Like all of us, I look forward to many days throughout the year -- birthdays, weddings, holidays -- but this year there’s one day in particular I simply cannot wait for: October 11, 2012.  That will be the first-ever United Nations International Day of the Girl.
 
It’s a day to celebrate the work being done worldwide by and for girls’ rights. And mind you, this isn’t just about doing work on behalf of girls -- but supporting the many, many girls worldwide who are already engaged, quite literally, in changing the world.
 
But here’s what’s so exciting about this day: it’s not only a day to celebrate girls, but a day for action. So that all of us, worldwide, can stop and ask ourselves -- what’s the next step?  How do we move our advocacy forward?  How can we best translate our shared energy and commitment into action, into tangible results for girls throughout the world?
 
The Day of the Girl website says it best:

In reserving a day for advocacy and action by and for girls, the UN has signaled its commitment to end gender stereotypes, discrimination, violence, and economic disparities that disproportionately affect girls... including gender violence, early marriage, child labor, and discrimination at work.

And of course, in talking about empowering girls, my thoughts go straight to the  inspiring work of Shree Bose, Naomi Shah and Lauren Hodge -- the “Google Girls” who won the Google Science fair, and all of our respect and admiration when they spoke at the 2011 TEDxWomen conference.  Girls were a big presence at TEDxWomen this year, as Rachel Simmons also spoke, an incredible and compassionate leader in empowering girls. Her GirlTips are powerful reminders for all of us.
 
Please share about your Girl Posse, and also join me in celebrating all the hard work done by many women, men, and organizations to get the UN to declare October 11 the International Day of the Girl Child.

The ratio of female to male investors is virtually non-existent. A 2008 survey of the venture capital association showed that 14 percent of directors, partners and principals at VC firms were women. And according to the National Venture Capital Association, there are 462 venture capital firms in the United States, but only one is run by a woman. As it turns out, this particular firm is interested in both social and financial returns on its investments.

There's a book, not a blog post, to be explored in terms of why this is, but suffice it to say that in the meantime, I want to make sure you all know about every possible opportunity out there to support women entrepreneurs, and for goodness sakes, apply with your bright ideas! We need you.
 
Here's the latest, by one of our TEDx women partners: Amazon Web Services has launched their 6th annual Global Start-Up Challenge. This contest is a way for promising start-ups to get noticed and compete for an opportunity to win some great rewards. This year’s challenge offers big prizes, including four grand prizes of $100K in combined cash and credits, VC introductions, global PR and more. The contest entry period ends on November 9, 2012. Learn the deets here.

Good morning. It’s great to be back at UGA to share this special day with you.

Let me begin with a confession. I love parades. I’m something of a parade addict. I love the music, the marching,  the meaning of parades. In fact, I may title my autobiography, if I ever get around to writing one,  I Never Missed a Parade!

Except one: my own commencement.  That day, June 5, 1965, I was in a hospital nearby, giving birth to my son, Mark. That was the beginning of a parade of sorts too: balancing parenthood and professional responsibilities, as any parent can testify. I’m quite sure that “Parades” are not the subject you expected from me. Media would have been more predictable, given the career you just heard described. (Thank you, President Adams, for the warm introduction and this irresistible invitation.)

So, let me explain why I love parades and what it is about parades that make them, in my opinion, a commencement-worthy subject. My parade addiction started early, about 100 miles southeast of here in a small town called Swainsboro, Georgia. The most exciting thing that happened there was the Pine Tree Festival Parade.  Once a year, all 5,000 residents took to the streets… Well, it was one street actually. Dressed in our Sunday best, we cheered for the brightly decorated floats pulled by tractors. It wasn’t exactly the Macy’s Day Parade. But the sights and sounds transformed my small town and me.

During the 20 or so magical moments that the parade passed through town, I could imagine other parades beyond the borders of my small town, and I dared to dream about a life beyond the expectations for a young girl growing up in the South in the '50s. When I was 15, following one of those “expectations,” I entered the competition to become Miss Pine Tree Festival, mostly because winning meant a place at the front of the parade. Being IN the parade that year was a thrill, and my addiction to parades kicked in for sure -- even though my parade took an unexpected turn. The tractor pulling the lead float came to a sudden stop, throwing me, crown and all, forward.  I fell on my face with the whole town watching. Within minutes, the tractor and I both recovered, and the parade continued.

