WIFS 2009 Conference Highlights
San Antonio

Annual Meeting

• 238% growth in 6 years
• No other group in industry as growing at this rate
• 2010 Strategic Overview
• Attract new women to industry
• Develop meaningful programs
• Advance WIFS members

Sally Ride, Keynote

• Flew on Challenger in ’83 & ‘84
• Prof of Physics at U of CA @ san Diego
• SallyRideScience.com

100 billion stars in our galaxy; what used to be an “astronomical” number is now an “economical” number.

Most of the men at NASA when Sally arrived had never even been in a meeting with a woman before.
The female astronauts were given cuff links as gifts a few times!

The shuttle moves 17,500 mi in 8.5 minutes

Thin blue line in photos from space is the earth’s atmosphere: it’s that fragile!! Showed photos from Space of fault lines in Middle East and the erosion of the forests in N. Madagascar. Sunset from space: spectacular. The shuttles go once around the planet in 45 minutes so the astronauts see a lot of sun rises and sunsets!

58% of all college degrees are women and that’s going up!

50% more women made it through orchestral auditions after they put a screen up to cover auditioning musician.

Message: look closely at situations around hiring women and come up w/ creative solutions to ensure that the hiring opportunities are on a level playing field.

Today – 20% of astronauts are female.

Nebraska based comedienne: T. Marni Vos
(www.tmarnivos.com)

Kids laugh 200 – 400 times a day; adults laugh 17X a day. We adults are so bitter about their joy.

Take your humor seriously.

The “quiet weeks” are when you determine who you are. Stress is how we choose to perceive an event.
We’re not built to handle stress so eliminate it!  Humor adds perspective.

Children in grades 4 and 8 who had the best social skills also had the best senses of humor.

Humor helps to develop flexible thinking.

“My Uncle has been blind since birth. He lives in NYC. That’s what we tell him.”
“How come blind people don’t skydive? Because it scares the heck out of the dogs!”

Your left and right brains are most compatible when they experience laughter and music.

Consider this: What kinds of questions do you ask yourself?? Your mind’s job is to answer your questions so ask yourself worthwhile questions.

Laughter is an adhesive to learning. It eases tension between student and teacher & helps to maintain attention.

Use laughter to get people’s attention in business: “I’ve been trying to get your attention for a long time. Please don’t make me launch myself in a homemade balloon!”

Sarcasm derives from the Latin word for tearing flesh.

It’s much more important to have fun than to be funny.

Life is wonderfully messy; embrace the mess!

Don’t ask people what they do for a living. Instead, ask people, “What do you really enjoy doing?”
Our jobs don’t define us. What we like to do leads us to the person we are becoming.

You find what you are looking for: Choose à Practice à Become

Delia Passi, CEO of Medelia
(delia@Medelia.com)

If we put all the assets of WBO owners together, they would represent the 5th largest GDP in the world!

85% of entrepreneurs are optimistic about their business outlook.

3 ways people get money: 1) Inheritance 2) Earn it 3) Marry it

When working w/ women, always have a written agenda

Never let it be the customer who reminds you of time constraints.

Limit the “I’m sorry’s” in your conversation.

Very Imp: Closing language: “Is there anything else we need to cover today or shall we move forward?”

Take the journey with women: they take 30 – 40% longer to make a decision but they’re loyal.

Tell your clients what you’re doing in the community to help women.

When talking with a couple, give women 60% of your eye contact.

The more money women have, the more personal space they’ll need when you meet them.

Economic Update from Zanny Minton-Beddoes, Editor from The Economist

We are adjusting to a new normal. Financial markets are now propped up by governments.

Our deficit is 10% of GDP!

Discussed: what is the shape of the economy? How strong is it? What does it look like?

Recovery in America is looking like a backward Square Root.  ----v__

Credit supply will continue to be a problem.

US Households have dropped 20%!

Savings rate has gone back to 5% from 8% about 10 years ago.

We are experiencing a huge inventory correction.

China has had even a bigger stimulus than US @ 15% compared to 5% in US. Their recovery, like India’s and Brazil’s will be “V” shaped.

The richer countries have had more to deal with regard to banking crisis, mortgages, etc.

Consequences:

It will be ’13 or ’14 before we get unemployment back down to 5 or 4%.

Decoupling: weaker US $ - countries are proving they can grow w/out the US.

It’s an “Alice in Wonderland” Recovery

Merle Haggard’s song:

“Inflation, Deflation, tell me if you can…
                                                Will we be a Zimbabwe or will we be Japan?”

Big questions:

How do we get our exit strategy right? “Make me chaste Lord, but not yet.” – St. Augustine

• 75%of our budget is in entitlements, military and interest payments and these are very hard to cut in the long term.

How do we put Wall St. on a strong footing?

Entrepreneurism flourishes in tough times!!

3 Closing Scenarios:

• Slow growing deflationary economy with possible trade war w/ China (Japan scenario)
• Economy rebounds but we end up with a gloomier but emerging economy
• Wall St. remains premier capital market; America continues to have a dynamic marketplace.