sphinxx news alert  
28 April 2010 | www.sphinxx.com.au   

This week we talk about taking risks or taking the back seat, innovation in business, social intrapreneurs, the Business Leader TV, Lifestyle Careers, work-life balance, a great networking opportunity with a twist in Adelaide, a call-out for guest bloggers, plus we have a ticket to giveaway to the Women in Climate Change event in Adelaide, and a Sasy n Savy Pamper Gift Pack to giveway!

Also I will be in Adelaide around May 12th, Brisbane around May 18th and Melbourne around May 28th, so if anyone would like to meet up to discuss how you can best support women in leadership, contact me now so I can fit you in!

1. YOUR CAREER: Take some risks or take the back seat... which is your choice?
2. WORK: Innovation in business – free seminar
3. WORK: Are you a social intrapreneur?
4. WORK: Business leader TV- inspiration and articles
5. LIFE: Feeling like you want out? Lifestyle Careers opportunity
6. LIFE: Achieving Work-life Balance
7. OFFERS: Women in Climate Change - ticket giveaway for Adelaide event
8. OFFERS: Fancy yourself the next Seth Godin?
9. OFFERS: Networking with a twist in Adelaide!
10. OFFERS: Win a Sasy n Savy Deluxe Pamper Gift Pack valued at $169

If you have an idea for a topic we should include in a future news alert, please let us know - we’d love to hear from you!

All the best,

Jen Dalitz
Founder & The SheEO, sphinxx.com.au

sphinxx is the network for women leaders and provides support and services to working women to assist in managing their work and life priorities, and leadership advice to help them scale the heights in their careers.

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YOUR CAREER: Take some risks or take the back seat... which is your choice?

Sandy Blackburn-Wright is an inspiration. I saw this in the first email she ever sent me, outlining very directly why it’s important - more important than ever - to be focused on diversity in our workplaces, in our thinking, in our societies. She explained to me what she’d learned about the possibilities women bring, from decades spent in South African communities where women led change at the grass roots level, as they do in so many organisations and cultures.

After many more emails, and coffees, and having read Sandy’s book Holding Up the Sky, I see it even more. Sandy’s book is a memoir of her time in Africa, of witnessing love and marriages, war and death, of seeing friends murdered and experiencing the tumultuous mood that swept a nation as Mandela was released from prison and led a movement of change. Sandy was there to observe Mandela’s way of ‘bringing down divisions between people by going to great efforts to point out the value in each person, each community’. I see this trait in Sandy too, in her writing, her leadership, her speeches.

Sandy inspires me because here she was, a young Australian woman who left the safety of Northern Beaches upbringing, fresh out of uni, to follow her passions, take risks and look fear in the face because she believed she could make a difference.

I’ve been reading Sandy’s book again, looking for inspiration and motivation as I work on a new 5-year plan for my work and my life. I’ve recommended Sandy’s book to others who are embarking on the same process, because sometimes it’s helpful to observe the extremes in order to find your own level.

For those who’ve not yet read Sandy’s book, I highly recommend it. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll emerge with clearer thinking, a healthy questioning for the status quo and a belief that you too can make a difference.

And if you’d like to hear Sandy speak, to be challenged to take some risks of your own and to step out of your comfort zone in order to realise your full potential - at work or in life - I invite you to join us at Ascend in May in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, where Sandy is one of six amazing women who will challenge our thinking about women and leadership and what we are all capable of. And if you mention this blog about Sandy when you book, we’ll also give you a free copy of “Secrets of Great Success Coaches Exposed” for more inspiring ideas for realising your full potential in work and in life.

I hope I’ll see you there.

Innovation is one of the eternal buzzwords you hear floating around our workplaces and it's a theme for our own Ascend events this quarter. Trumpeted as an excellent hireable quality, it is interesting how many innovative ideas with a credible chance of success do not get off the ground.

If this strikes a chord with you, and you’re sick of seeing your great ideas stall, there is a free workshop in Coffs Harbour Tuesday May 4th, from 4pm-6pm. The seminar is run by NSW Innovation Advisory Service promises that “companies wishing to explore the practical steps towards commercialisation, including financing options should attend” says Dan Liszka, CEO NSW Innovation Advisory Service and reminds us that “smart companies are always looking for ways to leverage innovation into growth,” he says.

