1200 Smart Women Invest 1 Day for their Career Success
This business conference was well attended, well presented, it just needed more guys in the audience.
On Tuesday October 17, 2006, in the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver, 1200 women came together for a day dedicated to helping them improve their success in career and business.
I attended this program along with a handful of other males who appeared to be either presenters or in the media themselves. It’s a shame more men don’t make the effort to attend this conference – it would be good for them and their organizations.
Produced by the Women’s Vision Foundation, a leadership ‘think tank’ for business women, this year it was commemorated by the Governor of Colorado, Bill Owens, naming the day as ‘Women’s Success Day in Colorado’.
This year’s meeting was comprised of a several general sessions. After a keynote welcome by MC Jana Stanfield, the meeting got down to business with the Keynote address by Dr. Bertice Berry, a sociologist and author who is perhaps one of the most engaging keynote presenters I’ve seen over the years. The next session, comprised of several ceo’s and executives sharing their thoughts on lessons learned as they rose thru the executive ranks, was a little less engaging, with the message seeming to be that there are no ‘formula’s’ for getting ahead and that individualism matters. The final general session of the day was a Keynote address led by Marie C Wilson, Founder of the White House Project and author. This bi-partisan organization based is NYC. In Colorado, it has trained more than 300 women to run in political office over the past 2 years. Although I wasn’t able to stay for the whole conference, Wilson was scheduled to keynote on business leadership and based on her credentials and the quality of other general and break out sessions; I would reckon it would have been very worthwhile for most women attendees.
In my opinion, North America needs more of this type of conference in all cities and communities. In the US and the stats seem similar in Canada, less than 5% of all the largest corporations are led by women. According to new research from Catalyst, an organization tracking women in the workplace (see: http://www.businesswomanweb.com/womenpayrates.pdf)
this situation is actually going the wrong way as well.
I was very impressed with this conference and clearly the organizers have their finger on the pulse of what’s needed to help more women get into positions of influence. But, as I said in my own book “ 21 Ways Women in Management Shoot Themselves in the Foot” when it was released last June, women need more assistance from men to get this unacceptable balance of power shifted in the right direction. Male business leaders need to be made more aware of conferences like the Denver Women’s Success Forum; and the upcoming Diversity and Women Leadership Summit in Washington, DC on October 25 and 26. Then they need to realize that it’s simply good business to support them. It’s good business for the shareholders, the consumers, and the health of the organization itself.
Knowing many male company ceo’s and leaders as I do, I am not certain they could deal with some of the approaches I saw today in Colorado. Dr. Berry was funny, involving, and gutsy, and others I heard in breakout sessions may have appeared to be too ‘soft’ for some guys. But they provided sound tools in their presentations - for managers of either gender and most men who are leading businesses today would benefit from hearing strong and effective women leading such sessions.
On a 5 star rating scale – I give The 9th Annual Women’s Success Forum a 4.5. If you didn’t get to it this year, make a note in your calendar to attend next. Regardless of your gender, you’ll be pleased you did.