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Book Review of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In

October 26, 2014 by Erica Tyler Leave a Comment

From sustainable beekeeping tips in Washington State to Death Race bicycling advice in Norcal, SGL blog editors bring you practical tips to make progress through your bucket list. Oftentimes making progress means dealing with resistance from others.

Our Editors, with Associate Editor Erica Tyler taking the lead,  invited SmartyGirl Lynn Krug (Guest Reporter for the recent The Moth Story Slam), back to give her personal reaction to the controversial thought-starter “Lean In“. SmartyFellas and SmartyGirls are welcome to chime in below in the comments section.

Sheryl Sandberg Lean in

Photo Credit: Levo Writer Meredith Lepore of Sheryl Sandberg

Chief Operating Officer at Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, has a lot to teach all of us whether you are new to the work world, or like me have spent 40 plus years in the job force, “Lean In” will shake your world.  We can make a difference and here’s how:  Sandberg says to take a seat at the table and “Lean In!” In her book along with Nell Scovell, Sandberg embodies the spirit of Bell Hook’s seminal work “Feminism is for Everybody.”

I was admittedly peevish about the book before I read it, because unlike Sheryl Sandberg, I am not in the upper echelon of management, or from a family of privilege. As a single parent for 16+ years I have spent about 26 years of my work life in construction and engineering, so who better than I to know what discrimination results in, feels like and how it exhausts you?   Well, “Lean In” reminded me of the stories of Stanford women doctors and engineering staff whose accomplishments have also been devalued for being female.

From my personal perspective, there has been a shift in how feminism is viewed. In the 1970’s the US had programs that actively encouraged women to apply for nontraditional employment and were offered needed support. However, somewhere in the 1980’s/1990’s a shift occurred where encouraging women apply for nontraditional careers was seen less important, so where does that leave women now?

As a founder of “Women in the Workplace”, I worked to try to get women in local government to recruit women into nontraditional labor fields and encourage women to participate.  I held professional panels, campaigned women in government, and pitched to students.  It was an exhausting endeavor and yet I felt that I did not make a dent. We cannot do this alone. However, I feel reenergized by Sheryl Sandberg’s book “Lean In”!

Sandberg talks about working and planning with your family to include them and get their support. This summer I helped a trade laborer encourage his wife to go back to college for her RN work. I used Sandberg’s argument about having short term goals (three years of college) for long term gain for the family.  Sure, they would go into debt for the short term, but what was the next 40 years going to look like?  And how can he help his wife with this goal and help make it easier for their family?  There will never be a safe or right time, and in the current economy things will not get better unless you take action on your own to prepare for your future.

“Lean In” says men are promoted on potential, while women are promoted based on past experience. As an example,  I recently heard of a Senior Management job posting and immediately went to a co-worker in that field, pitched her on the job along with how to prepare for the interview.  My co-worker was afraid of the customer service aspects of the position because customers can be unpredictable.  However, I stated that as long as she learned guidelines of the position and stuck to the rules and regulations she would be able to do the position.

We have to stop accepting the status quo out of fear.  The old stagnating choice to “fit in” will not help any of us. Only by “helping each other to succeed” and making that viable for women (and men) will we all be able to “Lean Forward”.   Read “Lean In” – and then give copies to your co-workers, classmates, friends and family.  Start the conversation, and act for us all.

Lynn Krug expresses her thanks to Sheryl Sandberg for having the courage to write this book. Krug encourages SmartyFellas and SmartyGirls to read this book and start paying it forward in the workplace.

“Spidey Sense” for Subterranean Documentaries: An Interview with Biologist Niall Doran

October 11, 2014 by Renee Marchol Leave a Comment

In horror movies, the plucking of string instruments usually signals the crawling of spiders onto someone with arachnophobia. In contrast, imagine a group of camera operators pursuing spiders into the dark for a documentary.

Niall Doran Documentary 16L

Photo Credit: Joe Shemesh Bookend trust Dr. Niall Doran

SGL (Media) met via Skype with Biologist Niall Doran of Tasmania last week. Dr. Doran is working with Bookend Trust and celebrity Neil Gaiman. Here Dr. Niall Doran answers  our readership questions about filmmaking, camera hacks for corrosive environments and adventure.

SmartyGirls and SmartyFellas are partnering with Niall Doran from now to Halloween to assist in raising $100,000 towards his awesome-face research.

What did the research require? 19 hours underground with little light and lots of damp and cold. Repeat for 30 days. Then repeat again for 90 days. Continue for 2 years.

Fun fact? 6 P.M. Pacific Standard Time (PST) in North America is before noon in Tasmania.

