Being Geek Chic is a blog about one woman navigating the male-dominated industries of production and tech. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi, Founder, CEO and Director of Mighteor - one of the world's first internet video production companies. Learn more about Mighteor here.
If you are as obsessed with strategy as I am and you’re thinking about starting a business, you’ve probably taken a long walk through the business book section - and stacked your Kindle with all kinds of texts on finance, business planning and leadership. And all those books are great, but these books, well these books are the ones that are going to fill your gut with the sense of passion you need to get through the ups and downs of building a business.
1. On Writing Well by William Zinger
Here’s the thing that I am best at in the world: writing. I don’t tire of it. I find solace in it. And I never wonder if I’m any good at it. My main contribution every day at the business is not strategy, it’s writing. Writing emails. Writing proposals. Writing scripts. Writing presentations. Writing pitch decks. Writing speeches. Writing concepts. My words are my business INSIDE my business. So keeping fresh on how to do it well? It’s key. If you’re in a creative role or you will be serving as the voice of the business - you have no choice. You gotta write well.
2. The Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes
Workaholics know another workaholic when they see them. Or in the case of Ms. Rhimes, you know it because the badass has three shows on the air right now - making her some kind of super human. But as I’ve written before, you truly have to enjoy your life if you have any intention of enjoying your business. Think of this book as a guide to celebrating and protecting the balance in your life.
3. Nora Ephron: Everything is Copy by Liz Dance
If writing well (#1) is my bible, then this idea is my constitution. The laws to live by in order to get through the hard parts. Every time there is a moment of overwhelming stress, I think of Nora’s words and remember that this is how life works: It must be hard, so we have something to write about later. In this book, you get an inner look at the wonderful Nora Ephron’s point of view.
4. Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace
Pixar wasn’t built in a day. In fact, it’s hard to imagine that the film studio that produces some of the most perfect cinema in the history of the medium ever had an ugly period, but as you’ll discover, there are plenty of “ugly” moments in even the most beautiful business. While your cakes might be picture perfect on the day of the wedding or your artisanal lotions might be absolutely delightful once they hit shelves - there is usually a lot of really uncomfortable not-so-greatness that leads up to that moment. This book has taught me to embrace the ugly/messy/figuring it out stages of my business.
5. How to be a Person in the World by Heather Havrilesky
So much of growing your business is putting yourself out there to be judged and chosen (or not) by customers. And that process can really make you feel like a sales robot. Very little of this book actually covers the details of how to deal with being a sales person, but it does deal with the nagging self-doubt that most of us feel from time to time. Or all the time. Remember that we are all people. And we are all trying to figure it out.
So what non-business book changed your view of your business or your journey?
If you’re reading this blog, it should be no surprise that we love a great female protagonist. So when my friend Jeff reached out to tell me about his new book, Spirit in Realtime, which features a badass girl named Max who lives in a world where virtual reality and reality have merged.
“In 2020 San Diego, Max and her friends live in a wired world where information is a commodity, everyone has a price, and safety is an illusion sold to rubes and noobs. But cyberspace is also an equalizer, allowing Max and her tribe to transcend society’s limits and become who they want to be.Until now, Max’s biggest hassle was being a 15-year-old girl gamer in a world where that made you a target for misogynistic trolls – or worse. But when Max’s dad, a computer science professor at UCSD, doesn’t come home from work one day, Max finds herself plunged into a world of hackers, international corporate spies and the secretive government agency known as Cyber Command.”
Here’s the first part of the excerpt:
To get to The Buzz Max had to log into Cyberspace. Cyberspace wasn’t a place exactly. It was more like a collection of places that existed within a sprawling electronic communication network. Once upon a time, when it was smaller, the network was called the Internet. Or the World Wide Web. Now it was the Ubiquitous Web, or the UW. These days kids like Max called it the Yoob.
The Ubiquitous Web was everywhere. On your phone. In your car. In your glassy-glass. On the wired, sensor studded shirts the trendy kids in Tokyo were wearing. The UW was the sum total of all of the computers, screens, phones, TVs, appliances, vehicles and more that were all hooked up by hard lines, soft lines, cable feeds, wireless and satellites so that they could talk to each other.
Computers had talked to each other over phone lines since the 1950s. But before Max was born, people communicated on the Internet by typing words into a computer. There were underlined words called links that connected to other places on the Internet when they were clicked on. Following the links from one to another was where the phrase “Surfing the Web” came from.
As time went on, links became doorways, windows, elevators, escalators, telephone booths, floating whirlpools, the mouths of man-eating dragons and thousands of even more fantastic variations. Everywhere was linked to somewhere or it was nowhere.
