International Womens Day 2020 (IWD 2020 )was a huge success, our annual sell out event saw us raise funds to support the devastated communities and learn from our game changing female leaders doing impactful things for climate change.

We all know the impact the bushfires and droughts have had across Australia. International Women’s Day 2020 we adapted the theme “Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change”#EachforEqual.

With the amazing support from Guy Grossi, we at Digital Women’s Network shared our game changing female leaders who opened up about how they are doing impactful things for the devastated communities.

We all walked away with key tips and how we can all make a little difference and small changes we can make to help the environment now and for future generations.

Whilst enjoying a long lunch at the hands of the wonderful chef Guy Grossi, upstairs at Grossi Florentino’s we were spoilt with a range of innovative, sustainable and re-usable Australian and New Zealand consumer and beauty brands – Rustic Hyde, Frank green, Peggy Sue and Karen Murrell providing us with gorgeous gifts, raffle prizes and door prizes.

The team at Performance Medicine provided over $750 of raffle prizes from massages, pilates classes, neck pillows, fitness balls and we had many grateful and happy prize winners.

Annie from Performance Medicine shared her heart warming story on the impact the bushfires have had on us all.

International Women’s Day;

Designing for hope – Dr Dominique Hes

Changes isn’t scary, change so easy we’ve changed a lot and we keep changing. Sustainability is supposed to be easy, not hard. We should all look at the opportunities being created speak form a place of abundance not restriction.

Living our life, we will create a climate impact it’s inevitable the most important part is to enjoy eating drinking and try to make the best decisions we can. Dispose of food, drink from local producers eat as much as we can locally. We shouldn’t feel ashamed and contribute and create more benefit. Each tree has an impact. And that’s ok and it provides habitat and shade and life.

Find that place (happy place) and invest your impact, find systems that have a positive impact like Greenfleet – Think about the Carbon offseting.

Stop Waiting for a Hero you are the hero! be the change you want to see!

Lucinda Hartley

Urban designer, multicultural person.

The Neighbourhood you live in defines you and has an impact. Beach cafe our neighbourhood they are human and emotional spaces and define what makes cities great. Stories of emotions are attached to this neighbourhood.

This year we had No Christmas had to cancel thick smoke in alpine park hosting refugees. We’ve had grief and loss of landscape, understanding behaviour and lifestyle they don’t serve the entire purpose. Neighbourlytics digs deeper into how it impacts your business and lifestyle. Bushfires are a massive shock to people, animals, plants and our environment. Creating their own weather. Cities are in crisis feeling helpless, neighbourhood are in isolation and we are all having loss of identity and character as everything looks burnt and we see and hear nothing but devastation.

Measuring the impact can have a major effect, it enables us to understand how we can move forward, we can use the insights and data to make the change – NOW is the time to think about this. We will be sharing our findings of the work we are doing in these devastated areas across Australia, working with governments, hopefully charities and private companies to help them make informed decisions about town planning and the important parts of a community.

Download the fact sheets here

The co-founder of Rustic Hyde Michelle Kelso provided not only lucky door prizes and amazing gift packs worth over $200, she shared her story about the impact of the fires. Given that Rustic Hyde is located in the Victorian Alpine region they were so closely effected by the bushfires.

Rustic Hyde post IWD 2020 also continued to raise funds for our charites GreenFleet and Wildlife Victoria.

The beautiful Liz Grossi-Rodriguez co- owner of the Grossi Group, Guy’s sister shared her story about the impact the bushfires and droughts have had and how important our role is in supporting the farmers and communities.

Liz shared her views on how very important it is for us to work together, understand and appreciate the food we eat, the impact we have on the planet and how we can all do our bit to drive change, as we know an equal world is an enabled world!

The Grossi group have been doing many things for the communities raising thousands of dollars and shining a light on the importance of buying local through to celebrity charity dinners events and of course supporting the Digital Women’s Network IWD 2020 event. They continue to be a huge part of the Digital Women’s Network efforts, without their support we simply wouldn’t be able to pull together such amazing events.

The successful event saw us donate $1850 to Greenfleet to plant trees and offset carbon.