Why is SGL partnering with spider documentaries this season? To encourage art, science and filmmaking. As a thought-starter for those considering lifetime career  in science for the environment.

1. In what way can my blog and social media partners assist you with Sixteen legs? Do you hope for more likes? Donations?
We’re definitely happy with more likes/followers, either via Twitter (@BookendTrust) or our Facebook page , and we’re also after schools, teachers and students from around the globe to look at what we’re doing and to be a part of our general education programs – either online, or through touring of our exhibitions and other materials. But at its heart, this current campaign is really about fundraising. Bookend began with a small group of people putting their own money into this work because we believe it’s important to inspire the next generation. We’ve been running this work for a long time now, but this current project (Sixteen Legs) is a bit more than we can manage just on our own!

2. My audience includes filmmakers who are curious what types of gear was used for the shoots in the dark and in water. Tell me how you dealt with conditions. 
Given the challenges involved in getting the footage (spiders not liking light or heat, cameras not liking wet & corrosive conditions, and crew not liking extended periods in dangerous dark places) we decided to film at the best resolution available at the time, so that we wouldn’t have to go back to do it all again. The best available at the time was digital 5K with a Red Epic camera, which in turn put limitations on the rock crevices we could access and the focal distances we could work with. Depending on how much background your audience wants on the film-making challenges, here’s some extra info:

(i) A sneak peek at some excerpts from the behind-the-scenes doco, where our DOP discusses the choice of cameras.
(ii) And in much more detail, here’s a link to an article that was run in Australian Cinematographer on
the challenges of the filming

 

3. How long is your campaign: 6 weeks? We’d like to assist from now to October 31st.

That’s fantastic – any help getting a good response before the end of the month would be greatly appreciated. We’re planning to run the fundraiser to the end of November, although we will need to close off on some items before then so we can get the books printed and delivered before Christmas. That’s especially so for the Deluxe book option, in which people get the books signed by the contributors (including Neil Gaiman) and their name printed inside the book.

Other comments:

At its heart this a quirky, fun and slightly creepy story about giant prehistoric spiders seeking love in the dark. They grow to the size of a dinner-plate and they are still living in the caves of Tasmania. They have a legspan of 18cm (7 inches), and webs that can be six feet or more across. They live in some of Australia’s biggest and deepest caves, and they are of high scientific interest globally as their story spans at least 200 million years. They are survivors from the first age of the dinosaurs; they predate the splitting of the continents when Antarctica, South America and Australia separated (their closest relatives are in Chile and Argentina); they appeared at a crucial junction in global spider evolution; and they have endured throughout the entirety of human civilisation.

Everything about them breaks the usual spider rules: they have complicated and very kinky love lives, they build highly structured egg-sacs that are much more complicated than those of other spiders, the young take longer to merge than other spiders (9 months! instead of 6-8 weeks), and they live for decades (instead of 2-3 years). We’ve pieced together the spider’s life history through 23 years of scientific research, and we have just captured the key facets of all this via 2 years of documentary filming.

By sticking a camera crew underground for months at a time, we’ve finally captured their lifecycle on film, in glorious 5K resolution, and we’re working with best-selling international author Neil Gaiman (Coraline, Sandman, Doctor Who) on a documentary that not only presents the science, but has a ‘dark fairytale’ rendition of the science woven through it. This was recently showcased to an audience of global broadcasters in France as one of only 7 ‘in production’ natural history documentaries selected from around the globe. The main “Sixteen Legs” documentary won’t be finished until next year, but a shorter piece on what it took to film the spiders (“16 Legs: Spider Love”) has just been selected as a finalist at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Canada, where it will screen in November. It will also be shown in a dual world premiere at the Breath of Fresh Air (BOFA) Film Festival in Australia on the same day (November 9 – both hemispheres on the same day).

We’ve also recently held an exhibition about the filming, complete with 18 foot (!) replicas of the spiders, and there’s a whole range of educational work we’ve been doing on this topic – see http://www.bookendtrust.com/caves for how the whole educational side fits together.

Why are we doing this? We run an education charity called the Bookend Trust, and the successful exposure of this documentary will both promote and support our work. The short version of our mission statement is to “inspire students with the careers they can build making the world a better place”. We started this work as a self-funded group of individuals with backgrounds in science (many of us biologists). Bookend was initially funded through my long service leave and equity on my house. We now draw income from a range of sources, including working as consultants, incoming grants and donations, business sponsorships, and the development of documentary content. The range of projects we run with students has grown dramatically, and although we are based in Tasmania we have participating schools across Australia and around the globe.

