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Weekly UpdatesI'm used to being self-confessional. And I'm used to doing it in public. I haven't always been this way. I was painfully shy in school, almost crippled with shyness. I took drama classes in high school hoping to break out of my shell--and ended up starring in a musical in my senior year (I was Sally Bowles in Cabaret--see the photo at right).
But once I got online, I found the semi-anonymity freeing. I started out on AOL using the gender neutral NYCwriter. I started my first website without revealing my real name. I was Cybergrrl, a nod to the concept of cyberspace, which at the time was relatively new but in one of my all-time favorite books--Neuromancer by William Gibson. It was also a wink to the Riot Grrrl movement.
I could have cloaked myself behind an iron curtain of anonymity, but there was something akin to exhibitionism that I found a bit exciting as well. So little by little, I let my true identity come to the surface. From 1995-1999, I wrote a personal column for the Cybergrrl website (now defunct) about my life and views as a women working in the technology industry. From 2000-2001, I kept an online diary of my solo year-long road trip at RVgirl.com.
Then in 2003, I began blogging about my first pregnancy and subsequent four miscarriages and the rest of my saga on my quest to motherhood. That blog was the clincher to removing any remnants of a veil--I put it all out there, much to my new husband's dismay. But I wanted to be honest and open in the hope of helping other women who might be going through similar things.
So in a way, I took my personal mission of "empowering women through technology" a step further by speaking about unspeakable topics online as loudly as I could in hope of reaching women with information they could not find elsewhere.
In my Women at Work column, I'm pretty tame. Not that I don't have some horror stories and scandal, but mostly because I'm just focused on talking about business in a way I hope reveals some truths we don't always talk about. Like bankruptcy. Like losing yourself because of your company.
Don't get me wrong--I want to be as successful as the next gal or guy; I don't think that business is--or should be--all doom and gloom. I'm just being as honest as I can. That's really all any of us can do, right?
What are the things you want to hear about being a female entrepreneur that nobody seems to be talking about? Feel free to post them here--anonymously if you'd like.
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