WomenEntrepreneur.com: Aliza Sherman

Is Workcation a Word or Even a Possibility?

Aliza Sherman — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:00:00

I recently heard the term "workcation" and right away knew what it meant. It isn't that vacation you take where you end up working, but an actual vacation where you plan for the fact that you will also be working--or in some cases a work trip you are taking that you turn into a part vacation.

My upcoming column is going to be about other women who have taken workcations, and the benefits and challenges of such arrangements.

I asked one of them--Jennifer K. Woofter of Strategic Sustainability Consulting--to give me her best tips for making a workcation work for you. Here's what she had to say.

"In the planning stages of a workcation, the first thing I do is check out my internet options. The holy grail is free high-speed wireless internet at my hotel, with a variety of internet hot spots nearby just in case," says Woofter.

Woofter explains that for her, wifi is important so she isn't tethered by an ethernet connection. Beware of the dial-up connection, she urges, or if that is the only option, plan your week as if you don't have an internet connection at all.

Woofter has her "standard workcation tech list" including:

Laptop with extra battery and power cord.
Power adaptor, especially when traveling overseas.
Flash drive, blank CDs or DVDs
USB Headset
Skype account (to avoid international phone calls)
Mobile device charger and power adaptor

Woofter sets a specific out-of-office e-mail with instructions for the person trying to reach her.

Rather than bring paper files, Woofter uses a remote data-backup service such as Dropbox, which automatically syncs your files across computers.

Says Woofter, "Anything I save on my work computer automatically updates to my laptop, giving me instant access to my files and saving me unnecessary printing. I just make sure to sync before my trip, so that I have the most up-to-date files before I leave."

Dropbox and similar services can also be used as emergency backup systems.

Some other tips from Woofter include:

Bring all of your work equipment (computer, books, reports) in your carry-on--NEVER check it as baggage. There is nothing worse than arriving someplace and finding that your suitcase didn't make it. You can always go buy a toothbrush, but anxiety about a missing laptop will kill the joy of any vacation.

Pack at least one "business travel" outfit--something that doesn't wrinkle and dries quickly. " I find that I can almost always schedule meetings with a relevant contact whereever I go--and it's always nice to look presentable when you meet for coffee." (These kind of meetings also provide a small tax write-off for your vacation, which is a no-brainer.)

Woofter also suggests that while you're planning your vacation, divide "work" and "play" into separate chunks of time.

"When I'm in Hawaii, I get up early and have my conference calls in my pajamas--since the time difference means that most people are well into their work day when I'm just getting started," Woofter explains. "When I'm in Europe, I set aside a couple of hours after dinner for calls and meetings. In most cases, you can segment your time so that you can have most of the 'normal day' free for actual vacation."

With a little extra planning and the right equipment and setup, a workcation doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility. Now to get my husband to buy into it!

How do you make workcations work for you?

When Work and Life Crash and Burn

Aliza Sherman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:40:11

While prepping my next column--about the crises that can ensue when work and life collide--my work and life collided yet again. My 3-year-old daughter had to stay home from day-care because of a cough on a day that I was presenting a virtual training session to a client and staff. Working from home can have its fantastic advantages, but when the child is home sick and you don't have a baby sitter, everything descends quickly into chaos.

I only had to mute about three times during my live presentation--and I had prepped the client and staff that my daughter was home sick. But each time it was because my daughter decided she no longer wanted to follow the "don't talk to mommy while she is on the phone rule" and instead wanted to make repeated demands for snacks and to climb onto my lap.

By the time the presentation was done, I was livid. Not at my daughter, who was clearly bored on top of not feeling well. But at myself for once again putting myself into (or not extricating myself from) a frustrating position that pushed all my anger buttons to the hilt. I had recently experienced a total emotional meltdown because I had backed myself into a corner of chaos by making choices that relied on the alignment of all planets to work out. Hadn't I just learned my lesson?

A few weeks ago, I was between child-care options (note to anyone who insists on pointing me toward SitterCity or Nannies R Us-type services: I live in Tok, Alaska. Those services do not WORK in Tok, Alaska, because no baby sitters in Tok, Alaska, use those services. Because there are virtually no baby sitters in Tok, Alaska).

I spent two weeks trying to find my zen while running my company and doing my work from home with a bored 3-year-old who was convinced that every day was going to be "mommy and daughter quality time" from dawn to dusk. I managed those two weeks as best I could. And then for the next few weeks, I was able to bring said daughter to a new day-care provider.

That worked like a dream, although I spent that time digging myself out of very deep piles of work. I barely had a chance to catch up and take a breath before my husband left on a 10-day hunting trip. During that time, I also had a speaking engagement and ended up bringing my daughter along, lining up a baby sitter in the other town (where they have baby sitters). I think she held up like a trouper given the 11 hours of driving each way and shuttling from friend's house to hotel and back before finally getting back home.

But me? Total meltdown. I simply lost it one afternoon when a doctor appointment for my daughter conflicted suddenly with a live phone presentation I had to give for a new client. When I realized I had a conflict and was trying to figure out what to do with my business partner on the phone, my daughter peed in her pants in the doctor's waiting room. I had to carry pee-soaked daughter into the elevator, downstairs, across the parking lot to my car, and was still trying to resolve the scheduling conflict on the phone. And my daughter started doing her classic "mommy, mommy, mommy" routine, which means "get off the phone and pay attention to me right now because I'm not going to quiet down until you do."

"I can't take it anymore," I said in a tiny, strained voice.

My business partner thought I was talking about our company, that I couldn't take being in our company any more. And she went immediately into "OK, if you are going to quit the company mode, let's discuss."

I heard "quit the company" and thought she was trying to get me to quit the company. I hung up on her. Then with tears streaming down my face, I proceeded to change my daughter's clothes in the parking lot--which she thought was a ton of fun until she saw me bawling.

"Smile for me, mother," she said in her cheery little way, and I just lost it. Totally lost it. She gave me a big hug, which only made it worse, not better.

What was I doing to my daughter? What was I doing to myself?

I wish I could say that I dropped everything right then and there and headed for my friend's house to kick back and chill and spend some quality time with my daughter. But instead, I sucked it up and went back in to see the doctor, who was very understanding and kind, especially when she saw what a wreck I was.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that several times during this fiasco, I was on the phone with the wife of my husband's hunting partner discussing the fact that we hadn't heard from them for five days via their new satellite notification device and that we had several scares that something bad had happened to them in a very remote part of Alaska. That only added to the pressure.

Husband arrived back safely. Wife still has had no time to decompress. Daughter was sick yesterday, wife screamed at husband for being half an hour late getting home.

On the business side, the solution is to delegate more, rely more on my new assistant and learn to say "no" to smaller projects that, while meaningful, just won't pay the bills.

On the personal side, I'm thinking therapy, marriage counseling, a trip to someplace tropical and copious amounts of red wine.

How do you keep work and life from crashing into an ugly mess? Or can you?

Banish the Sleazy Salesperson and Be Authentic

Aliza Sherman — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:00:00

As I was preparing my article about self-promotion, Paula Gregorowicz, a life and business coach for women, provided these thoughts on promoting oneself:

Banish the Sleazy Salesperson and Be Authentic

Tooting your own horn gets a bad rap, especially for women. You should be seen and not heard, right? Images of sleazy salespeople selling you what you don't want in an icky way spring to mind the minute we think of self-promotion. My advice? Ditch the sleaze and simply be authentic. Women are great at sharing stories and making connections, especially when we're helping others. So the answer is to do the same for yourself as if you were doing it for your best friend (become your own best friend).

Be authentically you and just speak and act from your best intentions. Share some recent stories about your work. Tell others about things you are doing that you are proud about, excited about or on which you are focusing your time. You automatically make it interesting to others by being real, being yourself and being genuine.

Shift from 'Should's' and 'Should Not's' to Celebration

Your mind swims with all the things you "should" do or say. When it comes to self-promotion, the mind is filled to the brim with "should not's" or "I can't do/say . . ." Don't listen to these Monkey Mind voices in your head. Thank them for being there and then move on.

Perhaps the No. 1 reason women don't self-promote is because they don't feel secure in who they are and therefore fear what others might think. Until you know that you can count on yourself to be compassionate, kind and forgiving to yourself no matter what the outcome of any particular situation, you will always hesitate. The risk is too great. You fear making a mistake or being rejected by others and know that will be followed by you beating yourself up mercilessly. Who would want to speak out or step out with those consequences? It's no wonder we stay silent and hidden.

