PWA’s May Speaker Meeting featured Digital Strategist Sara Rosso’s presentation of “Create, Collaborate, Communicate – Tools for Entrepreneurs and Consultants,” (Read the event details here)

In response to requests from both those that attended and those that missed out, Sara has kindly provided her slide presentation that you can view here. Included are links for her preferred tools (both proprietary and open source). On her website When I Have Time she writes about all kinds of technology in an accessible way that doesn’t intimidate the “non-techies”.

All professional women welcome whether members or guests

Wednesday, 23 November, 7-9.30 p.m.
Entrepreneur & EPWN Paris Member Margaret Milan presents:
“Success Story: Garage Start-Up, French Style”

Join PWA to hear the story of successful entrepreneur and fellow European Professional Women’s Network member Margaret Milan.

Margaret will talk about her experience over the past twenty years, building her business, Eveil & Jeux, from scratch to France’s leading educational toy brand with sales of € 150M. The company is unusual in that its sales are equally split through retail stores and the web providing a unique window on the fast changing retail environment.

She will share stories of the fast growth, entrepreneurial first decade, including the sale of the company to France’s luxury and distribution group PPR, as well as the transformations of the past decade in the face of the on-line revolution.

There will be ample time for questions for Margaret on her professional and personal journey as she built the business with her husband, Gilbert.

About Margaret
Born and raised in Scotland, educated in England (BSc Engineering, Warwick) and the United States (MBA Harvard), Margaret Milan has lived in France since 1979.

Her initial experience was in consumer marketing with Procter & Gamble (Pampers, Always). After a short break to enjoy her young daughters (now 23 and 26), Margaret set up her own mail order toy company, Eveil & Jeux. From an archetypal garage start-up in 1990, the company grew rapidly to become France’s leading educational toy brand with sales of €150M in 2010. The company was sold to the French distribution group, Pinault Printemps Redoute in 2001.

She returned to the company with her husband, Gilbert Milan, in 2006 to carry out the fundamental transformations necessary to compete in the fast-changing retail and on-line environment. They also accompanied the sale of Eveil & Jeux by Fnac to its new owners, ID Group, in 2010.

Margaret was one of the initiators of European Professional Women’s Network and was President of the European Federation from 2005 to 2007.

NH Hotel President, Largo Augusto 10 (MM San Babila, Duomo)
Networking Cocktail: 7 – 8 pm. Presentation: 8 – 9:30 pm

Entrance: Free for members, 25 euro for guests, payable in cash at the event.

Please register in the calendar section of EPWN (EuropeanPWN.net).

For more information, please send an email to speakers@pwa-milan.org

All professional women welcome whether members or guests

Wednesday, 18 May 2011, 7-9.30 p.m.
Digital Strategist Sara Rosso presents:
“Create, Collaborate, Communicate – Tools for Entrepreneurs and Consultants”

Are you overwhelmed by the array of technology tools available? Do you sometimes feel you need an in-house IT professional to help you make sense of the options? Does it seem that the Holy Grail of tech tools is only the click of a mouse away if only you knew how to use it and which version?

From working remotely with partners and colleagues, to open source tools you can use to grow your business, Sara will give an overview of a healthy arsenal of tools and practices any entrepreneur or consultant can take advantage of.

She’ll cover increasing your online visibility and credibility via use of blogs and other publishing outlets, share some tools for collaborating online with remote partners and clients, and touch on open source resources useful for any growing business idea or collaboration.

For those who are not very technical, she’ll outline some steps and considerations to prepare your projects to be built by developers, designers, and other consultants.

About Sara Rosso
Sara has worked in technology for 15 years for companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Ogilvy, and now on the VIP Services team for Automattic (WordPress.com). Born in California, she received an undergraduate degree in Managing Information Systems from Texas A&M University, and received her M.B.A. with concentrations in Managing Innovation & Technology, and Leading People & Organizations from Santa Clara University in California. She’s a prolific writer, blogger, and photographer, and is a serial website creator. She was a founding member of the Girl Geek Dinners in Milan and served as Sponsorship coordinator from 2008-2011.

NH Hotel President, Largo Augusto 10 (MM San Babila, Duomo)
Networking Cocktail: 7 – 8 pm Presentation 8 – 9:30 pm

Entrance free for members, 25 euro for guests, payable in cash at the event.

Members, please register in the calendar section of EPWN.

Guests, please register here.

For more information, email speakers@pwa-milan.org

We asked Sue, who is a well-known author, to put together for PWA Milan an evening which not only dealt with her perhaps most famous feat – she was the first woman from the UK to ski to the magnetic North Pole as part of an international team – but also to explain how the same principles which she had discovered during that experience were also applicable to other real-life situations of women entrepreneurs. In fact, Sue’s latest book – “Secrets of Successful Women Entrepreneurs” does exactly that.

