Patricia Handschiegel

An Open Question

I always try to help people. I get a lot of emails everyday from people asking me to give advice, check out their site, help with an idea, etc., and try to answer as many as I can. I’m very happy to. Today, though, I have a question of my own and I would love to hear what people think.

By offbeat chance, my background is in internet telecom, which is the industry that lays down what you know as the web. Kind of like the phone lines, only different since its the internet. I have an engineering level background in it, how it’s built, what it needs, where it’s going. Random, I know. I’m a total girl’s girl. But, somehow, I ended up having a real aptitude for it and now because of it, I more or less know what the web will do, including mobile. It means I can forecast a lot of issues, problems, solutions, and ideas in advance, with pretty good accuracy. There are all kinds of things happening now that you could find me talking about online years ago. In a way, it’s sort of like having a secret map for web business.

Somehow, along with this I also have this really extensive background in media, from the structure behind it all to the content, in digital, television and print. I founded, funded and sold a small social media company three years after launching it, have been working in internet video series and show development since 2004, and now doing the same for traditional tv, developing projects that tie in the web. I can lead a build on a website from a technical standpoint, improve usability, create revenue models, and know tons of developers, producers, journalists, analysts, CEOs, talent agents, managers, editors and all kinds of other people.

In a nutshell, this kind of knowledge can be useful. People are confused about the web and what will work, and I believe this kind of insight can help and will benefit us all. The question is: How could I use this to help others in a bigger way? And, how can I get other (media, execs, etc.) to listen and start talking about some of these things so that more of us are working together to improve business and solve problems? I believe doing so will help us all.

If you have any ideas, email me at ph@dslextreme.com

I Want to Have Lunch with Carl Icahn

I wonder what you’d learn if you had lunch with Carl Icahn. For those of you who aren’t familar with him, he’s a business man who has had huge success and is known for being one who definitely goes after what he wants. He appears in the business media I read a lot. His blog, The Ichan Report, caught my attention today on Techmeme from a post titled “How I Spent My Weekend”. It made me wonder: How did somebody like Carl spend his weekend? The opening sentence said, “Proxy fights are very expensive and time consuming…” I’m a business girl at heart so to me, that’s pretty sexy. A proxy fight is basically when a company’s stockholder (or stockholders) oppose something in the corporate goverance. More recently for Carl, it has been with Yahoo. I started to pay attention to his work after a Business Week article that impressed me a few years ago because he sounded smart. I know not everybody agrees with what he does, but he’s definitely successful for a reason.

Smart people rub off on you when you meet them and it wouldn’t hurt to have somebody like him advising you or in your camp. I’m sure even in just a half hour time, you’d learn a ton from somebody like him. I bet I’d never lose a business deal again.

FlySpeakPartyHockeyPartyMeetingSpeakFlyParty

It’s been a crazy (and exhausting!) three days and feels so good to be home, though honestly, outside of sleeping in my own bed again last night and being home for a few hours this morning, it hasn’t really felt like I’ve been here at all. I flew to San Francisco on Wednesday, went straight to the premiere of the movie August, where I spoke afterwards along side of a cool crew of tech and entertainment people (including the movie’s director and one of the stars). Everybody ducked into the after party for a bit for drinks where friends from the nearby Slide party came over to hang out. The next day I played hockey in Redwood City, followed by the Alltop/Kirtsy party at Alltop founder Guy Kawasaki’s amazing house. Hundreds of women entrepreneurs and bloggers in town for the Blogher conference were on hand. It was a blast! Friday I attended back to back meetings, spoke at Blogher, in a meeting room gathering on entrepreneurship, then literally jumped into a cab for the airport to get home, change and quickly head to the Mashmeet L.A. party. Founder Pete Cashmore is a friend of mine and one of the smartest people I know. It was very fun!

I was barely up for an hour today before it was all about business again.  Tonight, I’m heading out with the girl crew involved in one of my projects to a cool party in Century City. Somebody during our talk at Blogher said that in order to be an entrepreneur, you had to get used to living in a state of chaos. She wasn’t kidding. I am so thankful for the work I get to do, every last bit of al of it, but after such a crazy three days, I can’t lie. I’m looking forward to tomorrow when things die down a little.

You can check out pictures from all the events (plus the last minute Old Navy outfit I grabbed and spoke in because SF was so cold!) here.

I Still Cry About Samantha Runnion

I meant to write this yesterday but it was so busy, I couldn’t. Six years ago yesterday (July 15), five year old Samantha Runnion was kidnapped from her front yard while playing with a friend. Her abductor was a child sex offender who had previous charges against him. He sexually assaulted her and killed her, the crime matched by DNA found under her nails (his) and tears on the door of his car (hers). Some say had the right technology been in place she would have been found within hours. Instead, she was found thrown along side of a road, murdered by somebody crushing her. I’ve met and know her mother, Erin Runnion. There are very few experiences so strong that they carry from one person to another but that’s what it’s like when you meet a parent who has had this happen. I don’t need to have a child taken, assaulted and murdered to know what it might be like for a parent to go through. Just one look in Erin’s eyes while she talks, about anything, and you know.

I don’t cry because I knew Samantha, she was gone before I got a chance to meet her. I cry because it doesn’t take losing a child myself to see what the loss might be like, and no matter how hard we all work, it never seems to be enough. But, I’ll always keep trying and always be hopeful.

Right now, there is a bill about to be killed in Senate that helps try to protect kids. On the anniversary of Samantha’s death, this is what her mother was working on. If you are visiting my blog today, please help. You can find out details here.

Smart Is The New Sexy

I’ve always believed that it’s hot to be smart and sexy to use your brain, that a woman can be girly and stylish and wicked intelligent, driven and successful. It’s exactly what I’ve hoped to be. I spoke at South by South West (SXSW) in gold Marc by Marc Jacobs boots and have taken VC meetings in Prada, but I’m also the first to argue my stance in IP convergence, what I think networks are doing wrong and my vision for the future of media. Girls in our country today are so lucky that they can finally be both, because after spending time with great achievers from past generations, I’ve learned that there were times when that wasn’t the case. To me, people like Paris Hilton and the sort of aspiring-to-be status types always about money, how cool/connected they are and signature poses are fine if that’s what somebody wants to be, because there’s room for everybody. But, I don’t think that they are the only example of what women in our country are or can become in any way. In fact, I don’t know any women who aspire to be the “Paris Hilton” of anything, but I do know tons who want to build empires, make change, etc, and keep it classy. That’s the kind of women that inspire me.

I was thinking about this today because two really dear friends of mine, smart, beautiful and very intelligent women, got moving on start ups this week. The first is Melanie Notkin, of SavvyAuntie.com, and Paige Rolfe, of Wardrobe Wire. Congrats to both!! Smart is totally the new sexy.