It’s International Women’s Day and kudos to those of you who are supporting women in any way. You never know how far your efforts will reach.
Some of you are staying home to support Day Without a Woman. Others have decided not to spend any money except in women- and minority-owned businesses. Whatever you are doing to support the women in your life, hurray for you.
As women who have founded a company in an industry – video games – that is not overwhelmingly welcoming to women, we’ve found great truth in Sheryl Sandberg’s assertion (backed up by data from McKinsey, by the way), that men are judged on potential whereas women are judged on accomplishments.
We’re happy to still be here and have just released a new update to Spirit Lake.
Let me suggest that beyond hashtagging International Women’s Day, you DO something to support women in tech (or other industries). Here are four.
- Buy their products. My mother always said that a pat on the back is nice but a pat on the back and a check for fifty bucks is nicer.
- Download their free products and try their demos. Even if you don’t give them cash, give them a chance.
- Follow them on twitter and retweet links, share their Facebook page – give a little marketing love.
- Give them your ideas. It’s free and kind. We had two people suggest that even though we are not in the shirt business, they like the t-shirts our 7 Generation Games team wears. Four hours later, I had a link up to buy them.
http://www.bluecotton.com/campaigns/7gengames
Speaking of which – we would LOVE any ideas you have about how we could get our games into the hands of more students and schools.
Today, someone suggested reaching out to libraries and sponsored all of our games for a library in her mom’s name. Within three hours, someone else had followed up her idea with a sponsorship to a second library for his favorite game, Forgotten Trail.
Whether it’s your cash, your Facebook feed or your ideas, offer your favorite women-owned businesses more than just a hashtag. You never know how far it will go.