Written on June 5, 2008 – 12:02 am
Simone Brummelhuis, writing about women on the web
Yesterday, I read in the press that Queen Elisabeth has urged Kate Middleton, Prince William’s bride to be, to get a proper job. Without having decided exactly what she wants to make a career in, so the story goes, she won’t be a viable candidate to take over the Queens position next to Prince William in the future. Her current work is obviously not a serious job according to the Queen. The Queen believes in a modern Monarchy and feels very strongly that the Royals should be leading by example.
Kate announced last September that she was giving up her job as an accessories buyer to become a photographer. She has been working and taking pictures for the website of party company Party Pieces since. That company was founded by her parents, Micheal and Carole Middleton in 1987 and is the UK’s leading online and catalogue party company.
That makes Kate the daughter of a Female Internet Hero, co-founder Carole Middleton. And when Kate takes over the company as a CEO, she will be a Female Internet Hero herself, and thus, leading by example. Just what the Queen wants. But before that, Kate may need some work experience in other internet companies.
I am sure there are many companies interested, but I would love to have her on board in one of my ventures. So the question is: Kate, how can I get in contact with you to offer you a job in the Internet Industry? To offer you the possibility to become a role model als Female Internet Hero yourself?
Or maybe you, as readers, know someone who knows her and so on? I am curious to know whether the six degrees of separation works in this respect? Anyone?
I hope you like that post!
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Written on May 29, 2008 – 12:09 am
Simone Brummelhuis, writing about women on the web
Last week I attended two events in Amsterdam specifically aimed at women. What I took from those events as a message is interesting for men and women. At Diversity, a network event for professional women, female Internet hero Nancy McKinstry held a very clear and interesting lecture about her Wolters Kluwer, which generates 50% of its turnover of 3.4 billion from online products.
She concluded that because of macro trends affecting the information industry, all Internet and media companies need to deal with diversity. In 2025 Internet users will be diversified, mainly consisting of female information users and aging information users. And they use the information in a different way, other than all the white, geeky, male, young Silicon Valley whizkids may think! So try to get inside the brains of these women and senior citizens, try to understand the information gathering and buying habits of these groups.
A solution to the issue is to support this notion of diversity and to let those target groups jump on the band wagon of the Internet companies by letting them become part of the team. A company like Apple understands this trend; it may be the reason why it has appointed Andrea Young of Avon, the beauty power house to its board.
Another company which may have seen the start of a light in this issue is Microsoft. After my comments about the Dev Days and their lack of female speakers, I was invited to a small Women in Technology booth that was set up this year for the first time to try to meet the 2% women that visit this event. Female Internet hero Astrid Hackenberg, founder and CEO of Class-A and Jacqueline van der Holst of Avanade were invited to welcome other, younger developers, let’s assume the female CTO’s of the future. Here too, the notion of data being used differently by a diversified group led to solution of a diversified team.
But are enough internet companies taking this diversity trend into account in setting up their team?
Written on May 23, 2008 – 4:27 pm
Simone Brummelhuis, writing about women on the web
Visibility is a major thing for start-ups, and one thing to be able to get that is to pitch your company in an event or for an award. Winning an award means media coverage, some times real money and access to investors. There are several competitions in which a start-up can submit its business. Strangely enough, there is no website which lists them all in an overview.., so I had to do some research on the web in order to come up with the following suggestions.
I want to create a complete list of awards here. So if you know of any other awards, please comment on this post so I can add it to the list.
Upcoming competitions
- Accenture Innovation Awards - Dutch companies in media, entertainment or communication that started in the last 3 years can participate.
- The Strands awards - competition for early stage international startups in the area of recommendation technologies with a very appealing price of $100.000.
- CNET Networks UK Business Technology - this competition has some 17 prestigious awards for UK business technology innovators. Final deadline to submit applications is May 31, 2008, but maybe it is enough to become the IT Community Hero of the Year.
- The Startup Awards major competition for UK start-ups in October 2008.
- Vodafone Mobile Clicks for mobile start-up companies to develop new, innovative, creative and technically viable mobile internet products and/or services. Date to be submitted June 25, 2008. Awards during Picnic in October 2008, Amsterdam. Awards of Euro 100,000.
- Google Android Competition, with total monies available of USD 10,000,000.
- Web Marketing Web Awards, in 96 categories, including best websites, to be submitted till June 15, 2008.
