seem that online questions will be asked. But it’s worth asking them. There are also other opportunities to meet people online via the conference main page.
Here is the question I would like to ask during the Sheryl Sandberg session, if I could have the chance:
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Ms. Sandberg has said that she is grateful for people who encouraged her and helped her develop in her career. She has also suggested that questions women ask at meetings about finding mentors are “girl questions”. Yet many talented women in the workforce DO lack senior sponsorship and opportunities to get ahead, and function in old boy’s networks, even though they speak up, lean in, sit at the table, maintain balance at home and appreciate their jobs pre-pregnancy. You put yourself forward and out there but, unlike Ms. Sandberg’s experience, more senior management are too busy looking after their own self interests and office politics to do more than say what a great job you are doing. What do you do? Change jobs? In small cities, like we have here in Canada, good jobs are in short supply.
I really appreciate the efforts of Fortune magazine staff to share the women in leadership ideas of people like Ms. Sandberg. Even if my question isn’t asked, I would like to take this opportunity to say “thank you!”.
Sincerely,
Pamela Chan, M.Ed.
Publisher, BCFamily.ca