When I first discovered the term “mommypreneur” I took to it pretty quickly. I still celebrate being a mother and a business owner, and the challenges that those dual roles play in my life, at home and at work. I recently learned that as a female C.E.O. of a high-tech firm, I represent less than 1% of the total private companies founded in a year. I knew I was an oddball, but I don’t think I quite realized to what extent. With so few others, it’s obviously difficult to find peers or even mentors. In fact, searches to connect with other pioneering mothers or successful young women are often met with a bunch of spam.
For example, on Twitter, to build a following you often “follow” other users with the same interest based on some keyword searches. Following multiple accounts who identify as working moms or mommypreneurs yields a barrage of spammy Direct Messages. Some of them lead you to scam websites that promise profitable work-from-home opportunities, or only marginally better opportunities to network with thousands of other professional woman–for a price! Why is a window into this very small world fraught with scams and closed doors that only open with hefty membership fees? It truly saddens me that this community has been targeted as vulnerable for exploitation, when I imagine what women starting out in the business world are met with on their initial search for insight and resources.
That said, in my ongoing search to find like-minded others, I have found a few valuable online meeting places for professional women and mothers. Unlike the majority of sites that target the same demographic, these sites are focused on important professional topics and have the ultimate goal of elevating women professionally, not just lining their pocket books.
85Broads
I’ve been a member of this group for over a year and have recently become more involved through my regular blogging. I like this particular group because it represents women from a range of ages, professions and backgrounds. With more than 20,000 “trailblazing” women in its membership it is a very active group as well. They plan events through local chapters, post regularly through social media channels promoting their members and events, and also maintain a social network website at www.85broads.com which features expert articles, blogs and a well-used job board. Most of the services are available for a nominal fee, but there are higher membership fees to access the most advanced tools. In general I have found this group to be diverse and sophisticated, without being pretentious. Visit 85broads.com for more info.
American Business Women’s Association
Back in my Florida days, I held a membership with a local chapter of the ABWA. The group was surprisingly large and also very active in its events and involvement in the community. I initially joined the group to represent my then employer, a local leisure magazine, for which I was the primary writer, editor and webmaster. As I transitioned out of that position into my own entrepreneurial endeavors, I was challenged to re-represent myself as a business owner and designer. These first months of entrepreneurial identity crisis didn’t help matters, or the Mary Kay lady member who was effectively stalking me to participate in a “pajama party” (Read: recruitment into scary hierarchy of cosmetics sales), so once I became pregnant with my first son, I used it as an excuse to gracefully exit from the group. Looking back though, I think it was still a great resource for women in business. Every woman who was “someone” in the area was a member, and especially the most senior members seemed to have good connections with each other. Being one of the newest and youngest members of the group and still trying to find myself professionally, I wasn’t able to maximize the opportunity, but I still consider it a legitimate and progressive group that supported its female membership well. Visit abwa.org for more info.
Meetup.com
If you haven’t utilized meetup.com before to find specific groups in your area, you should! Kid- and work-laden that I usually am, I’m not so great at regular one-the-ground networking, but even I have made a handful of important relationships with people who I’ve met in-person (gasp!) through this site. While there are a few broad internationally accessible groups, meetup.com is a great channel for finding local, specialized groups. On a quick search for “Women Business Networking” in my zip code, I found 25 groups specific to this topic within 25 miles, several of which are conveniently based on the North Shore (which means I don’t need to truck 6 miles to Boston if I don’t want to). Definitely worth a quick search at meetup.com.
Pregnancy.org
Really? Believe it or not, I have found the women on this site to be some of the most vocal and informed voices when it comes to all topics pregnancy, motherhood, life and work. In anticipation of the birth of my first son, I was extremely active on the site and became very close with my birth group, which probably represented 100-150 women due the same month as me. Actual motherhood tends to zap those extra Internet surfing and forum-chatting hours pretty quickly so I have since been a pretty negligent member, but every once in a while a question or situation comes up in life or in work that I simply cannot find a decent answer for with a Google search. Invariably when I turn to the relevant bulletin boards, I get a host of honest and informed answers that I genuinely value. If the first three groups I have mentioned lean toward the professional networking opportunities for women, this site gives great guidance on personal and mommy-related topics, which cannot do anything but have positive after-effects on life at work!
If you know of other valuable networking sites for women, please comment on this post and let me know. I’d be happy to review them and add them to the list!
