So here’s the rest of my Women 2.0 Conference story. If you want to see tons of pictures (which sadly I and my deep pink Banana Republic shirt don’t appear) please check out the official Women 2.0 Conference Wrap Up post. You can also see Sophia Perl’s (another semi-finalist) post on it here.
Friday – May 9, 2008 I took my rented yellow car and drove around the Palo Alto/Menlo Park area to meet some people. I met Jeff Nolan, who was one of the venture investors in my first company, for lunch at a place called Buck’s. We only just got to know each other while at my last company before I left, but he seemed to be one of the good guys. I mentioned him in a post I did about angels and venture capitalists a while back. We might get to work together again and this time in hopefully a more creative and collaborative way.
I tried to meet up with Guy Kawasaki later that afternoon but he had something mildly important to do like make some sort of silly book submission deadline, so we traded tweets and emails instead. Then I went to the Stanford mall. I’m not a big shopper, but since I had a few hours to kill, and my husband wanted me to get him a Stanford t-shirt (It’s one of his alma-maters) I wandered around a bit and read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, but was not feeling in the “now” at the time so didn’t make much progress. So I got some hot chocolate, my rings cleaned, and happened to find a couple of light-weight jackets at really good sale prices to protect me from the Bay Area cool evenings!
Later I had the pleasure of meeting up with Maryam Scoble for wine and fabulous brie with a flakey crust. Yum! Maryam and I met through our blogs. I initially heard about her and her husband Robert Scoble from our very own Austin based Connie Reece. Robert even did a Qik video of me at SXSW but I don’t think that many pregnant moms or parents with newborn babies, preemies or twins are watching those videos. Go figure!
Saturday – May 10, 2008 (conference day)
You can see the agenda for the conference here. It was an interesting day in a tent near the Stanford golf course. Walking in grass was a challenge for many of us who were wearing heels. Those wearing pointed heels especially suffered by sinking into the grass/dirt, but since I would trip and fall on my face in pointed heels, I wear more flat ones.
The most interesting sound bites, in my opinion, came from the Power Panel: “Igniting the spark through strategies taught and lessons learned”
Terri Ghio, Unique Solutions and TBS Connectsaid: Make sure you have an audience, a secret sauce, strategic alliances, and ability to build the blocks and barriers for success.
Amy Love, Protégé Performance Group said: Build an inner circle, share your dream, think big, and have the confidence & energy to move forward.
Dr. Jwala Karnik, JwalaCo said: Be open to inspiration, tell people what you want to do, and just take the first step!
Pat McEntee, AuxoGlobal said: Women entrepreneurs are different and that’s OK. Women look at things they want to spend their time on differently. Women build different companies. The fact that many retail companies are currently dominated by men is not going to last long, but women should build companies that men feel comfortable in. By the way, Pat is a guy!
I mentioned the winners of the napkin business plan challenge in my yellow car post, so I won’t mention it here again, but I did want to mention one company and founder who was on one of the panels: Erica Estrada of d.light design. She is impressive and her company is very cool! They make affordable, small, solar power lighting units for people in third world countries who have no access to electricity. So the kids in who live in shacks can study/read after dark and parents can cook or work after dark without having to use a kerosene lamp that not only stinks and has to be bad for your lungs, but also doesn’t last very long. I really do wish her and her company great luck, good partners, fabulous investors and perfect timing!
I ended the day by eating sushi with the friends I was staying with. They even took a picture of me (see below) drinking this huge cup of sake! The waitress finished the bottle on me, so the sake overflowed into its holding bowl. I was glad I wasn’t the one driving us home in my rented yellow car. 😀
Coming soon I’ll post an update on my SEO experiences, so you might want to subscribe to read more about the birth pains of a web business. It’s not pretty.
So if you are plugged into the blogosphere you no doubt heard about Johnson & Johnson’s baby camp. I was one of the lucky ones invited but either a) my email filter ate the first round of invites or b) I was one of the mommy bloggers who was added to the list later. So by the time I got the invite and responded, they were already full…plus I couldn’t go anyway.
I did want to blog about it when I first got the invite but since I wasn’t able to attend, I didn’t want the world to know why I couldn’t attend. All were good reasons: 1) my husband was out of town, 2) my cousin and family were visiting from New York on a trip planned quite some time ago, and 3) they were full.
I haven’t read a lot about the outcome of the camp yet. A few posts on the blog storm about the invite process, who was not invited, the fact that babies weren’t allowed to come, and why some were uninvited because of various reasons including they were attending the BlogHer business conference or were nursing can be read here:
Robert Scoble – J&J ‘breaks into jail’ with baby camp (check out the comments on this one for a nice letter from J&J trying to explain the situation)
I have met in person or communicated via email with all of the above bloggers except for one. I’m anxious to see what happened at the camp. Right now when I type in “Johnson & Johnson Baby Camp” into Google I only see links on the first page to posts about how they mishandled the invitation process. I’m anticipating that they ‘saved face’ at the camp and the bloggers who attended will have much to share with us when they have a chance to write about it. The coordinators said they would send me information after it was over so I’ll most likely do another post on this soon.
Overall, I think it was a great move on J&J’s part to make a visible first step to ‘friend’ the mommy bloggers. Yes, they made a few mistakes but, just like starting a new business, trial & error is part of the game. If they learn from their mistakes, I’m sure it will all end up on a positive note!
I babble about business, babies, and parenthood on this blog, so those of you who come here to read my posts on entrepreneurship but do not have babies, please forward this post to your friends and family who do have babies. For those who have babies and dabble in business, these tips might be right up your alley. If you have babies and no interest in business, then send it on to the folks you know who are knee-deep in business and encourage them to have a baby! To read other great tips, check out the baby tips category.
Rose is a mother of one very energetic daughter (age 2 1/2) with another on the way in late August. Her blog, From the Park Bench, is about the latest in parenting news from recalls, to scientific research to fun stuff like which celebrities are expecting. It includes a feature to allow readers to submit stories they think would interest other parents. Before deciding to stay home with her daughter she was a senior software engineer for a Silicon Valley startup. In her “spare time” she loves to read, garden, experiment in the kitchen, hike, camp and play with computer programming.
15 Tips for Surviving the World’s Youngest Insomniac by Rose of From the Park Bench
I remember reading that babies sleep soundly for at least 4 hours right after labor. After being up all night I really looked forward to that sleep. However, the authors forgot to inform my new daughter. Sleep? Why would I sleep when everything is so new and interesting! Thus began life with our youngest insomniac. At a year old she still slept like a 3 month old. At two years a full nights sleep was still a 50/50 proposition. Our pediatrician even gave up on the it will get better when she’s older speech and started greeting my daughter with “So how’s my youngest insomniac?” So what can you do if it turns out your baby, well, sure doesn’t sleep like a baby! Here are 15 tips that helped us survive the first couple of years:
Read The Happiest Baby on the Block and try all 5 soothing steps. The directions in the book are detailed and a life saver.
Get a Miracle Blanket. It is the best swaddle blanket I ever tried. My daughter could fight her way out of almost any swaddle except this blanket. (Wash it often to keep it stiff for a snugger swaddle.)
Get a sling. Babies that don’t sleep usually need a lot of soothing even when you are all awake. I ate out a lot more and had cleaner clothing thanks to my sling. Here’s an article I wrote about my favorite.
Get help! Get a maid to clean every two weeks. Order more take out.
Take up family friends for offers of cleaning, food, holding a baby while you take a nap, etc. If you are up all night you are not going to have the brain power to do everything during the day. Please don’t kill your sanity trying.
Do your research. I really liked the book Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child because it told me what sleep patterns I should expect for what age. Sleep got a little better when I realize I was actually waiting too long for naps and she was overtired. (I ignored the cry it out advice the author gave and it was still very useful.)
Trust your instincts. I spent the first 9 months of my daughters life trying to convince her pediatrician that something was wrong. I wish I had pushed harder because at 9 months hidden reflux became daily vomiting. Turned out she had food allergies that had been progressively getting worse since birth. (A tummy ache is a very good reason to be a bad sleeper.)
Keep a food journal if you are breast feeding. Try a hypoallergenic formula if using formula. In our case we would have had a lot more sleep if I had figured out her allergy before she was 1.5 years old.
You don’t need to be 100% baby focused. I remember a friend telling me that nursing was for bonding and I should spend every moment looking deep into my babies eyes. Well I forgot to ask how often her baby nursed. Mine nursed for most of the hours normal babies sleep. After almost having a nervous breakdown I gave up on 100% deep gazing. I read, surfed, made phone calls, watched a movie, grocery shopped (very discrete with a sling and blanket), etc. She got attention but I got some sanity.