The answer? Give yourself permission to let your light shine. Celebrate your uniqueness. Show and tell others about the amazing gifts you offer. Then, no matter what, make sure you take time for your own self-care and development so you build the unshakable confidence and courage you need to take these vulnerable steps--knowing you can always count on yourself.

How do you give yourself permission to promote who you are and what you do?

Who Will Toot Your Horn?

Aliza Sherman — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:35:57

I am a firm believer that women should toot their own horns--that is, not shy away from self-promotion. Now hear this: There's nothing wrong with self-promotion. The guys do it, and they are called "capable," "credible" and "qualified." When women self-promote, people cringe. Why does it seem so grating and inappropriate for a woman to be vocal about her capabilities and accomplishments?

Maybe it's history. Up until the last 40 years or so, girls were brought up "not to draw attention to themselves." It was considered unseemly for a woman to step into the spotlight unless she was in Hollywood, and even there she was widely disparaged and limited in what control she could have over her own image and career.

Don't believe me? Watch an episode of the fabulous AMC series "Mad Men" and see where women were in the business arena as late as the 1960s.

Now I have to say this up-front. I love men. I respect men . . . who respect me, of course. But a lot of the discrimination from the get-go (and not just against women but against non-whites as well) has been perpetrated by white males, particularly in business in the U.S. Not all white males, of course. But look at U.S. history, please, and then look at the landscape of the upper echelons of corporate America. Hello!

I'm not here to give a history lesson, but I feel strongly about women owning their power and feeling comfortable about speaking about their strengths without apology. Let me explain my own experiences within this landscape. After years of being plagued with horrible self-esteem issues, I dared to venture out into the "limelight" when I started my internet company Cybergrrl,Inc., and was at once celebrated and disparaged.

Some people thought it was inspiring to see a woman at the forefront of an internet company while others--women included--thought it was selfish and arrogant of me to "hog the attention," totally disregarding the fact that I always referred reporters to many other women and included other women's names in my interviews. I started an organization called Webgrrls International not only to bring women together to help one another succeed with technology and in the tech industries but also to give women the opportunity to stand in the spotlight themselves.

Many women were afraid to step into the glare of attention (and what a glare it can be). Whatever the reasons, they shrunk back into the shadows, then grumbled about the women who were eager, willing and able to shine.

Stay tuned for an upcoming article about several women entrepreneurs who also feared tooting their own horns but overcame that fear with positive results. And I'll be getting advice from an expert who works exclusively with businesswomen to help cut through our fears so we can all move forward--not just to promote ourselves, but to promote one another as well.

How do you feel about self-promotion or about women promoting what they do?

More Thoughts on Switching Banks

Aliza Sherman — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:00:00

In my column about changing banks for your company's well-being, "Do You Need to Divorce Your Bank?" I talked about why to make a switch and how to make that switch. Cher Przelomski of The Planning Factory, an events company, finally switched banks. Why are some women hesitant to switch banks?

"Besides the agony of filling out paperwork and making the many adjustments involved with a new banking system, it's not easy to 'reveal' yourself and your company's inside track to someone new," Przelomski says. "I need a bank that understands how our business works, not anyone else's. I didn't want to be compared to what the 'norm' is. What is that, anyway? I need a person who trusts that the business of special events and meeting planning is a valid business--and that her or she values and wants my business.

When Przelomski needed a larger credit line to grow a new line of business, she couldn't accept no for an answer. She thought, "Someone out there wants my business and will understand my needs. I need to be with that bank."

Przelomski actually returned to a local, smaller and stable bank where she had done business years earlier. She had left the smaller bank for the perceived "perks" of a bigger, chain-type bank. She noticed an ad campaign her former bank was running and decided to get back in touch. Her former banker not only was happy to hear from her, but--based on the strength of the numbers she e-mailed him and her company's reputation--he granted the credit line she was looking for in 10 minutes. Making the switch was easy, and her new bank was attentive to her needs during that transition.

The bottom line, according to Przelomski, is that you will be making the bank money.

