Expat Women June Home Page

Hi Everyone, We have uploaded our June Home Page features a little early, as June 1 falls over the weekend. Here is a quick summary:

Success Story: Anna Catalano
In 2001, Fortune Magazine crowned Anna Catalano as one of the most powerful women in international business. At the time, she was in London serving as a Group Vice President, Marketing, for BP. These days, Anna serves on several high-profile Boards, juggling Board duties for a global insurance broker, a consumer products company (whose main products are condoms and footcare/footware products), a chemical company, a finance company, a biotechnology company and a diabetes foundation. Anna is amazing.

Business Idea: Fiat 500 Touring Club
We talk to Brit Sophie Bye about her innovative business idea to set up a touring club in Italy, with a fleet of vintage 1950’s and 1960’s Fiat 500 cars. We ask Sophie her Top Five pieces of advice for expats setting up a business abroad.

Expat Confession: My Trailing Man
One of our Expat Women Girlfriends answers this confession:

"I moved to Europe 14 months ago for my career. I was offered a once-in-a-lifetime job and my partner agreed that it was just too good for me to refuse, so he happily supported our move and came as my ‘trailing spouse’. Before I accepted the assignment, we talked long and hard about what options there might be for my partner here, given that he enjoyed his field of work and derived a great deal of satisfaction from it.

Having worked for 20 years already, he assured me that whilst he would possibly seek out work opportunities upon arrival, he saw this as the perfect opportunity for him to take some time out of the rat race and explore his interests of golf, photography and medieval castles.

The problem is, he seems to have exhausted his interests in non-work pursuits and now keeps complaining to me that he hates it here because he is “a nobody”. I confess that I do not fully appreciate what he is going through… all I know is that I need to do something. Help."

Overcoming Conflict... Especially When Moving Abroad
Moving house is certainly a stressful life-experience, but when coupled with moving country too, it really does take some beating. Stress can cause tension and disagreement, particularly between you and your partner, as you plan and execute your plans to relocate. Thanks go to Rebecca Wells for contributing this article, in which she share six simple coaching strategies for you.

Featured Book: A Career In Your Suitcase
We talk to Jo Parfitt about the third edition of her must-have portable career guide. This is the one that we did the book review for recently for The Telegraph UK. We are Jo Parfitt fans anyway, but this book is fabulous: it is jam-packed with so much useful information and it really does prove why she is an expert in the field of developing your own portable career.

We will have a few more new features in our upcoming June newsletter. If you do not already receive our newsletters, please support us by signing up today (you will also receive our free E-Book: Winning Stories). We will be sending our June newsletter out early next week.

Thanks and have a fantastic weekend!

$10,000 Competitions

If you an Australian or New Zealand resident, here are two fantastic competitions that have come across our desk in the last 24 hours...

Lonely Planet and Expedia (together with a few other companies) have teamed up to offer a Gourmet Adventure for two to San Francisco, valued at AU$10,000. They are looking for the best on-the-road food and wine experiences, each 25 words or less. (Australian and New Zealand residents only.) The competition starts 19 May 2008 and ends 30 June 2008. For more details, Click Here.

Club Med are also running a $10,000 competition. First prize is a 7-night all-inclusive holiday for two people at a Club Med Ski Resort in Europe, including airfares to Paris with Air France, ski passes, ski lessons with highly-qualified instructors, three gourmet meals per day, open bar and snacking, plus nightly entertainment. Click Here to find out more. (Their Terms and Conditions link did not work, but we are guessing it is for Australians and New Zealanders also, as it seems to be mentioned on Club Med Australia's site only.) The winner will be announced 20 June 2008.

Disclaimer: For the record, we are not receiving anything from these featured companies... although we wish we were. ;-)

10 Favourite Networking Questions

If you have ever been unsure what to say in a networking situation, then Joe Gregory's My 10 Favourite Business Networking Questions article is for you.

We read Joe's article earlier this month in his Lean Marketing Champions newsletter. We thought his advice was so simple, yet so useful, that we have now put his article on our Expat Women main site (thanks Joe, for giving us your permission) and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Expat Women in Pretoria, South Africa?

Hi Everyone, we received a plea for help this week from Chrisna Groenewald. She is looking for any expat women living in Pretoria, South Africa who might be able to help by volunteering to teach life skills to destitute mothers.

