The Business of Women's Networks

As Director of the Women’s Legacy Project I scan, consume, and synthesize tremendous amounts of information.  As creator and owner of the business components of The Women’s Legacy Project I draw upon business, branding and networking literature and discussion.
Sometimes I run across something that speaks to multiple levels of interest.

“Truth be told, we’re missing out on critical data and insights. We’re so focused on what’s going out there, that we’ve quite forgotten about what’s going on internally. We’re all about how things are being delivered…but is what we’re sending out to be delivered any good? We’ve got to start thinking in holistic terms.”  http://www.brandobility.com/want-great-marketing-analytics-look-in-the-mirror/

This speaks to multiple levels and to me.  Triple bottom line anyone?  For those non-business theory types, the triple bottom line view of economics believes that profit is only one of the bottom lines to be measured along with people and planet.  The more inclusive understanding of surplus and deficit in systems beyond  trade or exchange systems echoes the change from an industrial to information age.
It is not surprising, once this more inclusive model is adopted, that we find that women’s activity similarly feeds into this expansion into the new information niche.
The rapid colonization of this new social terrain by women should have been expected as dispersed networking characterizes the cooperative strategies women employ in insuring success in child rearing and community continuity.
Hierarchical structures in small businesses are also leveling into interactions in which women more equally start and own businesses. An article in The Atlantic discusses the statistics behind this trend clearly, and does note that inequality in loan procurement and industries entered.
As women’s voices are heard in personal, community, and corporate histories, we can expect to discover much information about economic and exchange structures that was unknown or underreported when women’s voices were absent from the documentation of these processes.  This understanding will not be limited to women’s cooperatives in South America, or collective female-run enterprises in African countries.  Women banding together for the good of the local economy happens everywhere and awareness of this basic interaction is spreading.