- Startup Awards in the UK, including the Online Startup of the Year, Young Entrepreneur of the Year and Innovative Business of the Year. Deadline entry 4 th July 2008.
- London Technology Fund Competition, for potentially high growth seed, start-up early stage technology companies, based in London. Price from 100,000 till 1M Pounds sterling. Deadline 30th June, 2008.
- DEMO GOD AWARDS and the DEMO People’s Choice awards.
Completed competitions
Make sure you set your agenda for next year awards.
- Blackberry Women in Technology awards - Female internet hero Professor Lizbeth Goodman of the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute was named the BlackBerry outstanding woman in technology, while Beatriz Alonso Martinez of Avid Technology Europe Ltd was awarded the ‘Best use of technology within the multimedia industry by a woman’.
- The First Women Awards - UK competition created to acknowledge women who are pioneers in business. Female internet hero Fru Hazlitt, former Managing director, Yahoo UK and now CEO of GCap Media, was one of the price winners in the past.
- 2008 Fast Growth Business Awards - Margeret Manning, CEO of award winning digital communications agency, Reading Room won the Female Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2008.
- Broos van Erp Price, A Dutch ICT competition with an award of euro 50.000.
- UK Internet Industry Awards
- The Webby Awards, recognizing outstanding Websites in 65+ categories!! Ans also a Webperson of the Year. The Oscars of the Internet.
- Startup Camp, arranged through Speed Geeking sessions during the Camps in SF, London, with an impressive attendee list.
- Plugg Start-up of the Year Award, with the European Focus on web 2.0
- Innovation and Technology awards for Swedish startups.
Tech conference competitions
Written on May 15, 2008 – 10:17 am
Simone Brummelhuis, writing about women on the web
It may be pretty good that Sharon Bigger, Wendy Braver, Pamela Fox of Google , Jennifer Kilian, Lisa Parks and Aimee Stewart have signed up with 95 male developers, technologists, CTOs, researchers, geographers, academics, business developers and entrepreneurs, for a speaker session at Where 2.0. But in a conference ‘that brings together the people, projects, and issues building the new technological foundations and creating value in the location industry’, you think that women are more interested.. Indeed, ” why women cannot read maps’ has been a bestseller for ages.
However, in order to speak at a conference, one should submit a paper or proposal. So it is one thing for women to sign up at Geekspeakr, a great website by geek Brenda Wallace, and to show that you are a great speaker or knowledgable on a certain subject. But the next thing to do is to think about a specific topic for a session, a workshop or keynote and to schedule some time to write down your proposal.
Take Developerday at the Microsoft campus end of November 2008. The organisation calls for speakers to submit topics that they would like to talk on - first-time speakers or experienced trainers are equally welcomed. Then the community will vote on-line for which sessions they would like to see happen on the day and from that the agenda will be decided. Many proposals have been already submitted. However, a women speaker has yet to act.
Generally, conference organizations provide you with guidelines on the target audience, the length of a topic and how in-depth the session should be, such as in the Gilbane conference.
Some tips for writing a good proposal for a good talk, which I read at an upcoming hosting conference:
- Keep it free of marketing
- Keep the audience in mind: are they technical, professional, and already pretty smart?
- Clearly identify the level of the talk: is it for beginners to the topic, or for gurus? What knowledge should people have when they come to the talk?
- Give it a simple and straightforward title: fancy and clever titles make it harder for people to figure out what you’re really talking about
- Limit the scope of the talk: in 45 minutes, you won’t be able to cover everything. Make sure your talk is focused and not too widely targeted.
- Explain why people will want to attend: how will the talk impact their business? will they be able to apply the principles immediately?
- Explain what you will cover in the talk in as much detail as possible
So go ahead and good luck!
Written on May 13, 2008 – 3:34 pm
Simone Brummelhuis, writing about women on the web
Already twice at London Coffee Meetup, I have come across female founders of internet startups who would love to have a mentor. Somebody who gives them some guideline without further ado. So I decided to set up an experiment.
Are there any readers of The Next Web who are willing to act as mentor for Chloe Holding? She’s the founder of the very early stage startup Habinki. Read the questions and answers below and let me know!
1. How did you come up with the idea of your start-up?
It was more a question of ‘What did I want to do with my life?’ than finding a new business idea, and starting up a bikini/travel company was exactly what I wanted to do. I had always wanted to set up a business and I had a passion for travel and retail, and it just took a little bit of inspiration to figure out how to make that into a great business.
