Learn to love your data! I can’t emphasize enough how powerful and practical your decision-making can become with this layer of clarity applied to your business, health, life.  Women battle the bias of being labelled as making more emotional/irrational decisions. One of the greatest gifts that computing has offered us is overlooked as something for the domain of researchers and analytics dorks. I’m an abiding fan of hunting for evidence, and there are simple, free and easy-to-use tools to track what lies behind your suspicions – even if maths is your kryptonite, you too can learn to love data-tracking. Being clear kills fear.With the strength of bottom-line numbers we gain the confidence to speak into our leadership calls with clarity.

2. Hunt Robust Health

Women have, on average, the blessing of an additional decade of life built in to our physiology. But we’re seeing this erode within a few generations, our rates of heart conditions and lifestyle-related illnesses are coming into parity with our menfolk. Sitting behind a screen for unrelenting hours on end, unconscious snacking and adrenaline-tapping deadline chasing is doing us in. Wired women leaders, take back your health! Go play outside, breathe, eat delectable food. Who wants to follow somebody who’s committing slow suicide from overwork. Remember mens sana in corpore sano: a healthy mind in a healthy body (nothing like a little Latin to give gravitas to the obvious). Love your biological hardware or you’ll persistently be facing software crashes and sludgy speeds.  If you’re a code engineer, caffeine-swilling pizza-fuelled sleep-deprived screen-devotion can squeeze out the marvels, but is a certain death knell for ladies who want to lead long time. A strong, reliably healthy body, by design not default, is one of the greatest treasures we can afford ourselves, an agile mind its prized reward.

3. Hunt Inspiring Company

Genius begets genius. Despite the seductive myth of the lone brainiac, evidence and history tell a very different story (ah, data substantiation). Women are superb natural collaborators, but most of us still have a peculiar superstition that we need to guard our territory and cut down competitors. It may be “normal” business practice, but it certainly isn’t natural for us. There is robust and burgeoning business model for sharing and opensource, not just online, as Public Lead for Creative Commons in South Africa part of my duty is to bring the case-studies to light and illuminate the practical steps to begin to share legally, safely and profitably, 21st century style. Find mentors, gather peers to build something difficult but remarkable together, socialise with the brave and big hearted.

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I’m on a panel for the 6th Annual Women in Leadership conference with 2 women I respect and appreciate having in my world, Maritza van den Heuvel and Monique Ross. Both courageous and fascinating women in quite different ways and well worth following.

The topic is : Wired Women – Wonderful Ways to use collaborative innovation in the Digital Economy
Social media like blogs, facebook and twitter reflect the easy and natural way women form community and share information. Learn more about how becoming a digital citizen can fast-track the achievement of your leadership goals as you make a difference to the world.

Though I’m convinced that taking any kind of binary positions: man/woman, black/white, young/old etc. is no way to move forward with intelligence, it’s good fun to bolster the women who have forgotten the delightful benefits of being a woman + Internet in a democratic, capitalist society with the most compelling opportunities to make a tangible difference as a social entrepreneur/activist/someone who gives a damn.

Quick punt while we’re speaking about this: University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business runs an annual Women in Leadership program in April led by Dr Marjolijn Dijksterhuis. It has been lauded and applauded by delegates. Worth your while if you’re a woman in senior position who would value a deepening of her foundational business skills and those next-level but not-so-obvious clues to confident, calm leadership.

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Picture Credits under Creative Commons Attribution Licenses: (with my gratitude)

http://www.flickr.com/people/seq Seq on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/frerieke/ (by the way, do go discover more about the lovely architect/humanitarian Frerieke van Bree and her Students for Humanity project. She’s one of those fearless, fun, nature-built-a-winner-with-this-one people)

http://www.flickr.com/people/usarmyafrica US Army Africa on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/people/stevendepollo Steven De Pollo (feature image)

Since the tech heads and urban visionaries will be gathering for said launch in Camps Bay, (and it’s spring!) it seems an awfully good opportunity to lure some of the city’s brightest women to a Cerebella lunch to debrief in a beachside cafe.
First invitations naturally go to the Cerebella list, but then we’ll open to those blessed with xx.chromosomes, a keen interest in technology and beautiful minds.
(click the pic for the event details)

REFERENCE bites on the Silicon Cape:

• I think this was the first public post (though I remember Vinny making his intentions public at the Cape Town launch of Synthasite a while back).
• Loved Guy Taylor’s take. And he’s a Jo’burger mind you.
• For amusement, the Google search currently yields 4,340 for “silicon cape” 29/09/09

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THINK AGAIN. If you are just such a being we’d be honoured to have you join our explorations.
Sign up here >> [click]. Or mail Max to find out more.