Plus $1650 for Wildlife Victoria

Once again a huge thank you goes out to all the businesses, people and brands behind our annual International Women’s Day 2020. We are humbled and forever grateful to be able to raise funds for such deserving charities and come together as a community.

Please see the full gallery of images from the day!

Take care, stay safe love Angela (the very pregnant) and the Whole Digital Women’s Network team xxx

Level 5, 171 Collins Street, Melbourne 3000
Phone 0466619631
Email hello@digitalwomensnetwork.com
https://digitalwomensnetwork.com/

The post IWD 2020 Wrap up & Gallery appeared first on Women's Networking Events - Melbourne.

You may all remember Rachel from International Women’s Day 2019 and the event we held on Confidence and Happiness in the Digital Age see these great event wrap ups and my sit down with Rachel!

Rachel and team over the lock down period have been helping many people and sent me a note to share with us at Digital Women’s Network,

Hey Ange this post has been very popular we would love you to share with anyone you feel might value. x Sending you LOADS of love!

Locus of Control- How can we manage uncertainty in our work and lives?

The term Locus of Control, coined in 1954, fulfils a psychological need to feel in control. During times of uncertainty, we naturally look for ways to feel more in control (toilet paper anyone?)

While it’s tempting to throw our hands up in the air and say ‘there is nothing I can do!’, the fact of the matter is those are thoughts and NOT facts. The honest facts are we do have control over this: what we choose to do next.

During times of uncertainty, and our Work Life Brilliance clients will know this, it can be a helpful tool to remember that actively working on our Internal Locus of Control, the belief we can choose how we respond not only helps us feel more sane (love that) but also enables us to think more positively during times of change such as a shift in our typical routine, or working from home for a few weeks.

This sets us up for success, as well as slowly reminds us: we’ve got this. And know that we’ve got YOU.

Download our Locus of Control Pack including a  worksheet to help you create your own list of things you can control.

Looking for our workplace Managing Uncertainty pack? Click here. 

How can we manage uncertainty in our work and lives?

The term Locus of Control, coined in 1954, fulfils a psychological need to feel in control. During times of uncertainty, we naturally look for ways to feel more in control (toilet paper anyone?)

While it’s tempting to throw our hands up in the air and say ‘there is nothing I can do!’, the fact of the matter is those are thoughts and NOT facts. The honest facts are we do have control over this: what we choose to do next.

During times of uncertainty, and our Work Life Brilliance clients will know this, it can be a helpful tool to remember that actively working on our Internal Locus of Control, the belief we can choose how we respond not only helps us feel more sane (love that) but also enables us to think more positively during times of change such as a shift in our typical routine, or working from home for a few weeks.

This sets us up for success, as well as slowly reminds us: we’ve got this. And know that we’ve got YOU.

Download our Locus of Control Pack including a  worksheet to help you create your own list of things you can control.

Looking for our workplace Managing Uncertainty pack? Click here. 

Get in contact with the team at the Happiness Concierge and see what they can do for you; (+61) 0431 339 497 | mojo@happinessconcierge.com
https://happinessconcierge.com/contact-1

Join us in Melbourne

Level 5, 171 Collins Street, Melbourne 3000
Phone 0466619631
Email hello@digitalwomensnetwork.com
https://digitalwomensnetwork.com/

The post MANAGING UNCERTAINTY appeared first on Women's Networking Events - Melbourne.

Please meet Dr Dominique Hes- Board Director Greenfleet, Co-Founder Place Agency, Researcher Beyond Zero Emissions

Dr Dominique Hes is the award winning Author of the book “Designing for Hope: Pathways to regenerative sustainability.” Author and editor of 6 books and over 100 papers and reports. Non-executive board member at Greenfleet (planting ecosystems to offset carbon). The co-Founder of internationally award winning Place Agency, and ex director of Thrive Research Hub from Melbourne University. Previously founding board member of the Living Futures Institute of Australia and Trustee (board member) of Trust for Nature (conserving remnant ecosystems),

Dominique has a PHD in Architecture, multiple degrees in Science, Engineering and Sustainable Design. She has a demonstrated history of working in the higher education and building industries in the fields of sustainability, regenerative development, systems thinking, environmental issues, placemaking and project management. These support her in her current role as Principal Researcher at Beyond Zero Emissions (helping communities and industries transition to zero emissions).

