[Note: This article was written for BlogHer and refers to that. It was originally posted on BlogHer.]
This is the tale of how two women – one from an engineering background and one from a restaurant background – came together to create a new business that helps women in male-dominated professions advance.
Katie Snapp and Carol Wight are two entrepreneurs who aim to help women nurture their leadership skills so that they can advance in their careers. They don’t aim at women in tech in particular, but women in male-dominated tech careers are certainly prime candidates for their career advancement tips.
In fact, that’s how I discovered Katie Snapp and Carol Wight. They were speaking on female leadership skills at a women in tech event.
I was impressed with how these business entrepreneurs cover all the bases with their business, Skirt Strategies. They do all the consulting and speaking work you’d expect from leadership trainers, but they do more than that. They’ve written a book of leadership tips: the second edition was just released. It’s called Skirt Strategies and is an unusual format. Each tip (there are 249) is centered on a page surrounded by white space. They encourage you to write in the area around the tip with new ideas, comments, and whatever else might motivate you.
Their web site offers both free and members-only tips including newsletters and videos. They are so adept with the videos they create that I asked them if they’d answer my interview questions in video format. I sent them some questions, and ask Paula Gregorowicz, BlogHer’s Section Editor for Careers, to contribute some questions as well. Our questions were about their backgrounds, how they got their business going, what they considered “success” for themselves, and for one big tip to give to the women of BlogHer who wanted to move into stronger leadership roles.
Here’s their video, just for BlogHer.
To get the most out of their leadership training with workbooks and weekly skills development exercises, you need to become a paid member. But you can sample what they do before you join. They have quite a few free video tips on YouTube, where they are called betterleadership, including this one, which is an example of the video tips you can subscribe to on the web site. You can also watch their blog, where you’ll find articles such as Natural Skills – how do I know which I have.
I was hooked on Katie and Carol when I realized how they use technology in so many ways to run a business that supports interpersonal skill development for women in all fields, but particularly in STEM fields. They must follow their own advice!