Afterwards, as I was struggling to regain my enthusiasm about parades, my beloved Cherokee grandmother, who had a special way with words, said: “Honey, at least falling on your face is a forward movement.” With a few words, she gave me a new perspective on parades and falling.

Many times in my journey from that small town to now, when I stumbled or lost my balance, when I competed and didn’t win; when an idea was rejected or when I was unemployed and broke; times when I have literally and figuratively ‘fallen on my face,” I thought of my grandmother’s words, and how right she proved to be. The falls, the risks, the failures, the disappointments all did turn out to be forward movements, moving me further along in my professional and personal journeys.

One of the most important stops in my journey was here, at UGA, where I enrolled as a scholarship student in 1961, defying my father’s wishes that I go to a small women’s college. My father, who also loved parades (having been in the military) made his living after the war selling televisions, but he refused to let his own family own one. “Bad influence,” he would say when I would beg to have a television in our house.

Years later when I was making quite a good living as a television reporter, he commented, “All that big university education, and this is what you do for a living. What a waste!” My time at this big university, like I assume yours has been, was not a waste; it was transformative in so many ways. My class came of age here during two great social justice movements: civil rights for African Americans and full equality for women. Your class came of age in a world of social media revolutions, ignited by technologies that can topple governments, crowd-source protests, and make or break a reputation in a tweet.  

However they begin or end, all revolutions and transformations begin with an idea and a purpose. I came here, all those many years ago, with big ideas about what I wanted to be and very little purpose beyond my own life plans and dreams. I left here prepared to pursue my dreams and transformed by a newly felt purpose to defend that right for others.

The transformation began my freshman year when I met Charlayne Hunter Gault, one of the first African American students on this campus. It’s hard to imagine now the scene that greeted her presence here then. There were, in fact, parades of students throwing rocks and insults. One morning, I decided to walk with her and a few friends to class, right through the protests. I remember a feeling of fear in the beginning, but that was quickly replaced with a feeling of purpose and a new feeling of power that came with collective action leading to a positive outcome.  A small parade of Charlayne’s friends and supporters achieved our purpose to get her safely from her dorm to class. That was my first Parade with Purpose.

Ironically, 30 or more years later, Charlayne and I reconnected as colleagues in Washington, D.C. She was a correspondent for PBS Newshour, and I was PBS president. We talked about how much had changed and how much had not. She was still daring to be on the front lines of change, still dodging rocks in her adopted home of South Africa, and I was  navigating the challenges of being the first woman to lead PBS, with all the judgments that come when you’re the first woman, the first African American, the first of anything.

Many of you will be the “first” at some time in your life and career. Even now, with all the enlightened changes in policy and practice, you will likely find yourself doing something no one like you -- no one your color, your gender, speaking your language, coming from your place of birth -- has done before. When that happens, you may find yourself with an opportunity to lead a personal Parade with Purpose.

Maybe your purpose will be to challenge your company’s hiring or promotion policies, or to advocate for more diversity in top management and in corporate boardrooms, Or maybe you will use your position to shape policies that make it easier for mothers and fathers to pursue the work they love and still be the parents they want to be. When you are the first, you have an opportunity to redefine what a leader looks like and how a leader’s power can be used. First, you have to acknowledge you have power and accept the responsibility that comes with it. This is harder than it sounds.

Getting comfortable with power, especially for women, means letting go of negative associations and images of power defined by the gender that has had most of it. A few years ago, I invited a few young women executives from Google to attend Fortune’s Most Powerful Women conference. They happily accepted but later told me that they didn’t tell their bosses that they were going to a “powerful” women’s conference. Why not? “Because someone might think that we think we are “powerful,” was their explanation. “You are powerful,” I insisted. “What are you doing with it?” Doing something outside of our own job responsibilities can model a new way to use power, whether we are the corporate secretary or the CEO. But I need to offer a word of caution. Using power to lead or even join a Parade with Purpose may not be popular. You risk being identified as an agitator or activist…“not a team player.” The pressures to stay on the sidelines, to be silent and support the status quo in a company or country are real everywhere.

