Women. Connected.

Sheila Scarborough believes that we can overcome a fear of technology by tapping into our natural curiosity. A former Naval officer and certified Navy Master Training Specialist, Sheila started a new career in technology focusing on social media training for the tourism and hospitality industries. Her work has been honored with an Austin American-Statesman Texas Social […]

This is one of our favorite podcast episodes, full of inspiration for taking the next steps in your life and your career. We're happy to bring you this encore conversation with Farnoosh, and new episodes will be back next week. Farnoosh Brock deeply believes that everyone can have a second act, and that women have every right to claim their courage and confidence and set themselves up as experts in their fields. Two years ago Farnoosh left her corporate job to create Prolific Living, her own media and publishing company. She works all over the world, thriving on the creativity that comes with travel. On this episode, Farnoosh tells us about the power of mindmapping for creating and brainstorming, whether you're using it for personal or professional pursuits. She also delves into the power of social media and offers suggestions for how to more effectively manage social media accounts for business. In the second half of our conversation, Farnoosh delves into the issues of confidence and courage, discussing how women can harness their unique skills and abilities to position themselves as experts in their field, even when that field is largely male-dominated. This episode packs a ton of valuable ideas into just 30 minutes.

BB Crawford is a coach who works with clients to reduce anxiety and stress and increase a sense of peace and clarity. Her passion is to train people to focus on what they desire in their lives without the distraction of anxiety, stress or emotional overwhelm. While BB works with private clients, she also offers pro bono services to returning troops and veterans through her practice in Fort Hood, TX. Seven years ago BB created her signature program The ESSential Leadership Life Skills Training and her company Emotional Self Sufficiency (ESS). She began working with Vietnam veterans and returning troops, helping them to manage anxiety and stress, especially during the process of returning to civilian life after deployment. Her tactics are fantastic for anyone encountering stress and dealing with the emotional and physical tolls it takes on the mind and body. In this episode BB shares a variety of simple tools and exercises anyone can use to manage stress and anxiety. She helps us identify the patterned responses we all have to stress and examine how we can change those responses for better outcomes in the future. BB offers some key insights into how to stop sabotaging ourselves in important situations, both in our personal lives and at work, by using some simple techniques, all of which are designed to increase the positive energy we need to make us successful in tense situations.

Linda Hart is a Unitarian Universalist minister based in Washington state. Her work as a pastor has taken her to communities throughout the United State and England, and with her expertise in community building and group facilitation, her work increasingly has online and technological components. We tend to think of clergy as being more philosophical and less technological, and Linda busts that myth and shares with us how she’s increasingly using technology to connect with members of her community. Like many of us, Linda is learning how to use new technology in ways that are effective for work, and which help her have joyful connections in the world. In this episode she helps us see how the leadership of organizations can use technology to be more effective in their connections with their membership while creating positive interactions.

Welcome to part two of our conversation with Marcelle Yeager, an experienced strategy and communications consultant and co-founder of Career Valet. You can find the first part of her interview on how to stand out in a crowded job market here. With years of experience hiring and mentoring staff both in the U.S. and abroad, […]

Melanie Gass is a whiz when it comes to Microsoft’s productivity tools. Known as the “Microsoft Princess,” Melanie focuses on helping individuals and companies use the Microsoft productivity suite more effectively through fun hands-on training. She has a regular slot on BlogTalkRadio where she discusses Microsoft’s various offerings and how to become a better user […]

Heather McKissick believes that everyone is in control of her own career. She is a leadership and organizational development expert who currently serves as the Vice President of Human Resources and Organizational Development at University Federal Credit Union, based in Austin, Texas. Her passion for helping people connect with their passions to do great work in […]

Did you miss the first release of this great episode? We're thankful that the holidays give us an opportunity to re-release some of our early episodes and share them with our new listeners! Elissa Ashwood believes that every one of us can "do technology" and learn the skills that will help us get ahead. She is a business and leadership performance expert helping organizations retain great talent, and individuals grow personally and professionally for sustainable success through her company Truly Accomplished. Elissa says that "being proud of what you do is the ultimate accomplishment," and her work helps clients identify what's most important to them, and what will help them accomplish more of that in their personal and professional lives.

Did you miss the first release of this great episode? We're thankful that the holidays give us an opportunity to re-release some of our early episodes and share them with our new listeners! Becky McCray says that small businesses and small towns have a future. She is a small town business owner, she and her husband Joe co-own a retail liquor store and a cattle ranch. She writes and speaks about small town business, and she and Chicago entrepreneur Barry Moltz are the authors of the award-winning book Small Town Rules.

Marcelle Yeager is an experienced strategy and communications consultant and co-founder of Career Valet. With years of experience hiring and mentoring staff both in the U.S. and abroad, Marcelle co-founded her company to help people progress in their careers. Her firm provides clients with personalized career navigation services and she is passionate about writing and helping people effectively communicate their skills and abilities. On this episode Marcelle gives us a career coaching session, focusing on the most important features everyone needs on a great resume, as well as ways to stand out from the crowd when pursuing a new position. She helps us get into the minds of recruiters and understand what they're looking for and how to give it to them in an effective format. She also shares insights on several tools that make her work possible, including an easy to use website platform and online legal services. This episode is packed with great advice!

Emma Johnson is a journalist, blogger, radio host, mom, and so much more. She start out as a reporter for a community newspaper and today has tons of prestigious credits to her name, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Worth. Ten years ago she embarked on a career as a freelance writer focusing on business, money, women, parenting and marriage and never looked back. A little over a year ago Emma started a new venture, her blog Wealthy Single Mommy. Having become a single parent to two young children through divorce, she focused her blog on the joys and difficulties of being a professional single parent, filling an empty niche in the market. On this episode Emma talks about the giant step she took through blogging to open herself up more authentically and talk about her personal life. As a result she's found even greater success. Check out this episode to learn why blogging, even as an unpaid activity, can have a profound effect on your personal and professional brand. And don't miss Emma's recent blog post on how she built her personal brand through the blog.

This week's episode of Women. Connected. brings together great insights and recommendations from some of our most popular podcast episodes. The theme of this episode is "Dominate December," and we've put together some powerful segments from previous episodes that you might have missed. Whether you're looking for a way to stay organized with all the festivities this month or hoping to get a jump on 2014, these smart women have something for you.

Pat Bell is an enthusiastic business leader and consultant devoted to company and career success. Her successful track record of helping her clients build resiliency within and manage company changes speaks a lot about her ability to engage employees. Pat currently serves as the President-Elect of TBW and will assume the duties of President in 2014. On this episode Pat and TBW Program Director Lisa Benjamin Goodgame discuss the recent Texas Conference for Women which took place in Austin on November 19. The conference brings together more than 5,000 women for a day of inspiring keynotes, networking, and meetings with key business leaders. While Pat and Lisa spent the day talking with hundreds of women about TBW's mission, they also took time out to hear from the speakers and attend workshops and roundtables. Hear their reflections on the brilliant keynotes by Sallie Krawchek of 85 Broads and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Leymah Gbowee, as well as other speakers from the conference. If you missed the conference, this recap will leave you with many of the key insights from the day's fantastic sessions.

Juli Berwald is a freelance science writer based in Austin, Texas, whose work has appeared in National Geographic, among other publications. She began her study of ocean sciences in college, starting her work in the field by scrubbing lab equipment at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Her studies took her to California, where she spent months at a time on research cruises in the Pacific. Love took her to Texas (and away from the ocean), where she recently completed her first book, Spineless, about jellyfish and the health of the oceans. In this episode Juli talks about her work as a freelance writer and how she transitioned from post-doctoral work to writing textbooks, articles for popular magazines, and eventually her first book. She also discusses technological developments that have made her work possible, particularly Skype and several pieces of software that she pairs with it, allowing her to connect with researchers all over the globe. Her experiences remind us that with a little ingenuity and the right tools we can find solutions that make work we never imagined possible a reality.

When Jessica Shortall was 10 years old, she told her parents she would join the Peace Corps when she grew up. After college she did exactly that, serving in the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan, where she taught English and created a 4,000-book English language library in less than two years. A little more than […]

Orit Ramlet Szulik has lived in seven different countries from the Middle East to Latin America to the United States, where she currently resides. A coach and consultant, Orit has an extensive background in education and her experience informs how she works with clients who are struggling to adopt a new directions for the aspects of their life and work that they want to change. She believes that sometimes we all just need a moment to vent and then reinvent our perspective to move forward. In this episode Orit offers strategies for managing the overwhelming amount of technology and connectivity we have in our lives. She offers insight into how to reinvent our relationship with technology for better outcomes and better balance. With recommendations on how to give ourselves permission to not be connected 24/7 and recognize that the latest and greatest technology isn't alway a necessity, Orit helps us devise a personal plan for doing more with less connectivity. And for everyone who's ever found herself feeling overwhelmed by commitments, Orit shows us how saying no to one thing gives us the freedom to say yes to something else.

Lois Barth calls herself a technology curmudgeon, but she's learned how to connect with the technology that matters for her business and how to figure out what best serves her life and her work. Lois was the life coach for two of the largest and most prestigious makeover projects in women's magazines (SELF and FITNESS) and has been featured as a source expert for several national magazines. Lois frequently works with employees who want to start their own businesses, helping them develop clarity and a strategy for using their "free" time to lay the foundation for launching their business ideas. In this episode Lois provides tremendous insight into the important process of deciding when and how to adopt new technology, and why doing it yourself may not always be the best approach. With a lot of humor and good advice, Lois reminds us how valuable our time is as business owners and employees, offering several tools for better managing our priorities and energy to work smarter. If you don't yet think of yourself as a technology diva, this episode will give you the foundation and confidence to make the best choices for yourself and your work.

Elissa Ashwood believes that every one of us can "do technology" and learn the skills that will help us get ahead. She is a business and leadership performance expert helping organizations retain great talent, and individuals grow personally and professionally for sustainable success through her company Truly Accomplished. Elissa says that "being proud of what you do is the ultimate accomplishment," and her work helps client identify what's most important to them, and what will help them accomplish more of that in their personal and professional lives. In 2012 Elissa became a breast cancer survivor, and in her quest to live life to the fullest she created an online support community that helped her face her illness with strength and humor. As a new software developer, Elissa discovered that she needed to learn something about some of the technology her company was beginning to create, but she quickly realized she didn't need to become an expert. In this episode Elissa reflects on those two experiences and how she learned "enough technology to be dangerous" and make her personal and professional goals achievable.

Elia Albarran describes herself as a people person, a tech person and an artistic person. She's a Jacqueline of All Trades who is a small business owner, the office manager for the web design and development firm Four Kitchens, and helps produce the annual Armadillo Christmas Bazaar in Austin, Texas. As a "digital native" who never knew what life was like before computers and the internet, Elia integrates technology and social media into all aspects of her life. On this episode, Elia shares great ideas for taking your use of everyday technology to the next level, offering tips for how to use online tools like Google Drive to get work done more efficiently. Building on her experience developing small websites with WordPress, Elia suggests ways to create your own site with the world's most popular blogging platform. As a devotee of "iPhoneography," or taking creative and artistic photos using just a cell phone, Elia also helps listeners navigate some of the best photography apps to make the most of our cell phones as cameras. She offers some excellent insights into how to find free and inexpensive online courses that teach both creative and technical skills which can enhance our value as employees and business owners. So many great ideas in this episode!

Kendra Kinnison is a "habit chef" who believes you can create the recipe for a more purposeful life by adopting tiny habits that lead to big changes. When Kendra isn't interviewing other accomplished and driven people about the the key habits that make them successful, she is the Director of Finance for Port Royal Ocean Resort in Corpus Christi, Texas, and she's also the current President of TBW. On this episode, Kendra tells us about the process of adopting what she calls "tiny habits" as an effective way to start making changes. Much of what we do everyday is a function of habit, but we do much of it without thinking, or without any solid intention behind it. With examples from her own life, Kendra shows us how to move from intention to action, and along the way she shares a number of technology tools that help support the process. As always, this episode offers great ideas and inspiration in just 30 minutes.

Farnoosh Brock deeply believes that everyone can have a second act, and that women have every right to claim their courage and confidence and set themselves up as experts in their fields. Two years ago Farnoosh left her corporate job to create Prolific Living, her own media and publishing company. She works all over the world, thriving on the creativity that comes with travel. On this episode, Farnoosh tells us about the power of mindmapping for creating and brainstorming, whether you're using it for personal or professional pursuits. She also delves into the power of social media and offers suggestions for how to more effectively manage social media accounts for business. In the second half of our conversation, Farnoosh delves into the issues of confidence and courage, discussing how women can harness their unique skills and abilities to position themselves as experts in their field, even when that field is largely male-dominated. This episode packs a ton of valuable ideas into just 30 minutes.

Becky McCray says that small businesses and small towns have a future. She is a small town business owner, she and her husband Joe co-own a retail liquor store and a cattle ranch. She writes and speaks about small town business, and she and Chicago entrepreneur Barry Moltz are the authors of the award-winning book Small Town Rules. On this episode, Becky tells us how the small town principles of building community and connecting personally with customers can translated into more meaningful connections in our online relationships. She also offers some insight into how to bring small town shopkeeping into the 21st century. Don't miss this great episode on how to build a smarter business and better relationships.

Laura Harris is one of the most successful Allstate Agents in the business. She's used technology to build her company to one where she can work remotely and still be asked to train other Allstate Agents to be successful. On this episode, she tells us how to build and sustain high-touch connections with not only customers, but also people who she looks up to. This is an episode all about relationship building using technology, so don't miss it!

Liza Wisner is a golfer, entrepreneur, and total technology junkie. She has an incredible story, from moving to the United States from Kenya on a golf scholarship to being featured on The Apprentice with Donald Trump. On the very first episode of Women. Connected., Liza shares with us how she uses technology to advance both her personal and business life. You'll learn about her favorite apps and how you can use them to stay organized and communicate effectively.