Ask Allese from Wesabe a question (Women of Personal Finance Spotlight)

[Linsey Knerl]

I just wanted to pop in and say what a great job you are doing! I started visiting Wesabe after meeting you at the BlogHer conference, and am so glad that I checked it out!

I love the tips you just gave to Bluedevils89 about landing the gig. I have snagged so many great paying opportunities by FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS! As a freelancer, it's not unheard of for thousands of writers to apply for the same opportunity. I have been told by my clients that following guidelines carefully is the best way to stick out in the crowd -- and it's been my #1 guaranteed tactic for staying competitive.

Your other ideas are spot-on. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences in this forum!

Linsey Knerl
Wise Bread

[Allese Thomson]

Hey Arcadian,

Thanks for stopping by and checking me out!

Good question, my answer, do women and med ask different kinds of questions on Wesabe, a definite nope. Despite our cultures archaic gender stereotypes surrounding finance, I can assure you that as far as I've seen in the Wesabe Community, money is gender neutral area.

That said, from what I can see the individuals in the Wesabe Community are there for a few reasons:

(1) They need help or desire a better relationship with money
(2) There about to go through a major life change, like buying a house, having a baby, graduating from college and need to save up or get the 411 on finance
(3) They have been blessed by the Personal Finance Gods and can give pretty damn good advice and are quite generous with it.

Often the people in category one and two become people in category three. I think this is pretty amazing. But gender wise, I'd say we're split pretty evenly. Then again, Wesabe is anal about security and privacy, so every one is completely anonymous. Unless they choose to reveal their gender... we have no clue!

I am curious... why do you ask???

[Allese Thomson]

Originally Posted by Jason White

Hi Allese! I'm a big fan of what Wesabe is doing, and this is a great opportunity to get to know one of the "people behind the curtain."

Question for you:

You gave some great advice to Debt Kid (and others) on finding a good place to intern, how to get on at a start-up, the difference in corporate blogging vs personal blogging, etc. To expand on these ideas--how would you recommend someone transfer blogging as a freelancer to landing a gig writing for a corporate blog? "Corporate blogger" is not exactly a leading job listing, so these types of opportunities are tough to find. I'm surprised more companies are not using blogs to add to their corporate presence and generate more buzz in their particular niche.

Look forward to your answer. Thanks for sharing your thoughts here at Wise Bread!

Jason

Hey Jason,

Thanks so much for your post. And thank you for your compliment! Your question was one I had to sit and think about for a while! Here's what I got...

1. From what I have seen, any type of online company is insanely interested in bloggers. Why? Because this is the wild world of web where bloggers are the journalists and web companies want to be remembered, noted and seen in their stories. Thus, if your a blogger, you're a valuable resource to the corporations in your niche. (From what I have seen non-web based corporations are joining this trend, banks and grocery stores alike all seem to sprouting blogs).

2. Niche jobs like this often are the result of building relationships. Thus, if you're blogging start mentioning companies you admire in your niche, write about them and let them know you're a fan. Start to build the foundation of a relationship.

3. Begin contacting them. If they don't have a blog, why not suggest the idea, in a well written, thoughtful email. In my slim experience with corporate blogs, usually companies either pay for bloggers to ghostwrite their blogs or have different people on staff post regularly. (This is my experience, I do a lot of other marketing related stuff at Wesabe besides Community management and blog writing).

4. Be patient. I chatted with my boss about this and we don't any people that have the sole title as "blogger" for a major corporation. Usually, there people pulled from marketing/copy writing. This is in no way to suggest they don't exist, I am sure they do, they're just not that prevalent. If you really want this, I would suggest looking at online marketing jobs, social media or something like that.

5. I talked about this one above but again, start ups are a good way to go. There, you have the chance to create, develop and make "corporate blogger" into a job!

So what do you think? It seems like you've thought about this, what are your thoughts?

[Lynn]

Hi Allese,

When we talked at Blogher you mentioned that you are also interested in writing about women-specific issues relating to beauty and body image. Can you tell us a little bit more about why you are so interested in such topics and point us to your writings on the subject?

[Julie Rains]

Hi Allese and thanks for joining us here,
What have been the most popular and most controversial topics at Wesabe?

[Allese Thomson]

Hey Lynn-

Thanks so much for your question; women’s issues are an area of great passion for me. After a brief stint in the modeling industry, I became quite angry with the distorted and harmful portrayal of women in mainstream media and the affects it has on girls and women. I decided to go back to school and study the history of images, focusing on the evolution of the female image, and it’s political, economic and cultural impact on history and contemporary society.

It’s easy to glance at magazines and jump on the “real women don’t look like that” bandwagon (very few women are, thank god, that thin) and agree that the portrayal of women in the media is hyper-sexualized and overtly materialistic. However, I don’t think people consider how deeply these images impact not only our social psyche but also the self-conception of girls and women. To illustrate my point, consider these:

- A google images search for Tom Ford Advertisements, brought up a whole slew of perfume adds, the bottle nestled between the most erotic places of tanned, thin body.
o http://images.google.com/images?q=tom%20ford%20advertisements&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

- A google image search for Marc Jacob’s Victoria Beckham Advertisements. Miss. Beckham finds her identity and self, literally within a shopping bag and box.
o http://images.google.com/images?um=1...=Search+Images

- This one, Eva Longoria, for Bebe Sport Advertisements, was blown up all over San Francisco billboards. Ride bikes girls, be athletic, but make sure your is hair styled, make up done and of course, that you’re thin, thin, thin. What’s a bike ride without the sex pot clothes!
o http://lh4.ggpht.com/lilaliss/R8stZu...be_sport07.jpg
• Oh and ladies, when your blazing down those trails be sure to send sultry gazes as you pass your fellow bikers.

