Holiday shopping online?

Where are you shopping online this year? With the dollar in an on-par place it makes cross border online shopping that much more desirable. What Canadian e-tailers are grabbing your attention and reducing your holiday stress? For the creative gift seeker, try www.orangefish.ca for unique gifts designed and crafted by Canadian artisans. How much of your shopping are you doing online this year?

Women at the expense of men?

David Menzies wrote an interesting article in this month's Marketing Magazine titled "Excuse My Gender" where he laments about men and their negative portrayal in recent ad campaigns by Rona, Rogers and Royal Bank to name a few. I can certainly relate to the sentiment of the article. Perhaps the pendulum has swung to far for marketers trying to wave the flag for the female gender. As an agency who specializes in marketing with women I can sympathize and agree that good quality marketing and communication strategies do not have to come at the expense of men.

That said, is the message getting through at the retail level? With all of the mega bucks being invested by North America's big brands in search of winning the female favour, is this translated at all customer touchpoints of the sales experience? Sadly, I say no. Just walk into a retailer selling consumer electronics, try signing up for a new small business phone system or even purchasing a car, home or a vacation membership package and as a woman you will still have to sustain some good old fashioned gender discrimination.

So, perhaps these ad budgets should be allocated to gender specific sales training and operationalization of communication strategies across all customer touch points. Just a thought.

Are women moving up in the workplace?

Are we making progress? Are there more women in senior decision making positions at Corporations across Canada? Well, perhaps we are seeing marginal differences in the percentages at the top two teirs but is that really the issue? Perhaps it is that we need more female role models and leaders at all levels of the organization. Do you have to be senior to lead or make an impact? As employment models are changing and flattening, there has never been a better time for leadership to be present at all corners of a company.

As employers are starting to re-think performance-based measurement, employee engagement practices and grappling over how they are going to attract top talent and fill the female pipeline, it is also a great time to be acknowledging leadership potential in different areas of the business and rethinking the leadership definition.

Having a flexible organizational mindset and flexible employment practices will improve your access to top female talent. Make it easier for women to engage with you, to stay with you, and perhaps.... to move up with you. But don't make that the only measure of success.