A video snapshot of Bookend’s work

Overview of all our projects

We’re not using a typical crowd-funding approach to this project, as the books and other rewards will be available irrespective of the funds raised. However, the fundraising target – if reached – will release an extra reward for one lucky contibutor, and that’s the trip to Tasmania. It’s an opportunity to get to a fantastic far away place with Neil Gaiman, at a time when the exchange rate is good and supporters from the northern hemisphere would be trading winter for summer. The winner will see fantastic behind-the-scenes work with endangered and unusual animals in Tasmania, as well as cultural experiences (such as the world-famous MONA Museum and associated Festivals) and the opportunity to be a part of the filming of Sixteen Legs.

Where to donate/buy fundraising rewards:

www.sixteenlegs.com

2014 Banff Mountain Film Festival Finalist – Sixteen Legs
2014 Official International Pitch Selection – Sunny Side of the Doc international market, France

Bike Gear Product Review: Nuu-muu Ruu Bike Dress

October 7, 2014 by Renee Marchol Leave a Comment

IMG_0565

Photo Credit: SGL Renee at Joan’s Farm & Pumpkin Patch in Nuu-muu Bike Dress

bike dress Nuu Muu

Photo Credit: SGL Bicycling Gear Reviewer Testing Nuu-muu Bike Dress

IMG_0563

Photo Credit: SGL Editor-in-Chief Renee Marchol Bicyclist at Pumpkin Farm

When I was 7-years-old I had a pink tank dress decorated with geese wearing blue bows. I loved that dress. I wore it to play outside, to bike and to sleep. It wore out from being put in the washer and dryer so often. Why do I mention this?

Well, a product that I am testing brought back those memories. I might not ever find a replacement for my quilted yellow, pink, and green snuggle-blanket but the Nuu-Muu Ruu bike dress has been fun to wear while running errands on my bike, bicycling for fun, repairing mountain bikes and teaching first-time bike buyers how to mount a bike rack on their sedan trunk.

Note: SGL has not received compensation for this product review of the Nuu-Muu brand.

Bike Fashion

Photo Credit: Nuu-muu Logo Bike Dress

How did I hear about this red, white and black keyhole-top bike dress? The day of my flight for a business trip, one of my fave bike community spots in Seattle was holding a debut for Nuu-Muu at their shop downtown just doors down from Seattle E-bikes where I shot my electric bike documentary. Since I couldn’t attend I reached out to Nuu-Muu’s contact, Enid. I just uploaded a tutorial on bike winterizing in Washington State and announced my next bicycling experiment: riding in the cold of my new home state.

What can I wear? I’ve worn jeans,sweatpants, tunics, and office-wear dresses with leggings. For footwear, I’ve worn ballet flats and waterproof work boots for my documentary shoots. A dress with boots? Yep, a camera operator don’t give a bleep. Until she’s on the other side of the camera.

I’ve received compliments such as, “Bad Mamasita in the house!” when wearing the Nuu-Muu Ruu with my bike helmet and biking to get night groceries. The comment was from a 9-year-old SmartyFella on an evening grocery run with his mom SmartyGirl. I’ve worn leggings, bicyclist shammy shorts and running shorts underneath and enjoyed showing off the A-line Poppy Pattern Ruu with removable sleeves. It is likely to be the Chinese ancestry in me but I find the keyhole top especially pretty as part of the design for this bike dress. Plus, my late Mommy, used to bike in China in the fashionable 1920s in dresses.

See my video for a glimpse of where I’ve taken my bike dress.

I’ve washed this dress (including throwing it in the dryer) about 9 times so far. It feels stretchy like swim suit material but less rough against the skin. It’s short enough to wear as a tunic so I can wear my fave dark grey leggings or any bottom I choose. The coverage for the top allows me to lean over to do bike repairs without giving anyone a peep show. The material seems to stay dry as I break a sweat challenging my personal record of riding each week. Take a peek at my latest interview with Death Race bicyclist Robert Beaman of Dublin Cyclery about bike challenges.

Product review results? 8.7/10
It’s more of a bike tunic than a bike dress. However, it’s cool with us if others feel like wearing minis. It’s just too short for our tester as a wear-alone.
The optional sleeves are convenient with thumb holes to leave fingers free. it makes gloves unnecessary. However, our road tester didn’t find it so convenient as to keep the sleeves on for regular activities such as paper cup coffee drinking. More grip would be nice. How about a nubbly silicon pattern for the palm part of the sleeves?
The non-cotton, moisture-wicking material feels great to wear even to nap. Feels like something to wear for a Bicycling Sleeping Beauty. So far multiple washings have not faded the red and black Poppy Pattern. Will Nuu-muu consider more whimsical patterns for next-gen bike dresses such a bow-tied geese?

Thanks, Nuu-Muu for inviting SGL bicyclist SmartyGirls to road test and review.

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