SmallBizResource Blog -- Marketing

Takeaways From the Women Who Tech TeleSummit, Part 2

Posted by Gayle Kesten Friday, Apr 11, 2008, 03:11 PM ET

As promised, here are my thoughts following the second Women Who Tech TeleSummit panel I attended.

Women And Social Capital
[Moderated by Tara Hunt, founder of Citizen Agency and HorseCowPig blogger; panelists were Joan Blades, co-founder of Moveon.org and MomsRising; and Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post]

When you go to a party, do you spend more time with the people you know, or do you branch out and try to get to know others? Tara posed that question as part of her drilldown about social capital, which, she explained, encompasses "the people you know and through them your access to resources and other people who could potentially help your career. It includes your connections, people you know in your circle, your reputation, how people view you and the work you do."

According to Tara, there are two types of social capital: bonding and bridging. Bonding capital represents the people you're closest to -- the ones who "pick you up from the hospital and send flowers on your birthday." The ones you stick with at parties. Bridging capital widens the circle to people who are accessible to you but know on a "lighter" level. You get to know them, for example, at parties.

"Women are way better at bonding, whereas men are better at bridging capital," Tara remarked. But I didn't take her point to be women needing to be someone they're not. It was about recognizing what works for us -- not forcing ourselves to be more like men -- and channeling it in a way that can boost our careers.

Arianna agreed. For women, "personal and professional are very interconnected," she said. "It's about expanding your own tribe…You live your life, and then one thing leads to another and somehow something is created that was nowhere near your mind when you started out."

Becoming "fully comfortable" with technology is still preventing more women from participating, but social networking and reaching out as mentors are our sweet spots, Joan said. "It's not a zero-sum game," she said. "Competitiveness won't help us."

And neither will the task masters in our heads -- our own inner capital. "There are a lot of internal barriers women need to address -- their own fears, self-judgment, concern about being approved of," Arianna said. "I call it the obnoxious roommate living in your head who tells us we can't do things, who gets upset when someone looks askance at us."

Resolution requires dealing with those inner voices and fears so women can become "more effective at building social capital and not so destroyed by failure," she added. "There is no life that doesn't include failures and setbacks. How we deal with them and manage to use them as stepping stones are very much a function of our own attitudes."

The way I deal with them? I reach out to my social capital.

Coming soon, podcasts from the event. Check here for details.

Marketing | Women in Business

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