GetBullish

Secret Bullicorn, Part Two: (Visually) Quantify Everything

Haley — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:03:58 +0000

Pop quiz, hotshot: when it comes to numbers, do Bullicorns go for the vague pronouncements, or do they quantify every single statistic that applies to your career/life? Bullicorns know what Jen would say – here’s a refresher on her opinion from Bullish: How Talking About Money Can Make You More Of It.

Quantify everything. Numbers provide goals, motivation, and rational thinking about your career.

It’s pretty normal to tell people “I lost 30 pounds!”, “I ran a marathon in four hours and 23 minutes!”, “Only three more credits until I graduate!”, or “I ate 32 hot dogs in 10 minutes and came in third!” That is, a great many accomplishments are based on numbers.

Because of a cultural phobia in talking about money, it’s pretty hard even to proffer a vague announcement: “Hey, I got a raise! I’m pretty happy! I worked hard for it!” It’s even harder to get any credit for, “I increased my income by 30% this year through hard work and clever negotiating!” (I mean, I’ll congratulate you for that.)

Using real numbers allows us to share our accomplishments, as well as to see what other people are up to and set reasonable (or ambitious) goals. Similarly, I think the Internet did a great service to adolescent men who type “average penis size” into Google millions of times per year. Sharing actual numbers allows the majority of men to realize that they are perfectly normal. Numbers give context.

But how do we present all those numbers in a easy-to-read package? Is it even possible to reduce a human being to an aesthetically pleasing series of charts, graphs, and data visualizations? We say: yes. Yes it is.

For our second round of Secret Bullicorn, you’ll send us your professional details (see below). We collect everybody’s info, then we pass on each lady’s info to another lady. When we send you another lady’s details, you have UNTIL MAY 31, 2013 to google your secret bullicorn, online-stalk her a bit, and then email her and ask her a couple of quantifying questions. Use Easel.ly to create a data visualization like I did above. No graphics experience of any kind required! The point of this is not only to meet other bullicorns, but also to learn a pretty cool skill that anyone can pick up in a couple of hours. Then, send it to us. In turn, someone will contact you and do the same for you. All these writeups will go on GetBullish (free publicity for your projects!), and you’ll make an online contact or two.

To enter Secret Bullicorn, email haley@getbullish.com the following information by THURSDAY, MAY 23RD at 5pm.

Name:
Links (Website, Blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, Etc.):
Email:

We’ll match everybody up by Saturday, May 25th. You’ll get in touch with your Secret Bullicorn to ask anything: find out about their jobs, education, preferred caffeinated beverage, whatever you want to know! Send us the data visualization of your Secret Bullicorn by WEDNESDAY, MAY 31.

Go forth, Secret Bullicorns, and crunch some numbers!

Friday Links: Social Media is Useless, Kind Of

Haley — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:03:59 +0000

According to the NYTimes, social media is useless unless you are leading people to a great website. (The Onion agrees!)
Also, apparently, cows sleep on waterbeds.

The Gloss notes that it is officially cat-calling season. Do you have any favorite comebacks to shut down street harassment? Jen shared her tactic for neutralizing idiots here.

Pursuant to Secret Bullicorn II (launching Monday!), here is a piece about representation of women and minorities in Inc. magazine that makes good use of infographics. Hint hint, wink wink.

Secret Bullicorns, Unite! Ellen Wernecke & Harriet Cavanaugh

Haley — Mon, 13 May 2013 07:57:04 +0000

U.K.-based video artist and teacher Harriet Cavenagh, “excited by most things,” is carving her own path between creative work and teaching with one foot rooted in each world. Working as a project crew and making art preceded her current occupation of teaching adults literacy and numeracy skills they’ll need to succeed in the workforce, but Cavenagh feeds the creative flame by giving herself deadlines and using seasonal breaks and time off to devote to her art. Someday she’d love to mesh the two and bring participatory video to students so they can experience “the power of editing to shape stories and truth,” but currently she’s working to found her own accountability group to help others like her get stuff done. Check her out!
- Ellen Wernecke

Friday Links: Lean, Lazy, and Dirty

Jen — Fri, 10 May 2013 12:52:50 +0000

This drove me a little crazy — the author acts as though he invented the idea of starting small, reducing risk, and developing your offerings based on feedback:

But recently an important countervailing force has emerged, one that can make the process of starting a company less risky. It’s a methodology called the “lean start-up,” and it favors experimentation over elaborate planning, customer feedback over intuition, and iterative design over traditional “big design up front” development.

