Links That Made Me Think This Week

Links that made me think this week (and that I didn’t get a chance to tweet:)

Sheryl Sandberg: Luck, Resignation or Rallying Cry?

A flurry of articles on Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook raised the noise on women in the board room to a new level. Yeah!   What’s interesting to me is the breadth of perspective, the heat of the discussion…and real action being taken. It also got me thinking a lot about luck this week!

Why Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Must Resign, via Curt Rice

“Dear Sheryl Sandberg: Tell Mark Zuckerberg to diversify Facebook’s board. Tell him that his choice is simple: Commit to the business-savvy decision of adding women to the board, or lose the business-savvy woman who has made Facebook worth billions.”

Why I’m Glad Sheryl Sandberg Isn’t On Facebook’s Board…Yet. Via Whitney Johnson, Dare to Dream

“Gobsmacked as I am at her omission …there is a piece of me that is grateful that this position of influence has, thus far, been denied Ms. Sandberg. Because I have to wonder if her 2010 TEDWomen talk…would have been given if Ms. Sandberg already had a seat at the table.”

What Women Want from Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, Via Authentic Organizations

“We don’t need Sheryl Sandberg to resign… We don’t need her …to remind us that women haven’t quite “made it”. We DO need Sandberg to publicly  “own her own power”. We need Sandberg to make gender equality happen — starting at the top, at Facebook.”

In the New York Times, Sheryl Sandberg Is Lucky, Men Are Good via The Altantic

“It’s rather unfortunate that the one time the Times inadvertently discredited someone’s success on account of luck, that someone was the woman known for telling women not to chalk their success up to luck.”

And now the California pension fund is challenging the lack of diversity on the board and linking it to performance.

The California Pension Fund Challenges Facebook Over Board, via WSJ

And why it’s Important by Rachel Sklar, Change the Ratio

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Who’s Luckier …Sandberg or David Choe? 

My question would be who is luckier…Sandberg or the graffiti artist David Choe who accepted stock as payment for a mural painted in the Facebook office’s wall way back when it was just one year into existence?

Facebook Artist David Choe, from homeless to millions via Tech Talk – CBS News

And he doesn’t believe in luck!

“Have you had the dream where you ARE this guy?!? And then some kind of happy accident happens, and as you’re in the middle of this glorious car crash, you stop to realize, that there is actually no such thing as an accident, and no chance encounters, and that everything has a direct purpose?”

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 Dating – Bar or Browser?

Why is online dating making more money than ever…yet not yielding any better results?

Online Dating Spend Grows by 60% on Last Year, and the Industry Can Only Get Bigger via TNW

“New data suggests that there has been a 57% increase in online dating revenues in the past year, and there’s plenty of room for growth too given that only one tenth of singles currently use online dating sites.”

Online Dating: You Might As Well Look for Love in a Bar, via Mashable (STUDY)

I guess it’s just a matter of what you prefer. Many 20-somethings and 40-somethings alike agree that online dating simply a more time-efficient way to meet. One 40-something woman’s approach…use it to screen then meet for a quick date rather than waste a lot of time in conversation online. The author of the new study seems to agree:

“There’s no better way to figure out whether you’re compatible with somebody than talking to them over a cup of coffee or a pint of beer,” said Finkel, an associate professor at Northwestern University.”

No One Wants to Talk About…Mean Girls

This might have actually been last week, but why is it no one will talk about “mean girls at work” when apparently they exist?

Mean Girls at Work, via Washington Post

“We don’t give much credence to the fact that women hampering other women is also to blame (for gender disparity at work). In nearly every leadership talk I give … I actively steer away from this topic. Why? It’s not terribly productive and can quickly devolve into a venting session where people swap one nightmarish story after another about scheming female bosses.”

I think there are a lot of hot buttons here …e.g.

“One recent study showed that mothers have more of a role in passing down damaging and sexist beliefs about women than do dads. Mothers are the figures who have greater influence in the transference of discriminatory behavior, and thus the opportunity to pass on more fair-minded behavior as well.”

I did ask a quick question on Honestly Now to get a sense of how many women experience it…84% of responders (male and female) have experienced a mean girl. Similarly, 82% of Cosmo readers think women have gotten meaner. While the survey responses can be misleading in the absolute, it is interesting to me because I have seen and experienced such amazing support between women as well. What do you think?

 

 



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