Amy's Favorite Sites
Past Featured Sites
Submit a site:
Femina Featured
Woman's Site
|
Describe your site. Who is it for?
GenerationMom is dedicated to helping busy Moms reinvent the way they
manage their
personal and professional lives using the best resources technology
and the Internet
have to offer. GenerationMom features links to flexible work
opportunities like telecommuting,
job-sharing, consulting and running a small business. Recognizing
that home and small
office environments have their own unique challenges, GenerationMom
reviews products, services,
online education and virtual communication tools that allow
independent professionals to work
as efficiently as they would in a corporate environment. On the home
front, GenerationMom helps
Moms condense a day of errands into a one hour browse-and-click
session. Moms can
streamline routine domestic duties by banking and managing personal
finances online,
having prescriptions and pet food delivered,
ordering groceries or household consumables,
sending gifts and e-cards for birthdays and holidays or even shopping
for school clothes.
Reinvent your role as a working Mom with GenerationMom, and achieve
better balance with work and family.
How did you come up with the idea
for your site?
In October of '99 I quit my job as a Marketing
Manager. It took about
three months for me to get bored, and six months for me to become
very blue about
my former career. I missed the dynamics of my hi-tech marketing
career, but did
not want to sacrifice my child's development. And, I loved being a Mom as much
as I loved being a successful career woman. It was quite a dilemma.
Looking for a solution beyond Prozac, I set out to find a Web site
that would help me remodel my life.
With an MBA, a proven track record in high-tech marketing and record
low unemployment,
I knew there had to be stimulating, part-time consulting projects
available somewhere
in the business community. I conducted extensive research and
accumulated a long
list of consulting Web sites. Today I work part time from home as an
e-Marketing
Consultant for Hewlett-Packard, managing eMarketing campaigns with
their Software
Integration partner Oracle.
Next, I tackled my personal life. As a professional I was accustom
to outsourcing standardized
projects that did not require my direct involvement. I decided to apply
the same concept to my personal life. Soon, my groceries were
delivered, my prescriptions
were placed on automatic reorder, most of my bills were on automatic
payment and I queued
up birthday e-cards for a year. My dog, Congo, was even signed up on
the bottomless dish
dog food replenishment program. With my additional income I hired a
housekeeper to do my
laundry and keep the house in order. This allowed me time to
dedicate to my family and
consulting business.
I accomplished my goal of remodeling my life, but with a lot of
effort and endless research.
In the end, I wanted to help other Moms by making all the great
technology and Web sites I
found available on a single URL and, voila, GenerationMom.com was born.
When did you first go online?
I remember signing up for AOL is 1994.
I conducted my first online
job search in 1995. I've had the same e-mail address since 1997.
What would you tell other women
and girls who are interested in going or
publishing online?
1) Conduct research on the product/service/content you wish to offer.
With all the online resources available you can thoroughly understand your
market before making a serious investment of your resources. I went on
ProfNet.com and solicited stories from other Moms who use technology to
balance work and home. The responses I received were amazing.
I also researched the Bureau of Labor Statistics for demographics on working
Moms and interviewed online service providers about the market they were
serving and how they felt they could assist busy, working Moms.
2) My second piece of advice is to work with a competent Web developer.
The maintenance of GenerationMom is very efficient because of the robust
content administration area. I was fortunate to have worked
with a top-notch industry developer in a former job.
3) Take advantage of online marketing tools for search engine
registry, promotion of your site and networking.
|