"Interview them for your needs. This is a two-way relationship, and both partners need to get what they want out of it."

Last year, I blogged about switching banks for my Entrereneur Mom blog, and the advice I received from Maria Coyne, executive vice president at Key4Women, Key Bank's women in business program, is worth repeating here:

Step 1: Open new account(s) at your new bank.

Step 2: Print out a checklist to help guide you, if your new bank has one available.

Step 3: "Money out." First, cancel ACH payments--or the money that comes out of your old account automatically based on a predetermined payment schedule. That might include loan payments, utility payments, insurance payments, etc. Then re-establish the ability to pay these entities via automatic payment deductions (ACH) from your new account. Provide written instructions to these providers with your new account information.

Step 4: "Money in." Transfer or establish direct deposits--or the "money in"--to your new account. If you are an individual employed by a company, authorize the transfer of your payroll check direct deposit or other income from the old to your new checking or savings account by signing a direct-deposit form. This form also authorizes direct deposit of government checks (i.e., Social Security).

Step 5: If you have a credit relationship with your old bank, authorize the bank in writing to pay off your credit card, loan or line of credit balances with funds you designate, and then close those account(s). You do this by signing a credit payoff form. Both you and the bank will have a written copy of the payoff to keep for future reference.

Step 6: After everything has cleared, including all checks written and any payments coming out of your old account, close the account by signing an account closure request form. This form provides notice and authorization to your financial institution to close your account(s) and issue you a check for the remaining balances.

Step 7: Transfer other accounts. Contact your local branch or call the 1-800 number to talk to a banker about transferring retirement and other accounts to your new bank. Having a full relationship with your new bank will make managing accounts easier for you, and it will help the bank get to know you better.

Easy enough, right?

What have you experienced when switching banks, and why did you make the switch? Or if you need to but haven't yet, why not?

Hiring an Assistant: Tips from an Expert

Aliza Sherman — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:37:08

While working on my article You Can't Afford Not to Hire an Assistant, I received some great tips from a business coach via e-mail.

Lindy DeKoven is the CEO and founder of Lindy DeKoven Coaching--a career-coaching service that specializes in entertainment, sports and politics. She has worked as a top-level executive in television, sports and politics, and is an expert at coaching others in taking the steps they need to to both succeed and to transition in their careers.

When I put out my call for advice and anecdotes about businesswomen hesitant about hiring assistants, here is what DeKoven sent me:

1. Assess the Situation

If missed meetings, unread e-mails, unreturned phone calls and angry clients are staring you in the face, it's time to assess the situation and ask for some help. Women, who are notorious for their ability to multitask, truly believe that even though they may not be able to have it all; certainly believe they can do it all. But when a business starts to grow, the owner has to take appropriate action and grow with it.

2. Letting Go of Control

This is your business. Your baby. Your passion. The idea of "turning it over" to someone else is unthinkable. How can they possibly know, understand, care and love this business as much as you? Well, first, you are not "turning" anything over. You are simply asking for help because you are doing well and, in order to continue that growth, you need help. Your first employees may not share your passion initially. However, your goal is to get them emotionally invested in your business and its success. The only way to do that is to start letting go of control and bring them on board.

3. Trust Your Instincts

OK, you've asked for help. Over that hurdle. Now whom are you going to hire? Who is the right person? Whom can you trust? Well, the good news is that you know this business inside out. No one knows it better than you. And that's an advantage because you know what you need in your employees. So make a list of what you want. What kind of employee is appropriate at this juncture? What are your expectations? Meet with several candidates. Ferret out the ones you think you can trust to handle the duties you were once doing. And then trust your instincts. You've gotten this far, so it's likely you know what the heck you're doing. Your instincts have proved successful. The person you want is probably the best one for the job. So go for it.

4. Managing Your Time

Ah, what a relief. Help is on its way, and you can breathe a little easier. This is the time to prioritize your duties and start managing your time. What are your most important responsibilities? What decisions are yours and yours alone? Now that you have help, what tasks and decisions can your employees handle without supervision? What can you accomplish now that you weren't able to do before? Set a weekly meeting with your new employees; go over your expectations. Assign duties. If you do this correctly, you should be working less and your employees working more. They should be coming to you for final decisions, but they ought to be handling the day-to-day themselves.

