Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Cartier Women's Initiative Awards

Hi Everyone, Whilst it might be a bit late for you to submit a comprehensive entry for this year's competition, here is a wonderful competition you might like to diarize for next year. It is the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards and 2011 entries are due March 15.

Here are some criteria details:

"The project to be considered for the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards must be an original for-profit business creation in the initial phase (1-3 years old) led by a woman.

  • The “for-profit” requirement: the business submitted for the Award must be designed to generate revenues. We do not accept non-profit project proposals.
  • The “originality” requirement: we want your project to be a new concept, conceived and imagined by the founder and her team and not a copy or subsidiary of an existing business.
  • The “initial phase” requirement: the project you submit should be in the first stages of its development with one year of operations and sales to account for but no older than 3-4 years. The ‘age’ of the company will not be measured solely on the basis of the date of incorporation. The development and size of the company will also be taken into account.
  • The main leadership position must be filled by a woman. A good command of English is required (both verbal and written) to take full advantage of the benefits the Award has to offer.
  • All entrants must be aged 18 or the age of legal majority in their respective countries or states of citizenship, whichever is older, on the day of the application deadline of March 15, 2011."


Here are the details about how to apply.

Here you can read about the 2010 Laureates.  The awards ceremony for 2011 will be held in France in October. I look forward to reading about this year's winners! Andrea

Expat Women New-Look Website - Coming Soon!

Hi Everyone, Just a quick update on our new-look website for http://www.expatwomen.com/.

After many months of giving the 1,000+ pages on our site a face-lift, all going well, we hope to launch our new-look site for you next week (or soon after).

Stay tuned... and thanks as always, for your ongoing support! Andrea :-)

Expat Women February Newsletter Highlights

Hi Everyone, For those of you who missed our Expat Women February 2011 members' newsletter this month, or did not get time to read the new features, please find below the highlights and we encourage you to click on a few for a great read! (If you are a member and did not receive your newsletter, please email us here, thanks

Success Story: Raegan Moya-Jones, CEO and Co-Founder, aden + anais

Business Idea: Shalini Ganendra Fine Art, Shalini Ganendra
Women and Career Sabotage: 5 Ways to Build Executive Presence and Stop Sabotaging Your Career, by Lois Freeke
Expat Routines: The Importance of the Other R&R, by Marie Brice
Expat Confession: Expat Depression, by our Expat Women Girlfriend

Expat Money: 
How to Avoid 7 Expat Money Worries in 2011, by Rhiannon Davies / ShelterOffshore

Expat Bloggers: Are They Going Pro? by Maria Foley
Winning Story: Houston, We Have a Problem, by Rachel in the UK
"It is a temporarily insane and somewhat delusional parent who books a holiday, takes their pint sized child on board an aeroplane and thinks that they will actually be able to sit back and enjoy their peanuts..."
Winning Member: The name of our Explorer Publishing mini-guide pack winner.
If you are not a member of our main site, ExpatWomen.com, please join today to support us (and receive a link to download our free Expat Women e-book "Winning Stories"). This will also mean that next month your newsletter will be delivered directly to your inbox.

Thanks Everyone!  Andrea

Monday, February 14, 2011

Clements International's Expat Youth Scholarship 2011 - Opened Today!

Hi Everyone, If you know any expat youth aged between 12 and 18, then today is an exciting day because it is the opening day of the 2011 Clements International Expat Youth Scholarship! The Clements scholarship offers US$10,000, to be shared by six winning students. It is a fabulously positive contest and we wish all expat youth entrants all the very, very best! Andrea

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Clements International's Expat Youth Scholarship 2011

Now in its third year, Clements International's Expat Youth Scholarship is a unique contest exclusively for expat students who spend their childhoods moving between different countries and cultures.

The 2011 Expat Youth Scholarship is open to students ages 12-18 of any nationality who have resided in a foreign country for at least two consecutive years.

This year's theme asks participants to create a video explaining their favorite thing about their host country and its culture.

A total of US$10,000 in scholarships will be awarded to six students in the following categories:

Category One (Ages 12 - 15)
1st Place     $3,000
2nd Place   $1,500
3rd Place      $500

Category Two (Ages 16 - 18)
1st Place     $3,000

2nd Place   $1,500
3rd Place      $500

Please share this with any young expats you know who many be interested and visit http://www.expatyouthscholarship.com for more information.

The entry deadline is May 13, 2011.

The best way to stay updated and share info about the Expat Youth Scholarship (EYS)?
Become a Facebook fan and follow EYS on Twitter!

Thanks and good luck to all entrants!

ExpatWomen.com's Silver Sponsor Clements International is a leading provider of insurance for expatriates and international organizations.  Founded in 1947, Clements offers worldwide auto, property, health, life and commercial insurance with superior customer service and claims response to customers in more than 170 countries.  For more information on Clements International's global list of programs and services, please click here. Thanks.