Whilst the course is nominally about the manufacturing industry, the training they are offering is an understanding of how to “build value into your company, manage your intellectual property and strategies to effectively grow your business or build value for sale.”

If you're interested you can find out more here.

Are you a social intrapreneur?

Are you working in a large company and are you exploring commercially attractive and viable ways to use the strength of your company to generate social or environmental good? It might be a product, approach, a partnership or range of other initiatives.

If you are, or know someone who is, the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility at Cranfield University is looking for these people for research to better enable their ideas to be successful. By focusing on developing a new kind of business value, and supporting not crushing these ideas, the research aims to maximise the good the business community can do.

Contact the program at csi@unsw.edu.au to start supporting the people supporting the social and environmental benefits big businesses can achieve.

Business leader TV- inspiration and articles

There are so many online sources for information relevant to business and finance. But who has time to read them all and still excel in their jobs?

One of the more accessible information sources is Business Leaders TV by the Institute of Chartered Accountants. It combines a range of great debates and thoughts, and keeps them up to date and relevant, constantly offering recommendations and insights as to how these local thoughts or challenges fit within the wider global economic environment.

And the best thing about it? It’s all on video. So you can listen in while driving home, or doing housework or while your kids are watching their loud and colourful shows on TV.

Feeling like you want out? Lifestyle careers opportunity

If you are feeling like the workplace you’re in just doesn’t fit – you’re probably right. Is it a constant battle to make long hours, high pressure roles work? Especially when you’re also looking after a baby, an injury or a family member needing your support.

Many women struggle in work places that aren't flexible enough to fulful other demands in life, let alone allow time for fun and relaxation.

But there is no need to give up on the satisfaction and stimulation a challenging career gives you. The Lifestyle Careers Job Board has been relaunched to ensure its user friendly. One feature I think sounds wonderful is the SMS job alert functionality, so once the board knows what you’re looking for you can set it up to text you the vital stats on a new job, so you know when to check back in.

Also if you’re a recruiting you can access their sphinxx “buy 1-get 1 free” offer so you can get twice the ads for your investment, simply by calling1300 886 032 and quote "SPHINXX” to get the special deal.

Achieving Work-life Balance

With 30 per cent of us saying that work affects our social lives, it’s no wonder so many of us what to achieve a better work-life balance. In this article Caitlin Reid, nutritionist, fitness expert, founder and author of Health & the City shows you how.

Many of us want to achieve work-life balance; that is, the ability to effectively manage our paid work with career goals, personal responsibilities and community interests. Yet for many of us, the dream of achieving work-life balance remains elusive. We now work longer hours than ever before, and technology such as laptops and Blackberries make us contactable 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Click here to read on.

Women in Climate Change - ticket giveaway for Adelaide event

How can women harness their power to lead and drive change? How do we successfully change deeply embedded behaviour?

These are important question I discuss with all kinds of people often. Whether it’s about getting more women into senior management roles, or how to tackle organisational change challenges, questions like these launch huge conversations well worth having.

The “1 Million Women Campaign” asks exactly these questions in their event series “Women in Climate Change”. And aren’t these questions even more serious when we’re talking about the ongoing wellbeing of our planet? We have a free pass for the Adelaide event on the 18th of May to give away, so if you’re keen to go along post a comment or email us here.

Other questions they’re discussing at the “Women in Climate Change” events are (just to get you thinking):

What do women want from policy makers?

How can marketers effectively reach women?

What tools can be used by individuals, organisations and communities to just “get on with it?”

Also if you know someone who is passionate and active in working to prevent climate change, why not forward them info on our not-for-profit scholarship program?

Fancy yourself the next Seth Godin?

We’re looking for guest bloggers. So if you’ve ever read one of our newsletters or blogs and thought “I know! I just wrote an article about that!”? then we want to hear from you.

At sphinxx we work hard to make sure we’re writing on a wide variety of topics that boost working women’s careers and help our readers keep their grip on the constant work-life-balance challenge.

We’re looking for guest writers who want to contribute some of their thoughts to our website blog.

sphinxx is all about swapping stories, experiences, tips and advice. So if you have an article or a blog from your website you would like to share, shoot us an email at comms@sphinxx.com.au or contact us here.