Research safe co-sleeping. I’m not suggesting you actually do so. That’s a personal choice. We chose not to. However figure how to do it safely before you are dead tired, tempted and don’t realize you are doing it dangerously.
Remember you don’t need to be a perfect mom or dad, just a good enough one.
See if you can get a longer maternity leave. If you can afford it seriously consider it. Lack of sleep at night is much more doable if you can take a nap at 2pm when your baby finally decides to take a 3 hour nap.
Get a crib soother. Yes, I also thought I should hold my daughter every waking moment or the mommy police would start judging me. It’s ok to put down a happy awake baby in a safe location and try and get some desperately needed sleep.
Remember every child is different and you are the judge on what works, even if your mother-in-law, best friend, coworker swears by it. I have a list of all the not so useful advice people have given me. “I’m really glad your kid is a great sleeper because you had them sleep in a bright noisy room for the first 6 months. I guess all my problems would be gone if I had only tried that! Oh, wait I did! And she was up for 12 hours strait!”
No matter how desperate do NOT put a baby who can’t roll over to bed on their belly. The back to sleep program has dramatically cut the nations SIDs rate. That’s one piece of extended sleep that is never worth the risk.
Remember it will get better! Even in our extreme case at 2.5 years my daughter sleeps through the night most nights. (That blessing requires cooking all her food from scratch with an eagle eye for allergens but well worth the tradeoff for everyone!))
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If you like this tip, you might be interested in these too:
Note to new readers: these tips are based on our experiences, as well as those of our friends and readers. Please always consult with your doctor before implementing any tip that might impact the health of your baby. If you have a tip you’d like to submit please send an email to blogger at babblesoft dot com. Please check the ‘baby tips’ category to make sure your tip (in some form or fashion) hasn’t already been posted. If it has been, feel free to comment on that post and support the tip. We also welcome respectful challenges to the tips because as is noted in our inaugural baby tip ‘everything is relative!’ We will, of course, give anyone who submits a tip we publish credit and lotsa link love!
I babble about business, babies, and parenthood on this blog, so those of you who come here to read my posts on entrepreneurship but do not have babies, please forward this post to your friends and family who do have babies. For those who have babies and dabble in business, these tips might be right up your alley. If you have babies and have no interest in business, then send it on to the folks you know who are knee-deep in business and encourage them to have a baby! 🙂 To see other great baby tips, check out the baby tips category.
Maryam Ghaemmaghami Scoble was kind enough to let me re-publish her January 30, 3007 tips on traveling with baby that she said was inspired after I asked her if she would write a guest baby tip for my blog. She also sent me an adorable picture of her looking at baby Milan. Maryam has been working as an event planner since 1995 and is now taking time off to be with her newborn son. Maryam’s husband, Robert Scoble, is none other than the “Scobleizer” a strong presence in the blogging community. Maryam spends her free time blogging about living, loving, and working with geeks as well as life, love, and everything else. If you are new to the blogosphere, you might not have heard that she and Robert had a baby, but they did and now she has great tips to share!
I honestly thought that my days of traveling adventure would be over once our baby was born. Not so! Barely four months old, Milan has accompanied us without much fuss to Paris, London and Vegas, traveling via Trains, Planes, and even on a bus. We are headed to Geneva next.
If you are traveling with child I highly recommend checking out My Traveling Buddy website.
1) Don’t pack too many little bags and suitcases. You will leave things behind or else won’t be able to carry all of them together. While it was easier before to have smaller, lighter suitcases, you now need to try and consolidate as much as possible. Remember in addition to the suitcases, you also have to push the stroller and you only have two hands 🙂 I used to pack a suitcase, a carry on and a bag for each of us and it worked perfectly before, but now one of us has to push the stroller while the other carries everything on the cart. My heart goes out to single parents!
2) Don’t forget the baby Bjorn or other form of baby carrier with you. You need to check in your stroller and sometimes have to walk long distances before claiming it back after you get off the plane. You can check in the stroller right where you check in to get on the flight, but you won’t get it back when you land until you walk all the way to baggage claim. In London, we had to walk far and long, and wait quite a while before getting our stroller back. Thank God, I packed a baby carrier with me.
3) Don’t forget the bottle washer and soap. It’s hard to wash bottles without the bottle washer and the soap at the hotels or airports might be too fragrant for the baby. I had to send Robert out to search for a bottle washer in Vegas and I had a hard time finding a perfume free soap in beautiful Paris, home to many famous perfumes.
