Business Model Innovation Hub

... where visionaries, game changers, and challengers discuss business models

Where are the women?

I just browsed through the member list and I found 8 women out of 225 members! That's 3,56 %.

The first thing that naturally comes to mind is: Why? Why are "only" men interested in this kind of project? Is it also true that only men are interested in business model innovation? I would suggest that it is so based on my rigorous academic research...

Why? I can't speak for all countries, but in Sweden we don't have a big gender problem anymore. It's there, and it's ugly when you see it, but still it's way better than before. We have lots of business women in high positions, many entrepreneurs and loads of business graduates from our Universities. So again, why?

Does business modeling involve "male thinking" or is this project a status thing for people. That would explain it since most women don't worry as much as men about status and prestige. Are we comparing dick size again? :)

Well, just a reflection, but one that is important for Alex considering the customer segmentation for the book. I predict that over 90 % of the book buyers will be men. Any bets? :) Maybe we should design the book with a beard? Or...maybe there is something missing in the whole concept since half of the potential customer base is ignoring the project?

Just some late night speculations from Stockholm. All the best!

Peace,

/Jonas

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Comment by Nicky Smyth on October 13, 2009 at 11:25am: You made some valid points about the imbalance of women both within the hub and broader business. Now that Alex is considering how this community can grow following the book launch it would be a good opportunity to consider ways in which women can become engaged during hub2.0. Certainly within the UK it remains that senior business management is still male dominated, particularly within the internet/digital sector which I work.

Comment by Valérie Chanal on March 5, 2009 at 1:53pm: Well, I joined today and so I will contribute to improve the statistics ! Hope that I will be able to have other types of contributions to the content of this site, that seems to be really rich.

Comment by Maria Droujkova on February 8, 2009 at 11:39pm: I think women do business, but male and female communities and networks also segregate quite strongly. Some networks are exclusively female, and some are "predominantly" male.

Alex, are most people in your personal network, and your friends, male? That would explain this site's distribution at least, hehe.

Comment by Jonas Lindelöf on February 1, 2009 at 10:32pm: I guess your workshops are mainly for the management team? If so it only reflects how the society looks like in the countries you operate (is it the same for your blog?). However, I can not see why there could not be a higher interest among women for this project. One way to approach more business women could be to link to some forums for business women, maybe also using social networking sites that appeal to women. Just some ideas.

Comment by Alex Osterwalder on January 31, 2009 at 8:08pm: It is true that in my workshops the majority of participants are also men. I usually have only about 20% women... Probably my wife likes it better that way ;-) just joking... It would indeed be great if there were more women...

What can be done?