Jane Wears Herself Out

Dear readers, Jane has been busy this morning. Busy catching up, where we can.

We hired a new admin at the office recently, and put her in charge of all the reading material that comes in. "I've never seen anyone get so many magazines!" she lamented her first week of work.

We just smiled. Yes, we received too many magazines, many of them for free. Now that it's Carla's job to organize not only the magazines, but their content, we wonder if we're overextending ourself. After all, when Carla said, "Do you really READ all of these magazines?" we had to shake our head.

"No, not really," we told Carla. "That's why we need you to go through each and every one, and tag articles that might be of use." (an offline Bloglines, so to speak.)

Beyond the magzines, we read blogs, of course. Today we did some catching up. Read David Wolfe at Ageless Marketing remarking on Boomers and the Businessweek article professing to "Love" this powerful group. A group, we remind readers, jam-packed FULL of women.

We read Jill Fallon's blog, Estate Legacy Vaults, and her post on the AARP, another group jumping on the 'market to boomers' bandwagon. They have the right idea. More active stories, less focus on gloom and doom. But, we wonder who their new program is really aimed at -- real folks, or high-powered companies with 'brand'? What do you think?

And, we were especially impressed by Zane's recent post at Conference Calls Unlimited. Zane writes about a concept worth getting our arms around: a Customer Reference Forum. He captures the concept in his explanation of the folks gathered at the forum:

"The audience is an audience of believers. They're convinced of the power of customer referrals, as a resource or as a program or as a goal. Quite often they face the challenge of a management team that at best pays lip-service to this resource, while at the same time pushing their sales team for higher close/conversion ratios and higher revenues with declining advertising budgets."

Jane thinks you should give thought to attending next year's event, in Boston. Jane is marking her calendar right now.

And, that's just the beginning of how we are wearing ourself out these days. We're spending a lot of time writing, not enough time reading, and a good deal of time speaking. To women. In business. All over the U.S. -- but, lately, right here in our own backyard. This week we're speaking on Internet Strategies for Growing Your Business at the Rochester Women's Network. Their yearly business conference will be at the convention center. They will award their Up and Coming Businesswomen of the Year awards, of which Jane's alter-ego, Yvonne, was a recipient last year.

Next week, we'll be at Ad:Tech in NYC speaking on Dick*less Marketing. That promises to be fun! Here's the dilemma -- should we wear our spiked heels, dear reader -- for the effect? Or, should we go with flats, for the comfort?

There's much to worry about there -- your help is most appreciated. When we get back from NYC, we think we're going to slow down -- and start taking naps again.

What's not to like about that?

Comments

[Stephanie]

ALWAYS wear comfortable shoes!

Now there's a challenge for Lipsticking fashion-houses out there who want to appeal to smart women: convincing the world that comfort is beautiful (and hammertoes and calluses aren't!) Know Your Bones! :)

[Marti]

Wishing everyone on my blogroll a boo-tiful day! LOL!

Happy Halloween!

[Michele Miller]

ooh, ooh, ooh! Be sure to wear spikey heels but take the flats for the moment you're finished. Say, that wouldn't be a bad way to end the presentation - say, "This isn't REALLY me... and pull out some bunny slippers!

Get some rest, my friend!

[Koan Bremner]

Well, spiked heels, of course! :-)