February Edition of Mobility Magazine Online

Hi Everyone, If you are in the expat, global mobility and/or relocation industries, you may be interested in the February 2011 edition of the Worldwide ERC® Mobility Magazine, which features the following:

Seeking a Clean Bill of Health— Legislative Developments for Mobility Professionals
By Glen Collins

Working in Latin America Today: a Diverse Landscape of Opportunity and Risk
By Anne Dean, GMS, and Sylvia Ehrlich, SCRP

FHA and VA Home Loan Financing in Relocation
By Derek Latka, CRP, GMS

It’s a Great Time to Buy a Home
By Tom Zaunbrecher

Happy reading! Andrea

KISS Like Melody Biringer, Founder of CRAVE

Hello Everyone, In October 2009, I had the pleasure of meeting Seattle-based Melody Biringer in Amsterdam, where she was hanging out for a few months to kick start her CRAVE Amsterdam guide. Melody and I met up again a year later, this time in Las Vegas for a conference and have kept in touch in-between. I love hearing about all the cities that Melody's CRAVE guides have expanded to and I love learning from her entrepreneurial lessons (20+ businesses to date) and successes.

Recently, Melody posted this entry on her blog. I loved it and gained her permission to share it with you. If you are a current or budding entrepreneur, you'd be wise to listen to this seasoned experimenter!

Wishing you success in your business, at home and abroad, Andrea.




Nobody Kisses Like Melody Biringer

"The exercise of writing my business history down this last year, about the 20 some businesses I have started over the last 30 years, made one thing loud and clear to me. KISS (keep it simple stupid) has been haunting me most of my life. When trying to decide the title of my book, I thought I should just call it KISS.

This lesson learned has popped up over and over again. I know this stuff. I know it so well I could write a book about it! So WHY do I keep trying to complicate my businesses still today? I am a very “right brained” female. I like to have my hands in lots of things, and am easily tempted to live life like a mind map. BUT, my only successes have come when I kept it VERY simple.

I started my first business with the most simple business model of all. A lemonade stand. I sold lemonade….period. How much simpler can you get. Flash forward a few years and it is ironic that I still basically sell lemonade for a living. One of my most successful businesses has been the festival concession biz, where I sell strawberry shortcake and berry lemonade to thousands each summer. People stand in line and hand me cash and have continued to for the last 22 years. I have tried to complicate that business a bit over the years by adding other products to the mix, like pie baked in a bag, berry cobbler, even s’mores….always thinking of ways to grow.

But I finally got it through my thick skull…I am known for our strawberry shortcake and that is why I am still in business. Just KISS!

For several years, I was deeply invested in the wholesale bakery business. This is a perfect example of doing too much and not paying attention to simplicity. We sold muffins to grocery stores and coffee stands all around Seattle. It started with the fat free muffin, then we added 97% fat free and finally added full fat muffins. We had about 10 flavors of each kind. Of course the blueberry was always the best seller across the board. So many labels, ingredients, recipes to keep track of, so much staff to manage, so many headaches keeping track of all the flavors and which % of fat was ordered.

What if we just put all our muffins in one basket and specialized in the best fat free blueberry muffin in the world and sold the heck out of it? I might still be in that business today if I’d done that.

I remember being jealous of the Uncle Seth pink cookie at the time. He made one really good sugar cookie with pink frosting and could barely keep up with the demand.

It all goes back to the 80/20 rule I believe. Usually we are spending 80% of our time on nonsense and forgetting about the most important part of our business – the 20%. It is so easy to get trapped into the 80% because there is a lot of drama around it and very hard to see the forest through the trees.

I am so happy this lesson has come out loud and clear in my life right now. It makes decisions so much easier. When I am in team meetings, we all say “is this KISS?” and that makes our decision.

We even took a chance on this CRAVE blog. We had created a big huge nightmare for ourselves these last few years. Who are we? What are we going to write about? How many guest bloggers do we need? What should they say? What does our editorial calendar look like? We are behind! Help??? So we flipped it (another lesson learned) and took the KISS principal and decided to just talk about one of my lessons learned each month.

Talk about KISS all month? Is that too much of one subject? Will people get sick of us? Just do it, we said. It is simple and will simplify so many people’s jobs around here. YES I like the sound of that. A no-brainerWho knows if it will work, but we are all breathing free and that is a good thing.

What can you simplify to breathe easier?

Melody"

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Missed Some Great Expat Links on Twitter?

Hi Everyone, Here are some expat-related articles and links that I have tweeted about recently, that might interest you:

10 Secrets to Managing Your Expat Career
http://bit.ly/h1UA4h


Should You Move Abroad or Will It Destroy Your Family?

What is the Difference Between Traveling versus Living as an Expat?
http://bit.ly/ezVTz3

Video Trailer for Expat Niamh Ni Bhroin’s new book, The Singing Warrior http://bit.ly/gPpn59

How Many  Americans Live Abroad?
http://bit.ly/i1X851


"Why Chinese Mothers are Superior" from the WSJ
http://tinyurl.com/4mfsm32


Why We Should Still Be Talking About Tiger Moms
http://bit.ly/gCS0dT


Tips for Gaining Speaker Experience
http://bit.ly/gXDQeW


For Lovers of Books: GoodReads.com (4.3 million members!)
http://bit.ly/gpaiQg


Got "Dead End" Signs in Your Life?

