Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Women 2.0 In Conversation: Inspiration from Successful Female Entrepreneurs

San Francisco based Women 2.0 is an organization committed to increasing the number of women entrepreneurs starting high growth ventures by providing the resources, network, and knowledge for the launch and growth of their company. In addition to sponsoring conferences and an annual business plan pitch competition, Women 2.0 offers an insightful "In Conversation" interview series with successful female entrepreneurs in the technology space.

In Conversation features video and MP3 interviews with many of Silicon Valley's biggest players, from Sandy Jen, a founder of Meebo, to Jennifer Pahlka, general manager of the Web 2.0 Expos and social media strategist Tara Hunt. Emily Goligoski, lead interviewer for the series, descibes In Conversation as a way to "fill the gap of solid professional advice offered by women in multimedia form by reaching out to executives and founders who have supported Women 2.0 or those whose work we admire. We're fortunate in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley to have access to great tech resources, but we wanted to find a way to broadcast (even in a small way) words of wisdom from women who have been there--especially those who have launched and grown large growth ventures."

The women interviewed discuss their professional lives and lessons they've learned. Refreshingly, they also provide candid insights on their experiences as women in a male dominated industry. According to Goligoski, "Our interviewees are people we individually look to as professional role models and who have a unique set of skills, the most important being tenacity and a desire to help others succeed. We've found them across industries (B2B offerings, coffee roasters, and online video publications among them), but some of the things we've heard several times include 1) the importance of learning from perceived failures, 2) the value of mentorship, and 3) the absolute necessity of asking lots of questions abut each part of a business process or model."

Below is the In Conversation video with Elisa Camahort Page, a founder of BlogHer.

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