Hillary Strobel | She Owns It

Empowering Women In Science, Technology, and Innovation by @theflyways

May 11, 2017 by Hillary Strobel Leave a Comment

by Hillary Strobel | Featured Contributor

As a member of the UN Empower Women working group, I often get really fun blurbs in my inbox. This month, I got the following prompt for a global conversation about encouraging and inspiring women in Science, Technology, and Innovation:

The Sustainable Development Goals represent the commitment of member states and others in the global community to achieve social, economic and environmental justice for a sustainable world. Advancement of gender equality, and equitable science, technology and innovation (STI) are explicit objectives under several of the SDGs, but they also underpin all of them. — UN Women

Working group members contributed to an online conversation, with several questions as prompts. I wanted to share, if I may be so bold, the first two questions and my answers.

Poster by A Mighty Girl

Q1. Is “inclusion” enough? Does just having greater numbers of women in the STI ecosystem result in the future we want?

Inclusion is not enough. A properly crafted ecosystem would equally meet the needs of both men and women. Author and Yale alumnus Tara Mohr wrote, “[Women] had been allowed to join the institution [Yale] and participate in it, but there had been no inquiry into how to significantly adapt the institution so that women and men would thrive equally there.”

Inevitable result: women and men do not thrive equally there.

I feel that this is the tipping point we are currently witnessing. For decades, women have been entering the work force. This has contributed immensely to elements of empowerment such as financial gains. However, they entered a largely unchecked and unchanged system. During those same decades, women have not had significant opportunity to craft employment policy or regulations. Nor have women had meaningful impact on how work is valued and performed. This is why we are now seeing large numbers of incredibly qualified women quitting STI. Employers are encouraging cultures of blow back while simultaneously being sued for it. Innovation and real benefits are stagnant.

The question itself is reductive. Simply having more of something doesn’t make anything “better,” necessarily. There are economic theories to back this up (the law of diminishing returns comes to mind). The quality of the ecosystem is much more valuable than the size of the ecosystem in driving future growth and success. 10 great women working in an environment that is equally great are going to impact quality more than 100 great women working in a poor environment.

Q2. Does bottom-up and community level engagement of women in STI offer additional or greater opportunities for creating more gender responsive STI, including in comparison to more top down systems?

The answer to Question One therefore informs the answer to Question Two. Both bottom-up emergent leadership and top-down ecosystem positions must include women. Each level of influence is crucial to the success of future generations of women in STI.

There is no question that bottom-up leadership will impact positively on the futures of women in STI. Any number of grassroots movements would prove that theory out. The successes of Second Wave Feminism in the mid- to late-20^th century are a good example. However, the shortcomings of each of those movements is also reflective of the greater society in which those movements are operating.

According to the World Bank’s Citizen Engagement project, grassroots change is only effective if the entire system is willing to accept that change. Fundamental top-down social change must include women invested in the bigger picture.

Huge numbers of women certainly have the opportunity to get involved in STI at the grassroots level. This is very important. The gender responsiveness they can create will be powerful indeed. At the same time, someone needs to be listening from the top down to this movement. This is why women need to have a strong presence at that level as well. In the end, each will inform the other. Generally accepted social science theories admit that there is no real value in using “either-or” statements to explain human behavior. We must strive for inclusion by accepting the idea that both levels constantly influence and reinforce the other. This creates a virtuous cycle.

Where do the readers of SheOwnsIt.com come down on women in Science, Technology, and Innovation?

This is mission critical for me as a professional woman, of course! I want to hear from you about your opinions. We must always be looking to develop best practices and find ways to support and encourage this all-important set of goals.

For more information on the UN Women’s Empower Women working group discussion on equality in Science, Technology, and Innovation, visit the website.

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Hillary Strobel

Hillary Strobel is a single mother, fierce learner and teacher, ardent lover of life, and the ass-kickin’ President and CEO of The Flyways, Inc. We publish story projects that are interactive and highly creative, and 25% of profits are donated to support social justice causes: from business incubators serving vulnerable women, to agencies working to reduce recidivism rates.

Hillary also runs a consultancy for businesses and organizations seeking to meaningfully build social impact programs from the ground up. The three pillars that support this mission are: designing outcomes and developing goals, measuring impact and creating a universal metric, and quantifying results to the public.

After a long and varied career in just about every kind of Liberal Arts field imaginable, and in every type of job — volunteer, employee, entrepreneur, non-profit worker, and freelancer — Hillary has decided to marry her two deepest passions: storytelling and social justice. The results have surpassed her wildest expectations.

theflyways.com/

Vuja De: The Art of Imagining the Unknown by @theflyways

April 17, 2017 by Hillary Strobel Leave a Comment

by Hillary Strobel | Featured Contributor

Let’s all take a moment to think about Vuja De.

What is this magical new thing, you might ask? Let me tell you! Vuja De is defined by Simon T. Bailey as a moment when you say to yourself, “I’ve never seen this before,” but you intend to create it anyway.

History is rife with examples of women who looked at what was happening around them and felt a Vuja De moment. The “default” experience of the world over the past few millennia has been one of patriarchy, and men in positions of influence and power. Women stayed at home.

Imagine the leap, not only of faith but of power and perseverance, it takes for a woman to look at a career held by men for thousands of years and say to herself, “I ought to be doing that.”

The Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin, for example, is the first woman to serve as chaplain to the British Speaker of the House of Commons. There were 78 male chaplains who came before her; what would make this woman believe that this was something she could (and should) aspire to?

It’s my great vocation in life to make the case that Vuja De is, on a meta-level, the story of who is running the world’s innovation: women. Any individual is capable of creating amazing things, regardless of gender or class or background. Women, however, are deeply equipped to see the world around them and imagine something profoundly different.

Consider the example of Margaret Sanger, the inventor of the Pill. Whatever your stance on contraception, it’s pretty hard to deny that offering women control over their own reproductive choices opened literally thousands of doors into an active role in society.

Crowdsourcing Vuja De

As a writer, I’ve decided that my next book will be on this topic. To that end, I’d like to encourage all of you to help out with lots of secondary sources. I want to crowdsource ideas from this community! Who does the idea of Vuja De remind you of? What are their accomplishments? How many lives has their work affected? What inspires you about them? They can be historical or contemporary figures, singular women or groups of women (and definitely women that engaged in this work in concert with men).

I hope that this book explores the idea of women forging a completely new path through familiar territory. We’re not just taking jobs outside the home but completely reshaping the way we think of and do economics (and by extension, society and politics).

Let’s get into the minds of women like Alice Paul (who proposed the first Equal Rights Amendment in 1923), Frances Perkins (FDR’s Secretary of Labor, 1933-45), jurist Sandra Day O’Connor, politicians Barbara Jordan and Shirley Chisholm, mathematician Ada Lovelace and her intellectual heir Maryam Mirzakhani, and countless women entrepreneurs (like all of YOU).

You are the ones who daily continue this tradition of seeing the default world and imagining something profoundly different. Let’s ensure that future generations will never doubt where we stood on this!

Feminism needs to capture the language of innovation by @theflyways

February 16, 2017 by Hillary Strobel Leave a Comment

by Hillary Strobel | Featured Contributor

Here we are, in 2017, surrounded by innovation, and it’s high time we caught some of that momentum and used it to further the causes of feminism. We should begin by exploring our opportunities and then we can dive into how we can utilize them.

Innovation is a term that gets kicked around in business. It’s a word that entrepreneurs love, and it’s embraced as the embodiment of the entrepreneurial future. So is there any limitation on applying innovation to social movements? None whatsoever.

There is a very specific way that women can catch this rising star and use it in a way that truly is new and powerful. Business talks about innovation in terms of meeting customer needs in really creative, unusual ways.

Social movements such as feminism should use innovation to drive outcomes.

We already know what the needs are here. Now we can propel the conversation around the future we desire to see.

This is the difference between saying “I know what this is and I don’t like it so I’ll just have to figure out how to deal with it” and saying “This is where we need to get, and now all of our actions will be to support that outcome.” The first statement is all about reacting to something negative. The second is focusing on setting positive goals and building the actions necessary to meet those goals.

I sometimes frame that dichotomy to myself as the difference between a life hack and a profound sea change. One will get you where you want to go in the immediate sense; the other frames your entire life around being where you want to be at all times.

Let’s talk language

The first thing that is important here is framing feminism as an outcome-driven movement. Yes, we need to protect basic liberties, but things are very different today than they were in our mother’s time. Today, we are talking about intersectionality and actualization as fully-developed human beings. We can spend our time fighting back against government orders to “dress like a woman.” Or we can spend our time re-defining what it means to be a woman who puts on clothes every morning.

We don’t need to be spoken for, we need to speak. Loudly. I cannot stress this enough: we also need to listen to one another, profoundly. We need to listen to our sisters who speak of a variety of experiences and to accept each and every one of them as valid.

We should begin with discussing our desired outcomes. Here’s a personal example. I’m a single mother, and I desire social and political parity with partnered mothers: We need extra income support, extra protections against poverty-related social issues, and tax dispensations (instead of removing the ability for single mothers to file as head-of-household, we should get an even better tax break). We are raising future presidents, after all.

Now, I need to spend my time developing an innovation lab (which is in the works, I promise!) that builds policy and advocacy stances around those issues, so that eventually these outcomes are met. My single mother advocacy needs to be intimately tied in with the issues facing all sorts of women: my Black and Brown sisters, my LGBTQ sisters, my sisters who are being banned based on religion, and my sisters who look just like me but still live under the thumbs of contemptuous men.

Language is Power

I like to be very careful about how I phrase things and discuss important issues. I used to be made fun of in certain circles for being the “PC Police.” But that’s not how I see myself at all. PC is valuable, of course, but language in general can move mountains. When I’m mindful of how I frame the things that are important to me and to others, I can literally change a life in minutes.

Language helps us to see ourselves as intimately connected to one another. When we, as feminists, womanists, and humanists, frame ourselves in the same light with respect to creating our equality, we are profoundly more powerful than we could have imagined.

Let us then drive the conversation forward in terms of innovation. Let us decide on our common desired outcomes and be single minded in pushing toward that. I look forward to hearing from you about the desired outcomes that will drive your movement into the future!

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Hillary Strobel is a single mother, fierce learner and teacher, ardent lover of life, and the ass-kickin’ President and CEO of The Flyways, Inc. We publish story projects that are interactive and highly creative, and 25% of profits are donated to support social justice causes: from business incubators serving vulnerable women, to agencies working to reduce recidivism rates.

Follow Hillary on Social Media: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Medium

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Hillary Strobel

theflyways.com/

Creating an Inclusive Economy by @theflyways

December 14, 2016 by Hillary Strobel Leave a Comment

by Hillary Strobel | Featured Contributor

These are exciting times.

We are sitting on the cusp of opportunity here, that of creating an entirely new economy which is inclusive and beneficial for everyone.

Of course Social Businesses are leading the way in terms of creating innovative products and services. They are also looking at ways to improve distribution of their wares, as well as how they operate. Each of these is crucial and important to a brighter future, of course.

What if, rather than focusing on one business or one innovative process, we looked at the entire system within which businesses operate?

What are the solutions?

These exciting times we live in could be either dangerous or beneficial, depending both on our shared worldview and our efforts to create solutions based on problems rather than stewing in the problems. We know that income inequality exists, but the real question is what we are going to do about it.

Here are three major areas that business leaders can group solutions into:

Creating jobs where they are needed most (and employing the most vulnerable citizens in those jobs)
Improving access to goods and services
Investing locally, for the biggest immediate impact

The consequences of ignoring these solutions are obvious: we have gaping income inequality. Inequality has both direct (immediate) and indirect consequences, which will continue to reverberate through coming generations if we continue to do nothing different.

Income inequality leads to vulnerable citizens, which in turn leads to overall burdens on the system. Everything from poor performance at school to lowered quality of health is related to income and the lack of access to avenues for advancement.

Social businesses are leading the way in filling in some of these gaps: companies are creating innovative education programs and food distribution systems, for example. In general, these are inarguably positive developments. The time is ripe, however, for an overhaul of the entire process by which business operates; that is, a completely new economic system.

Systemic Change is a Social Good

Systemic change occurs when enough players in the game realize the mutual benefits of changing the rules of the game. It’s fairly obvious that enough businesses realize that our current economic system not only does not support their customers equitably, it does not support their own operations effectively. The solution: it’s time for a change. A real, definitive change.

Now that we are recognizing the ways to group solutions into manageable chunks, we need to develop the processes to solve the problems. More and more players must become involved in this to make bigger and bigger change.

The keys to creating an inclusive economy are not rocket science, nor are they impossible. In many cases, they are absolutely necessary to the health of the overall economy as well as the business itself. Without change, we cannot evolve, and it is time to address some of these needs. Social business is leading the way, and needs to continue to do so, while also expanding their larger social impact goals to include the success of the system as well as the individual business.

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Hillary Strobel

theflyways.com/

There never was a better time than now for our social justice work. by @theflyways

November 16, 2016 by Hillary Strobel Leave a Comment

by Hillary Strobel | Featured Contributor

Whatever side of the aisle you sit on, where you live, what you do for a living, who you care about, what fuels your dreams, the time for social justice is now.

We’ve seen so much anger and foment in the past week. Perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised by this. When one group pulls ahead in the race, the other groups begin to panic. This is it for us! The end for our dreams! We will never succeed while others are succeeding!

I think we know much, much better than that. I’m convinced of it. We know better.

Where do we begin?

This work begins with education, and lots of it. Find out what “the other side” in your battle thinks and feels about the world, as hard as that may be to swallow. We will not succeed if we don’t know what we’re up against. And I mean that we need- desperately bad- to get very far out of our comfort zone to find out what we need to do.

I’ve spent the week reading articles written by the Men’s Rights Movement- which are harsh, to be sure- but it’s crucial to know what they think and feel about the Women’s Rights Movement. This is the key to any counteroffensive.

Pick your “cause” and put yourself to sleep at night getting to know it inside out. This is crucial.

What comes next?

When you know what you’re up against, you’ll be able to see where to start. It could be something as simple as this: read the articles by the Men’s Rights Movement, and reach out to the authors. Start dialogues. Do not engage in the Shock and Awe approach. You’re there to make a friend, and that’s how this has to go in order to work. This is where we infiltrate.

Then, take those conversations to your friends, coworkers, family. This is where you devise your strategy, your long game. This is something that we need to frame ourselves in for years to come, because it will take that. No quick fixes, ladies.

What do you want to accomplish?

Part of making your strategy for getting ahead, for empowering all of us, is visualizing the future. Is it a woman president? Good. Is it your daughter’s ultimate success? Right on. Is it getting that promotion you’ve wanted for three years? Power, sister.

The most necessary part of this, no matter what else matters, is that we all come up together. We are women, good people, and highly motivated to make sure that the success matters for others. When we run that race, we shouldn’t be thinking to ourselves that another’s success stunts our own. Success for any one of us benefits all of us, because that’s the reality we live in.

I am that social justice warrior.

Here’s where I want to get up in your faces about that communal success. It has to spread across demographics. It simply has to. All of this effort means nothing if one group steps on another during the long climb up. It means everything if one group lends a hand to the other.

If you are in a box about that, get out of it. Challenge yourselves, challenge me, challenge others to do better and be more. There is a world of sisters outside of that box who will be more than happy to see you there. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the path to social justice, and the path to changing the world.

Now, right now, GO. DO. THIS.

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Hillary Strobel

theflyways.com/

Following Your Dreams: A Plan for Business by @theflyways

August 18, 2016 by Hillary Strobel Leave a Comment

by Hillary Strobel | Featured Contributor

I’ve read The Alchemist multiple times. (The truth is that I’ve lost count. I re-read many of my books over and over again. My father thinks it’s some kind of tic.)

This book is something I want to share with everyone I meet. There are nuggets of wisdom on literally every page. I don’t mean “nuggets” as in “insignificant scraps;” I mean as in pure gold. I’m inspired, as I always am, to discuss this notion of following a dream, and how it applies to the world outside of magic and mystery- that is, in the Real World.

In my own version of the Real World, I live a heart-centered life and run a heart-centered business. The entire point for me is to contribute something amazing to the world while working with as many people as possible to make it happen. It’s a dream many years in the making, and while the effort getting here was great, my heart had certainly not suffered one bit.

My own path to success was not easy- I’m a single mother, who has struggled financially and personally. It’s not as important to find yourself running a business versus working within a business, but it is vitally important to translate our personal struggles into success.

What personal struggles can be translated? Pretty much everything, of course.

The skills we acquire over the course of a lifetime, whether we are always consciously aware of it, are the building blocks of our current situations. So map them out, just like you would a business canvas- only instead of using the canvas to map a business’ assets and liabilities, do it for yourself. Be systematic about it, don’t leave anything out, and don’t question the process.

For example, in my own life, I’ve built a solid base of social impact successes, even if this wasn’t directly related to any particular job I had at the time. I simply needed a specific bucket for placing all of these skills. Think of this as the equivalent to the “Value Proposition” that any business must know inside and out before it can ever go public with a product of service. The Value Proposition relates to you as the “What Do You Do?” million-dollar-question.

How can you frame this for others to see the value in what you do? This is where you need to start developing the answers to “How Do You Do It?”, “Who Will Help You?” and “What Do You Need to Do It Well?”

Is any of this going to cost you? Probably. Anything worth doing well is worth investing in, especially and forevermore as it applies to your dreams.

Don’t fear the “costs” as they aren’t necessarily a loss—they are an investment. It’s an investment in your future, in your goals, your heart. This, of course, shows up in The Alchemist over and over again. Every “loss” that the protagonist encounters is actually a gift that serves the continuation of the journey.

From here, you can begin to frame your dreams as helping someone else: “Who Do You Help?” You must now map out how you reach these people and how you choose to interact with them. I think these are perhaps the two most important questions: what is your most cherished heart-centered dream, and how will you share it with the world in the most effective way?

For myself, it was discovering that there was a way of working that would feed my soul. Social Business is where my dreams found fertile soil. Coincidentally (or was it fated?), right about the time I was ready to pursue my biggest dreams, the United States began to pass laws to allow for the formation of Benefit Corporations. It’s the Triple Bottom Line interwoven with every single facet of creating a company. It’s my golden treasure.

Benefit Corporations have absolutely convinced me that this kind of business is kind and decent; it’s part of a shift in everything, from making “social good” a concrete part of the production process, to the changing perception of the moral value of profit. We don’t see profit as necessarily evil. We see it as the catalyst that makes the prolonged growth of our new production process viable. So bring it on.

So there was the universe conspiring to make it happen. We are all presented with opportunities at every turn, and we need only stretch our minds and our hands out to pluck one for ourselves. How are you going to reach for yours? Start with getting to the heart, what my man Paulo calls the Soul of the World, and letting it lead you. Make your map, and then be willing to throw it out the window as the path gets you to the right place.

For you, it will be different than it was for me or any other woman on the face of the earth. It may be something as seemingly straight-forward as getting promoted and finding a whole world of opportunity opening up to you, but make sure you always know how you will get to that place of being promoted. It might be as life-shattering as a personal loss, and you’ll need to have a way out of the darkness. However, there are no shortages of paths to follow when your dream comes knocking.

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Hillary Strobel

theflyways.com/