I’ve felt those pressures many times and so will you, and like me you will weigh the consequences, sometimes choosing between participation in a parade with purpose and putting a job, a relationship, even a reputation in jeopardy. I faced one such dilemma during my first year as faculty here. A big civil rights march was planned in Athens, but there was an injunction against it, and student and faculty participation was discouraged. Believing so strongly in the purpose, I joined the parade, along with a few of my English 101 students. We were arrested -- or, more accurately, rounded up, taken to a holding pen near the Clark County Jail, and after a few hours, released.
 
As I was leaving, a red truck came careening into the parking lot, a farmer jumped out,  stepped in front of me, demanding to know if I was the English teacher who had encouraged his son to break the law. I had no choice but to say, “Yes.” I half expected a fist in my face, but instead he grabbed my hand, shook it hard and said, “Well, at least you got him to care enough about something to get off his ….!” You can fill in the rest.

Joining or leading the parades that disrupt, that advocate for new ideas, that redefine power and leadership can have other  unintended consequences as well. They can give you something that is increasingly hard to find in today’s driven, economically competitive world: happiness. It’s a fact. Serious social science research at some very big and important universities has proven that being engaged in activities outside our own career paths and beyond our own self interests leads to greater levels of happiness. The research makes it clear that being a part of something that really matters leads to a feeling of empowerment, and participating and leading parades of purpose turn out to be good for you as well as others. You could be thinking about now that helping others just isn’t high on your priority list today.

After all, you have to focus on getting a good job, getting that new career started and making enough income to pay back the loans you took to get the degrees that are supposed to move you faster to the head of all the parades that matter most. You may be thinking that there will be time later on to contemplate such concepts as power, purpose, happiness. But I know from experience that you will miss so much if you delay participating in the parades that may take you somewhere you hadn’t planned to go and that take others to places they need to go or be.

And you’ll miss the richness of life if you postpone the feelings of compassion and empathy that inspire purpose. I believe this. It has been my life’s experience. When I reflect on what has truly made me happy -- it’s not the big titles or jobs I’ve held. It’s not even the position I have now, although I feel fortunate to have it.

At The Paley Center for Media, I have power and a sphere of influence that comes with a big responsibility to use both, not just for myself but for others who can benefit if I align purpose with power. For me, that means leading the conversations about the unprecedented impact of media and technology on every aspect of the way we live and interact.  For me, it means leading a conversation about the under representation and misrepresentation of women and it means convening public forums on the role media is playing in politics. I’m participating in and yes, sometimes leading the media parade at a time of great transformations for the industry and for consumers, and I’m aware that my decisions as a woman leader in media and all my choices as a media consumer have impact. I need them to have purpose as well.

I urge you, then, as you take this next big step toward the pursuit of your personal dreams and ambitions that you consider the many parades with purpose that need you and your education, your inventions and discoveries, your art and music, your solutions to climate change, energy shortages, racial and religious tensions and the increasing violence against women and girls everywhere.

Parades with Purpose.  Looking for passionate participants and empowered leaders.

That’s you. Your Life Parade starts here and now. Don’t miss it!

(Delivered Saturday, August 4, 2012)

Last week I had the honor of sharing the stage, so to speak, with a group of incredible women -- all of whom were recipients of Women's eNews' 21 Leaders for the 21st Century awards, many of whom leverage the media in just the dynamic way we advocate at Paley.

Carol Jenkins, for example, had a 28-year broadcast career that included working for WNBC, ABC, WOR and WNYW, an Emmy and such choice assignments as covering the national political conventions and the release of South African hero Nelson Mandela from prison. She actually came out of retirement to be the founding president of the Women's Media Center because, well, when Gloria Steinem calls, you answer.

Gloria Steinem also catalyzed the work of another one of my fellow awardees, women's advocate and philanthropist Elizabeth Colton. "When my daughter was 4 years old, I set out to find a place where, as she grew older, she could connect with her identity, power and potential as a young woman, honoring both women's history and contemporary issues," Colton told Women's eNews. She sent a letter to Gloria Steinem about this vision and received the response that no such place existed. So Colton set out to search for a place that had the potential to make this a reality. Today the International Museum of Women amplifies the voices of women worldwide via online exhibitions, history, art and cultural programs that educate, generate conversation and build community.