- Magazine covers. These are recipes for insecurities, consistently telling women they aren’t beautiful, in shape, confident, fashionable etc… but if they buy this magazine, they can find out how to be all that and more. Sadly, often the choice popular literature among teenage girls.
o http://www.jessicaalbamm.org/movies/...o-August07.jpg
Or check out this google image search for Cosmopolitan Covers: http://images.google.com/images?um=1...=Search+Images
o According to Cosmo women today are interested in (I am highlighting a few lines):
• “Completing his sex fantasy.” Cosmo wants to teach you to do what “no other woman had the nerve to do!” And guess what?! “You’ll go totally nuts when you do it!”
• Becoming gorgeous. Evidently, you’re not already! You need to look just like this airbrushed model!
• Female humor today. “My boyfriend didn’t change his boxers for three months! More hysterical confessions inside!” Our jokes aren’t even about us! Let’s read more about how women build their lives around men.
• “Feel sex more intensely”
• “A new date rape you must know about!” Hey, girls while your figuring out how to be sex kitten, make sure your safe! Sometimes, bad things happen. Be prepared.

Ok. This is getting really long. But perhaps you get my point now. Our culture is absolutely saturated in images, images that popularize the concept that a woman is predominantly how she looks, what she wears, her sexuality, her body etc. These messages are so entrenched, that they’ve become subliminal. I find it scary that I can glance at an ad like this, http://www.bartender.com/2calendar/cal-2006/ad0206.JPG without a second thought. What’s more destructive ads like this, is that there not really selling a product, they’re selling an emotion; if you buy these jeans, you will feel confident, if you drink this vodka, men will think you’re beautiful, if you wear buy this purse, wear these shoes, you will be happy and fulfilled. Authentic emotions, like love, fulfillment and confidence become entwined in these unrealistic portrayals of women. Thus, if you’re beautiful, you must be happy and loved, if you’re fashionable, you must be successful and empowered.

Of course, being assertive, intelligent, and successful is also quite important in today’s culture. However, if and when advertisements/mainstream media popularize these qualities, beauty, fashion and sexuality are assumed to be part of this package. Consider the characters in Sex and the City, they’re all supposedly independent, confident, successful women, but we know way more about their shoes than we do about their professions.

All this said, I still enjoy fashion, wearing make up and looking nice. However, it’s a slippery slope between enjoying and literally being product of this. I started a blog a month or so ago, though have not posted recently, called Behind The Make Up, www.behindthemakeup.com, where I wanted to investigate this slope. I hope to have it up and running in the next few weeks!

[Allese Thomson]

Originally Posted by bluedevils89

Hey Allese thanks for answering our questions.

A lot of my friends had horrible experiences with their internships. Most of them were treated like slave labor and learned little from their experience. Do you have any tips for people looking to get the most of our their internships? How did you get Wesabe to give you so much responsibility?

Originally Posted by Julie Rains

Hi Allese and thanks for joining us here,
What have been the most popular and most controversial topics at Wesabe?

Hey Julie,

Thanks for your message and great question!

A lot of discussions at Wesabe begin with a clear question, "I need help with x" or "I am doing y, what are my options?", or "I know this about z, what do you guys think?", these discussions generally come slow down after enough people provide answers that satisfy the question. Often, they'll be quiet for a while and then someone will provide a new slant on the subject or ask related question and then they take off again.

Our most popular topics that persist and persist are the one's that ask comparative questions, like "How much do you spend on groceries per month?" or "How much debt do you have and how fast are you paying it off?" (this one started a few months ago and has had over 170 replies, it's still going strong).

Lifestyle questions, "to join a gym or not", "organic vs. conventional produce", have a lot of longevity, as there are a lot of answers, a lot opinions, and these flutuate alot.

Anytime anyone gives a wrong piece of information, people are immediately ready to tell them how it really is, right away.

As for controversial. There has been some interesting discussions about religion and finance, "What to do with God's money?" or this one, where Muslims and Christians found common ground.

I'd say when finance turns to values or when the "non-necessity" spending comes up, things can get more heated. For example, one person may value dropping a lot of money on iphone, another sees that as ridiculous. Usually, people are quite supportive though. The more frugal people may get up in arms about others being comfortable with their level of spending or debt but for the most part, people are quite understanding about different values/lifestyles.

What do you guys find in the Wisebread Community??

[Julie Rains]

Originally Posted by Allese Thomson

Hey Julie,


What do you guys find in the Wisebread Community??

re: popular and controversial topics.

You know I read the forums and posts but I can't say what is the most popular, though how to deal with everyday spending issues is definitely more popular than investing. Speaking of iPhones, Paul did a post on that with similar discussion on necessity/usefulness vs. luxury. My most controversial topic seems to have been the HELOC programs that charge $3500 to help you pay off your mortgage debt early.

[ALICIA21]

Originally Posted by bluedevils89

Hey Allese thanks for answering our questions.

A lot of my friends had horrible experiences with their internships. Most of them were treated like slave labor and learned little from their experience. Do you have any tips for people looking to get the most of our their internships? How did you get Wesabe to give you so much responsibility?

great question. thanks for asking