From Here to Autonomy

Don't Hate me Because I Leave the Office at 4pm

Jory Des Jardins — Sat, 05 May 2012 15:36:15 -0700

It was such a provocative headline on Inc.com I just had to check it out: "Sheryl Sandberg Leaves Work at 5:30. Why Can't You?" Provocative, I suppose, to women who work full time, on their own or on someone else's business, and who at some point in their careers wanted more in their work day than just work. Women like me, who clicked on the headline in her news aggregator, wondering, "and just how does she do that?" The Inc. Magazine piece cites a video for Makers.com, a video project on AOL, in which Sandberg says: "I walk out of...

How Entrepreneurs Should Network, According to Moi

Jory Des Jardins — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 19:47:28 -0700

BlogHer has held events for seven years now, and all of them have something special about them. The Annual (we'll have our EIGHTH this year!!) in the summer is like a wedding--It's overwhelming, and yet, the show must go on. I always end up feeling like I didn't get to speak to anyone for any substantive length of time. Our smaller events are equally important, but feel less formal. For instance, with BlogHer Food I'm more an observer who moderates a panel from time to time. I get to experience more of these events as an attendee experiences them. BlogHer...

The World Haunts Me Today

Jory Des Jardins — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:00:54 -0700

Olive has been sleeping later this week; she's still adjusting to the hour time change. It's still dark when she wakes up, and it's been gloomy in the mornings, as we've had days of much-needed rain in Northern California. I let her sleep on me for a minute before putting her limp body on the changing pad. I opened the blinds to let in the growing light. It was enough to open Olive's eyes. She pointed to the window next to her dresser. We've placed a tiny stool at that window for her so that she could step up and...

What Pyromaniacs Can Teach Us About Content Strategy

Jory Des Jardins — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:09:32 -0800

(Correction: Apologies to the four people who read this post since I posted yesterday--the title was inaccurate. I never meant for the title to be "What Kleptomaniacs Can Teach Us About Content Strategy", but rather, "What PYROmaniacs Can Teach Us..." I was exhausted while eaking out the thoughts in that post and surely meant the reference to be to Pyromania, as I have no idea how Content Strategy relates to Kleptomania. Surely that's another post. Thanks to those of you who read the post and kindly said nothing, thinking I would read this post again in a more rested frame...

Separation Anxiety

Jory Des Jardins — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:36:51 -0800

I came back from a business trip and got the report from H-band. He'd gone to one of the local Montessori preschools in our neighborhood to see if it would be a fit for Liv. His take: It wasn't. "The kids seem so, I don't know, depressed." "Depressed? Gosh what do they do over there?" "Well it's not that overt. I just think that they must be … there's not a lot of space for running around outside." "It's a Montessori, hun. I would think that they engage the kids..." "I'm sure they do. But not like we engage Olive...

Passing the Gymboree Test

Jory Des Jardins — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:08:51 -0800

Last week I signed up Olive for Gymboree; actually I guess I signed both of us up. Weekends have become my time with Olive, given she's with Daddy full-time during the week. He gets on his new custom cross-bike, helps me tuck Liv into her stroller and sees us on our way. Previous Saturdays I followed her around the house, took her to the park, ran errands, read to her and tried to coax her into taking a nap. I craved more structured time with her, where she could be around other kids, where she could play age appropriate games...

The Disappearance of Downtime

Jory Des Jardins — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:42:34 -0800

Before becoming an entrepreneur, I set out to write for a living. This sounds like a fantastical existence, but it was actually hard, even if joyous, work. I woke up early in the morning, walked to a coffee shop, and started reading--anything. It didn't matter what I read; the process of focusing on something unrelated to my writing task and caffeine constituted the formula required to tap my creative well. After 45 minutes or so thoughts would bubble up, and my only job was to collect them. Editing would come later in the afternoon, when my mind was tired out...

Acknowledging the Professional IS Personal

Jory Des Jardins — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 11:14:19 -0800

"We Are operating above the neck whenever we assume that what we think is more important than what we feel. We are operating above the neck when we emphasize data over personal experience. We are operating above the neck when we deify logic and denigrate intuition." --Maggie Craddock, The Authentic Career I was introduced to Maggie Craddock by a mutual friend. We hit it off immediately, and she send me her latest book, "Power Genes" which I ate like it was chocolate mousse. I saved little bites for plane rides and hotel stays and ended up reading tub-fuls in a...

Am I about to end the season of my discontent? Working at 40

Jory Des Jardins — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:21:54 -0800

Like a moth to a flame I clicked to a story on Knowledge@Wharton Today entitled "The Discontented Thirties." I didn't do so because I consider myself discontented, but like any type A about to turn 40 (I have a few months), I question. I look at all that I accomplished in my 30s, like turning a life passion into a business, getting married, and having a daughter, and I say to myself "why couldn't I have done that in my twenties?" Of course reading stories like this about young media influentials in their teens and twenties doesn't help to contain...

Do Nice Girls Self-Promote?

Jory Des Jardins — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:55:49 -0800

I got to see a ton of bloggers I haven't seen in a long time at the BlogHer Holiday Party. One, in particular, inspired a post. She's one of the "old-timers", meaning she's been blogging for more than five years. And like many of the women I met in the early days of BlogHer, she sticks to her knitting--posts a few times a week, uses Facebook and Twitter as tools, is adept in audio and videoblogging. And she considers herself a "professional who blogs," not a professional blogger. There's a big difference here: Some bloggers put a good deal of...