5. Set New Goals

Congratulations. You've accomplished your first set of goals. You've achieved a great deal. Needing employees to help you develop your business means that it has grown. You are now past Stage One and embarking on Stage Two. Every time you move from one stage to the next, it's important to assess the situation, and set new goals for yourself, your employees and your business. And by the way, it's really important to take a moment to pat yourself on the back, and recognize your success and achievements. Women tend to forget this--and they shouldn't. Men are constantly patting themselves on the back, the thigh, the hands, wherever (Ever watched a game? It happens after every play.). But women tend to negate that step. Take a moment to say, "Great job, I accomplished my first set of goals. And now, with my new employees on board, I can tackle the next phase. Wow."

Lindy really nailed the way women tend to negate their achievements. I'm guilty of that far too often.

What issues are keeping you from hiring an assistant, or have you hired one and it just isn't working out? Tell us about it.

Help! I Have 10,000 E-mails in My Inbox!

Aliza Sherman — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:10:38

I've been thinking a lot about e-mail management lately, mostly because my e-mail has been out of control for far too long, and it is finally beginning to hurt my productivity and communications. The fact that it took this long--three years--to hit the wall is probably nothing more than a testament to my perseverance in the face of adversity. But when I saw that my inbox read 10,388 e-mails, I knew something had to give. And that's not counting more than 3300 unread ones, many dating back to 2005.

I've blogged about my e-mail dilemma before, most recently on a client's blog here, as well as posting about mail applications such as Postbox.

One of the real catalysts for rethinking how I've been using e-mail has been the blog post Zero patience? You can still have inbox zero by Alexandra Samuel of Social Signal.

I'm terrible at following instructions, so I've resorted to spending half an hour archiving all but the last five pages of e-mail in my inbox, just systematically going to the oldest e-mails in Gmail, selecting All, then hitting the Archive button. There is something frightening and liberating about this exercise.

The hardest part of archiving old e-mails that I haven't properly filed--much less old e-mails that I haven't even read--is that I'm always worried that the minute it is out of sight, I'll miss out on something critical. But if I haven't addressed it in three years, the other side of my brain reasons, how in the world can it be important?

Another aspect of ridding my inbox of e-mails is that I tend to be a collector. OK, I'm a hoarder. I have tons of e-mail newsletters that I've saved for several years now and haven't gotten around to reading. But I just KNOW I'll need that certain issue of TechCrunch or that e-mail newsletter from June 2007 from Absolute Write. And without it, my collection is incomplete. Welcome to my crazy world.

I have to remember that digital newsletters are like the magazines I used to hoard--boxes and boxes of The Sun from the past 11 years, Real Simple even after I stopped subscribing, The Oxford American even after it stopped publishing, Everyday Food even when it suddenly stopped appearing in my mailbox--and more. I finally threw out most of them (OK, I still have issues of The Sun and Everyday Food) and it was liberating, although I did get a message from my trash company that I had to separate bulk magazines into several extra bags as the weight of the magazines kept ripping the heavy duty garbage sacks I had dumped them into.

I have yet to find that I've needed an article in any magazine I've thrown away. And even if I did, there are online archives for many publications now that render the paper version nearly obsolete.

So the fact that I've hoarded my e-mails since I first began using Gmail isn't a surprise. I'm just surprised at how long it took me to take action. Then again, the first step to any addiction is admitting it--and I think I did that quite openly in my recent e-mail confessions.

What state is your Inbox in? What have you done or are you going to do about it?

The Flip Side: A Virtual Assistant's Advice

Aliza Sherman — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:00:00

In my article You Can't Afford Not to Hire an Assistant, I spoke about the need to hire an assistant and why many women business owners don't do it when they should. I recounted my own story about missing several meetings in a single week, the catalyst for finally hiring a virtual assistant to help me with my schedule.