Sue believes in a pragmatic step-by-step approach to goal-achievement, and she has also developed a EU-funded course for women – currently taught at two UK universities – that leads them through these steps in order to identify, and put into practice the actions necessary to open a business.

Her truly motivational presentation concluded with a small hand-out card that invited anyone interested to indicate their specific goal, with a personal promise to follow up on each one within a month’s time.

The evening began with an illustration of the key “secrets” of success according to the 10 women entrepreneurs she interviewed:

• will to operate business on values of respect, integrity, ethics, honesty and a passion for excellence
• focus more on interaction with people and helping others than financial reward
• strong desire to control their destiny
• access to finance and work/life balance
• lead by promoting concern for others, team-working and openness

Sue then proceded to map these factors onto the elements (Seven Steps to Successs) she believes are fundamental for achieving any success, and were the result of her initial exploratory trip to the North Pole. In a simple phrase, her motto is “start with the end in mind”.

Each of these “seven steps to success” were identified and clarified with anecdotes from the entrepreneurial experiences of the successful women she had interviewed.

What are the steps?

1. First of all, the defining moment: for Sue’s trip to the North Pole, it was the inspiration of Sir Edmund Hillary’s initial exploration of the Artic -and imagining being able to do something similar. For many of the women entrepreneurs, the defining moment derives from passion, from disappointment with an existing product or service, from need.
2. The second step is understanding your environment: this step requires asking some hard questions, both personal and business-related. Sue related some detailed experiences, regarding both financial issues, product positioning, decisions to wait for the right moment if personal pressures were too extreme and timing not right.
3. The third step is create a compelling vision: this has to do with the very heart of the activity to be started, and some very interesting anecdotes made this really clear. Each of the following visions is the starting point behind one of the success stories in Sue’s book:
   - to create shoes that I would like to wear myself
   - to have product in all places where the only soft drinks available are Coca Cola, orange juice and water
   - to create an organization that changes the way industry addresses women
   - to help women look and feel good in our lingerie
   - to provide contemporary yet accessible images and prove that buying art is not for an elite few
4. The fourth step is to prepare for success: this step includes the ability to analyze and develop personal qualities such as self-awareness of skills, determination, self-belief, focus, tenacity, decisiveness, competitiveness. At the same time it requires the access to finance, which can be one of the crucial start-up factors for women.
5. The fifth step is to start the journey: in particular, this involves an awareness of the single person’s leadership style and how this will impact the venture itself. Sue mentioned several styles of leadership (Transformational, Networker and communicator, Single minded and controlling) and how these impacted on challenges such as finding and managing and retaining people, finance, balancing work and life, etc).
6. Maintain fitness and focus, the sixth step, is also a test in motivation: once the enterprise is on its way, many new questions can be asked, and will be the source of continuing improvement. What motivates you? Is it your desire to help others? Do you need to be in control of your own future? Do you like to receive positive feedback from others? Are you keen to prove sceptics wrong? Do you want to keep growing and learning? Is there a little voice inside saying “keep going”?
7. Finally, the seventh step is really taking a moment to think: what next? And the cycle starts over.

The conclusions of the evening were aptly summed up with a set of recommendations for any and all wanting to start on a new entrepreneurial challenge:

• Create a unique product or service
• Decide what type of person you are and employ the opposite
• Invest in technology
• Finance is key
• Get the right mentors
• Recognise you can’t do everything immediately
• You have to go through bad and good to appreciate the good

PWA extends their thanks to Sue for her fascinating, and inspirational, presentation.

The new year welcomed in a new event, the start of a monthly Entrepreneurs’ Breakfast.The group, so far, is composed of five women, all with several years of experience as entrepreneurs or free-lancers. The meeting started with everyone presenting who they were, what they are doing, why they came and what their expectations were.

This was enough to start a lively creative brainstorming on the issues we were facing. For one attendee, we developed a strategy to transform her self-employment into a business that has growth potential, better branding and visibility while protecting her from copy-cat competition. As two of us were looking for new projects, we discussed several new business ideas and we may be starting something together soon. We also discussed the challenges of Italian clients who are not yet used to appreciating quality and professionalism.

In a nutshell, the breakfast resulted in a very creative, intense and productive morning. The group was homogeneous – as far as interests and experience were concerned – and it was extremely helpful and inspiring to hear about their experiences and realise how being an expatriate can be an advantage. All in all I can heartily recommend working in small groups and I hope that more PWA-members take the initiative to start their own groups.

Thank you to the PWA members that took part in the Entrepreneurs’ Breakfast and see you at the next one!

Barbara Niemann-Fadani