What do you get when you bring together interesting and approachable women in technology, great food and a lively speaker? Last night’s 2nd Toronto Girl Geek Dinner!

At one of Toronto’s more esoteric meetups, I had the pleasure of meeting some inspiring women (and a couple of guys, too) from fields as diverse as romance literature and robotics. 

Why I loved it:

• It was completely acceptable to talk about Facebook at length with people I had just met.
• The food was amazing. 
• Leila Boujnane from Idee (last night’s speaker) is a fascinating character and entertaining speaker.
• I think I’ve been convinced to go to a ’shopping class’ on Second Life.
• Wobbly jelly.

I’ll keep you posted on the next event (and we can discuss what I mean by ‘wobbly’).

I need a change of scenery.

After much thought and consideration, I have decided to change jobs and move over to the non-agency side of things. I have taken a position in the communications department of the Canadian Cancer Society.

During my four-year tenure with Thornley Fallis, I have learned a great deal, worked with some wonderful people who have enriched both my professional and personal life.

I have cleaned out my office, packed up my plants and 10 pairs of black heels.

Poor Jos won’t have to harass me to post anymore…

So off I go, into the world of non-agency PR, maybe in the future the girlz will let me report back as to how the other half lives…

Many thanks,
Camille

Well….like I did not feel guilty enough!!! I just read the transcript of Dr. Laura Schlessinger on Larry King Live. Dr. Laura is a radio show host and author. Larry King was interviewing her about her new book (which I guess I am now  inadvertently advertising) “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands”. Dr. Laura also refers to herself as a recovered feminist. In a nut shell Dr. Laura in all her wisdom says women are messing up their kids by working! That there is never a good reason for a women to work - even single moms! She suggests single moms move in with your parents so they can work nights while their kids sleep. How dare she! Trust me lady if I could I would stay home with my kids! Technically I could but we would have to stop living in the neighbourhood we live in, get rid of our cottage and my daughter would not go to gymnastics or swimming and certainly not skiing lessons. So where do you make the sacrifice…should I work so that my children can have a “good life” or do I sell it all and stay home? Dr. Laura was lucky enough to work at night…not many PR jobs have a night shift (24 hrs. sometimes!)

I am constantly dealing with guilt and trying to find the balance - which I am sure you are familiar with my previous rants…but PLEASE help me don’t make me feel even worse or selfish…you should read what she says about how you should treat your husbands!

This last month I have been coming to terms with leaving my kids at home five days a week. Each night I race home to get maximum time with them before bed time and all weekend I dread Sunday nights! I do nothing for myself anymore. I gave up my Pilates membership, I don’t do my usual 40 minute walk with my friend Amy and I certainly don’t entertain the idea of going out to a movie or drinks with friends after work. Let me state that I gladly make these sacrifices. I love being with my kids. I realize that time goes by so quickly and before I can turn around my girls will be irritated by the site of me (teenagers!). I am trying, like many parents to hold on to this time and wonder constantly if I am making right or wrong decisions and how will this impact their lives and my career. I know I am not alone as I get feedback from some of you who read this blog as well as from my friends who are also struggling with the working mom guilt.

I am constantly conflicted…maybe I should stop moaning and suck-it-up but on the other hand when I read this “stuff” by Dr. Laura I cannot help but run the working mom guilt around in my brain again!! Some one give us a break…we are not bad parents just because we want to or have to work, we do not love our kids any less or are selfish and materialistic…we work! It is that simple really.

One more thing…what kind of role models are we for our daughters if we are constantly fighting with each other about who is the better mom? This is an entirely different post…which I will get to once I cool off.

Can anyone lend me $479,000?

Ciao, Amanda! It was fun while it lasted…

I like Strumpette. There. I’ve said it. (Or typed it, same diff.)

I don’t care if it’s written by one woman, three women and “a token male” (as asserted by The Washington Post) or three men and a baby. The best satire comes from inside, and satirists sometimes need anonymity. Big deal. For all their mumbo jumbo about empowerment, conversation, blah blah blah, the Blog Police are pretty quick to forge rules and get irate if someone dares ignore said rules. Rule #1, apparently, is that the “blogosphere” and pseudonyms don’t mix. Says who?

There are some lovely, civilized and incredibly intelligent people in my office who don’t like Strumpette, and I can understand why people might be put off. There’s partial nudity, there’s foul language, and a very specific hate-on for Richard Edelman. Women in the business - especially those who have worked and worried hard to bury any notion that women are second-rate practitioners in any way - might be offended by her characterization.

“Bottom line professionally speaking, I am 5’ 4” tall, athletic, Pantene shoulder-length black hair, perfect perky boobs. I present well and am most accomodating. I’ve slept with clients. I sleep with my boss. I am the consummate PR strumpette. When I was 7 my mother told me I’d “never get anywhere with that mouth.” I’ve apparently dedicated my life in proving her wrong.”

But it’s satire. And even if you don’t particularly care for the way Amanda “presents”, she has something relevant to say about the business. I think she’s gotten under the skin of many because there’s truth in much of what she writes. (Plus, she can write. Plus, she doesn’t mind a bit of character assassination.) Most of what’s written by PR for PR is back-slapping, self-congratulatory word-fluff. Where’s the bigger crime? 

If PR-types are too thin-skinned to take some roasting about this business, then we might as well stop all the whinging and hand-wringing, hand the budget over to the ad agency, and lock the door behind us on the way out. OK, so Chapel (and friends) has a mean streak and will bite if provoked. Fine. Refreshing, even. If there ever was an industry that needed a florescent light, a magnifying mirror and a reality check, it’s ours.

Thanks to Robert French for plugging PRGirlz on infOpinions. Though he’s enthusiastic about the prospect of some PR professionals of the female persuasion joining the testosterone-laden blogosphere (ugh, that word again), he’s not so happy we’ve called ourselves “girlz” or even girls. In fact, he implores his female students to refrain from ever calling themselves girls.

Rest assured, Professor French, we know our name is cheesy and have tongues planted firmly in cheek. (The name got us some ink, did it not?) We’ve each been around along enough to have heard all the nonsense about “PR bunnies” (or “Fluffy bunnies” as I’ve heard them called in the UK) and we don’t think anyone will confuse us as such. In fact, we did a straw poll and it seems the PR Girl that Professor French describes – “images of vacuous little pretty girls as office dressing and shuffled off to perform clerical duties deemed to be beneath PR management, which is most often male” – is somewhat of an urban myth, like the alligators in the sewer and the guy who steals your organs. Maybe they’re out there, but we haven’t met them.

You can tell your female students that we think a sea change is happening in the business - as the baby boomers shuffle off into their retirement homes, the ratio in management will likely look more like the ratio at all other levels. Hopefully, anyway. And then we “girlz” won’t have to be so concerned about semantics.