Chrisna works for SA Cares For Life, a Public Benefit Organization with the vision of changing the destiny of children. If you are interested, please contact Chrisna. Thanks.

Third Culture Kid (TCK) 1st-Ever Teleclass with Ruth Van Reken

Brice Royer, the Founder and Admin Guy of various TCK Communities such as TCKid.com and the TCK Facebook group, has asked us to invite you to an upcoming special event for Third Culture Kids (TCKs). Here is some of the official text:

"Are you a "Third Culture Kid" or adult? Are you a parent, family member or teacher and feel like you want to learn more about this Third Culture way of life? Just about every TCK we talk to has occasional questions and some frustration when it comes to belonging, their relationships, and the Third Culture way of life.

What do you think Ruth Van Reken, co-author of Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds, and Paulette Bethel, an international transition coach, have discovered over their careers serving expatriate communities through various forms of trainings, on-site workshops, and writing, that can help you? Plenty.

In this teleclass, you will learn:
1. How do I sort out who I am and where I belong when I can't get past the feeling of belonging "everywhere and nowhere?"
2. How can I make and maintain friendships with non-TCKs and TCKs?
3. How do I deal with the grief I still feel from long ago losses of country and friends?
4. How do I stop restlessness, and the cycles of separation and loss I continue to create for myself because I can't seem to stay in one place more than 2-3 years?
5. How do I learn to recognize and develop fully the gifts I received from this TCK experience?
...and there is more on the site.

This is an exciting event because it's the first teleclass held for TCKs. It has never been done before. You can ask Ruth and Paulette your questions live by email or on the phone. It's like a conference but without any travel or conference fees -- you can listen to it online or on the phone. And it's completely free. You can get all the details about this teleclass (and a list of some of the questions they are going to be answering) here. Hurry, spaces are filling fast. Date: Soon!"

To read ExpatWomen.com's 2007 interview with Ruth Van Reken, please Click Here.

To read the ExpatWomen.com TCK Expat Confession featured this month, please Click Here.

Want To Write As A Freelancer?

In Jo Parfitt's latest Monthly Inspirer newsletter, she included this very interesting link to Suite 101, which appears to be a great site for anyone wanting to write - and get paid for it!

Here is an overview of the site:

"Suite101.com's door is open to the curious novice looking for a "101" intro to any of our 400 topics, but it's also a meeting place for 7 million readers and 500,000 members each month to ask 101 burning questions of the day.

With 12 years online, over 100,000 articles and 1,000 professional, paid contract writers, Suite101.com is dedicated to delivering quality expertise and writing increasingly rare in the online world.

Suite101.com Media Inc. is a private Canadian company based in Vancouver, British Columbia with an office in Berlin. It has been a successful consumer internet operation for over 10 years and has an international full-time staff of 14. "

If you have got a burning desire to write and/or you are looking to start a more portable career, you might like to click here to find out how you too could become a Suite 101 Freelancer.

The Telegraph: Expat Networking Article & Portable Career Book Review

Anyone interested in reading the Expat Networking article A Little Help From My Friends and/or the book review for the newly-released third edition of A Career In Your Suitcase that The Telegraph online (UK) published for me on the same day as the book review for Get Ahead By Going Abroad (blogged about in a previous post), please just click on the links above.

In terms of the date, I could swear black and blue that only one of these was on their site until earlier today when magically, all three appeared - dated 14 May. But I suppose there is nothing wrong with a touch of magic each day... is there?

Enjoy your day! Andrea

Help Wanted: Got An Interactive Idea?

Earlier this year we removed the Forums from our site (mainly due to the high frequency of spammers and associated maintenance).

We said at the time that we would look out for alternative, more manageable ideas, to continue the vision of facilitating an online community for expat women.

Help Wanted: The problem so far is that we have not found any other great ideas. Do you have any?

If you have seen a site that offers a great interactive feature that we could use for our intended purpose, please drop us a line as soon as you can. We are still looking for ideas and maybe you might just hold the key... Thanks.

Have You Helped Robin Pascoe Yet?

Hi Everyone, this is just a quick post to kindly request that if you have not already completed the Family Matters! Survey of the iconic Robin Pascoe, please consider giving 30 minutes of your time to a woman who has done so much over the years to help, educate, inspire and connect expats all over the globe.

