Women leading the way

My latest Business Lexington "living locally, working globally" column is about how women are leveraging social media to strengthen their position as consumers and build their own global businesses. Women are using technology to overcome so many of the obstacles that have historically prevented them from exerting their influence and creativity, both as consumers and entrepreneurs.

As I interviewed people and did the research for this piece, I kept thinking about how these were all creative and entrepreneurial people who have each experienced success in their own right. The technology they use isn't regarded as particularly sophisticated by the brainiacs at NASA, but because these women all use the technology strategically to harness their own creativity, they've all done some pretty amazing things.

I'm very grateful for the opportunity to have some educational conversations with these smart, funny, and entrepreneurial women:

Alison Kerr, Alithinks
Sharon Tessandori, Barefoot Works (her yoga studio website is here)
Kristen Chase, Motherhood Uncensored
Julie Marsh, Mothergoosemouse
Liz Gumbinner, Mom 101
Elisa Camahort, Blog Her

Alison and Sharon are local bloggers. Alison's got a wry sense of humor and a global perspective, which is really valuable in a place like Lexington. Sharon is entrepreneurial and yogic at the same time, which gives her blog a very positive and uplifting vibe. Both are outstanding photographers with flickr photostreams that are definitely worth checking out (Alison's is here and Sharon's is here).

And I hope I get all of this global mom-trepreneur stuff right -- Kristen and Liz founded and Julie contributes to Cool Mom Picks; Kristen and Julie founded the Parent Bloggers Network; Julie contributes to the Soccer Mom Vote and writes a column for Imperfect Parent called Parental is Political; Liz is Creative Director at David & Goliath, co-author of Booty Food and writes regularly for Time Out New York Kids; and Kristen also blogs at The Mom Trap, leads the Blog Exchange, hosts the Motherhood Uncensored radio show, and writes a sex column for Imperfect Parent called Mominatrix.

Now consider that Julie, Liz and Kristen each have two kids. Amazing, yes, I know.

Elisa is, of course, one of the extraordinary leaders at Blog Her. She is the founder of Worker Bees , writes a monthly column called "Silicon Veggie" for Metro and has a personal weblog as well, but I identified her above in the "official" role that I included in the column.

The Business Lexington audience is, of course, Central Kentucky civic and business leaders. Many if not most business leaders here don't write or even read blogs, so I have to include a little bit of background to set the stage when writing about blogging for a traditional paper. The column typically focuses on how global issues have a local impact, but the editor gives me a lot of freedom to explore things like the blogosphere.

However, the limitations of the mainstream media format are apparent here -- I'm limited to about 1000 words, so it's impossible to include all of the perspective and insight everyone shared with me. But that's why we have blogs, right?

So - in advance of Blog Her '07 - A World of Difference, the world's largest conference of bloggers slated for July 27-29 in Chicago - over the next few days I'll be posting the emailed Q&A from each person mentioned in the column.

Again, I want to thank these women for taking the time to participate in this and, frankly, for providing the hands-on education in social media that no PR professional has ever been able to match.