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To follow me in 'real time' and keep up with even more great expat links on Twitter, please 
click here.

To sign up and receive our monthly, motivational Expat Women newsletters, please 
click here.

Thanks for your support and have a great week!

Andrea
Twitter handle: @andreaexpat

Winner: Expat Women Blog Shout-Out Competition

Thank you very much to everyone who gave us a an expat blog shout-out recently for our 4th birthday.

Special congratulations go today to Cathy (an American in Belgium) whose blog shout-out here was randomly selected as the winner of our US$100 Amazon.com gift voucher!

Remember: if you like what we do, you are welcome to give us a blog shout-out anytime - you do not have to wait for our annual competition. ;-)

Thanks so much, Andrea.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Expat Women February 2011 Home Page

Hi Everyone!  Please find below our new Expat Women February 2011 home page features. Please take a few minutes to read, enjoy, share and tweet about them for us. Many thanks and have a fantastic week! Andrea

Success Story
CEO and Co-Founder, aden + anais
When Raegan Moya-Jones left Australia for the United States, never did she expect to start a successful global business which would one day attract celebrity fans. Starting with simple muslin swaddling blankets, she has now grown...
Read more...

Business Idea
Shalini Ganendra
Born in Sri Lanka and educated in the US and the UK, Shalini Ganendra worked as a lawyer for a Wall Street law firm in New York and London, before finding a whole new calling in the art world when she moved to Malaysia.
Read more...

Expat Routines
Expats: Think You Don't Need Routines? The Importance Of The Other R and R
Marie Brice
We all know how important rest and recreation are as expats. Yet we often underestimate The importance of the other two R's: rituals and routines. As an expat, you probably visibly gag at the thought of routines - after all, isn't that why you are where you are and not back at home...
Read more...

Expat Confession
Expat Women Girlfriend  
I have lived in three countries and always thought I was a well-adapted expatriate. However, returning from our recent holiday really threw me into a spin. Since then, I have been riding an incredible emotional rollercoaster: crying all the time; losing my patience.
Read more...

Your Career
Lois Freeke
Ever wondered why so many women seem to miss out on senior promotions and high visibility projects? Why is it that men outnumber women in executive positions by up to 10:1? What can we women do to command the respect and promotions that our male counterparts seem to secure more?
Read more...

Expat Blogging
Expat Bloggers Are Going Pro
Maria Foley
Years ago, bloggers tended to write only for pleasure. However, the sophistication of many of today's blogs... has meant many bloggers are now trying to generate an income from their blog...
Read more...

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Not A Member Yet?

Just a reminder that our blog is separate from our main site, so if you are reading this blog post online or you are only subscribed to our blog, you will not automatically receive our Expat Women monthly newsletters. To receive our February newsletter and to go in the running to win our monthly prize of a complete set of Explorer Publishing's Mini-Guides, please sign up today to our main site ExpatWomen.com, and also receive your link to our free e-book of Winning Stories. Thank you!

Expat Women Thanks Its Biggest Referrers

Hi Everyone, We would like to give a big, public shout-out and thanks to the following fabulous websites and blogs, who have referred the most people to Expat Women (in any one given month) over the last 5-6 months. 

We definitely depend on word-of-mouth support, so please, if you think our site adds value to the expat world, please tell all of your expat friends, family and expat clubs about our huge, free resource site. If possible, please also put our link and/or
logo on your/your club's website and/or submit your blog to our Expat Women Blog Directory and who knows... maybe next time, your site will be on our thank you list. Thanks so much Everyone! Andrea :-)

Bangkok Mothers and Babies International
A fabulous group in Bangkok, Thailand.


Called Madeleine
All about Madeleine - an American expat living in Sydney.


Chicky Net
A social network for women in Thailand.


Expat Expo Switzerland
Site for the various expat exhibitions this company hosts each year for English-Speakers living in Switzerland.


Expat Expo France
Website for the new expat exhibition beind held this month in Paris, France.

Expatica
Excellent site full of news and information for the international community.


FAWCO
Federation of American Women’s Clubs Overseas.


Get in the Hot Spot
Empowering tips for life and work by expat Annabel Candy.


JourneyWoman
A very popular travel resource site for women, by Evelyn Hannon.


La Mom
Tales of an American mom in Paris.


Living in Singapore
Great tips and information about living in and moving to Singapore.


Peterthals in Zurich Austin
By Deborah - an American repatraite who was formerly living as an expat in Switzerland


Susie’s Big Adventure
Susie's stories and information about expatriate life in Saudi Arabia.


Tales From a Small Planet
Wonderful site with lots of information about living abroad.


Transitions Abroad
Comprehensive resource site for working, studying, traveling and living abroad.

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