Another recipient, Deborah Santana, just returned from Kenya, where she narrated and co-produced the award-winning documentary Girls of Daraja, celebrating an all-girls secondary school in East Africa. Watch a short here:

Santana is also the founder of Do a Little, a nonprofit donor-advised fund that serves the needs of women in health, education and happiness.

Deborah Tolman, another awardee, has devoted her academic career to research and writing about the way in which society understands, views and responds to women's sexuality, particularly teens, but she doesn't let her scholarship stay in the academy. She's co-founded a movement of young women talking back to and making their own media called SPARK. Just last week, they collaborated with an amazing 14-year-old named Julia Bluhm who collected and delivered 78,000 signatures to Seventeen magazine, petitioning them to feature one photo spread each issue without the use of PhotoShop. Talk about leadership for the 21st century!

Mine was the last award handed out, so I kept my remarks brief. In essence, I said a version of what I always say, that every woman who wants to step into her true leadership has to have three things: information -- useful and accurate, communication -- global and mobile, and most important, a posse. Mine was widely represented at this awesome annual event, and those who weren't there in person were there in spirit. Women truly are changing the face of media and I'm honored that my work through the Paley Center was recognized as a committed part of the transformation.

Stephan Chambers, the eloquent, articulate leader of the Skoll Center at the Saїd Business School at Oxford University, is the Forum's overall host, kicking off each plenary with his unique framing of the talks and presentations to follow:

He always includes at least one, if not more, quotes from poets he admires. He also closes the Skoll Forum with his summary of what we have learned and experienced. This year he said that something surprising happened to him: He cried nearly every day of the Forum. What makes this remarkable and worth repeating is what he said next: that we have to remember that he is male, an Oxford professor, and British, to boot!

We all laughed, of course, but we got the message: When important and powerful ideas are presented in ways that come from the heart, with the right intentions to influence and effect positive change, we cannot help but respond emotionally -- no matter our cultural conditioning or place of birth.

As the Skoll World Forum closed on Friday afternoon, I felt a lot more optimistic about our ability -- working together across sectors, across cultures, across religious, across borders -- to find better solutions. I felt this way because I met and listened to and learned from many of the women and men who are identifying, developing, and delivering solutions to some of the most intractable social issues of our time. I felt this way because we were activists, but also just human beings, gathered together, being vulnerable and proactive, sharing our stories and lessons.

The way forward can only be done collectively. These are not things we can push back on the consumer as they will not pay for it and rightly so. They do not know that palm oil is in products. When you say this is leading to deforestation they say well take it out, that's your responsibility. Governments have got to cut us some slack on this.

You, too, can listen here.

Think about it. This is where you and I, regardless of whether we ever get the opportunity to go to the Skoll Forum, come in. It’s why I am sharing these experiences and lessons, so that perhaps you will pass on these blogs and links to just the person who needs them. This is what happens when good people come together, whether in real-time or online, with a strong purpose and with intention to change what needs to be changed to create a more sustainable peaceful, prosperous planet for all. By being the carrier of these contagious good ideas, we all commit ourselves to being a part of the outcome.

Spread the word. Spread the ideas. Share the passion. Participate.

One thing seems clear from these films and the many stories you hear during the days at Oxford: there are epic, inspiring experiences of always bold, sometimes outrageous, entrepreneurs in remote and difficult places throughout the world, and these are stories optimally shared across many platforms. This point, and many other innovative tips and ideas, were gifted to participants via a dynamic expert in storytelling: Wendy Levy. She reminded us that visual, iterative beauty and collaboration are key to solid transmedia storytelling.

We all decided that yes, we were, and in fact, the three things we could all agree on that were necessary for all brave, activist women through out the world were: communication (a phone and maybe even a computer), a little money, and most importantly, their own posse!

I will be praying for my posse to be safe in Somalia, Sudan, and Congo, and for their work to continue to turn victims to victors. I believe more strongly every day that educated and empowered women can and will be the change agents of this big, unfinished revolution.

She wove together her own personal story with the extraordinary story of V-DAY, which Eve started in response to the reactions she received to her groundbreaking play, The Vagina Monologues. Eve donated the rights to perform that play as a way to raise funds for local activists and organizations working to end violence in their communities...and this innovative model for fundraising has raised more money to fight violence than any other organization, including the United Nations. Nearly 100 million dollars has been raised in less than 15 years and all of it stayed in the local communities.

