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Female Heroes Interview: Christine Karman
Every week we will be publishing an interview with one of our female internet heroes. This is an opportunity for you to MEET interesting women, READ about their WORK, THINK about how they PLAY the internet industry and see how you MATCH them. Be inspired! This week we talk to Christine Karman.
“Losing everything you have is not an experience you want to go through” Christine recalls the demise of her internetbubble success Izecom, a software company she set up in 2002 and which went bankrupt because of a fraudulent investor. Yet it has made her more determined to succeed. “I have learned a lot in these ten years about being a technology entrepreneur. So I feel sooner or later, I will do it right.” An exception in the Netherlands, as a female software technology developer, entrepreneur and consultant, Christine Karman is now working on developing the new web 3.0 application. “I will sell it to google”.
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How did you start out?
I studied astronomy and physics. My first job was in IT. From the start of my career I have been involved in innovative projects. It started in the early 80s, when the bank I was working for started to connect branch offices to the main office using computers: data communication. Being involved in a first of a kind project is much more interesting than doing something everyone is doing. So I have kept doing that. It is my experience that most of the time when you have a good idea, you do not have the chance to execute it. Then if you do, if it fails, you get the blame, but if it succeeds your boss gets the rewards. So whatever you do, you loose. So when I had an idea for an e-commerce product, I thought, if I get the blame anyway, I take the risk. Read more
Innovation Award: submit your company
A couple of posts ago we have written on the importance for companies to come above the radar. One of the ways to do this, we stated, is to be selected or nominated for an award. We made a list of awards and competitions, which we published at thenexweb.org and on this site.
As a member of the jury of the Innovation Awards of Accenture, I have realised that it makes sense for companies to participate in a competition. Not only are companies stimulated to name their Unique Selling Points in this competition, but others will also get to know these USP’s. Also, Accenture makes an extensive research report on these companies, and publishes about them blogs, newspapers and through a conference.
Accenture has issued a press release that it is interested in women-led companies and urges women to submit their innovative companies and concepts. I can only agree with this special request, and I hope that the women-led companies in this competition will be above the usual 5% of the entries.
Designer Vintage: Big New Business
So they were a bit expensive and one size too small, but you bought them anyway, those Chanel heels. Now they sit in your cupboard, waiting to be worn. Sounds familiar? It did indeed to female internet heroes Annemarie van Gaal and Karin Barnhoorn and so they set up internet marketplace Designer-Vintage.com, a website allowing you to buy and sell vintage designer clothing. On the site you can search and offer vintage clothes, bags, accessories and shoes by size, colour, designer, and prize.
Visibility + Promotion
One of the underlying ideas of TheNextWomen is to promote business women. Also these business women should put themselves, or should endeavour that they be asked, on stage. Visibility is key nowadays.
Consequently, not only could these women act as role models for aspiring Internet entrepreneurs, another effect of making women visible in the Internet industry from the beginning, is that it may prevent devaluation of the industry at a later stage.
What has happened in some industries when women entered or became visible at a later stage is that the whole profession started to devaluate, in status as well as money wise. This happened, for example, when women entered the education workplace or became judges or doctors. But since the Internet industry is only 4000 days old…, an thus we are at the beginning of an era, it is in the interest for men and women not to let this happen in this industry.
So read and spread the word and let us have your thoughts.
Are you already fly-dining?
Today it was announced fly-dining will become popular among rich Europeans in the coming years. Fly-dining means that you pick a restaurant, invite a couple of business friends, get on a plane (preferably your own) and head of to the restaurant some thousands miles away.
The news was among the conclusions in the Centurion Living Index 2008 of American Express, that rich consumers want new forms of exclusivity As some business women may know, the Centurion is an exclusive black credit card, the ultimate bling according to some, which you need to use frequently to be able to keep it. The card is known to get you into the most exclusive clubs and restaurants without reservation.
It follows from the above that the credit crunch does not seem to affect wealthy and good earning business people. This in turn means that there are ample opportunities to start a business which target to this group.
Co-Founder and of Marketing Director Louise Wachtmeister saw this trend some time ago by starting the online community asmallworld.com. By positioning itself as a private online community, designed for those who already have strong connections with one another, they managed to attract 320,000 members globally and a lot of press attention.
There are also various retail concept targeting to the good earning business women, such as net a porter of Natalie Massanet.
In the meantime we are wondering which restaurants will make the top 10 restaurants most known for fly-dining? Restaurants in St-Tropez, Bilbao, New York, Stkt. Moritz and Tokyo? We will see how soon Nina Zagat (or www.iens.nl) will come up with that list?
American internet heroes
The US has leading the way in showing women leading or funding internet companies. In compiling our database of female internet heroes, we come across a lot of American entrepreneurs, CxO’s and VC’s. A lot of these women have started in Silicon Valley or have close ties to the area. We will list a few of them today:
Esther Dyson is an internet visionary and investor and are already around a long time. She is primarily investing in start-ups and guiding many of them as a board member. She was visionary with positions at – among others – Flickr, Delicious. She on the board of 23andme, of co-founder Anne Wojcicki. She invested also in lesser known companies, such as eTribes, a British (once) startup that provided identity management and community services, but now seems to be more a photo sharing site. She sold EDventure Holdings to CNET Networks in 2004. Recently she has been investing mostly in online services, health care/genetics, and space travel.
Other women that have been around are Meg Whitman, ex e-Bay and Jean Armour Polly, founder of netmom.com, and the first woman elected to the Internet Society board of Trustees. She is currently working on connecting rural libraries to the Internet. Read more
Kate Middleton: the next female internet hero
Queen Elisabeth has urged Kate Middleton, Prince William’s bride to be, to get a proper job. Without having decided exactly what she wants to make a career in, so the story goes, she won’t be a viable candidate to take over the Queens position next to Prince William in the future. Her current work is obviously not a serious job according to the Queen. The Queen believes in a modern Monarchy and feels very strongly that the Royals should be leading by example.
Kate announced last September that she was giving up her job as an accessories buyer to become a photographer. She has been working and taking pictures for the website of party company Party Pieces since. That company was founded by her parents, Micheal and Carole Middleton in 1987 and is the UK’s leading online and catalogue party company.
Personal Branding 2
Margot Katz is an author, an international business consultant and an expert on personal branding. Margot encourage women to “turn up the volume” and “be bloody good”. For TheNextWomen she provides us in reply to our questions with an extract from her latest book: Tarzan & Jane, how to thrive in the new corporate jungle published by Profile Books. Set forth below is part II.
Does it make sense to write your personal brand down in a personal mission statement or your resume?
Personally, I’m not in favour of anything that smacks of inauthenticity. You must be natural and able to build rapport with people and anything too scripted might get in the way. That being said, it is a good idea to be clear about your key messages and to deliver them with confidence using fresh, punchy language. Be engaged yourself; enthusiasm and passion are infectious and make engaging with you fun, energising, inspiring, and memorable.
When it comes to the written word, including your resume, you need to work even harder to jump off the page. So what you say should absolutely reflect your brand – what you’re looking for, who you are and what you bring to the table. Read more
Fake profiles on social networks
This week a new media campaign around the negative representation of female CEO’s in The Netherlands will be introduced. And you know what? It will use the social web to its fullest. Female Internet Hero Shula Rijxman, Chief Commercial Officer at IDTV, is the brain behind the idea. In short: the CEO will become a SHEO and will be brought to life and as a consequence the negative representation will become positive representation! 
First, a guerilla marketing action is planned, which is – by the way – not so guerrilla when you announce it first. During this wild action, parking spots of companies’ VIPS’s will be ‘reserved for SHEO’s’. After that, some traditional advertising will take place presenting the SHEO to the public. Also, at airports SHEO business lounges will be opened. Lastly, drama series will be produced about the worklife to the top of 3 SHEO’s.
Internet will come into play in combination with these drama series. At social networks like Hyves, Linkedin, Facebook, Xing and the one you have, these three SHEO’s will submit their profiles. And so they will be brought to life. If you want to contact them, an editorial board will impersonate the SHEO’s and answer your questions. Read more
Is your speaker proposal ready?
In order to speak at a conference, one should submit a paper or proposal. So it is one thing for women to sign up at Geekspeakr, a great website by geek Brenda Wallace, and to show that you are a great speaker or knowledgable on a certain subject. But the next thing to do is to think about a specific topic for a session, a workshop or keynote and to schedule some time to write down your proposal.
Take Developerday at the Microsoft campus end of November 2008. The organisation calls for speakers to submit topics that they would like to talk on – first-time speakers or experienced trainers are equally welcomed. Then the community will vote on-line for which sessions they would like to see happen on the day and from that the agenda will be decided. Many proposals have been already submitted. However, a women speaker has yet to act. Read more
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