An specialized underwear company called "Dear Kate" had a cheeky idea to promote its wares while also celebrating diverse women who are crashing the technology industry "boys' club": get a bunch of female CEOs of tech companies to pose in their skivvies for the online catalogue.
Dear Kate is not an ordinary lingerie company. Its products were originally designed as a less-Dependsish for women suffering from incontinence, and has since branched out into promoting leakproof "period panties."
The Drum reports that the Ada Collection is named after Ada Lovelace, the woman who created the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine. And despite criticism, the women participating felt they were doing the right thing:
Adda Birnir, founder of SkillCrush [seen below] admitted to Time that she did have doubts: “I run a company and you’re trying to have gravitas when you’re a CEO. I was a little bit like, ‘Is it a bad idea to participate in an underwear modelling shoot?'”
“But it’s a feminist company…and I think it’s so important to support companies that are doing work like that. That overshadowed any of my concerns.”
These women are clearly not just models, but willing participants in whatever this is trying to say.
Adrants quotes Dear Kate CEO, Julie Sygiel: "I think a lot of traditional lingerie photo shoots depict women as simply standing there looking sexy. They're not always in a position of power and control. In our photo shoots it's important to portray women who are active and ambitious. They're not just standing around waiting for things to happen."
However the blog's author, Steve Hall, counters:
Hey, I'm all for women wearing underwear and lingerie as often as possible but when so many are doing so much to battle stigmas and stereotypes relating to the perception of women in the workplace -- and the world at large, this just smacks the face of logic.
I'm not so sure, though. While this could have come off like the European Union's appalling "Science: It's a Girl Thing" video, it just doesn't feel the same. The photos are contrived, sure, and even a little silly. But SOMEONE has to make and model underwear for women. Why not use the opportunity to also demonstrate and inspire female leadership in business and technology?
It's not really up to me to decide if this is good or bad for women overall, because I'm not a woman. In my opinion, this campaign doesn't feel degrading or objectifying. But I urge women readers to weigh in.
Yesterday's Blackberry outage was a real panic for some professionals, who have grown to depend on their PDAs as an extension of themselves. But in my opinion these glitches are useful reminders of how much business and life have really changed in the past 10-15 years.
I still remember the boom-boom high tech '90s, when many of my clients were excited by the idea of transforming the way people do business, share, and communicate. Songs like Jesus Jones' "Right Here, Right Now" were co-opted by companies like AT&T to express the revolution that was going on. But the classic bit of '90s optimism and foresight was AT&T's 1993 "You Will" campaign:
So here we are in 2009. I'm blogging at you using a late '90s medium, but you may be reading this on a hand-held device in an elevator, a netbook in a coffee shop, on your HD TV, or a laptop on the bus. You can comment on it, share it, even subscribe to it (hint, hint) so you get notified the second I hit "publish post". Awesome, isn't it?
Isn't it?
I love the convenience of our current communication technology. Don't get me wrong. But new opportunities to collaborate and connect have their downsides too. So allow me to present...
The five times when you need to go offline:
1) When multitasking gets just plain rude
I run a lot of meetings, but I hate meetings as much as everyone else. I want them to be organized, focussed, and productive. But somehow, we have allowed it to be okay for people to read e-mails, text message, and instant message while other people are talking. What the hell?
Whether you're a client or a colleague, I can't pretend that I'm not annoyed by this kind of behaviour. I wish that we could post a sign in our boardroom saying "one conversation at a time, please". While you may think you're being efficient by splitting your attention in the meeting to get other things done, it actually slows down everyone else because you are not keeping up. Stop it please. It's as rude as taking a phone call mid-meeting.
2) When project management turns into buck-passing
One of the other problems with our ubiquitous access to e-mail is the temptation to do everything on that medium. In an ordinary conversation, people have to think about what they're saying. But when you receive an e-mail with a problem, it's easier to forward it to someone else to interpret and resolve than to actually participate intellectually in the resolution. Bad.
3) When you end up making a mountain out of an e-mail trail
Many people suck at expressing themselves in writing. e-mail is especially bad because it lacks nuance or the context of tone or body language. It's not an emotive medium, and yet people make the mistake of committing emotions to the permanent record by ranting and raving via e-mail. Big mistake. Especially if many CCs are involved. You may want to "take it back", but it's out there forever.
