Womanly Wisdom from Own It SF 2014

Last week I went to an alumni panel solely based on seeing one name from the tech industry (Kara Swisher) listed as a panelist, but came away completely inspired to own my success and my career. I know this probably sounds cliche, but every once in a while I just need some inspiration, and that came from seeing these successful women sharing their experiences and observations. These are the gems I am putting down here so I can reference them as I keep building on my career:

• Even 'benign' has implications - there may not be outright bias against women in the workplace but it does still exist, in more subtle ways. It is still important to bring awareness to women's issues. Awareness begets fairness.
• Play a healthy mind game with yourself - if you're hesitating to go after something, ask, "What would my guy friends do?" [Guys usually apply to a position even if they meet only 6 out of 10 criteria.] Get used to taking risks...
• #1 trait of successful woman (people?) is: Resilience. 
• You can do good in ANY sector. [The panelists had experience in academia, government, non-profits and the private sector.]
• Self-interest trumps everything: Yes, companies should promote diversity because it's the right thing to do, but lots of times you need to frame it precisely in terms of how it helps the company and/or the board and/or those executives whose support you need. So go ahead, pull that card; there is a gracious way to do so.

Also check out:
https://twitter.com/justownit
http://www.ownitsummit.com/

Reading List

I spent the first half of the year studying, but come summer I was really happy to read for pleasure again. These have been my favorites:

Hipster in Jalisco

In Guadalajara recently a friend took me to Palreal, a cafe in the Arcos Vallarte section of the city which she happily described as 'hipster'. And everyone around us was fairly young, well dressed, and casually cool (possibly hungover). A couple girls were taking pics and posing like they were in a fashion blog (against the wall, on the stairs, next to the cactus); I couldn't blame them since the decor was very cool. The bathroom used a mini pallet as a sconce. Next door was a succulent shop. This place was happily hipster and for some reason it made me happy to think it's not just American millennials in all sizes of cities acting hipster.

Anyway we had a delicious brunch and really good coffee. Mexican coffee is already well-known but the owner of this place was award-winning. I had a cold brew agave latte which was perfect on a warm sunny Saturday. We ate outside, and the overall space wasn't that big but very well laid out. If I found a similar place in San Francisco I'd probably go every weekend.

  

 

more reading:

http://articulosiete.com/content/de-aqu%C3%AD-palreal-hay-buen-caf%C3%A9

Reset

I had about 24 hours of calm in the middle of a crazy few weeks and this is what I was looking at for some of that time: