Archives for May 2014

Bishop Walker School – Family & Friends Day

(May 16, 2014) The Bishop Walker School for Boys in SE Washington, DC, hosted their annual “Family & Friends Day.” This is an opportunity for the boys to show what they’ve learned in their music program through live performances. Music and art are an important part of the curriculum of this tuition free school for boys from low-income families.

The formal music program is followed by parents, grandparents and other friends visiting the classrooms and meeting the teachers. Parents are very involved in this community of learners and they are an essential component of the boys’ overall success at BWS. There are many ways to support the work of BWS, which relies entirely on its own fundraising to run this school for at risk youth. Check out the website for the many ways you can get involved: www.BishopWalkerSchool.org

by Catherine Read

#GIRLBOSS – Sophia Amoruso

#GIRLBOSS (May 15, 2014) “Confidence is more attractive than anything you could put on your body.” – Sophia Amoruso

I LOVED this book! Sophia Amoruso has a wonderful life story to tell – a fascinating journey for someone who is just 30 years old, a high school dropout and the CEO of her own multimillion dollar online fashion business called Nasty Gal. She started her business on MySpace selling vintage clothing back in 2006, then moved to Ebay, then to her own website. She now employs over 300 people and her annual revenues are well over $100 million dollars.

I like her style in telling her own story. She offers practical advice on everything from LinkedIn, cover letters, resumes and interviews to wisdom that rings true on what makes a person “cool.” She thinks of herself as “anti-fashion” in the traditional sense of following fashion dictated by fashion designers. She thinks clothes should be an expression of who we are. A bit of Sophia’s wisdom: “So embrace all the things that make you different. Alter your clothes all you want, but don’t you dare alter your inner freak. She’s got your back as much as I do.”

I thoroughly enjoyed the book as both a coming of age story and as a business book. This is a millennial who is showing us a future that others can have. She did it without a lot of what many of us believe is essential to being successful in business. Reading this on the heels of “The Innovator’s DNA” and “The Confidence Code,” I can see how this came together the way it did. Or rather, I can see how Sophia pulled it all together.

A thought I loved from the book: “Clothing is ultimately the suit of armor in which we battle the world. . . Owning your style, however, is much more about your attitude than it is about what’s on your back.” Amen, sister!

by Catherine Read

The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance – What Women Should Know

The Confidence Code (May 13, 2014) I think this is singularly one of the most important books written in the last several years. Journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman have done an amazing job in both researching this subject and writing about it in a thoughtful and productive way. The Atlantic’s May 2014 cover story entitled “The Confidence Gap” is a great in-depth article based on the research done for this book.

I was fortunate to hear the authors speak about their book with James Bennet of The Atlantic at an event held in DC in May 2014. Their research is quite enlightening and their conclusions resonate with me. They manage to boil down the definition of confidence to this: “Confidence is the stuff that turns thoughts into action.” They interviewed many women in positions of leadership to get their assessment of what women need to focus on in order to build confidence. One insight is the fact that women often over-think things where men have a bias to action. Women also tend to be perfectionists – if we don’t think we can do it successfully, we often will not attempt it. This ranges from skipping questions on a test to not applying for a promotion. They remind us that people who succeed aren’t always “naturals” – they are “doers.”
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by Catherine Read

The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators

The Innovator's DNA (May 2, 2014) A collaborative effort by Jeffrey Dyer, Hal B. Gregersen and Clayton M. Christensen. The book is really good and I loved the concepts and the examples they use. I felt it was longer than it needed to be.

The basic concept of “the innovator’s DNA” is that people engage in certain types of specific behaviors that impact how well they are able to innovate. Those behaviors are Associating, Questioning, Observing, Networking and Experimenting. In using Associational Thinking (Associating), the authors posit that innovation breakthroughs happen at the intersection of diverse disciplines and fields. It’s also called the Medici Effect. I have experienced that firsthand and know the value of having diverse interests, friends and talking with everyone no matter what it is they do.

In creating innovative ideas, it’s necessary to put things together in new and novel combinations. There are many great “real world” examples of this in the book that any reader would recognize. For instance: wireless + computers = Blackberry. There is also an acronym for remembering the actions we must take in the process of innovating: SCAMPER
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