Yesterday, Susan Fox of 24/7 Moms suggested in an inspirational post that as Mums, we should start with the end in mind and define a “Mom Mission Statement”.

Defining a Mission Statement might sound as something formalistic that only organizations do.

But I agree that it is a good idea. A good mission statement indicates what the purpose of the organization is. Parenting and family life easily slips into an endless, daily routine full of endless activities, where we easily lose direction and keep pushing really important things out, as we focus on firefighting the urgencies that keep coming our way. Making a Mission Statement is of course nothing more complicated than stopping and thinking about what the long term goals are  our purpose as Mums, and as a family. The mere process of doing so gives perspective and valuable pointers at every cross-roads for which direction we should take.

A Mission Statement for Motherhood requires that we ask ourselves what the goal of parenting and of having a family really is.

Susan concludes that her Mom Mission is that she wants her children to succeed in school, to learn to read and study. She wants them to learn to handle their finances when they are older, learn to consider others before themselves and to have a sense of gratitude. To make friends, eat healthy and play sports; to learn that saying “sorry” leads to lasting relationships. To cook for themselves, to do laundry and clean a bathroom. She wonders if her goals for her son should be the same as for her daughter.  She breaks down her questions into categories: Academic, spiritual goals, life skills, friendship  and family fun goals.

I think Susan is off to a great start. What my child should take with her into adulthood is of course an essential part of what I like to achieve as a Mum and I can subscribe to most goals on Susan’s list. And if I had a son, I would certainly not leave out the cooking and the laundry skills!

But when I keep on thinking, I conclude that I am more on a Family Mission than a Mum Mission.

My Mission Statement would be about all the people in the family — thus also about the goals for Mum and Dad as a persons in their own right, and these cannot be seen separately from what the kids should learn or do.

The dynamics and interaction between all family members would also stand central in my Mission Statement — how we share responsibilities, share benefits and how we communicate with each other. How we balance the time, energy and money we spend on activities inside and outside the family.

I would also not leave out how we, as a family, relate to the world around us. How ‘green’ we should aim to be, and how we should view our responsibilities vis-a-vis people around us.

And finally — I would like to emphasise the value of living together in the moment — not only getting somewhere.

Seems I have to have a good chat to my husband and my daughter before I dig any deeper into this!

Thus — to be continued.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by multi-venture entrepreneur and Damir Perge for an article for an online community for entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurdex, where entrepreneurs can learn, share, socialize, connect and conduct business (and have fun!).

Once again thanks Damir for wanting to tell my story — or rather, that of the MummyMug!

It turned out a real cool discussion on the pleasures and challenges of entrepreneurship, product development and life in general. I am surely curious to see what Damir will make out of it.

Let me simply share one quote of Damir’s, which truly flattered me, especially coming from an accomplished product designer such as him:

‘The MummyMug is truly beautiful — the Maserati of Coffee Mugs!”

Now, who would not be happy with that?!

Especially if you consider that ‘Craftsmanship, class-leading performance and a love of engineering finesse: this is the combination of values behind the Maserati legend.’ Even to be mentioned in the same sentence is thus an honour.

However, as the margin on the MummyMug will be just a tiny bit less than the margin on a Maserati .….……

.…… I must admit that I do hope that the nominal annual sales volume of the MummyMug will be somewhat bigger than that of this beautiful car!.

Photo source: Press Pack AutoRai2007

I’m very proud: today, the MummyMug is featured in Collezioni 03 Baby, a stylish, glossy Italian magazine and catalogue for baby fashion and parenting essentials.

Absolutely gorgeous photography, fantastic presentation of fashion and accessories for the 2010 Spring and Summer season.

Certainly worth an on-screen flick-through!

In a special section, the MummyMug is presented among other cool products and a fundamental detail for the smart Mums.

‘Home at last! And time to relax with a cup of coffee. MummyMug comes to the rescue, a mug with a special lid, spill proof, to avoid any little accidents. Mum can sip at will, leaving a safety valve to do the rest… because mums also deserves a moment’s peace and calm.…

… or otherwise expressed, sounding even better in Italian:

.. anche le mamme meritano un attimo di serenita tutto per se!

In the last couple of weeks, I have had the privilege of being featured on three online platforms for women — for Mums, for female entrepreneurs and for those who count themselves in both categories.

