In November I attended the Women of Color Action Network’s (WCAN) annual VIP Reception and Fall Forum held at Yahoo!. WCAN was founded in March 2000 by a group of women who wanted to create an organization that would assist women of color to realize their maximum potential in the workplace. The formation of WCAN came about as a reaction to Catalyst’s Women of Color in Corporate Management study. The Catalyst study showed that women were most successful and advanced in their careers when they joined and maintained social and professional networks.
WCAN’s mission is to:
• Engage a professional community of women of color in relationship-building and networking, access to opportunities and transformational learning
• Provide an inclusive environment where women of color can receive support and ideas for the professional and personal lives,
• Be a resource for career development advice and strategies for success
• Serve as a catalyst for designing best practices that are utilized by organizations to attract, retain and advance women of color
The theme for the 2007 Fall Forum and VIP Reception was “Women of Color: Change Your Net Worth Through Your Network!” Attendees at WCAN included students, entrepreneurs and professionals from various industries—including technology—at all levels of their careers. Keynote speakers were Cindy Solomon, Executive Coach and Consultant; Margarita Quihuis, Chairman and President of Hispanic-Net and Linda Spradley Dunn, CEO/Publisher of Odyssey Media.
The key pieces that I took away from the workshop were:
• I was inspired by Margarita Quihuis’ keynote address at the VIP Reception to build my online professional persona to maximize my network through networking sites such as Facebook and Linked In.
• From Linda Spradley Dunn I learned the power of asking for help via my network to conquer my biggest fears. Linda shared a personal story about a time when she was not able to make payroll at the first company she founded. After agonizing about the situation she called a friend in her network and discussed how frightened she was by the situation. It was not an easy call for her to make. Her friend had her gather several other women in her network to come to Linda’s home to support her. During the night they brainstormed ways to save her business and the idea that they came up with was for each women to reach out to their personal network and ask for a $10,000 loan which would be paid within three years. By the next morning Linda had over a million dollars in her company’s bank account! Not only was she able to repay the loans to all of the women in her network, her personal crisis became a business model that she uses to help other women achieve success as entrepreneurs.
• Linda’s keynote also reinforced for me the importance of staying true to your self and having the courage to lead.
Attending WCAN encouraged me to think about new ways that ABI can increase our support of technical women of color and the impact that they have on technology. Since I attended my first TechLeaders workshop (Realizing Your Vision) last February I had been thinking about how powerful and what a fabulous networking opportunity a TechLeaders workshop could be for a room full of women of color. After attending WCAN I felt energized and excited about sharing my idea with my colleagues. Interestingly enough (or perhaps it was just plain kismet) that several of them were also having conversations and moments of inspiration that were getting them to think about ways ABI could increase outreach to women of color. As a result of having the courage to lead by sharing my idea with my network of colleagues, I am pround to announce that ABI will be offering a TechLeaders: Realizing Your Vision workshop for women of color in 2008.