I’ve been quietly mulling over in my head the gender issues that are being actively debated in the blogosphere and experienced in the ‘real world-osphere’. There is clearly a lot of pain seeping through the crevices of our busy lives when it comes to the ‘woman’ issue. And appropriately, there is no shortage of books, stats, task forces, quotas and even female focussed venture capital funds being offered as a solution to quell this pain.

These are all great things. People are raising awareness. But change of this magnitude takes time.

I think there is a simpler, immediately actionable solution that has the potential to groundswell into a way of life.

We live in a world of translating vision into commercial realities. It is a uniquely creative era that requires self belief and self actualisation to progress. Therefore, it goes that if more women ‘believe in themselves’ more women will self actualise (as a mother, entrepreneur, worker bee, yoga master — anything).

How do we achieve this in the ‘real world-osphere’? Lead by example.

Last week, an old friend asked my husband to advise a very talented female entrepreneur. He was busy flying around the world and yet he made time during his trip to have a quick cup of coffee.

A week later, I met this woman and the first thing she said was, “Hey, I was really shocked by the advice your husband gave me.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yes. He told me to exercise so I could clear my head and sleep better. He said I needed to slow things down in order to go faster. And then he said, don’t be afraid to fail. The peculiar nature of innovation is that you are more likely to get it right through the humbling process of getting it wrong. That coffee was the most important meeting of my year.”

In helping — this woman — he was also helping me all over again, our daughter and other women.

As I listened to her story, I realized there is only one story and it is being told over and over again.

The story goes like this — it is bloody hard to be an entrepreneur. Many of us have read and appreciated Ben Horowitz’ passage on ‘The Struggle’ from his recent book which so aptly summarizes the entrepreneur’s journey. Few women or men, for that matter, have that much fight or passion in them. The choices are difficult and often sprout wings of their own, bifurcating the path you painstakingly set out for your team and your shareholders in the countless business plans and messaging sessions you produced.

The uncertainty, the long hours — the public scrutiny — are more often than not rewarded with a ‘no’, ‘she can’t execute’, ‘she won’t pull it off’, ‘I don’t get it’, ‘who is looking after her kids — is she really committed?’ It weighs you down, hardens you and can even make you angry.

Be the person you want your kids to learn from when you are no longer around to protect them.

All the stuff we say to our kids — ‘be positive’, ‘take care of yourself’, ‘respect others’ and for goodness sake, ‘be nice to the kid sitting alone in the playground with no one to play with’. We spend an awful lot of time teaching our kids how to collaborate and build meaningful communities. And yet, we don’t always lead by example.

And there are practical reasons to do this beyond just being ‘nice’. We live in an interconnected world where it literally ‘pays’ to build bridges. To discount the ability of others to learn, grow and create is at odds with innovation. In today’s world, yesterdays “kid sitting alone in the playground” is likely tomorrow’s most popular kid.

Your ability to benefit from this trend and to create an impact begins and ends with you as a person, in all your different states— boss, colleague, investor, friend, husband and even father on the school run.

Have that quick cup of coffee. It’s fast, easy and effective.

And always — ALWAYS — check yourself when you feel the urge to say something bad about someone.

It will only come back to haunt you and an interconnected web of others in the long run.

P.S. I can count today easily 100 men around the world — the men on my team, my business partner, investors, industry contacts, competitors, and new friends I have made on Medium — that have helped propel me forward as a woman in my field. Thank you.

Edited by the skillful hand of my Editor in Chief, Lily Valentine

Impact gender diversity was originally published in Connected Dots on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Years ago, we used to talk about how the internet reflects the collective consciousness of society. We the people are creating the internet in our own image. But sometimes, don’t you find yourself looking around Our Internet thinking you don’t fully relate to it anymore?

My friend and arctic explorer Inge Solheim likes to say,

“If aliens landed on our planet today and looked at what we are producing on the internet, they would loose all faith in humanity.”

I am a Mom (aged 46), a foodie, a runner, and a former high-flying technology analyst turned enslaved entrepreneur. My Internet is the internet that I relate to — the Internet of parenting, food, health, finance, culture and technology. It is information-based and also where I search for meaning to supplement my day-to-day.

I love thinking about life through the analogy of food. Food says so much about how we live and who we are. You are what you eat. Today, the collective consciousness is more interested in healthy living — gluten free, paleo, farm to table or just plain simple and fresh cooking. Yet this new consciousness is not reflected online. The most popular cooking show on YouTube, Epic Meal Time, has almost three quarters of a billion views in just over 3 years. Here is an opening quote from a recent Epic Meal Time video:

“We are going to take all these McRibs and Double Cheeseburgers and roll them up into a giant sushi roll — basically all you could eat after you smoked a roll that big.”