When we announced this survey in a previous post in February, Robin was hoping for 250-300 responses from all of her sources. The great news is that she has been overwhelmed now with 435 (perhaps a testimony to how well she is regarded around the world). But let's help Robin get to 500, because don't you think 500 would be much more powerful when she is presenting her results to corporates and academics than 435?

If you have already done the survey, could you possibly help out by forwarding Robin's survey link to friends, partners, family members (aged 14 and over) and to your local expat associations? I know Robin would truly appreciate it. Thanks Everyone!

Whoever Told You Mañana Means Tomorrow? Living In The Dominican Republic

Congratulations Ginnie Bedggood! Ginnie wrote to us this week to tell us that she followed our link in a previous post and has now successfully had her Dominican Republic expat experience, entitled Whoever Told You Mañana Means Tomorrow? published in the May/June 2008 edition of Belgium's great (A)WAY Magazine.

Thanks again go to (A)WAY's Editor, Elena Bucciero, who also kindly published Jill's and my experience, Double Vision in Mexico, in their January/February 2008 edition. Regards, Andrea.

The Power Of Working Abroad

If you need any affirmation that working abroad can help your career, look no further than Stacie Nevadomski Berdan and C. Perry Yeatman's book, Get Ahead By Going Abroad: A Woman’s Guide To Fast-Track Career Success.

We featured an interview with the book's authors last month and I was so impressed with the book that I wrote a review for The Telegraph (one of the biggest news players in the UK), which they kindly published a couple of days ago. (Thanks Gill.) If you are keen, you can check out the review here.

Have a wonderful weekend! Andrea.

Expat Parent in Thailand?

Hi Everyone, I just visited the Expat Blog website and this Forum post (featured via a link on their home page) caught my eye:

"I work for a consulting firm and we are currently studying international schools in Thailand. We are trying to get in touch with expat parents... [to] help us by filling in a brief 15 minute survey. We will compensate you with a $25 American Express gift certificate (given that you meet our target demographic screen). I... appreciate everyone's help with this... Many thanks."

I cannot vouch for the person or the survey, but the link page appears legitimate. If you can help, you might like to check it out.

Best wishes, Andrea.

PS. To visit our Expat Women Blogs, please click here.

2008 GMAC Global Relocation Trends Survey Results

We received a Press Release yesterday from GMAC Global Relocation Services announcing that this year's annual survey report has now been released. The well-respected annual GMAC report has been quoted in many articles and forums since its inception in 1993.

We even quoted last year's report in two of our articles last year for the ERC (Employee Relocation Council)'s Mobility Magazine: Expat Networking: Helping You Improve The Success of Expat Assignments; and From Chennai to Shanghai: Expat Executive Women Working in Asia.

Here is some of the info of interest from yesterday's press release:

"Now in its 13th year, the annual Global Relocation Trends Survey has become the definitive study of companies’ employee-relocation practices, policies and projections. As it does each year, the newly released survey paints a comprehensive picture of evolving trends and emerging issues facing companies of all sizes that rely on an international workforce. For information on how to receive the full survey [click here]."

"The company will be presenting key findings of the 2008 Global Relocation Trends Survey on May 29 – 30 during a complimentary webinar designed to provide a comparative analysis of the key global mobility issues facing today’s business world. The interactive webinar presentation, open to the first 100 registrants, is available in the following regions:
The Americas: Thursday, May 29th at 9 am (CDT)
Europe, Middle East & Africa: Thursday, May 29th at 3 pm (BST)
Asia Pacific: Friday, May 30th at 10 am (SGT)
To register for the webinar [directly with GMAC, please click here]."

Whether you are interested in the GMAC survey for work or for pleasure, you might enjoy reading this year's report.

Samantha's Expat Tale

Some of you might remember that earlier this year, we blogged "Are you an Aussie Expat abroad?" - which was a call from a major newspaper for expats to feature in their Expat Tales section.

Well, Samantha Honey, the author of this month's ExpatWomen.com feature: Feng Shui Your Way To Relocation Success, wrote to us a few days ago to let us know that she saw that blog post and contacted the newspaper directly. The result was Samantha's very own Expat Tale this month! Congratulations Samantha (in Qatar).

Best Food In China Blog

If you are an expat in Shanghai or Beijing, you might be interested in the Best Food In China Blog link that was sent to us today by this blog's founder, Simon Pan (to whom we have no personal connection).