I asked my virtual assistant, Stephanie Lee of Scratchpad Secretaries, to offer her advice to women business owners who may be on the fence about hiring an assistant. Why would someone want to hire an assistant, much less a virtual one? Here are some of her ideas for what you could have an assistant do for you:

Template development. If you're in the startup stages of your business, or even if you've been in business for years, have a virtual assistant prepare templates for you. It takes so much time to prepare correspondence if you start from scratch each time, with each new client, contact, supplier, etc. So have a VA prepare all these bits and pieces in advance--everything from your letterhead and simple introductory letters to contracts, thank yous and how-did-we-do? letters. Then there are internal workings, such as critical path templates, contact databases . . . anything and everything you can think of that you'd use on a regular basis. Templates save so much time.
Presentations. Creating the copy, design and formatting of PowerPoint presentations can take days. Outsource it. You can send the copy to your VA and have her create the slides for you, completely branded. You can even conference via Skype or Google Video Chat to work together in building the content and editing.
E-mail management and screening. Inboxes are inundated with inquiries, requests, questions and, of course, spam. Let your virtual assistant get in there and manage it! Virtual assistants can also answer routine customer-service e-mails, inquiries and the like. How nice would it be to get into your e-mail in the mornings and have it be tidy?
Website maintenance and updating. Quite often we put our website maintenance in the "to do" folder, and there it stays for days/weeks/months. Do you have a quick update but can't seem to find the time? Want to revamp or freshen up your site but don't have time to take care of it? This is a perfect job for your virtual assistant! Take it out of the "to-do" folder and put it in the "done" folder.
Online reputation and brand management. Let your virtual assistant keep track of what people are saying about your company/product/service and that of your competition.

Understand that today's assistant needs to be more skilled and tech savvy than a traditional "secretary." And when it comes to virtual assistants, those skills are even more critical--and available.

When it comes to hiring an assistant--virtual or "real"--it's critical to know what you need done. Then start your search with that specific "needs list" so you can hone in quickly on the right person with the right skills.

The Flip Side: A Partner's View of Life and Work

Aliza Sherman — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:00:00

I recently interviewed women business owners about how their companies infringe on their personal relationships, particularly with their life partners. Katya Tsaioun of Apredica, a clinical research organization, struggles to maintain her commitments to her family over business.

Tsaioun's husband, Doug, put their situation this way:

"The personal relationship struggle is that there's no respite from the business. Home life is an extension of the office. And to top it off, this summer, like last summer, our 19-year-old daughter will be working in the business, too.

"Work talk so completely pervades our relationship and has for so long now that it's noticeable only when the talk stops. The only time it stops is when we take a weekend to go hiking or cross-country skiing, where we have hours on end to talk, and no interruptions from phone or e-mail. And even then it takes several hours of talking about work before it finally winds down."

I'm sure if I asked my husband, he'd have an entirely different perception of my work's impact on our relationship than my perception. I don't know if I'm in denial about my working--like an addict is in denial about her addiction--but I'm always floored when he complains that I work too much or too often when I should be doing something with him or as a family.

In her interview, Jennifer Ormond filled me in further about her work/life situation:

"For the most part my husband and I are on the same page. We both want to do what is right for our business, our children and the environment. Because our children are so young (7, 6, 3, and 18 months), we realize that our lives won't be as hectic later as they are now. We have our 18-month-old home and our 3-year-old goes to half day preschool; and because we don't really have a lot of outside help, it is always my husband or me who is with the kids.

When one of us is with the kids, the other is working. We work very long hours and strange hours. I might get home from work at 9 p.m., and my husband will walk right out the door and work until 1 or 2 a.m. I have gotten up at 5 a.m. and he hasn't even come home yet."

I think that in the same way each relationship is different, one person's craziness is another person's routine. Our tolerance levels for one another's habits vary. Personally, I like it when my husband takes the time to do some work that he wants to do while at home. I like that he is doing things that are fulfilling to him, don't mind the respite so I can do things on my own or with my daughter, and rarely feel that his work (or hobbies for that matter) infringe on our time together. I guess that is also because my idea of "togetherness" is much different from his and my need for space and time on my own is far greater. For me, working is part of my "me" time.

For the partners out there, is your wife/girlfriend so work-focused that it affects her attentiveness to you and your relationship? What advice would you give her (and us) if we'd only listen?

What Am I Doing?

Aliza Sherman — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:42:05

So you've been reading the Women at Work column and wondering, "Who is this woman laying out the intimate details of her life and work?" Hi, it's me, and I'm a Woman at Work.

I'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.