Entrepreneurial Krommenie

September 16, 2012 Krommenie. Krommenie has a very new initiative for the business community,  Ondernemend Krommenie (OK for short and Entrepreneurial Krommenie in English) and so far we have been meeting every four of five weeks since the Spring of this year.

For people outside the Netherlands you are forgiven for not knowing where Krommenie is. It is a small town 25 minutes by train north west of Amsterdam, bordering on the industrial city of Zaandam and in the middle of a vast wetlands and farming area. My wife and I moved here 9 months ago. We are delighted to live in a community and still easily access our work and clients.

Tech school students built this aviary in a park in Krommenie

60 people have showed interest in OK and at the end of the summer we had 10 people around the table at our most recent gathering.  A dynamic group, very diverse, and very open to communication. The founders posed the question: what do you want this group to be for you? 

It is a good question to reflect on.

The first meeting I attended was impressive. A teacher who runs the Business Point at the local technical school, TRIAS VMBO, described a project in which the school, a local entrepreneur and the local council cooperated. The woodwork teacher wanted a work experience project for the students, the council wanted to give the aviary in the park a makeover and a local entrepreneur recognized the importance of giving young people a chance to learn the profession he is in. This gives him hope in the future that he will find the staff he needs as he develops his business into the next decade. An unexpected by-product of the project is perhaps one of the most important elements of all: the students feel a proud ownership of what they have achieved and they protect their project against vandalism. They have become part of and not ancillary to the community.

As someone who is excited by the power of connections,  I was delighted by this story. It acknowledges the power of locality and of people working together to produce results that are intended and to be willing to produce great results they could not even imagine being possible. The story gives access to the potential of OK as a network.

As I mingled and met my fellow local entrepreneurs I met a graphic designer, Renée Vrijman, who is passionate about communication. I was touched, moved and inspired by her story and invited her to make my new business card. I shared with her and her business partner (who is also her father) what my business is, and she translated that story into a logo. It represents diversity, networks, connectedness, the world, and bright futures for those who choose to work with the people around them.

Because she was local, I felt an extra layer of trust in the partnership. 

At our end of summer OK discussion, a woman shared some of the dilemmas she is facing with her newly opened Clothing Bank that was set up to cater to the same clientele as the food bank. Many of the clothes are new, from outlets, and the fashions are modern. When the shop opened earlier this year there was a lot of local media interest. Yet many people have not yet found their way to the shop, As she shared the story with the group, many good questions were asked and useful suggestions made. The owner later posted on the group's LinkedIn site that she was already benefiting from the results of this conversation.

Many of the customers of the Clothing Bank come for the social contacts. From the perspective of network theory, this is great news - and one of the unintended benefits of the shop. Very poor people have very limited social circles, and the more weak ties - or connections to people outside the inner circle of family - poor people have, the greater their access to resources that can take them out of poverty.

In a nutshell, the OK network already provides a number of benefits to its members.

• OK has brought new business to some of the members, and new business contacts to all of us. 
• In our discussions, we share knowledge and in this way even small businesses get access to diverse professional input.
• We hear about the latest developments in the community.
• By talking together, we create community. 

So what could we be doing in the future?

First, keep doing what we already do.

A characteristic house on main street

The entrepreneurs in OK could also explore whether we want to promote Krommenie as a tourist destination. 

OK can see if it wants to play a role in promoting local businesses, or take up issues like parking, or look from a business perspective at what facilities the people in the town need.

NETSHEILA has many examples to share when looking for inspiration in developing OK as a networking group for local business people. If you have ideas or would like to discuss potential partnerships with Ondernemend Krommenie, feel free to get in touch.
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Lin McDevitt-Pugh is director of NETSHEILA and her business is working with people to access the contacts and people around them. She can be reached on +31-75-6152295, or via the contact form.

Bruce Springsteen Keynote Address - Inspiration for Women Leaders

"There is no right way of doing it, there is just doing it." Bruce Springsteen. This is one of the great lines in this keynote speech Bruce Springsteen delivered on 15 March this year at South by South West, an event with over 10,000 music bands. Now no longer available on Youtube, you can catch it on NPR.

I recommend watching this 57 minute tour of the history of rock. As every business knows, you need 'cool people' as well as numbers crunchers to really get to understand your business. After all, we are people and we live in the world. So what does this 'cool people' have to contribute to business and specifically, to women in business?

When Bruce Springsteen picked up his first guitar in 1964, Rock and Roll had a 10 year history. Transposing that to a timescale we can understand, if he had started today he would only have had the lessons learned since 2002 to build on, and to be inspired by. There were not even 10,000 guitars to go round the bands then, he quips, they would have had to borrow from each other between gigs.

My mind shot immediately to a profound statement by top manager Pamela Boumeester that I read in this week's Dutch evening newspaper, the NRC: "We are the first generation of women to work full time." Until 1956, married women in the Netherlands were not allowed to work outside the home. It wasn't until 1996 that the term "Glass Ceiling" was invented - 16 years ago. We don't have a long history to call on, or refer to, or be inspired by. We have a short history, of women taking on tasks that to their mothers and grandmothers would have been unthinkable. Like the young Hedy d'Ancona, who in the 60s was the face of the right to decide about our own bodies movement, who kept on saying yes when opportunities became available, all the time making new doors open. She became Secretary of State for Women's Affairs when that department was created. She was a force to be reckoned with in the European Parliament.She did what Bruce Springsteen's call us to do: just do it.

Many many successful strands of rock culture have emerged since 1964. Many successful strands of women in business are yet to be invented. Some have been invented, many are yet to be invented. That is the nature of change. What we will invent will be a departure from the past. We will look at what inspires us and build that into something that inspires many.

It is important for women leaders get together and reflect on what is working and what is not working. It is important to speak out. It is important we find our voice together.

In the past week I have noticed a number of opportunities for finding others to work with, to inspire each other and create the change we want. These are all in the Netherlands:

• Lesbian women are exchanging experiences together in programs like L-Women at Work.  
• De Beuk is offering masterclasses for Leading Ladies throughout the year. 
• Karin Doms and Hanske Plenge's  have a peer-mentoring event for women in boards in April.
• Stichting Yente has developed networking books  as a contribution to the success of women entrepreneurs in established and emerging economies.

Culture change is always part of the equation. Any strategy you develop to create a new future will fail if the culture of the organization is not changed too. New thinking in this area comes from CultureSync, after years of research on reflection on what makes great companies great in both a social and a business sense. The book Tribal Leadership sets out their ideas and their roadmap to change. They find that success comes from being true to shared core values. Read Dave Logan's article in this weeks' CBS News MoneyWatch to understand how a company that is not being true to its  core values can run into big trouble. Knowing and operating from our core values is key to our success.

Bruce Springsteen closes his keynote speech with the inspiring words: "Don't take yourself too seriously. And take yourself as seriously as death itself. Don't worry. Worry your ass off. Have ironclad confidence, but have doubt, it keeps you awake and alert".

By Lin McDevitt-Pugh

Lin is owner of NetSHEila, a company specialized in maximizing the value of relationships between people to companies an organizations. As a management consultant, she has been trained in delivering results in Tribal Leadership, starting from finding the core values of each person in the "tribe". She can be contacted on +31-6-150 48468 or through the contact form on www.netsheila.com. She offers online coaching services to clients outside the Netherlands, and face to face services in the Netherlands. Follow her tweets via @LinMcDevittPugh.

Tip: Talk to Strangers

Who is that person slouched next to you in the plane? You look at their hair, their clothes, their age, their gender and make an assessment. There are a hundred reason for connecting, or not.

1. They may be from a different country and you would love to know more about that country. After all, you are a traveler yourself.
2. They look tired and may want to sleep. You don't want to interrupt.
3. They are reading the kind of book you hate - so you are wondering what makes someone who reads that kind of book tick.
4. They are reading your favourite book and you want to know whether they fall into the camp of those that love it, or those that hate it (I've had a private poll on Annie Proulx's The Accordion Crimes for years).
5. They may be from your country and you are longing to speak your own language.
6. You may be about to go to their country and you want some good inside tips on shows to visit.
7. Something tells you he won't bite your head off if you address a comment to him.
8. They may be coming back from a big adventure and wouldn't it be fun to find out what that was!
9. You can't help but be excited about finding out what makes this person great.
10. You would love to know what this person is proud of, in her life or in his work.
11. You know that people love talking about themselves and you love to listen, so the combination is perfect.
12. And many more...

I traveled to London this week, for a weekend. In a split second I sized up the man I sat next to and briefly thought he looked tired, but decided to risk annoying him. After all, I was sure he was not the kind of person to bite off my head. Something about him said he was worth talking to, and I was curious.

By the end of the flight I knew what he loves about his work, what he is proud of, and found out that his values and my values blend well. That is downright exciting! And to top it all off  he also had some good tips for where I should go in London.

As we landed, we exchanged emails and, now we are both back in Amsterdam, we are planning to meet and find out more about each other's business. My intention is to create a great connection, based on merit and respect.

Whatever happens, this connection is good for business.

The secret to networking is to be really interested in what the other people are up to, in what makes them great, and so see what mutual benefit can be had from creating a relationship.

Lin McDevitt-Pugh

Lin McDevitt-Pugh is founder of NetSHEila, a company bringing fun, freedom and ease to the business of building value-driven companies. One of our core values is acknowledging the networks of people around us as central to our success. Write to admin@netsheila.com to start looking at how we can work together.

Women Entrepreneurs Have Fewer Connections, Says Report Published

On December 15, 2011, The Global Entreprise Monitor published the 2010 Womens Report.
It highlights why women entrepreneurs can benefit from NetSHEila's Mobilize Networks training.

The purpose of the GEM Women’s report is to examine women entrepreneurs around the world. The report seeks to understand differences in the frequency and nature of women’s entrepreneurship, and makes comparisons with men across various societies.

One chapter was devoted to networks. Networks play a multifaceted role for women entrepreneurs and business owners, helping them to gain advice, form partnerships, secure financing, access qualified management and employees, and build value chain relationships.

The analysis showed that, in many economies, women entrepreneurs and business owners tended to have smaller networks than their male counterparts. Further, only in Israel did women exhibit more diverse networks than men; women in other economies reported the same or lower network diversity.

As Figure 10 of the study shows, both women and men entrepreneurs and business owners tended to seek advice most often from those with whom they had personal relationships—their private environment.
Women were more inclined to seek guidance from family, and spouses in particular. On the other hand, men tended to draw more heavily on the advice of friends. Men were also more likely to use other network sources, such as their work environment or professional advisors.

The goal of this report is to help policy makers, practitioners and educators recognize the value women entrepreneurs bring to their societies.

GEM seeks to promote better understanding about the similarities and differences between men and women entrepreneurs, as well as among various groups of women.

This report also aims to provide guidance for efforts aimed toward equipping women with the capabilities they need to launch and run their businesses and creating environments within which their ventures can thrive. Highlighted throughout this report are descriptions of different women’s entrepreneurship programs operating in a variety of societies.
This study is evidence that the NetSHEila network training for women entrepreneurs is needed, valuable and timely. You can see some of the work we did with women entrepreneurs in Africa on the blog  Reinforcing Competitiveness of Women Entrepreneurs.

Lin McDevitt-Pugh

Lin is founder of NetSHEila, a consultancy team bringing social values to enterprise initiatives. Call us on +31 6 150 48468 or write to admin@netsheila.com to see how we can work with you.

APEC Delegate Patrice Braun: Knowledge Shared is Knowledge Gained

Dr Patrice Braun is the Interim Director of the Centre for Regional Innovation & Competitiveness (CRIC) at the University of Ballarat, which has a focus on sustainable regional development and innovation. Patrice is one of the people I like to keep in touch with. She is always at the cutting edge of women and ICT for Development (ICTD). This is an area I am passionate about, and work in as a manager, an area that has been part of my life for more than 15 years. She developed an interest in the use of ICTD doing a Masters by Research (1997) on the use of the Internet for community informatics. She pursued this theme in her PhD (2003) in ICT-enabled regional network innovation for  SMEs. She is now spearheading the development of an Asia-Pacific Centre for Women & Technology, one of ten globally networked not-for-profit centres to empower and mainstream women in the knowledge economy.

This year Patrice was a member of the Australian delegation, led by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, at the 2011 APEC Women and The Economy Summit in San Francisco, where US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a powerful message that women make a substantial impact on the economy and that more needs to be done to overcome barriers to increase women’s economic participation.

In the final declaration of the conference, the following statement sums our present state of affairs up well regarding women and leadership:

"Studies have identified four major barriers preventing women from rising to leadership positions: organizational obstacles, including a lack of role models and exclusion from informal networks; work-life balance challenges, including travel requirements and long work schedules; institutional mindsets, meaning women are evaluated differently for positions from men; and finally, individual mindsets, due to a lack of positive reinforcement, and peer and senior-level support. We agree that these barriers are problematic not only for women looking to take on more responsibility, but also to the growth and success of the business or organization. It is also important to consider that many of these obstacles come from gender stereotypes related to the heavier load of domestic work and care-giving done by women. Society still sees women as mainly responsible for taking care of the children and maintaining the household, and this can become a restraint for women to enter the labor market and for women-owned SMEs to achieve a better performance."