Comments on: Is a women-only approach good for entrepreneurial training?

by: Jamie Lentzner

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 06:39:18 +0000

Well, I did not attend any of these classes, nor is my business near a a million dollars in sales - but I agree a 100%. I worked in an all “male” industry with me being the only “skirt” as they called me - it was not fun, it was not inspiring. The women I meet through my blog, through trade shows, and through just plain Entreprenerial Events inspire me more than any Male Boss….sorry but this is true. Way to go - I am woman hear me roar, let the women train alone.

Good luck Julie - looks like 2008 is going to be a great year for you!

by: Kris Appel

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:41:20 +0000

Today is the birthday of Rev Martin Luther King, Jr., and an opinion piece in today’s Baltimore Sun titled “Why we still need black colleges” got me thinking about why we need all-women entrepreneurship classes. The author says that historically black colleges create “counter-forces of opportunity” for African Americans more likely to be raised in an economically challenged environment. I think that may be one of the reasons why I support an all-women training environment for entrepreneurship. I went to college in the mid 1980’s, and I can’t think of a single female role model in entrepreneurship from those days that I knew personally. I am a 2006 graduate of the ACTiVATE program, and the all-women environment was extremely important to me. Not only did I meet and interact with the female entrepreneur instructors, but I worked side-by-side with 30 women who had the same goals as mine. I needed to learn about women as entrepreneurs, not just entrepreneurship.

by: Soni

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:22:13 +0000

As a soon-to-be graduate, I think the ACTiVATE program is remarkable.
Julie and Carol made many very pertinent comments about it.

To me, the women-only composition of the class is a major differentiator from other entrepreneurship programs. It really sets ACTiVATE apart as it impacts the whole environment of the program.
Rather than learning in a competition-charged atmosphere, which can be intimidating and threatening, we were able to evolve in a nurturing environment where the key idea was mutual help.

I do not agree with those detractors, who believe women-only courses are creating a sort of bubble far away from the “real” business world. Far to the contrary, I believe programs like ACTiVATE arm women with the tools they need to confront a strongly male-dominated executive world.
Maybe, in order to play in the Old Boy’s playground, women need to acknowledge and embrace their difference.

by: Linda

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 04:14:49 +0000

I’m an ACTiVATE 2006 alum. The tone of the course — and its success, I think — is very dependent on it being all women. There is exposure to male thought throughout the course, through male faculty and invited speakers. The success is not because no men are allowed to advise and inject ideas. It is because no men participate in the social aspect, where we digest the course material and make it our own, and compare and contrast ourselves with each other as fellow students, serving as each other’s role models. Men are often natural leaders, while women are not, but when you get a group of women together discussing things without men, the women can develop their leadership skills more easily.

by: Carol

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:33:50 +0000

A 2007 ACTiVATE, soon-to-be graduate, I was in the 50% of the class that initially said this did not have to be a women-only class, and changed my mind. Even in high school, my Mom didn’t let me accept a scholarship to a girls’ school, because she thought it important that I learn to be in a mixed-gender world. As a software engineer 30 years ago, when there were few women, I used to joke that a keyboard can’t tell who is behind it, but knew I was fortunate that the computer field was so open to women from the beginning. Yet, I often found myself in groups where I was the only woman, especially at conferences, and even more so later, when I got into manufacturing.

The ACTiVATE program, though, is different. It may be what Julie says, you are so far out of your comfort zone starting a new company, it helps to have a supportive group around you. Or, it may be like one of the things discovered when computers were first introduced to classrooms. When there are electronic toys, and the supply is limited, boys will fight with each other to get to them, and girls will hang back to be polite. This problem was later solved by making sure boys and girls had equal time on the computer.

Substitute business plans for toys, and you might see the same thing - it’s not that women can’t or won’t do it; all three classes at ACTiVATE have drawn a full complement of women who wanted to start their own technology businesses - it’s that women work at a different pace than men, slowly, methodically, and this pace is better served in the early days with a homogenous group.

The other good part about this women-only group is that half of the instructors are women, and I have not met a lot of women who have started their own businesses, whereas the model for normal in the business world is a business a man started.

That is eye-opening.