Dr Hes passion is to uncover ways to address the issues we are seeing all around us; loss of biodiversity, loss of habitat and changing climate. Dominique works on the premise of hope, but not air fairy ‘wish the grass was greener’ hope, but grounded hope – an irresistible vision of a thriving future and ways to move towards it. She works to establish a powerful network of informed, influential, and active global citizens who are committed to redefining humanity’s relationships with the ecosystems we inhabit.

Dominique your work places large emphasis the importance and influence of people’s relationship to place and the ecosystems they inhabit, to drive sustainable change and for communities to thrive. Can you please explain this further? 

There is a difference in how you feel about you home and just a normal house or building. This is sense of connection, belonging and safety which we only create through having a relationship with it, makes it a home. Because of this we care for our home, we build relationships with our neighbours, with the shops, parks and organisations near us. We value our home. If we can create this ‘care’ for our neighbourhood, our parks, nature, the environment we set up the conditions to create a relationship with them and look after them. That Indigenous idea of caring for country. While we remove nature from people’s experience, we reduce the potential for care. 

What does a community thriving look like? Community thriving is not Utopia, it’s not where you get everything you want or even where we are happy. It is where there is the potential to thrive, where all the conditions are present for everyone to be a part of the place. A place to grow, learn, feel belonging and have purpose. 

 Dominique, in the face of the very “real” challenges climate change is currently posing, can you please explain how regenerative development processes can;

Positively impact the planet now?

Regenerative development asks the question how can this project, this initiative, this building, this program be of service to this place or scenario. How can I be of service? That is not what can I get but what can I contribute. So it means for everything you do you ask how can this create benefit? Secondly and linked, regenerative development asks how do you create capacity with whatever you are doing to increase vitality, viability and ability to adapt. For climate change it’s of in going to remove my investments from companies that work on fossil fuels, what can I invest in that creates benefit beyond my bottom line?

So how does that help us with climate change?

There is what you do at home, with your family, offsetting your emissions and using solar at home, electric or hybrid cars and green power. There is drawing down carbon, there is a great book which shows how we can draw down much of the CO2 in the atmosphere – Drawdown by Paul Hawken. We can do this through regenerative farming, investing in our soils, through planting forests, through investing in our water ways, through looking after our oceans and especially looking after kelp and sea grass. But mostly it is about putting out big girl pants on and stepping up to the role we can have in solving the problems we have created. Doing what we can within the sphere of our influence, whether you are into comms and marketing, a programmer, a manager, an academic, a board member, a stay home parent (hardest job) or barista! Figure our what you can impact and do it!

And in the future? We can have a future where everyone is able to thrive together. We have the brains to do it, especially now that we are connected around the globe we can understand the scale of the opportunity that is our planet. This is a unique time in human history. If we just shift our thinking from consuming to contributing we can design this world. 

I’m only one person said one billion people….For those who are not across politics or aware of other organisations that are actively pushing for advanced solutions to climate change where do they start? 

In the home and with spending habits, how can we make an impact in our everyday lives and then looking outward to our politics and our banking habits etc.

This year I looked for alternatives for gas and banking I wrote to the old companies to tell them why: I looked at my gas and switched to 100% green (offset – www.powershop.com.au/why-powershop/renewable-energy/greenpower/) and away from Origin who support fracking; switched to Bank Australia who are a clean bank “We also use money to help create positive impact for people, their communities and the planet.” [https://www.bankaust.com.au/]; committed to be a better recycler.  

Do what you can, be sceptical of what you read in the press esp. Murdoch media, esp. anyone who is basing arguments on opinion not science. There’s a great website by ABC and RMIT to check facts. (https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/factcheck/) advocate within your own organisation for transparency and commitment.

Who is making a difference?

BCorp, RE100 – companies committing to going 100% renewable (http://there100.org/companies), Greenfleet – planting ecosystems to offset peoples carbon; Trust for Nature – buying and selling properties and putting covenants on to protect critical ecosystems.

 What are they doing?

BCorps (https://www.bcorporation.com.au/) B Corporations, or B Corps, make decisions that make a positive impact across their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment.

How do we become more educated and accountable to individually impact as a whole?