Such content generates high virality because of its shock factor. A recent UT Austin academic study on viral videos analyzing YouTube data concluded:

“Through examining the most popular videos on YouTube, we are able to categorize them into two distinct groups: the group consists of videos that feature high quality, engaging scenes, articulated story lines (high-quality videos), and the other group of videos often include questionable behaviors that deviate from social norms yet still gain tremendous popularity (attention grabbers). We found that videos with anti-social content initiate higher network effects than quality-oriented productions.”

Ultimately, our collective consciousness needs to be fed with positivity and wonder instead of being bombarded with negativity and shock factor. People are also looking for inspiration. We need Our Internet to deliver on this promise. If content doesn’t deliver along this new utility curve — we are less interested. We simply don’t have the time. We need to create platforms from the ground up that not only enable better discovery but also enable positive network effects around quality content that is lost on other platforms.

Video is and will continue to be an important vehicle for our collective consciousness. Moving pictures and sound have the power to instruct and inspire like no other medium. And video is still in its infancy. According to Cisco, it would take an individual over 5 million years to watch the amount of video that will cross Global IP networks each month in 2017 and in the same year consumer Internet video traffic globally will be 69% of all consumer Internet traffic.

Our Internet feels like it is on the cusp of greatness. I no longer need a reservation to get inside a Michelin star kitchen — I can just watch the chef from the comfort of my iPad. I can be a part of the conversation with Sarah Lacey and great entrepreneurs through her videos. It’s awesome what you learn about success after they’ve had couple glasses of red wine on stage with Sarah Lacey. Turns out, we all drink too much and say things we shouldn’t.

By Sofia Fenichell

Edited by the skillful hand of Lily Greenwell-Farrell

Where Did You Hide My Internet? was originally published in Connected Dots on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Growing up, my heroine was Jo March in the book Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. I loved that she was a tomboy who earned money for her stories before women wore trousers, and that she delighted in earning a cheque for her writing.

Jo March was well compensated for her creativity. Back in the 1880’s, she earned $100 for her first story, a sum worth about $2000 today and enough to send Marmee and her ailing sister Beth to the seaside for a month or two. In the 1980's, Jo March would still have been paid $100 for an article in Reader’s Digest, valued at a fraction of what she received a century ago.

Today, we write to have a voice on social media and to make meaningful connections with people and society. Money is not really on offer.

In 1880, there were only 7000 newspapers in the United States, according to Collier’s Encyclopaedia. Today, WordPress reports that over 409 million people view more than 14.5 billion pages each month. Users produce about 42.6 million new posts. No wonder ‘quality’ writing is being devalued. It’s getting lost in this sea of content.

We have never in the history of mankind seen such a wealth of self-expression and yet such a poverty of resources to discover and support such creativity.

How did we get to the point where a writer (or film maker) struggles to monetise content that is the byproduct of research, intellect and passion and has the power to educate and inspire global audiences?

We have abandoned quality in journalism, in video content and in many creative fields opting for quick fixes of viral content. The balance of power between quality and junk is not to be debated. Junk has won.

Even back then, Jo struggled with her own inner battle when it came to quality. When she listened to the people around her, she chopped and changed and lost her way, wanting to create ‘sensational’ content (aka viral). Her father encouraged her to focus on what she wanted to build.

“Aim at the highest and never mind the money.”

But, let’s not kid ourselves, money is important.

Great creativity deserves to be elevated and appropriately compensated.

Can we turn a corner on this? As an industry, we grapple with how we put a value on quality. Certainly advertisers, poised at the sidelines with big TV ad budgets, want to associate with quality. In fact, they will pay more for it because it is more engaging, has better brand association and generates data. And as Netflix has shown, consumers will pay too, if the content is great.

We need to build and support platforms that value quality, and create a natural haven for people looking for clarity from clutter. Like Medium, such platforms can drive network effects around quality ideas, stories and opinions. Focussing on quality over lowest common denominator content can not only bring financial success but also longevity.

We all need to be fed creatively. We need to keep stimulating the creative industry to produce bigger and better ideas to keep our brains going.

Creating such a platform is not easy. Few put the time in, sweating every detail down to beautifully chosen fonts and the way the user experience ebbs and flows like a gentle tide. And sure, like any tide, great waves will be made that can be difficult to control or navigate. For what is the purpose of a tide if not to be the gravitational force that pulls you towards great stories, opinions and ideas.

By Sofia Fenichell

Edited by the skillful hand of Lily Greenwell-Farrell

The Check is in the Mail was originally published in Connected Dots on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.