I was featured with a Mumpreneur Profile on Antonia Chitty’s FamilyFriendlyWorking website.….

.… m y sto ry was presented in a great blog post on MumsLikeYou last Friday (6,000+ users and 40,000 — 60,000 monthly hits).…..

.….and I was presented as the Member of the Week of the booming network driftig.nu for female Swedish entrepreneurs, with 6,000+ members and a real treasure of encouragement and inspiring advice.

Of course great exposure for me and the MummyMug to a revelant audience within networks much bigger than my own. The features generated about 500 visits to this site and many interesting comments and new leads to help me build my business.

I can only say — thank you! And I herewith return the favor. Please visit the sites above. You’ll not regret it.

Of course it did not happen by itself. Yep, I did make the first cold call contact with the women behind these sights and I simply asked for the possiblity of being featured. They were all quick with feedback, generous with their time and with their support in terms of lending me access to their platforms.

This is Online Sisterhood in action. The more I explore the online communities for women, by women, I see example after example of women investing their time and energy in unselfishly helping some other woman to find advice, to connect, to build their business, find online friends or a great buy. And, as study after study on the tremendous online engagement of women, this engagement is creating real and mutual value; for women personally, and for their businesses.

Isn’t it funny that we women, who often in the ‘offline’ world are known for the absolute opposite to the generosity to each other and without willingness to help each other further on the career ladder, are engaging so generously, and at such a massive scale to complete strangers online? Perhaps is easier for us women to show this generosity to each other when we are meeting in the virtual world, free from the inherent competition that occurs when women work or live side by side offline. What do you think?

Whatever the reason: online, it’s a brave new women’s world.

After a few months of blogging and diving into the online Mum community, I am more convinced than ever that the MummyMug should be brought to market together with other online Mums.

Mums who are already in the game for a while; established as bloggers and perhaps have a professional background in marketing.

Mumpreneurs, who obviously would be sharing in the financial success they will hopefully help create, by blogging and promoting the MummyMug to mums.

But who also would listen and crowdsource  ideas for what the MummyMug should evolve into, and feed that information back so I can tune the product and the brand into the real needs of the Mums using it.

Thus something going way beyond classic affiliate marketing. Something really riding the social media wave!

So — are you the MummyMug Mum I am looking for? Then I can’t wait to hear from you ( cecilia@mummymug.com ) . Together we can put the magic into the MummyMug brand!

Found on MillionaireMom. By Grasshopper. 300,000 plus viewers, and counting!

One of the main reasons many Mums start a business is to be more flexible in combining family and a career.

For me, who used to be a civil servant in the European Commission, starting my own business has not exactly lowered the amount of hours that I work.

But it as certainly made it much, much more flexible and I am truly grateful for the benefits it has had for the way I can more easily be there my daughter: I decide when and where I work, I try to combine work travel to partners in Sweden with private visits to my family and I can shift meetings around to make sure I can also take Eleonore to her playdates and ballet lessons. I work from wherever I happen to be and a lot on-the-go via my mobile phone.

Many Work At Home Mums deliberately choose a home office to make this run as smoothly as possible. Of course it is possible to set that up in a good and effective way. It is all about boundaries, as The Mom Coach rightly points out in a recent blog post on how to combine the best of being at home with the best of being a serious entrepreneur. She makes it work by for example deciding up front what the working hours will be and making a clear work plan for the week and for the day — and sticking to it! However: when work is over, it is over, and then the focus should be on the family and household tasks. Having a designated office in the home, with a door, and equipped with a “Do not Disturb” sign is another of her tips, as is taking scheduled personal breaks; for lunch, exercise or just plain relaxing.

All good tips!

But for me, that was not an option: I find it way too difficult to stay focused at home, and first and foremost, I dread the isolation that comes with not getting out of the house and ‘going to the office’.

The solution for me has been to rent affordable and flexible work space in an incubator; the Womens Business Initiative in The Hague. The building we have is quite impressive, complete with good meeting room facilities and private office space. The Women’s Business Initiative was started by Suzy Oge, who thought there was about time that entrepreneurial women in The Hague got a creative and supportive platform to  build their business from. I have one desk and some

storage and share an office with a Nikolet, who is a laywer specialising in contract law for biotechnology, and with with Karen, who runs the safari tour operator Wild Times. Quite inspiring to see her desk overflowing with brochures from safari parks and exclusive lodges in Tanzania, Kenya and India. You bet I’ll buy a trip from her when I get my first dividends from MummyMug ;-)

What works for you? Working from home or is a business environment important also to you as an entrepreneur? Where have you in that case based your business?