–        Enjoy life, have fun and be fulfilled… just do it with passion and presence

–        Eat less meat

–        Travel consciously and offset your impact

–        Use green power or have your own solar systems

–        Plant trees

–        Support local action

Meet Dominique this International Women’s Day and join us to support the devastated communities and meet our game changing female leaders doing impactful things for climate change.

About this Event

The bushfires and droughts that have been ravishing Australia have brought communities together as a positive. This International Women’s Day we have adapted the theme “Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change”#EachforEqual. We at the Digital Women’s Network are thrilled to share with you our game changing female leaders who are doing impactful things for our devastated communities.

Our speakers will also provide us all with take away key tips for changes we can bring to our lives to help the environment now and for future generations.

Whilst enjoying a long lunch at the hands of the wonderful chef Guy Grossi, upstairs at Grossi Florentino’s you will have the opportunity to learn from our speakers how an innovative digital approach is supporting the bushfire recovery across Australia. The afternoon will end with a healthy discussion on how we can individually create a collective impact to help ourselves and the environment. How we can make changes to ensure that we build smart systems for the future.

We will be raising funds from the day to support the communities and in the regeneration of forests throughout Australia with the help of Greenfleet.

Now more than ever it is time to work together on an equal footing to drive change, as we know an equal world is an enabled world!

International Women’s Day;

Venue: Grossi Florentino, 80 Bourke Street, Melbourne 3000

Lunch; Bubbles on arrival with three courses and glass of wine

Cost: $110 pp

Charity: Bushfire relief & Green-fleet

dietary requirements can be catered for – please contact us to advise.

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/celebrate-iwd-2020-grossi-florentino-for-climate-change-tickets-92598995087

Published by

LinkedIn Influencer, Board Advisor, Marketing Strategist, Director Digital White Space & Digital Women’s Network, Judge

The post Interview with Dr Dominique Hes our International Womens Day Speaker for 2020! appeared first on Women's Networking Events - Melbourne.

Lucinda Hartley is the CoFounder and Chief Growth Officer, Neighbourlytics

An Urban designer turned entrepreneur, Lucinda Hartley uses big data to measure the quality of life and wellbeing of neighbourhoods. She is a co-founder of Neighbourlytics, a social analytics platform which has created data for more than 500 neighbourhoods in over 10 countries and is influencing some of world’s most significant urban development decisions. Lucinda was recently named as one of 100 Women of Influence by the Australian Financial Review and one of Melbourne’s Top 100 most influential people by The Age.

With over a decade of experience in urban innovation, Lucinda was a Myer Innovation Fellow, Westpac Social Change Fellow, and was previously co-founder and CEO of award-winning placemaking consultancy, CoDesign Studio. Prior to this her insights contributed to defining UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 (Cities). A designer turned tech-founder, Lucinda is alumni of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Singularity University. Lucinda doesn’t separate work and personal life: first we shape our cities, then they shape us.

Lucida your work has an emphasis is on the importance/influence of people’s relationship to place and the ecosystems they inhabit

Can you please expand on this? 

Places have personalities, just like people do. Think of the places you most love and feel connected – your favourite cafe, the park where you walk your dog, your local shortcut. These places have memories and stories and character and identity. They are social spaces, human spaces. While social researchers have known this for decades, the lack of scalable data about what makes neighbourhoods tick has made it near impossible to benchmark and analyse wellbeing in cities until recently.

What does a community thriving look like?

Places matter because they’re directly linked to our wellbeing and quality of life. In fact, research shows that your postcode is just as likely to determine your life expectancy as your genetic code.

How well your neighbourhood is thriving can be based on a range of factors – economic, physical or community. And it isn’t just about trendy cafes or street art. It influences factors such as what opportunities you have in life, and how physically active you are – whether you can walk, cycle to local destinations. Something we all care about. 

“80% of the drivers of your wellbeing are to do with where you live” and “your postcode is as likely to determine your life expectancies as your genetic code”.  Lucinda Hartley

Lucinda, in the face of the very “real” challenges climate change is currently posing, can you please explain;

1. What is social data? and how does this help us?

Social data is location information that helps us understand human behaviour and lifestyle at a local level. It’s not social media data or personal data, its more like data that describes how busy the cafe is or the events happening in the park. Today almost every aspect of our lives is online, this produces enormous amounts of data about where people go and what they connect with. Neighbourlytics harnesses this rich digital information to understand quality of life and wellbeing in neighbourhoods, particularly useful when we need to re-build communities in the future – like we are facing with the aftermath of the bushfires.