I feel like this is the thing women have been doing FOREVER — and getting blamed for it. (Oh, we’re not thinking big enough, we’re just timidly testing the waters … like girls. See Bullish: Are You Thinking Too Small?) It’s like the British “discovering” Victoria Falls.

The importance of quick and dirty. We definitely have the dirty part down.

A gentlewomanly tattoo artist — not only giving back, but cleverly chipping away at a problem most people had no idea even existed.

Seventeen people talk about how SNAP, a food stamp program, helped them and their families. Just another example of how socialism can help.

Laura Vanderkam says she was “almost embarassed” at how effective one simple change in her working routine was: getting a friend to act as her writing buddy. Vanderkam teamed up with another writer who would know if she failed to reach her weekly writing goal. The fear of failing or appearing lazy might be enough to keep you going through difficult tasks – just like Jen pointed out in Bullish: How To Motivate Yourself To Be Motivated, where Jen suggested a health level of fear, revenge, and disgust to achieve success.

Stop looking at inspiration porn. Go do something.

According to HBR, one way to “eliminate the wage gap” is to be willing to move.

Elizabeth Warren: awesomest lady in power, period.

Warren Buffet is (Mostly) Bullish-Approved

Jen — Fri, 03 May 2013 17:27:28 +0000

The title of this piece caught our eye: Warren Buffett is bullish … on women.

We like Buffet! (See here.)

The tenor of this piece, though, is more than a little … basic:

No manager operates his or her plants at 80% efficiency when steps could be taken that would increase output. And no CEO wants male employees to be underutilized when improved training or working conditions would boost productivity. So take it one step further: If obvious benefits flow from helping the male component of the workforce achieve its potential, why in the world wouldn’t you want to include its counterpart?

This sort of boosterism ignores issues that feminists who write about workplace issues have been discussing for some time. There’s no mention here of parenting of any kind. What about the idea that, not only do (some) women want a more flexible workplace, many men do as well? Women in the workplace could use more maternity leave, sure, but what about paternity leave? If men refuse to acknowledge that reproduction has much to do with them, that leaves women arguing largely with each other about the details of who gets 2 weeks and who gets 16, whether we should feel guilty about having nannies, Marissa Mayer’s in-office nursery, whether the ends-sharply-at-5pm performance of working moms dumps extra work in the laps of women without children, etc.

I don’t think it’s that hard a sell that, if we had more women engineers, they’d probably engineer some creative new stuff, including stuff that would sell really well. But we don’t make that happen just by boosting women’s self-confidence and telling men to lend a hand; real structural changes will have to happen for full inclusion in the modern American workplace.

Speaking of real structural changes, here’s a video of two monkeys testing a theory of inequity. And people wonder why we need Lily Ledbetter.

- Jen

Secret Bullicorns, Unite! Jessica Lloyd & Ellen Wernecke

Haley — Fri, 03 May 2013 08:28:03 +0000

My Secret Bullicorn is Ellen Wernecke. As a social media research analyst and freelance, Ellen has set herself up to become a powerhouse in her field. In 5 years, she hopes to incorporate more of her writing skills in her job by going into the strategy and execution side of social media analysis. Her current writing projects include writing fiction and nonfiction reviews for The Onion, Publishers Weekly, EDGE Publications and her blog, WORMBOOK. Ellen’s reviews are funny, sharp and insightful. Everyone go take a look!

Currently, the focus of Ellen’s social media day-job is to look at what people are talking about, and then to measure whether what they’re saying is good or bad. She gave me this example of doing social media research for healthcare companies: often, patients are unwilling to tell their doctors how they feel about drugs they take, but they post such feelings on message boards for fellow patients/potential patients to read. Healthcare companies need this feedback in order to better market their products, and that’s where Ellen comes in. Ellen’s favorite part about her job is becoming “a mini-expert” in the segment she researches.