2. How far are you with the set up of the start-up?
I have secured funding via a loan with the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme backed by the government, I have incorporated the company, developed the branding, and begun marketing and selling my brand. The bikinis are on their way from Brazil to arrive in June and the website is currently in development.
3. What is your goal with the company
I want to create a brand which young people associate with and are inspired by. I can see many opportunities in the future in terms of developing new product lines and focusing more on the travel industry, in terms of places to go ‘in your bikini’.
4. What was your biggest challenge during the development process?
Without any doubt the biggest challenge so far has been to make the decision and find the strength of mind to do something very different, which your peers, friends and family may not understand or support. It was about realising that I wanted to do this so much that it actually didn’t matter what anyone else thought, or what advice people gave me, and that the faith and passion I had for building businesses was strong enough to set out on a path on my own. I think part of the definition of being an entrepreneur is to do what everyone else says ‘will never work’.
5. Who are your advisers?
My close friends, a core group of girls (and a few boys) who have shown a real interest and passion for what I am doing. They have offered advice, often on a daily basis, on some tricky issues, and I hope that in the not-too-distant future some of these people will come and work for the business.
6. Why do you need a mentor, for which activities and for which period of time?
I would like someone who has been through a similar experience of setting up a business from scratch, and who has been successful. I would be interested in any kind of communication that would be convenient for them. Even an email exchange every couple of weeks or once a month would be great, or even just to have the opportunity to talk on the phone for half an hour as a one-off, so that I could talk through some core-issues. I think about raising capital, and how to expand, or…. recover from a major business crisis. It would also be useful to gain recommendations of advisors, software, consultants to use.
7. What type of mentor you think would you benefit from?
Ideally someone who has built a consumer retail business, but more importantly someone that has set up a business from absolutely nothing and knows how difficult it is to raise capital and live on nothing but air.
8. What does the mentor gain from mentoring you?
I think that the ideal mentor would enjoy doing this as they would enjoy helping someone embarking on a similar venture as they had. In the future I would be keen to do the same. However, on another level, a successful businessperson and investor may be interested in financing small businesses or may be interested in gaining access to a network of young entrepreneurs and listening to their business ideas.
Interested? Leave a comment below or drop Ernst-Jan a line. I hope the experiment will be a success!
Written on May 11, 2008 – 8:41 am
Simone Brummelhuis, writing about women on the web
The Netherlands may be known as a liberal country with equal opportunities for men and women, but somehow we managed that in terms of women in the board room, we are doing not so well. While in the United States almost one out of five corporate officers are women, in Europe the female to male ratio on company boards is not even one to twenty. And in Holland it is even less….. However, Norway has set the agenda by imposing a minimum female mandatory quota of 40% in company-boards. And guess what: it works! Heleen Mees of women-on-top and Marieke Bax of Topbrainstorm have urged companies and our government to do the same over here. I support this. It makes sound economic sense. Moreover, studies show that companies with more women in senior management are more profitable than those with few women at the top.
With these developments taking place, let’s see which female internet heroes in The Netherlands can act as such role model and fulfill the quota. Indeed, these women can bring entrepreneurial internet knowledge into the board room.
Female internet heroes are strongly represented in media, such as Marianne Zwagerman, director of Dutch Telegraaf Media Group and Lara Ankersmit, director of telegraaf.nl., the second largest news site in the Netherlands with a strong user generated content component. Dutch Dragon Den’s Annemarie van Gaal, is founder of AM Media but more known as a keen investor in media companies like bright.nl.
In more technological driven companies, serial entrepreneur Christine Karman springs to mind, who is founder of Zaphod and member of the advisory board of Technika10, an organisation who provides science and technology classes to girls. Also, I point out CEO Petra van Schayik of Compumatica, founder and CEO Karen Loeffen of Libersy and Jacqueline Smit, country manager of MSN. Although how come that Microsoft is organizing an event, the Dev Days, with no single female speaker?
Some very popular sites were founded or led by women, such as weekendjeweg by CEO Marianne Baars, which was sold to Holidaybreak, kieskeurig.nl by founder Janet Sellis, which was sold to Sanoma and directwonen.nl by founder and CEO Yvonne Swaans who went to the Alternative Investment Market at the London Stock Exchange.