In the aftermath of the horrific Australian bushfires where towns and cities have been destroyed, can you tell us why the innovative use of social data will be key to rebuilding these devastated communities to be healthy and thrive again?

What has been lost in the last few months of catastrophic fires isn’t just roads. It’s a collective loss of identity and character, or shared memories and stories which are the backbone of local places. For many of us we are seeing places where we grew up, where our families live, where we visit on holidays or have happy memories from go up in smoke. When it comes to rebuilding efforts, decision makers often have very limited community intelligence. It might be that a local cafe was the most important piece of community infrastructure rather than the community centre. Understanding what was lost from a social perspective is just as important as the physical. Digital data can help with that.

I’m only one person said one billion people….For those who are not across politics or aware of other organisations that are actively pushing for advanced solutions to climate change; If not us then who, if not now then when?

The first step is making it real, why would people change behavior if they don’t think something exists? We need to change our news cycle, get out of the filter bubble and fact check. Or do something dramatic like travel to the Pacific and see countries dealing with the coalface (no pun intended) of climate change. 

Small steps help – reusable cups, taking the train, but I’m increasingly motivated by the need for strong local action. This starts with changing the information. 

Lucinda who do you think is making a difference? 

• Farmers for Climate Action 
• Australian Youth Climate Coalition 
• BCorps

What are they doing?

Mobilising sectors or demographics to create change within their vertical or community. People don’t believe in science (sometimes) but we’ll believe our friends. the peer impact of these networks is powerful. 

In the home and with spending habits, how can we make an impact in our everyday lives and then looking outward to our politics and our banking habits etc? How do we become more educated and  accountable to individually impact as a whole?

• Look at where your superannuation is invested – is it funding coal?
• Buy local 
• Eat more plants, less meat 
• Read different news, bust up your filter bubble by following people with different opinions to you. 

Join us this IWD and meet Lucinda and hear more about the things we can do for the planet and our devastated communities.

This International Women’s Day (IWD) we have adapted the theme “Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change”#EachforEqual. We at the Digital Women’s Network are thrilled to share with you our game changing female leaders who are doing impactful things for our devastated communities.

Our speakers will also provide us all with take away key tips for changes we can bring to our lives to help the environment now and for future generations. Whilst enjoying a long lunch at the hands of the wonderful chef Guy Grossi, upstairs at Grossi Florentino’s you will have the opportunity to learn from our speakers how an innovative digital approach is supporting the bushfire recovery across Australia. The afternoon will end with a healthy discussion on how we can individually create a collective impact to help ourselves and the environment. How we can make changes to ensure that we build smart systems for the future.

We will be raising funds from the day to support the communities and in the regeneration of forests throughout Australia with the help of Greenfleet. Now more than ever it is time to work together on an equal footing to drive change, as we know an equal world is an enabled world!

International Women’s Day;

Venue: Grossi Florentino, 80 Bourke Street, Melbourne 3000

Lunch; Bubbles on arrival with three courses and glass of wine

Cost: $110 pp

Charity: Bushfire relief & Green-fleet

dietary requirements can be catered for – please contact us to advise.

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/celebrate-iwd-2020-grossi-florentino-for-climate-change-tickets-92598995087

More from Lucida,

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lucindahartley/

Twitter: @lucindahartley, @neighbourlytics

her TEDx Melbourne talk

Published by

Angela Mellak MCIM

LinkedIn Influencer, Board Advisor, Marketing Strategist, Director Digital White Space & Digital Women’s Network, Judge

The post I am delighted to introduce Lucinda Hartley our IWD speaker for 2020! appeared first on Women's Networking Events - Melbourne.

We are delighted to again team up with Guy Grossi and his team to create a wonderful day of pampering and delicious food upstairs at Grossi Florentino for a three-course luncheon. Our major sponsors of the day Melbourne Skin for our SOLD OUT event, who provided all guests with a wonderful goodie bag and door prizes.