4) When you contribute to the death of prose
I'm old enough to have had pen pals. I loved writing letters. That probably helped me develop as a writer.
I'm not one of these people who thinks that texting and online jargon are killing the English language. It has to evolve to serve the needs of the day. But what I do find is that fewer and fewer people coming out of university have the ability to organize their thoughts in a format of more than 50 words.
When I put out an open call for entry-level Copywriters a couple of years ago, I insisted on them writing me an original cover letter. The ones I interviewed had to write a 700-word advertorial as a test. I found my worthy candidates, but I also found that many others who wanted to write for a living were incapable of structuring their thoughts, even in an e-mail. Add to that some truly pathetic spelling, grammar, and general sloppiness. Won't someone please think of the next generation of writers?
I agree that e-mail should be written differently than traditional business correspondence. But I also believe that it takes more thought to compose a concise message than a long-winded one. The smaller the screens (and the shorter the attention spans) that your readers have, the more you need to polish your writing style. This, sadly, is not happening. Even among my generation and older.
5) When work follows you everywhere
Everyone needs a break from being on-call. I know. When I was a kid, my uncle was a family doctor. Being accessible all the time can easily burn you out.
And yet people are afraid to disconnect from their work and social networks, even for eating, sleeping and having personal time. This just isn't right.
Because business is competitive, both client and agency people want to outdo each other in being available and responsive. If you don't answer this e-mail or take this call, right freaking NOW, then someone else will. Right?
Call me naive, but I think we need to change this situation. In my line of work, few crises are as immediate as people sometimes make them out to be. It's just that the opportunity for instant communication has created an expectation of immediate action — even on things that could easily have waited until tomorrow to address.
To me, the obsession with connectivity is a combination of novelty, inflated self-importance, and fear. We need to get over all three.
Anyway, if you'd like to comment on this blog, please do so below. I'll respond when I get around to it.
I don't want to sound like I'm bashing anyone's faith, but I really feel bad for people who won't accept the theory of evolution. Not only is it the best tool we have for understanding human nature; you can also apply Darwin, Wallace & Co.'s thinking to almost any human endeavour.
My son's love of these shows is part of his love affair with all things natural. But I'm also happy about what it's instilling in him for his adult life in any kind of business venture. It is helping him understand what "survival of the fittest" really means.
To many people, "the fittest" conjures up visions of the schoolyard bully, an unthinking brute who pushes aside all the girly men to impress the female folk. But that's not what it means at all. Evolution is all about flexibility, adaptation, and exploiting the opportunities of chance disaster.
There are two examples from the BBC series that give a more accurate object lesson in dealing with change:
Rise of the Mammals — Mammals have been dominating the world for more than 50,000,000 years, but it has not always been so. Prior to the great extinction event of 65,000,000 years ago, they were tiny creatures living at the fringes of the dinosaurs' world. The dinos in general were bigger, meaner, and way more successful at exploiting the relatively stable climates of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. But when the world was hurled into a nuclear winter by a cosmic collision, they didn't survive. Nothing big did. Only the smallest, most adaptable species survived. Among them were our furry ancestors, opportunistic living fossils like crocodiles, and the tiny, warm-blooded, feathered dinosaurs we now call birds.
Might did not make right, and the mammals outpaced even the remaining dinosaurs by adapting to, and dominating, almost every ecosystem in the planet. The mammals' penchant for adapting to change in novel ways is what lead to us. But there's another stop along the way.
Hominidmania — Over two million years ago, our ancestors were not the only hominids (humanoid apes) on the planet. Several different species rose and fell as the climate continued to change. Among them was Australopithecus boisei, a gorillalike brute that ate roots and lived in harems. They had a pretty easy life, browsing the available vegetation, but they were overspecialized. When the vegetation changed, they were outcompeted by other apemen with more curious natures and omnivorous appetites, such as our forebears.
In the current economy, large and traditional businesses can seem like dinosaurs, while the agile upstarts and shrewd early adopters may yet get through the fallout to grow into a new generation of leaders. Overspecialized and inflexible companies may find their food source dries up, while those with imagination and courage might just find new ways to survive.
The "fittest" are those most suited to adapt through, and take advantage of, change. Evolution may happen through random chance, but "intelligently designed" organizations can still learn from nature's lessons in hindsight.
My advice of the day? Executives should spend more time watching dinosaur movies.