Good catch are also some international female internet heroes living and working in The Netherlands, such as CEO Nancy McKinstrey of Wolters Kluwer, ranked in the top ten of the most powerful women in Europe by The Financial Times and founder Marina Tognetti of Myngle, com, a startup global marketplace in language education.
So who said that we cannot fulfill the quota?
Written on April 12, 2008 – 11:49 am
Simone Brummelhuis, writing about women on the web
As the Web 2.0 conference in San Fransisco is approaching, I thought to take on a look how many ‘female Steve jobs’ will appear on stage. By counting the list of 200+ speakers, 20 are women, so that’s 10%. Among them is somebody whose according to my definition a female hero, Tara Hunt, CEO of Citizen Agency.
Interesting is that of those 20 women, at least 10 still need to submit their bio (10 days before the actual conference), while of the male speakers about 99% have their bio submitted. Come on women, write down your achievements, or if you are to shy, hire a personal branding agency.
Of the keynote speakers, I only counted 2 women. One of the underlying ideas of these series is to promote that more women put themselves, or are asked, on stage. Not only could these women act as role models for aspiring Internet entrepreneurs, another effect of making women visible in the Internet industry from the beginning, is that it may prevent devaluation of the industry at a later stage. Indeed, what has happened in some industries when women entered or became visible at a later stage is that the whole profession started to devaluate, in status as well as money wise. This happened, for example, when women entered the education workplace or became judges or doctors. But since the Internet industry is only 5000 days old…, an thus we are at the beginning of an era, it is in the interest for men and women not to let this happen in this industry.
So, as a tip to the organization of Web 2.0 expo San Fransisco, here are a few American female heroes from my database: Patricia Gallup , CEO of PCConnection. Jean Armour Polly, founder of netmom.com, and the first woman elected to the Internet Society board of Trustees, currently working on connecting rural libraries to the Internet. In this time of social networking by kids a valuable contributor to the discussion. And just to name a few other American female heroes: Nancy Cruickshank, CEO of Videojug, Michelle Pelluso, CEO of Travelocity, Dawn Lepore, CEO of drugstore.com, Rebecca Blood, author of a weblog handbook, Janet Hanson, founder of network 85broads.com, Lisa Sounia founder of Dopplr, Joyce Chung, early stage investor at Garage Ventures, Peggy Liu of Mustang Ventures and Joanna Rees, also an investor. Who else is ready for last minute booking?
Written on March 22, 2008 – 3:02 pm
Simone Brummelhuis, writing about women on the web
As the second of the series ‘Where are the female web heroes?’ I describe the situation in the UK, where as of 2003, a rise in female-owned net ventures have been seen. The government’s newly formed Women’s Enterprise Task Force seeks to encourage female enterprise across the nation to help close the gap in female entrepreneurship between the US and UK. Because, although the number of women-owned businesses has recently topped one million, the rate of female start-ups in the US is much higher. Also, with girls outperforming boys at school some predict that by 2020 the majority of UK millionaires will be female.
The UK female entrepreneur is in her early 30s, tech savvy, well connected and thrives on risk, according to a survey by Aurora, the UK’s largest business women’s network. This network is owned by Glenda Stone, who herself won the Blackberry Best Women in Technology. One of the women who fits this profile is Martha-Lane Fox, co-founder of Lastminute.com. As the time she stepped down at 31 years, the share price had recovered from the dotcom crash valuing Lastminute at £667m. In 2005 she sold the company to travelocity.com, of which Michelle Peluso is the CEO. In those days also Julie Pankhurst of Friends Reunited sold her company, to ITV.
For most Internet female entrepreneurs in the UK, entrepreneurship appears to be a mid-life choice. Between the ages of 35 and 50, women leave successful careers to start their businesses. They are driven by innovation, a strong commitment to entrepreneurial ideals and autonomy in their work lives. Examples thereof are Sian Sutherland, founder of Mama Mio, skincare for super mamas, and Marcelle Speller founder of holidayrentals.co.uk, which has in the meantime been sold to Homeaway.Inc. (more…)
Yesterday, I read in the press that Queen Elisabeth has urged Kate Middleton, Prince William’s bride to be, to get a proper job. Without having decided exactly what she wants to make a career in, so the story goes, she won’t be a viable candidate to take over the Queens position next to Prince William in the future. Her current work is obviously not a serious job according to the Queen. The Queen believes in a modern Monarchy and feels very strongly that the Royals should be leading by example.
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