Ellen is looking for a mentor in digital or social media that can help her sift through all of the career options she has ahead of her, and also sees her BA in Comparative Literature as an advantage. Ellen’s Bullish attitude and bomb writing skills will no doubt aid her to getting to her 5 year goal and beyond!
- Jessica Lloyd

Bullish: Why More Socialism Would Help 51% Of The Population Create More Jobs

Jen — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:41:28 +0000

I’m a hardworking, highly entrepreneurial woman, and I would like more socialism, please, so I can go about creating jobs. (I’ll explain, stick with me.)

How can socialism help Jen create more jobs? Find out on The Gloss.
As first published by Alloy Digital, LLC (www.thegloss.com)

Friday Links: Mass Marketing or Gentlewomanly Living?

Jen — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:47:39 +0000

Mass marketing or gentlewomanly living? I know this is an Onion article, but this is absolutely a real thing:

Try to put yourself in my shoes for a moment. Imagine you were, like me, a 65-year-old veteran politician with a sterling record of public service and vast legal, governmental, and legislative expertise. (A laughably huge leap of the imagination, but nevertheless, please try to imagine this.) On the one hand, you could put all of that experience to work in the private sector or for an advocacy or nonprofit group whose mission you are passionate about. On the other hand, you could smear makeup all over your face, get your hair done, wear a series of carefully tailored and vetted designer outfits, and try to make millions of fickle imbeciles who don’t know the first thing about how government actually works think you’re likable. What would you do?

Secret Bullicorns, Unite! Natalie Brown & Katie Shives

Haley — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 08:14:05 +0000

My Secret Bullicorn was Katie Shives. Katie is a graduate student pursuing her PhD in Microbiology. She currently studies the West Nile virus in hopes of finding cellular targets for new therapeutic drugs. Her area of interest is emerging and neglected human pathogens. As someone not working in a science related field emerging and neglected human pathogens piqued my interest. One of my first questions to Katie was “What is a neglected pathogen exactly?” She explained neglected pathogens are diseases that are a burden on the human population, but are not getting the research funding and coverage needed for a true therapeutic breakthrough to occur- such as West Nile virus.

The biggest topic Katie and I discussed was vaccines. She made a very excellent point I had yet to consider regarding the decision to vaccinate vs. not vaccinate in relation to developing and developed countries. In developing countries people can see the direct benefit and just how important vaccines are, yet here in the US we’ve worked so hard (and have done a great job) of removing these diseases from our society that individuals tend to think these diseases aren’t around anymore. It becomes a matter of privilege instead of health and well-being. It would never occur to me to not vaccinate, so I didn’t know there were groups of people against them (claims that they cause autism brought this issue to my attention) prior to the past few years.

I asked Katie for recommendations for us “armchair microbiologists” who are interested in her field, but just remember a few words from our Junior year of high school microbiology. She suggested the movie Contagion, because it represents issues well, and the books The Coming Plague and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I’m looking forward to checking out all three!

- Natalie Brown

Secret Bullicorns, Unite! Meg Ahern & Cherie Josephson

Haley — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 08:28:54 +0000

I really enjoyed learning more about Cherie Josephson and her work in the tourism industry in Melbourne. Our conversation was especially exciting because she had just (yesterday) been promoted! Her new job is developing business research across a range of sectors and topics, including tourism and entertainment, entrepreneurship, innovation, education and training.

Cherie is also cooking up plans to start her own tourism development consulting firm with a friend within the next few years, developing destinations and tourism businesses, and advocating socially responsible and environmentally sustainable tourism planning. On top of her current work, she’s studying part-time for a Master’s of Urban Planning, majoring in International Development Planning, which will help her in her future career by deepening her understanding of the forces that impact cities and regions. What most excites her about starting her own firm would be “the opportunity to work with like-minded colleagues in a field that we love, travel, but also make a positive contribution to the communities and destinations that we visit.” Sounds amazing!

In closing, the most useful lesson that Cherie has picked up along the way is that “every job you have, every person you meet, every class you take all hold something of value, so to feel grateful for every experience.” She also passed along her friend’s inspiring Facebook page, which is terrific.

- Meg Ahern