News of Interest: Sarah Stopek Hirsch Is Award Winner!

We extend our heartfelt congratulations to WPO member Sarah Stopek Hirsch, president of Sublime Promotions, Inc., in Chicago for her 2007 Entrepreneurial Woman of the Year Rising Star award. She is pictured holding roses (presented to her by her WPO sisters) and surrounded by her extremely proud family. She received her award at the 2007 Women's Business Development Center Conference in Chicago.

Article of Interest: Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership

When you put all the pieces together, a new picture (the cartoon says it all) emerges for why women don’t make it into the C-suite (and, of course, why they start businesses). It’s not the glass ceiling, but the sum of many obstacles along the way.

Here's a quick clip:

In 1986 the Wall Street Journal’s Carol Hymowitz and Timothy Schellhardt gave the world an answer: “Even those few women who rose steadily through the ranks eventually crashed into an invisible barrier. The executive suite seemed within their grasp, but they just couldn’t break through the glass ceiling.” The metaphor, driven home by the article’s accompanying illustration, resonated; it captured the frustration of a goal within sight but somehow unattainable. To be sure, there was a time when the barriers were absolute. Even within the career spans of 1980s-era executives, access to top posts had been explicitly denied. Consider comments made by President Richard Nixon, recorded on White House audiotapes and made public through the Freedom of Information Act. When explaining why he would not appoint a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court, Nixon said, “I don’t think a woman should be in any government job whatsoever…mainly because they are erratic. And emotional. Men are erratic and emotional, too, but the point is a woman is more likely to be.” In a culture where such opinions were widely held, women had virtually no chance of attaining influential leadership roles.

Times have changed, however, and the glass ceiling metaphor is now more wrong than right.

Read more here at the Harvard Business Review article, Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership, authored by Alice H. Eagly and Linda L. Carli.

Let us know what you think.

Survey of Interest: Digital Marketing -- From Web Sites To Wikis

A global survey shows that marketers already regard digital tools as very important for advertising and for managing sales and service—but frequently don’t use them. Why? Although respondents to this McKinsey study are applying both established and Web 2.0 technologies to reach customers at every stage of decision making, they complain about a shortage of skilled people to run online vehicles and about a lack of metrics to assess them. Learn “How companies are marketing online” and how they expect to be doing so in 2010. Highly recommend. It requires a quick (free) registration but it's worth it.

And if you would like a simpler version to McKinsey's analysis, try this one on for size. It's a story, "Who Moved My Client Base?," about how a business owner who is faced with a slowing small business uses social media to turn things around and grow his business by tapping into a global client base. See if it strikes a chord with you. Feel free to comment and forward the story to whoever you think might benefit.