About

This is us – blogging for a better future.

As our Professor Bruce Spear said, “Blogging is like tennis: we ‘serve’, ‘return’ and ‘volley'”.

Well we served. Our blog started as an homage, if you will, to the elephant in the room: The glass ceiling through which women seem to have a difficult time breaking. We felt like our generation should be held responsible for changing what seemed to us like an old, out-dated gender role model. We were, and still are, living our daily lives surrounded by and working with women we respect and enjoy being around, so why should the cooperative relationship end when the daily routine turns from education to work?

As evident by the first number of posts, we were all very dedicated to the topic of Diversity (Gender) Management. However, although it remained unspoken for a while, we soon realized (the females in our group included) that we were all feeling restrained by the idea of gender and our posts were showing it. Instead of having our thoughts take us toward the most recent, interesting and/or relevant topics, we were pigeon-holing ourselves and boxing ourselves in. Hence the ‘return’ part of this metaphorical tennis match.

We decided to use the mind-mapping technique to analyze what we were blogging about and in what quantity. We soon came to realize that although we still had the idea of “Gender” Diversity Management in mind, our posts were leaning towards a far broader topic. We then decided to broaden our scope and re-focus on all type of “Diversities”.

Our decision turned out to be the right one. Our posts, became far more organic and in turn more well-written, interesting (obviously this depends on one’s point of view and personal interests), and more relevant to current issues. Someone, far brighter than I once said “If your not moving forward, you’re standing still”. This is possibly no truer today than ever before. Therefore, admittedly with a bit of encouragement from our Professor, we mind-mapped again.

This time our conclusion led to another change of vision, albeit a slight one. We came to notice that we had focused in on the idea of “Diversty Management” well, yet the underlying idea and theme of most of our posts was actually “Strategic”. We were spending most of our posts on ideas, theories and issues that had far more to with the “Strategic” aspect of management. After a brief discussion the deal was sealed and the new direction for our blog was determined. In order to keep our tennis metaphor alive, lets call this our ‘volley’.

We are excited and anxious to see whether we win this ‘point’.

* Sources of all pictures we are using can be found here.

Maria. Head of IT

I am Maria. I want to climb the ladder. I am a woman. You see, nice topic to write about. Like my fellow students, I am studying International Business and this blog is part of my Strategic Management course. I am interested in the internet, pop culture, fashion, music, coffee and horses.

Isabel. Chief Picture Editor

My name is Isabel. I am a women (too). Moreover, I am under 30, no kids, unmarried, well-educated, good manners and about to start a career, so I am the perfect target group. And indeed, I am interested in female leadership issues. In fact, everyone should because this is the future. That’s why I blog.

Katrin. Vice President

Hello everybody,
I m Katrin, an international business student with the focus on Marketing / Market Research. For our course, Strategic Management, we are writing this blog about Diversity Management. This topic is of personal interest to me, as I am a woman, and I got to know the subject during my internship at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where I supported the Diversity Manager in the women advancement and mentoring programs. So I hope to write some interesting posts and get people to think about the importance of Diversity Management.

Martin. President

I am Martin. I am guy and therewith born into the more or less privileged group of men. But that was just luck and not my achievement. I think classical gender role models are outdated in private and in business terms. That’s why we need equal opportunities for both – men and women. However, beside that I like partying, cooking or doing some sports.

Thomas. Vice Picture Editor

I am Thomas. I am a man, so what is my interest anyway? I love justice. I want equal opportunities for everyone. Besides, I am working in a scientific project about women entrepreneurship which is very interesting. I am happy to have found five other Fellow students to go the way with me.

Saiid. Chief Video Editor

Hi there, I’m Saiid. I’m a male, which, I’m told, in the business world’s eye gives me a decided advantage over women. I am interested in taking part in the continuous growth of gender compatibility. The future of the business world lies in everyone’s hands, not just one gender or the other. We can achieve much more when we use everyone’s strengths to balance out the weaknesses. My goal is to use this blog as a voice to draw attention to the improvements that can be made in the field of Diversity Management, specifically the role of “women in the workplace” in the new era.