Every year there are more performances, more V-DAY events, more funds raised in more countries than ever--this year, more than 5000 events in more than 100 countries, including thousands of schools. V-DAY has filled Madison Square Garden, reclaimed the Superdome in New Orleans, and supported the women in Congo to build a City of Joy in the middle of a war zone—disruptive and risky, to say the least.

At Skoll, Eve called for the biggest V-DAY campaign ever: a disruptive action called One Billion Rising!

Responding to the UN's report that more than one billion women will be raped or brutalized in their lifetime. (That shocking number, by the way, doesn't even include family violence, cultural, social, or political violence.) Think of it: if one billion whales, or anything else, were being violated or destroyed, the world would rise up and protest and demand an end to violence. Yet, year after year, as Eve reminded us, women and girls on every continent, in ever country, lose their lives to violence. Eve is calling on one billion women and men to join in a global action and dance! Yes, dance! To dance in our homes, our offices, our streets, our villages, our cities--united in our call to end violence.

Why dance? It’s an action that will be distinct, unique in every culture and country; it can be individual or collective, but dancing takes up space and is a celebration as well as protest.  after eve’s talk, people began planning their dancing actions and I am confident that many of the participants will be rising, dancing and being a disrupter and risktaker to try to reduce the risks for women and girls to become one of the billion victims.

Eve’s boldness and her total personal commitment to keep pushing us out of our comfort zones, challenging us to be bolder and more audacious comes from her own experiences, some of which she shared with us at the TEDWomen conference in 2010.

This point was made so powerfully by the women in the session that I moderated called “Victors, not Victims,” featuring Fartuun Abdisalaam Adan of Elman Peace & Human Rights Center in Mogadishu, Somalia; Fahima Hashim, of the Salmmah Women's Resource Center in Sudan; and Christine Shuler Describyer, of the City of Joy in Congo. These are three women working in three of the worst conflict areas and in three of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman, and yet, there was so much light in their collective presence.

These women risk their lives every day to help victims of rape and other violent attacks find safety, healing, education, and training that transforms them from victims to victors. These are the brave women who are letting the light in through the cracks of chaos to create transformational changes in their country.

Part of that DNA is inarguably about lifelong learning. I always learn so much during the three days we are together at Oxford University. Indeed, it’s an appropriate place for learning; one cannot help but be a little awed (cowed, perhaps) by the history that seeps from every building. While some traditions seems stuck in a time warp, the legacy of curious minds coming there for more than 500 years is an undeniable presence at this forum.

As such, I’d like to spend the next week sharing lessons learned this time around. To start us off, here’s a bit of background on the Forum itself:

Jeff Skoll who founded eBay and sold it, becoming a billionaire before he was forty, has used his fortune to raise global awareness of social entrepreneurs whose innovations and inventions, passions and commitments are creating change where it is needed most. Through the Skoll Foundation and its smart and effective leader, Sally Osberg, some of these social entrepreneurs are selected to receive support through multi-year grants and the unique program offered them at the Saïd Business School where Skoll funded a Center for Social Entrepreneurship.

I feel privileged to be a part of the Skoll World Forum—as a moderator, from time to time, and always as an admirer of the people I meet there, the work I hear about, and the ideas and insights I take away.

This year the sun was bright every day—a true rarity as anyone who visits England in the spring knows. It was warm enough to leave coats and boots behind. People’s spirits also seemed particularly high, even as the news of the world outside Oxford was on everyone's minds and there were many reminders among us, too, of the challenges that would still be there when the social entrepreneurs returned to their work in places like rural India, the Amazon rain forest, Myanmar, the Philippines, Congo, Sudan, Somalia etc.

Social entrepreneurs, contrary to some stereotypes, are not Polyannas. No matter how committed they are, no matter how innovative their work or how life changing their inventions or services, there are still millions living in extreme poverty without enough to eat and without access to clean air, water, or basic human rights. They know that, which makes them such great teachers in pragmatic idealism. The other 360 days of the year, they fight the global epidemics outside the ivy-covered walls of Oxford, but for these five, they come in and share their wisdom. Lucky us.