#49: Pain and vision, a $1.5B tech co with pink hair, free work for the rest of 2017...
Happy Saturday, spooky friends.
I've just returned from some of the MOST fun I've ever had at a conference. Keep your eye on Women in Digital, based in who-knew-so-fun Columbus, Ohio. Their event was a confluence of marketing, media, digital, and challenges facing women in the workplace. Obviously, I had a blast.
Here's a shot of my talk "calling bullsh*t on faux feminism in advertising." (Can't wait to share the video...)
Yes that is a giant poop emoji because I am a PROFESSIONAL. Mwahaha.
In this week's edition of the World's Best Newsletter, #49!!
1. I met the people who switched emails for two weeks. It sucked, but they rocked.
2. The story behind Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps
3. A note about pain and vision
4. HBR: A Study Used Sensors to Show That Men and Women Are Treated Differently at Work
5. What are our screens and devices doing to us?
6. This woman built a $1.5B tech company with pink hair
7. Quote of the week: free work for the rest of 2017
1. I met the people who switched emails for two weeks. It sucked, but they rocked.
In Columbus, I met (...and drank a lot of champagne with) two people whose story I'd only read about and even shared in this very newsletter. Martin Schneider and Nicole Hallberg are internet famous for switching names in work emails for two weeks, uncovering a serious difference in communication with clients / colleagues.
If you don't know their story, I'd love the change to re-share it again. You can read about it here. They are some wonderful people and it was a total pleasure meeting them live!
2. The story behind Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps
You've probably seen Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, with all those words that you can't help but read in the shower. The company's ideology has been part of its brand and mission from the very beginning.
I highly recommend this short, 17 minute podcast episode from Basecamp, exploring the fascinating story of this third-generation German Jewish soapmaker, and his successive generations that continue to spread both soap and message worldwide.
A great example of a company taking a stand on societal issues without exploiting the causes (the subject of my talk this past week.)
3. A note about pain and vision
"Pain pushes, until the vision pulls" says Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith, who has one of the best names I've heard in a while, in this interview with Oprah.
"The universe pushes you, until you get pulled by a larger vision. Potential is always bigger than the problem - when you begin to have a vision about the possibility, you begin to be pulled by it. Once you sincerely embrace it, you can walk in the direction of your purpose. The challenges that come activate latent potential."
^^ Clear and solid advice for our journeys in life, and the journeys marketers need to understand about our buyers. They start with a pain, the pain pushes, but a vision is what pulls them through the commitment of change. Understand and promote both.
4. HBR: A Study Used Sensors to Show That Men and Women Are Treated Differently at Work
(Thank you to Andrew Boyd for sending this along!)
A study was conducted at a company with low representation of women, to understand more about the patterns and behaviors of workplace behavior.
They collected email, meeting schedule data, and used sociometric badges that measured movement/speech.
They found NO perceptible differences in the behavior of men and women, yet women weren’t advancing and men were.
So what explains the difference in outcomes? Bias. How people perceive women's actions. Read more.
5. What are our screens and devices doing to us?
Our screens are making us unhappy, but stopping cues are the key.
Adam Alter's TED talk explains the concept of "stopping cues"
"Stopping cues were everywhere in the 20th century. They were baked into everything we did. A stopping cue is basically a signal that it's time to move on, to do something new, to do something different. Think about newspapers, eventually you get to the end... the same with magazines, books --- you get to the end of a chapter... but the way we consume media today is such that there are no stopping cues. The news feed just rolls on, and everything's bottomless: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, email, text messaging, the news."
He shows some radical examples of forced stopping cues used by companies to create some much-needed space. One company literally takes away desks at 6pm. Another requires out of office responders to say "this person is on vacation, so we've deleted your email. This person will never see the email you just sent."
Screens are miraculous, but we need to learn how to prevent ourselves (and our kids) from being miserable with them.
6. This woman built a $1.5B tech company with pink hair
Love this Inc story about accounting software company BlackLine's founder Therese Tucker. I love how she coined a clear phrase that stuck, and spread:
"BlackLine isn't a household name (unless your household contains an accountant). But it does business with plenty of them: Coca-Cola, Under Armour, United Airlines, and eBay are all customers. BlackLine was so early into the market that the product description it coined, "continuous accounting," is now used by established enterprise-software giants."
And I love how she has been doing things her way:
"To be a woman at the helm of a company is to be constantly, tiresomely, judged by your appearance. "When you have gray hair, you could die on the floor and nobody would notice," Tucker says. "Middle-aged, gray-haired woman--who cares?" So three years ago, she decided to reclaim that signifier.
It happened during what Tucker calls a "game of chicken" with BlackLine's marketing department. The publicists begged the CEO to film a staid corporate video, one that would require her to be "this older woman, with a bun and a suit and a scarf, going 'blah blah blah,' " she recalls. Finally, she agreed--but only if, she added, "'I dye my hair pink.' It just popped out."
She booked an appointment at a Beverly Hills salon, and hasn't looked back. "It has changed how I interact with the world at large," she reflects. "Now it's almost like a weird trademark."
Get it, girl.
7. Quote of the week: free work for the rest of 2017
October 26th is the day women start working for free for the rest of the year.
A powerful way of visualizing the gender wage gap in action via WashPo.
(Help raise awareness of this ridiculous stat by re-tweeting me here.)
GET PAID, and have a great weekend.
Katie
PS: Please share my newsletter on Twitter or LinkedIn if you think more people should see it, and if I've got you lookin so crazy in love. Thank you Jenna, Cypress, and Chuck for sharing the word last week!