Are you an aspiring (Mum)blogger but not sure where to start and how it is done?

I’ve got a good tip for you. Being a beginner myself, I have signed up for the Mum-bloggers E-course, run by Erica from LittleMummy.

Divided into three courses of 10 weeks each (Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced) she takes you step by step through the basics, such as starting a blog, posts and pages and commenting etiquette, basic SEO, joining groups and reviews and competitions — and more. She tells me that the Intermediate and Advanced courses will cover  Slideshows, video, analysing blog data, podcasting, monetizing, Email list building, newsletters .… and finally e-courses and ebooks, so you can end up knowing how to share your knowledge as well!

I am about two thirds through the Beginner’s level. the obvious plus-points is that for free, it is informative and — it is extensive.

What I most like is its structure and careful avoidance of information overload. Thanks to the weekly pace, you actually not get more information than you can digest during the startup of a blog.  I see the E-course email in my inbox, it takes no more than 15 minutes to internalise what it says. Because it is not more information than I can digest, the message actually sticks.And I am encouraged to apply and try what she is talking about.

Also, Erica’s style is to the point, informed and has a friendly tone.

So, thumbs up for Erica — and wishing all you prospective bloggers out there some happy reading!

I guess most of us have a double feeling about New Year’s Resolutions. Normally they turn into a bad conscience than an achieved goal. And instead of taking us forward,  they make us feel like losers who are so pathetic, we can’t even keep promises to ourself.

Shona  Partridge from Women Mean Business is saying: ditch the New Year’s resolutions! But nevetheless take stock of where you are and take this opportunity to look forward. I  particularly like her tip to concentrate on one or two life areas each quarter of the year. Consider your health, fitness, finances, career, home life, relationships and personal dreams — but not all at the same time! Start with the one that would make the biggest difference in your life and start there.

Whatever one likes to call them — goals, resolutions, ideas.…. I believe that taking stock of where one is, and charting a way forward is useful, and why not do it at the beginning of a new year? When something is outspoken, it becomes more real.  And if it is sincerely meant, just thinking it it will affect you.

So here are some of the inspirational New Year’s resolutions I have harvested from the online community of Mums I’m following:

Antonia Chitty, an inspiring and established UK Mumpreneur with several useful blogs such as FamilyFriendlyWorking did a mini-survey and got inspiring feedback from women woving to create visible results and more sales in 2010, to have time for themselves as well as their busines and to prevent that the business adventure makes the family struggle for money. But my favourite one from this one is: I’m going to work smarter, not harder!

Frumpy Mom is determined to set useful goals that se can acutally meet. Such as making the kids clean up their rooms every day instead of waiting until they look like Tokyo after it was devastated by Godzilla. And to stop asking stupid questions, i.e. “Did you brush your teeth?” and instead issue commands. “Brush your teeth.” The one I think I will also put on my list is however “Keep a stash of chocolate hidden from my children for emergency anti-stress application”. Which however is in strong competition with the one “To never, ever take my children into a grocery store again, unless they are 35 years old and spending their own money”.

Katherine from One Working Woman’s blog has an interesting perspective: make a family resolution, such as going more green, eat together regularly or come up with new ways to speed up morning routines. As she points out, a big bonus to family resolutions: When you do it together, you’re more likely to keep each other on track!

Lisa Ciani goes for mommy resolutions. Actually, without thinking of them as resolutions at all — just a way to reaffirm the type of mother she strives to be. More patient; not taking her stress out on the family. Less distracted and actually paying attention to what is going on — which means prioritize and plan.  And here is my favourite: “I’ll stop talking about how tired I am. Really, aren’t all moms tired? Sometimes I bore myself with my tales of woe about not getting enough sleep!”

Hi everyone! I hope you have had a relaxing and good Christmas break and feel refreshed and ready for the new year. I hope 2010 will bring you health, happiness and all other things you wish for yourself and your family.

I’m just back from a trip to Sweden, which combined nice relaxation with the family with useful meetings and contacts for MummyMug. Really looking forward to a new year, which will certainly bring lots of hard work but also a lot of fun, I am sure!

As one of my New Year’s resolutions is to start vlogging, I decided to start right away!