Innovation Women Newsletter #562

May 8, 2026

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THE LAZY SUSAN OF CHAOS

Hi ala,

Thursday morning I got a picture and message from my friend (and awesome speaker) Meghan Gardner. The gist? She organized her tea drawer.

And she sent a picture. The picture showed a beautifully organized drawer with 49 identical boxes, all neatly labeled and alphabetized: from Blue Butterfly to White Tea. Ohhhhh...pretty.

Meanwhile, I have the lazy Susan of hot beverage chaos, a jumble of boxes stored in a dark corner of my kitchen.

It's easy to beat yourself up when someone presents you with a pristine outcome. Why don't I have a tea drawer AND a tea cabinet like Meghan?

Well, for one thing I am primarily a consumer of bean water and not leaf water. For another, I can live vicariously through my friends. Meghan's organizing and beautiful array of teas make her feel warm and fuzzy, and seeing the pictures gave me a smile.

And, if you're a speaker, watching other speakers with fancy sizzle reels, websites, and one sheets, feeling down, please don't. These things take time. You're growing as a speaker. You're adding items to your cabinet (or drawer).

Yes, working with us helps you grow your speaking business or career. And, being a Speaker Friend allows you to live vicariously through your friends who are a little bit ahead of you in one area or another.

Bobbie and the entire Innovation Women team

P.S. Sign up today for our special Speaker Friend-a-thon!

MAY 29 SPEAKER FRIEND-A-THON

Join us for a special 11th Anniversary event - 11 hours of Speaker Friends! We're hitting all the time zones we can!

On Friday, May 29th, 2026, we'll be holding our first-ever Speaker Friend-a-thon, an 11-hour live Zoom experience from 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM ET. It’s designed to bring our global community together for connection, collaboration and a whole lot of speaker support. (Bobbie’s note: And FUN! Don’t forget fun!) 

We’ll be talking about things like speaker compensation, building a speaking business, pricing, sizzle reels, authorship and more.  Everything related to public speaking! RSVP now!

EVENT MANAGER OR EXPERT?

SPEAKER FRIEND FRIDAYS

All are welcome!

Join us today (and every Friday) at 8:45 am ET for Speaker Friend Fridays on Zoom. You can also join us for West Coast Friendly Speaker Friends on the first Friday and third Friday of each month at noon ET/9:00 am PT. Click the links below to RSVP and add the recurring links to your calendar. (Everyone is welcome at these events. Bring a friend, even if they aren't a member.) Event organizers? You're welcome too!

MY SPEAKER LEADS IS OPEN!

My Speaker Leads is open for business again! (It has been running a waiting list for the last two years.) What is My Speaker Leads? My Speaker Leads saves professional speakers time and effort by providing a weekly list of leads most likely to convert to paid public speaking opportunities. Sign up today for 200-400 speaking leads every month. 

GET MORE SPEAKING OPPORTUNITIES

We’re here to help you find EVEN MORE speaking opportunities.

Join Innovation Women founder and Speaker Friend Fridays host Bobbie Carlton, an industry veteran who has spent decades getting executives and experts onto high-visibility stages. You’ll get insider secrets and insights you can use immediately.

You know how speaking can drive business growth and dramatically boost your professional visibility, but do you know:

• What event managers, podcast hosts, and media are really looking for in speakers?
• How Innovation Women connects women and other underrepresented voices with speaking opportunities of all kinds?
• Ways you can uncover opportunities most others miss?

Plus, you’ll get a live tour of the Innovation Women speaking opportunity database, a look at our educational resources, and an introduction to our supportive online community. Where other organizations stop short of delivering the real goods, Innovation Women always gives you the inside scoop.

Please join us: Tuesday May 12 at 2:00 pm ET

UPCOMING INNOVATION WOMEN WEBINAR

How to Translate Complex Messages to Land with Any Audience 

Featuring Sal Kimmich

May 20, 2026, 12:00 - 1:00 pm ET

Most experts are terrible at explaining what they do. Not because they do not know enough, but because they know too much. The jargon, the assumptions, the shorthand that makes perfect sense inside their field becomes a wall between them and every audience outside it.

Sal Kimmich writes and speaks about AI governance, semiconductor policy, and cybersecurity for a living. Their book Code, Chips and Control covers topics that could not sound less accessible: kernel-level security, hardware supply chains, hypervisors, space systems. It has been read by diplomats, policymakers, developers, and people who had never heard the word "kernel" before they picked it up. Getting there required learning three things that no technical training programme teaches: how to strip jargon without dumbing your idea down, how to find the story living inside any technical topic, and how to build a structure that lets a mixed audience follow you all the way to the end.

You will leave with a practical framework for taking your most complex idea and making it land with an audience that does not share your background, whether that is a boardroom, a conference stage, a podcast, or a book.

LIONESS MAGAZINE FEATURES

Lioness for the Female Entrepreneur is our digital magazine for women who are starting (or thinking about starting) companies. Get the latest news, tools and resources to launch and scale startups. This week you can read great articles like: