About Us

Welcome to the Women’s Work site and our blog. Many of you are seasoned bloggers, and I welcome you. I come to this late in my Internet life (I’m usually an Early Adopter in that whole Learning Hierarchy…but the timing wasn’t right) so please bear with me. There may be a few missteps but I assure you I’m a fast learner.

My first post (excluding the Housekeeping Rules) is really just to share a little bit about myself and my vision for the new and improved Women’s Work site.

So who am I? My name is Susan Smith (yes, my real name – I wouldn’t make that one up). I’m 46 going on 30 (really). I’m mother to 11 year old Nathan and wife to Barry, still the nicest person I ever met. My background…I’m an Industrial Engineer with an MBA and “corporate dropout” after 1o years. The company I worked for was one of the better ones, but I got to a point where there wasn’t a job I wanted or a person I wanted to work for. I knew it was time to leave…and the timing was right.

I’ve been in the Internet business since 1994 (which was the start of the World Wide Web and the 28K modem). My first look at the Internet was working with an entrepreneurial training company who conducted conferences and training nationally and published a monthly magazine which I decided to put on the Internet in ‘94. I still remember logging on to the Internet that first time…I knew what I would be doing for a long time.

Then in 1997 Women’s Work was created. It started as a women’s business site. It received a lot of recognition, but the mistake I made was trying to do too much…to make it appeal to all working women…an Internet version of Working Women magazine. Then I got side-tracked for a few years…paying bills by designing websites, which I still do today. Unfortunately, Women’s Work languished. Then I got involved into a home-based business that to this day the company denies is an MLM company (it is). This was a time where I lacked focus, but I was learning a lot. Still, I kept designing websites and carved out a nice little niche in the independent/private school market, which I continue to work on. But it nagged me that I was neglecting Women’s Work…

Now during this whole (Internet) time I was raising Nathan, and it worked out great for everyone. My friends would often tell me that I had the “best of both worlds”…I had a wonderful business that satisfied the “achiever” in me, but one that was flexible enough so that I could be the mom who saw Nathan off to school in the morning, greeted him at the door when he got home, and occasionally chaperoned a field trip or two.

And that’s when I got to thinking…why not re-create Women’s Work so that more women could benefit from the “best of both worlds”…Design Women’s Work to be the resource for women who wanted that attractive, yet ever-illusive, FLEX career. So that’s what we’re going to do, ladies, because “Corporate America” sure isn’t doing a very good job at it. Sure, there may be some window-dressing, even good intentions, but it can’t be surprising to you that women are leaving corporations in droves. Some to raise a family, others to find better opportunities, still others to start their own businesses, yet everyone is looking for more flexibility. In the weeks ahead you’ll read about some recent surveys focusing on working women and some very shocking statistics. You’ll also read about some companies who are really trying to work on this flexibility problem.

But before I go any further, I’m asking for your help. Let me know what you want to see in Women’s Work…the things you need resources for, help with. You can post to the blog or send me an email.

One final note – I will tell you what you won’t see in Women’s Work…no network marketing, no MLMs, no direct selling/marketing, no “business opportunities,” no get-rich-quick schemes (you know who you are). There are plenty of other websites for those, just not this one. And if there are any posts promoting any of those businesses, they will be deleted.

And now, I’ve got to run…I’m off to Nathan’s parent/teacher conference!

Susan from Women’s Work -