We Are Now Joiners

Today is the first day since our book launched that we have had an opportunity to blog and we wanted to take a moment to say THANK YOU CHICAGO. We were lucky enough to have Chicago be the first stop on our book tour and it was a good one. Thank you to Gini Dietrich who invited us to speak to the local chapter of the PRSA (we're coming back to Chicago soon) and to Mary Ann Diel who hosted us at the Skokie B&N (have your daughter call us) and a final shout out to Marie Hale brought us in to speak to the local ewomensnetwork luncheon.

The great thing about being out here on the road is that we are meeting some amazing women. It is reminding us what this is all about...when given an opportunity and the right environment, we can help each other. That networking doesn't have to be gross and uncomfortable. You don't believe it right? How could networking be anything but dreadful? Well, we have now had seven events where the women in the room walked away with job opportunties, contacts and new friends and it wasn't painful. It was just fun.

We believe that success is about people...who you know, who you meet and who you build relationships with. But for networking to really work there has to be some click factor and a willingness to connect with other people. For non-joiners (like we used to be) this is a challenge. Figuring out how to put yourself out there comfortably isn't always easy.

What we are finding as we are hosting these workshops and New Girls Network events is that we are creating an environment that is comfortable for us and for the women that come. When talking about careers at the start of the workshop, we share our big fat mistakes and ridiculous fears and that makes it ok for others to open up. And since succesful networking involves people with something in common, our talks are luckily attracting women who share our mission to help other women. If you are interested in joining us then check out the MEET section because we are hosting Kicking Your Career into Gear workshops (most of them free) in SF, San Diego, Seattle, NYC, LA and Boston. We would love to meet you.

The upshot is that we believe that women are changing the rules of how business is being done. And if the new way of networking involves a glass of wine, some great snacks, gift bags, honestly and support, we're joiners.

2008 is FINALLY Here!

As soon as the clock struck midnight last night I issued a major sigh of relief followed quickly by a few jumps for joy. I don’t know about you but 2007 was a really hard year. Nothing horrible happened so I feel ridiculous even complaining about it, but it was a challenging twelve months. It seemed to take so long for things to come together and when they finally did they were never what we quite expected. It also seemed especially difficult juggling everything. Usually energized by a full plate, I felt depleted most of last year. Not sure why that is, and I refuse to believe it’s because I am getting a tiny bit older. So, moving onwards and upwards, I am really looking forward to this year. On New Year’s Eve, I received an email from a friend who wrote “Hey, 2008 rhymes with great and I'm feeling it!”

I am feeling like this is going to be one fantastic year for women and their careers. No matter what your politics are, we do have a woman who is a serious contender for President of the United States and that’s a BIG deal. On the GG front, our new book, The Girl’s Guide to Kicking Your Career into Gear is launching on January 15th with an appearance on the Today Show (scary!) followed by several weeks of touring. It’s going to be hard being on the road, but as you may know, we love meeting you in person, hearing about your workplace successes, challenges and big changes. And as two girls who have been restaurant managers, television producers, sandwich makers, publishing executives, authors, pr managers and entrepreneurs—we know all about career change.

Being on television is fun but we are mostly looking forward to giving our Kicking Your Career into Gear Workshops around the country. Most of them are going to be free, open to the public and catered (who doesn’t love snacks!) so we hope you will join us. Look at our Meet page to see where we’re going. We decided with this book tour instead of just talking about the where, when and how’s of writing the book that we would offer something more at our signing. So for those of you who are planning on making 2008 your career year, then you might be interested in hearing what we are going to cover in the workshop—asking for what you deserve, playing workplace politics, the common fears that may be holding you back, defining your own success, how to change the structure of the job or when it’s time to start something new.

Speaking of starting something new, after our tour we will begin writing book four. I can’t believe we have even more to say about women at work but we do! This one is on working mothers so if any of you want to chime in on this topic give us a shout at caitlin@girlsguidetobusiness.com. We would love to consider you for an interview! In the meantime, a VERY Happy New Year to all of you and we hope to see you over the next several weeks!