“You should all become entrepreneurs, but not because it’s easy.” When Women 2.0 heard Michelle Zatlyn’s advice based on her experience co-founding website protection service CloudFlare, we were excited to share her straightforward words. Other points Zatlyn emphasizes include the importance of creating a service that actually solves a problem and surrounding yourself with people who will support you even if your undertaking isn’t an immediate success.
The conversation was recorded and shared by FounderLY (Founder Like You), a new Women 2.0 partner that aims to capture and crowdsource videos of technologists as they launch organizations. Visitors to theIn Conversation channel and FounderLY will see more questions and answers with female founders in upcoming weeks, and please send your thoughts on other entrepreneurs you’d like to see included.
In looking to highlight the best entrepreneurship stories from around the world, we’d be remiss not to include great anecdotes and tips from our slightly southern neighbors in Palo Alto. We’ll be sharing some of our favorite eCorner videos in our In Conversation video catalogue for aspiring entrepreneurs. Posting the advice of Tina Seelig, executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, seemed like a natural place to start; her video chats and written work are intended to accelerate high-tech entrepreneurship education.
Here she shares how to teach creativity–or otherwise convincing smart people to “jump off of perfectly good cliffs” and “take on problems that no one knows the answer to.” (Sounds a bit like the motivation behind Founder Labs, doesn’t it?) And while you may have heard “problems as opportunities” discussed before, it probably didn’t include words of wisdom from a neuroscientist/businesswoman using technology to solve the world’s problems.
I’m looking forward to spending two weeks in Nairobi this summer for seva (“service”) work with the Africa Yoga Project, a non-profit that helps prepare yoga instructors to teach in area communities.
I first found out about founder Paige Elenson’s work to train and find jobs for local yogis in Yoga Journal and promptly began, well, e-stalking her organization. When I saw people sporting the group’s shirts, I’d ask if they knew this elusive wonder woman or been to East Africa. I’ve got to go sometime, I thought.
So when AYP sent a note about their first group trip to assist in the construction of a community center in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum, I tried to forget my past construction foibles and focus on the Kenyan community of yoga teachers and students. It’s a long way to say I signed up, and now it’s time to make good on my $5K commitment to the organization’s important work.
I so enjoyed the second Digital Media & Learning Conference last weekend in Long Beach that I’m still playing notes catch up. Between researcher danah boyd hosting Ignite talks and talking about everything I never knew I always wanted to know about 4Chan, I was a happy camper (and one without a computer, as part of my Wisdom 2.0 resolution to pay better attention when people are presenting their work).
And some of that work that I most enjoyed came from Jonathan McIntosh, an open video advocate who created a “Gendered Advertising Remixer.” Forty toy commercials and their pink vs. blue/black approach are yours to rearrange with the free online tool; I’m hard pressed to think of a better environment to mash up The Eye of Judgment and Barbie Island Princess in celebration of International Women’s Day.
I’m hoping to zip (as in shared car rental) to Palo Alto today for a screening of and discussion about “The Entrepreneurs,” a new documentary that chronicles Zambia’s first large scale women’s leadership program. The film, which was created by Helen Cotton and Academy Award-winner Ross Kaufmann, is being presented by the San Francisco-based non-profit Camfed (which is no stranger to film now that it’s projects have been screened in 81 countries and more than 1,000 homes). Stanford’s Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research will host “The Entrepreneurs” and dialogue about young women who–despite coming from extreme rural poverty and sometimes being orphaned–launch furniture stores, preschools and other business through the 10,000 Women Program.
The San Francisco Film Society will talking educational media and getting films into classrooms on Tuesday, and the speakers could hardly represent a better range of changemakers. They include directors (Marcia Jarmel, “Speaking in Tongues”), community managers (Annelise Wunderlich (ITVS engagement and education), and advocates (Sophie Constantinou, Love Lunch Community). The Film Society’s own work to get local students into theaters and generate media and cultural awareness will be shared, and in that spirit there will also be time for the “Laptop Shop” clip show-and-tell.
I’ll be taking a break from the regular Wednesday night plan of Humpday Happy Hour (a local get together with friends whose next location you can find by following @humpdayhapyhour; that’s right, one “p” in “happy”–this is an irreverent group, after all) for the International Museum of Women’s celebration of its “Focusing on Latin America” exhibit. It was fun to write about the great collection of images and essays the virtual museum is hosting, and raising a glass in the Audre Lorde Room of the Women’s Building on the 16th seems appropriate. (And free, for all you budgetistas.)
The event is a precursor to March’s Art Live Lounge, a cocktail party to celebrate women artists and social change. Terra Gallery on Harrison will host the fiesta and corresponding benefit dinner later this spring.
Victoria Ransom, founder and CEO of Wildfire Interactive, talked with Women 2.0 recently in Palo Alto about defining your own success metrics and determining whether you’re the right person to develop your idea. Her social media marketing firm grew to profitability through lean startup practices and early support from the Facebook Fund.
I had fun sitting down with Acumen Fund founder Jacqueline Novogratz recently to talk about addressing the causes of poverty and her book “The Blue Sweater.” She talks about simple technologies and “patient capital” as ways to combat hunger, energy needs, housing, and other issues that philanthropy alone can’t tackle.
Thanks to JustGoodTV for shooting, and you can see more about how the fund works below (I like the Girl Effect-esque approach to text and illustration).
While holiday shopping in my neighborhood last weekend I kept walking past (or out of my way to see) Hayes Valley Farm. The urban farm off Laguna has volunteer work days, day camps for kids and a great website–not bad for a space that was going to be an expressway on-ramp pre-recession. And you’ll be wishing it wasn’t winter when hearing about the produce they’re planting.