4) If you are using formula, make a bottle ready before going through security screening. They won’t let you carry a bottle of water but they would let you carry the milk through. The bottle would be safe for an hour and two and you are not forced to run around and look for bottled water in the airport. The security officer in the Vegas airport told me that I could get out of line, mix my formula with water and go through again if I wanted to. I didn’t want to wait in line again, but next time, I will just make the formula ahead of time.
5) Check in early for your flight so you can make sure your baby has a bassinet on board. You can’t reserve one on the phone and if too many babies are traveling on board, you may lose out to those who checked in before you. We were late to check in for our flight to London and couldn’t get a bassinet as there were twenty other babies traveling on board. We got smart on the way back and checked in early 🙂
6) Make sure your baby is sucking on a pacifier or a bottle during take off and landing. The air pressure won’t hurt their ears as much. We were feeding Milan while the plane was taking off and landing and he fell asleep each time without crying.
7) If traveling by train find out where the bathroom with diaper changing table is located and book your cabin close to that. I had to walk through over ten cabins while the train was moving with a baby that badly needed a change, all the while worrying if we were going to reach the station soon.
8)Pack enough formula and diapers. Babies sometimes show allergic reaction to different brands of diapers. It’s also very hard to find the same brand of formula while traveling abroad and babies stomach often react to new brands.We ran out of formula in Paris and I couldn’t even read the instructions on the formula I bought and had to trust the reluctant pharmacist advice. Luckily Milan liked the new formula and it worked fine for us. Next time, I will pack extra formula though.
9) Having a travel system based car seat and stroller (we use Graco) works best because you can use the car seat in the cabs, buses, trains and cars, and then place the seat easily in the stroller when walking around. The stroller folds easily and is light to carry around. You can also use it as a cart to carry stuff around.
10) If you have older children I suggest running them through the airport to let them exert some of that extra energy so that they are good and tired and ready to sleep in flight. Planning travel during their sleep time is also a good idea.
11) With older children taking some cheap new toys and coloring materials helps keep them occupied during flight. When Patrick was younger, I always bought him a bunch of magazines so he could read them during the flight and of course he had his trusty hand held game players.
12) Remember that there are different rules for traveling with babies domestically vs. internationally. For example, babies traveling on your lap can fly for free on United inside the US but you have to purchase a ticket for them while traveling abroad. It usually comes to about 10% of your adult fare plus taxes, etc.
13) You need a valid passport for children traveling abroad with you, even if your child is only four months old like ours.
14) Before traveling make sure to check with your pediatrician about any medical issues you need to be aware of. Traveling with babies under three months is not recommended and some airlines won’t even allow a new born to fly. Depending on the country you are traveling to, your baby may need to get special vaccinations. I packed over the counter gas-relief medicine and baby Tylenol with us just in case.
15) Last but not least, check the weather and pack accordingly for your child. It was raining hard in London and Paris and we looked around for a long time before we were able to find a waterproof plastic cover for Milan’s stroller.
Bon Voyage and Happy travels!
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If you like this tip, you might be interested in our other recent guest baby tips:
Note to new readers: these tips are based on our experiences, as well as those of our friends and readers. Please always consult with your doctor before implementing any tip that might impact the health of your baby. If you have a tip you’d like to submit please send an email to blogger at babblesoft dot com. Please check the ‘baby tips’ category to make sure your tip (in some form or fashion) hasn’t already been posted. If it has been, feel free to comment on that post and support the tip. We also welcome respectful challenges to the tips because as is noted in our inaugural baby tip ‘everything is relative!’ We will, of course, give anyone who submits a tip we publish credit and lotsa link love!
Maryam Scoble had a link posted on her blog to this classic Muppet Show skit called manamana. I loved this song growing up and it still makes me smile when I see it. Check it out (see embedded video below) and if you have any childhood memories associated with this skit or the Muppet show in general, please share! I used to think they were saying ‘phenomena’ and then ‘doo, doo, da, dude, dah.’ 🙂
You can see the agenda for the conference here. It was an interesting day in a tent near the Stanford golf course. Walking in grass was a challenge for many of us who were wearing heels. Those wearing pointed heels especially suffered by sinking into the grass/dirt, but since I would trip and fall on my face in pointed heels, I wear more flat ones.
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