During the day we had each table chair open up robust discussions on this year’s IWD theme #BalanceforBetter. We were pleased to have Tony McGinn OAM, Dr Mei Ling Doery, Rachel Service to be some of the table chairs.
Each table came up with some key points on what “Balance” means and what could we do better to achieve such balance.

Questions asked on the tables

1. Let’s look at what does balance mean to you? Is it culturally? Race or ethnicity? A spiritual? Physical? Mental?
2. What holds your organisation back from finding balance in the workplace?  Is it difficult to navigate a flexible work environment that is fair for all?  Are we as women holding ourselves back due to lack of confidence, or simply not stepping up when we could be?
3. If it’s you what is it that holds you back for pushing to move into management?
4. In your role, what can you do to support more women in your team or side teams in the business?
5. How to you empower the various different cultures in your team or business? younger and or older women in your business?
6. How can you impact your business culture to encourage more balanced teams?
7. Are your creating the space for others to think differently?

Answers

1. All of the above, it starts with you, we must accept not being perfect. It’s not all about the destination it’s the journey, we need to compromise and be dynamic. Balance in the workplace is not just about a diversity of all genders, races and backgrounds – it’s also about having a work/life balance. Companies that truly understand flexibility and design jobs to suit the person, rather than the person fit into a box that is the job. Just giving someone a laptop and a phone to work “flexibly” is not that same as true flexibility in the workplace. People have lives outside of work, and if companies can work WITH people in this respect then you will find you have a much more effective, productive, stress free and successful workplace.
2. We exist in a patriarchal structure and a natural female approach is much more collaborative and less wanting to dominate and take over. It can be said it is the model that is limiting opportunities. The model needs to change it’s outdated for us to really find balance. Some women who are getting the support at home saying how a few years back her husband was walking along the street carrying their baby in a Baby Bjorn style carrier and his workmates saw him and labelled him a “hero”,  and later that same day she was passed over for a job because she wanted it part-time. These are the types of stereotypes we need to get past. Also ending the stigma that it’s only mums that work part-time. Imagine a tradie on a construction site asking to go part-time to look after the kids … not sure it’d go down too well, as the culture on those sites is an example of an industry that desperately needs to change. Ending that stigma.
3. We can wear many hats depending upon our environment we are very adaptable and we each bring something different to the situation or environment. We all agreed that balance is a long way off. We have come a long way, but we need to be raising our children in an environment where they see us as role models for balance. Sharing the workload at home, having mum AND dad do the school pickups, and teaching them to stand up for what is right. If they hear someone in the schoolyard saying something discriminatory – teaching them it’s okay to stand up for yourself and others, and call it out!
4. It’s up to us to be the change we want to see, we need to mentor more, share our insights and ultimately pay it forward
5. Through collaboration and engagement at events like this to get the conversation on the table
6. Changing the model and strategically creating a new structure that celebrates a collaborative approach. We had some past employees of some of the biggest brand including LinkedIn and when they shared their stories of how they were treated when coming back from having children the opportunity was not embarrassed. This woman was really anxious about the amount of travel, sadly they made it really difficult for her, and she ended up asking for redundancy.
7. We should self reflect and ask more men for their views 🙂

See our full Gallery of photos from the day

https://digitalwomensnetwork.com/galleries/iwd-2019-grossi-florentino/

The post IWD 2019 Celebrations and discussions on Balance for Better appeared first on Women's Networking Events - Melbourne.

Join us to celebrate INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY upstairs at the Iconic Grossi Florentino’s and enjoy round table discussions about how we can create a #balanceforbetter. We invite Men and Women to come to attend this exclusive and delicious three-course luncheon with proceeds going to charity.

FRIDAY 8TH MARCH 2019

12:30-2:30PM

GROSSI FLORENTINO UPSTAIRS

80 BOURKE STREET, MELBOURNE 3000

Network the day away, meet Guy Grossi and a few of our key speakers with a glass of bubbles on arrival! We also have incredible door prizes and goodie bags from our friends at Melbourne Skin for all that attend on the day.

The post Join us this International Women’s Day appeared first on Women's Networking Events - Melbourne.