Download all of Chapter 3 here. You can buy the book from all the normal online retailers, or you can start here. And thank you to Jeff for sharing!
There is one thing I absolutely can never, ever go on a trip without: something to read. All those hours on planes, trains, cars and bus stations can leave a person with hours of free reading time. Can’t let it go to waste. For my recent trip to Italy, I had a very special list of books I wanted to tackle. And thanks to one delayed train and some bad weather in Amsterdam, I got almost all of them read.
Here are the books solo female travelers MUST read on their next trip:
It Chooses You by Miranda July
This book by female director Miranda July makes me cry every time. It’s so funny and endearing, because it’s so human. It chronicles July’s efforts to buy things from the Penny Saver and learn about the people selling their belongings. It seems odd. It is odd. But it’s so lovely.
Tao Lin is just damn funny. SO DAMN FUNNY. And weird. I like funny and weird. And if you do too, you’ll enjoy this collection of crazy.
You’ve probably heard of the movie. But you know what? This book. This book is really where it’s at. If you’ve ever thought about doing something bold after a breakup or death or firing or anything - you need this book.
Alone with Other People by Gabby Bess
I love poems. People that know me well know that I actually wanted to be a poetry major in college, but it’s an art that not many publishers are willing to explore. Bess’s book is one of the few brilliant new collections of poems to be on the scene in the last few years.
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
A classic. An important crux of women’s history. It’s amazing how many women my age have never read this seminal text. Read it to see how far we’ve come. Read it gasp at how little progress we’ve made. Read it to understand what we must continue to fight for.
A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
This book surprised me because it shouldn’t have been interesting to me: it’s literally about cleaning. Well, not entirely. It’s a series of essays that include cleaning references, but it’s really remarkable because it’s so human.
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
You may know this woman because of Beyonce. You just don’t know it yet. She’s the woman on Flawless who perfectly describes feminism. Yes, now you know what I’m talking about. Anyway, her writing is just as brilliant.
What are the books that make your heart pitter patter with feelings and emotions and woos and tears and bursts of laughter in inappropriate places?
Imagine a place where you could read books are the writer was writing them? Yeah, it sounds a little weird, but it’s actually incredibly interesting. And part of why it’s so interesting is because it’s a completely new concept being played out on WattPad. This is the future, people.
Here’s what I’m reading on WattPad right now:
150 Life Problems by Insane Demon
You have life problems. I have life problems. We have life problems. Life can kind of just be problems, you know? This ongoing story just keeps the problems coming. They are hilarious. They are sad. They are true. They are scary. They are life. Weird how life can kind of just… be everything and nothing? I know that seems entirely vague, so here’s an excerpt:
“When something goes wrong in your life…
Just yell, “PLOT TWIST!!!”
Then walk away and move on.”
If you want to dive into the world of reading a story as a writer is tackling it, I recommend this one. Especially for the single ladies. It’s about high school love, which can be dumb, but I really enjoyed the writer’s self-awareness of the dumbness of it all.
This story just wrapped up at the beginning of July, so you can totally binge it from cover to finish if you like. It’s silly and irreverent and will get you in a romantic mood, should you be so inclined. It feels a little like a memoir, but whose to say?
You know what else I love about WattPad? It’s the fact that commenters are part of the experience. Writers are getting to see what readers think as they go and readers can interact with each other as they read together. It’s so smart that I’m shocked it hasn’t been done before.
I was turned onto WattPad when they became a Geeks Go Glam sponsor at SDCC this year. We have a lot of love for the crew over there because they are so supportive of lady geeks online and elsewhere. If you haven’t checked out their totally free platform for finding great new reads, I really recommend it.
This post was brought to you by our sponsorship partner: WattPad! We love our sponsors because they help make Being Geek Chic happen through financial support. Being Geek Chic content is written and produced by real geeks and never comes from content mills. More than 40 million people have joined Wattpad, making it the world’s largest community of readers and writers. People use Wattpad to connect with each other while they discover and share millions of free stories. Wattpad stories are available in more than 50 languages and can be read or written from any phone, tablet, or computer. The company is proudly based in Toronto, Canada. Learn more and download their app on their website: www.wattpad.com.
Big news today about Geeks Go Glam at San Diego Comic Con! We’re super excited to be able to officially announce that the Photobooth will be brought to you by Quirk Books and their newest geek-tastic title, The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy by Sam Maggs.
This means that the backdrop at the party will be EXTRA special this year featuring custom art from the book! Quirk Books staff will also be on hand at the event to meet lovely people like yourselves and they’re offering up a few surprises too.
If you still haven’t gotten your tickets for Geeks Go Glam, please do so! Visit geeksgoglam.com to pre-order! (That’s important! We won’t be offering tickets on site!)