We had a quick look at his site... which he described in his email as a rare site that gives professional English food reviews about food in China to help expatriates and travelers order local food... and the reviews look quite useful.

You just need to remember to click on the title of each blog entry that you are interested in, so the full review displays correctly. Enjoy!

PS. If you are looking for more links for China, please visit our ExpatWomen.com China links page. :-)

Want To Speak At The FIGT Conference?

Dear Talented Women, If you think you've got what it takes to speak at next year's Families In Global Transition (FIGT) Conference (and I know many of you do), here is the newly-released link for downloading a submission proposal for 2009.

The conference will be held in Houston, Texas, March 5-7, 2009. I went last year with Jill. It's full of really friendly people - who would make a great audience for any interesting and informative presentation that you might like to propose. I encourage you to put your thinking caps on and take advantage of this great opportunity.

Best wishes, Andrea.

How Are Your Leadership Skills?

If you are someone who "influences outcomes and inspires others", I highly recommend that you check out LeadStar's website and/or sign up to their mailing list, because every email that I get from this company seems to ooze motivation and/or just darn good advice.

Here's some background on LeadStar:

"Lead Star was founded in 2004 by Angie Morgan and Courtney Lynch, best-selling authors of the business book Leading from the Front (McGraw-Hill), who made a commitment to provide practical, relevant, and inspiring ways to grow and develop leaders. Lead Star teaches leadership based on Angie's and Courtney's experiences as Marine Corps officers, private sector professionals, and entrepreneurs."

"Through Lead Star, Angie and Courtney have shared their leadership message with more than 50,000 professionals worldwide. These include employees, managers, and senior executives in Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, law firms, and educational institutions. Lead Star's numerous clients include Wal-Mart, Dell, FedEx, Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, Cisco Systems, Baylor College of Medicine, the National Association of Legal Professionals, and the Network of Executive Women. Lead Star's empowering message resonates with men and women everywhere."

"The firm's leadership expertise has been highlighted by FOX News, CNBC, and CNN. Angie and Courtney's efforts to spark a national dialogue on the topic of women and leadership have been noted in publications ranging from BusinessWeek to the Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Inc., and The New York Times."

...Not a bad effort for the wife of an active-duty Marine and mother to a very active toddler (read more about Angie Morgan) or the mother of twin toddlers, the primary caregiver of her 95-year-old grandmother and the wife of a firefighter (read more about Courtney Lynch). Congrats Angie & Courtney.

I hope you enjoy the site! Andrea

Expat Women May Newsletter

Hello Everyone, We have just finished sending out our May Newsletter, packed with lots of great interviews and articles to read.

In addition to the May features listed in our previous post, our Newsletter includes Ali Wallace's article Shop Like a Parisian, showcases Saskia's Winning Story: Integration and names the lucky winner of the Explorer Books Mini-Guides.

As a special gift to our Members, we also included a link to our first-ever E-Book: Expat Women Winning Stories, February 2007 (our first winner, as we only launched in January 2007) to May 2008.

If you are not yet a Member, but would like to join and get our monthly dose of inspiration, plus your free E-Book, please Click Here - it's fast and it's free.

Thanks Everyone and enjoy your weekend!

WIN Conference - Sitges, Barcelona, Spain. Registration Now Open

Are you interested in joining hundreds of outstanding women in Sitges, Barcelona, Spain for the W.I.N. Global Leadership Forum this year? If yes, then you are in luck -registration opened today, May 1.

W.I.N. stands for Women's International Networking. The annual conference for women is the brainchild of the ever-inspiring Norwegian, Kristin Engvig, who we featured as a Success Story on our site in 2007. This single mum seems to never run out of energy!

Last year, I travelled from Australia to Norway to attend the W.I.N. Forum in Oslo. It was a wonderful experience. Rooms full of women wanting to share, learn, inspire others and be inspired. I highly recommend it - especially if you are based in Europe and it's just a hop-skip-and-a-jump.

Dates: (17) 18 - 20 (21) September 2008
Venue: Hotel Melia, Sitges, Barcelona, Spain

If you would like to find out more about what went on last year, I invite you to read our W.I.N. 2007 Reports - Part One and Part Two.

If you would like to find out more about the upcoming 2008 W.I.N. Forum, please click here to go directly to the official W.I.N. site.

Regards, Andrea.