(peek at some of our previous Cerebella gatherings)

urban survival camp
CONFIDENCE
lifehacks
lionheart – roaring trade

I’ve finally broken through my seemingly impassable writer’s block! And ladies first, with a huge thank you to the fine women who came to Origin. And to the fine staff & the divine David of Origin for letting us loose in your space and being brave enough to run an honesty system on settling our bills.

To brilliant friend & story-engineer Nikki Friedman [Big.Words.Scare.Me] who inspired fascinating conversation about whether we were leopards or tricksy ground squirrels, and why debate on why authenticity is fundamental to successful personal branding. AND for bringing us the sparkling golden MCC from Moreson. Champagne, cupcakes & coffee have a natural affiliation with merriment it seems!

Storytelling is one of the unexpected skills that will stand us all in good stead for the turbulent times to come. It’s one of the cornerstones to being able to discern ourselves from the noise in the attention economy. A skill that can offer tangible rewards for business, whatever your industry; but invaluable if you’re a leader. If you have a moment for a video I heartily recommend Isabelle Allende’s magical session at TED via my commentary on the Women in Leadership page.

Thank you to Cerebella Sarah Blake (check out her great piccies here if you’re curious about how Tim looked in a dress!) for getting the Quirkstars like Katharina and Lyndie there and all those yummy chocolate cupcakes. AND in an evening of but wait.. there’s more >> 5 of the hot-off-the-press excellent eMarketing textbooks (Creative Commons licensed & available for FREE download here BTW) as surprise gifts.

We were honoured to have the Femtrepreneurs from the States represented. My fiercely smart intern Jane Mull & Tascha Terblanche who I lectured to the next morning. There were a host of wonderful women who I hadn’t seen in ages, like the lovely Hajra Bibi (friend of starblogger Tertia, who I miss madly, having started this crazy meme with me), wild&wonderful redhead Tania Odendaal, web-copy queen Kerry-Anne Gilowey, MangoPR beauties Cath Luckhoff, Nicole Capper & Bev Merriman, Springleap‘s gorgeous Josie, PopSustainability visionary Kim Heismann, fellow Neophyte Martene Rosenbaum .. and more, like new friends like illustrator.thinker Zara Alyssa who I met at the Flying Solo unconference (brain.child of 2 of  the awesome women who were there - Jo Duxbury and Pam Sykes)  who wrote a great post on the eve’s adventures.

Thank you all it was good fun, and some healthy debate around what it means to be authentic, where to even begin marketing yourself online and some good connections made. I’ll make sure we increase the frequency of our frivolities and cerebrations for the next Cerebella gatherings into the summer.

PS. If you want to join in: just pop on a comment here or mail me here and I’ll pop you on the invitation list (our events are free and co.created – come, share back what you’ve learnt out in the world, maybe contribute/sponsor something that you think will surprise/delight/add value or share the linklove online. happiness)

It’s been a frenzied few months, but { Huddlemind } is getting stronger by the day and it’s time to look up from the books and get out to play.

Many months ago at a geekdinner in Cape Town, the bright Sarah Blake suggested that we start doing geek.girl gatherings here in South Africa. What a great idea! what appalling timing!
We’ve finally resolved to do something about it: though admittedly we haven’t really rolled up our sleeves on organising a serious event, no extravaganza of prizes, nor yet with seeming effortlessness whipping up a luscious feast for the occasion – because we’re too damn BUSY. As you probably are.

Instead we spoke very nicely to the good peeps at Gardens Virgin Active & Stormhoek who are sponsoring workouts and wine (virtue or vino balance each other out surely) and we’re inviting some of the startlingly bright women we know to just come & hang out at my new fave wi-fi & alt.office spot & re.connect ..before we drown in to.do lists and meet our demise ingloriously, at our desks. No karoshi for me thank you!

This isn’t necessarily a GEEK.girl session – I’ve realised there are sadly very few of us xx chromosome creatures who go crazy for code – and more about the tech.supported social media infused lifestyle and embracing the new economy that women are flourishing in. One where relationships have heightened value over process. And where trust is the gold standard.

So all that said, it’s ever a good idea to enrich your networth: come hang out with us at Sinn’s on Wed 9th April after work at about 6ish . Click on the p