A while ago I blogged about how we, women, have a long way to go before reaching the top of the career ladder to the same extent as men. That blog post was inspired by a talk Sheryl Sandberg gave at TED (if you haven’t seen it yet, please do it now!), which really moved me and I immediately purchased Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead on my Kindle. Now that I have read it I want to show you what I found most interesting.

Let’s give you some facts first as presented in the book:

• Only 17 of the 195 independent countries in the world are led by women.
• Women hold only 20% of seats in parliaments globally.
• A meager 4% of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women.
• In the US women hold ca. 14% of executive officer positions and 17% of board seats; in the UK – 7% of executive directorships and 15% of board seats among the FTSE 100 companies, but only 5% of executive directorships and 9% of board seats among the FTSE 250.
• In the UK women working full-time are still paid an average 15% less per hour than men.
• According to a 2011 McKinsey report men are promoted based on potential, while women are promoted based on past accomplishments.

I’m sure you already know what a big fan of Pinterest I am – I pin like crazy; it’s such an addiction, once I start pinning, I can’t stop! I guess this is the case with a lot of Pinterest users, which is in my opinion the main reason for the extremely rapid growth of the platform - it is still the fastest growing social network ever and has currently 70 million users around the globe. The platform's visual appeal has also proved quite the effective marketing and promotion tool for brands.

As my colleague Patrik from Brandzeichen and I explored recently in a new blog post, the majority of Pinterest users are women. Therefore it’s no surprise that some of the most popular boards and pins are focused around the topics of fashion and beauty. Many major brands from these industries quickly recognised the potentials of Pinterest to engage with their audiences and have jumped on pinning. And they have seen some remarkable results, even such that this online activity has helped them improve their offline efforts.

A great example here that inspired this blog post is Nordstrom.

It’s no surprise how strongly the Internet has invaded our daily lives – personal and professional. I, for one, am extremely active on multiple platforms at the same time and constantly available online thanks to my Samsung Galaxy S4. But, as it turns out, I am not alone with such an always-on addiction. Qmee and mycleveragency have found exactly what happens online in an average minute – you might be shocked!

Did you know that every 60 seconds there are:

• 1.8 million likes and 41 thousand posts on Facebook;
• 204 million emails;
• 278 thousands tweets;
• 72 hours of YouTube videos uploaded;
• 20 thousand new Tumblr photos;
• 3600 new Instagram photos;
• 347 new blog posts?

What does this all mean?

A recent Forrester research yet again confirms how people demand a lot more from brands than just their products or services; they demand a corporate consciousness. Not only that, individuals today have the means to express their voices openly, freely and virtually with anyone around the globe – a shift in power distribution encouraged by the rise of social media. This, in turn, has severely complicated the job of communicators and marketers to successfully win the hearts and minds of today’s consumers.

According to the research, it is trust, not buzz that builds brand resonance. This means that if organisations want to build a strong and sustainable brand, it is critical for them to first earn the trust of their customers by meeting their growing expectations . But, as we’ve seen in the 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer and 2013 Ketchum Leadership Communication Monitor, trust in companies and their leaders is not really on the rise, but quite the opposite...

So then, what does the brand of the future is supposed to look like?

Lately women, leadership and career has been a growing topic of interest and media coverage, especially promoted by Facebook COO’s Sheryl Sandberg’s bestselling and eye-opening book Lean In (which I wholeheartedly recommend and will blog about it very soon).

Unfortunately, women have a long way to go until gender inequality, pay gaps and stereotypes are solved (if ever!) and until it becomes normal for the C-Suite to be 50% female.

But, as research suggests, we are making progress – especially women in Germany (where I live) and in communications (the field I work in and want to make a career in).

The PR industry has traditionally been dominated by women; however mainly so at the lower executive or mid-level. When it comes to the managerial and the C-level though, the majority of the top positions are predominantly held by men. A study on the feminisation of PR in Germany just confirms this. As the research has found, women:

• consistently earn less than men regardless of their level of education and years of work experience;
• face much stronger salary discrimination when deciding to start a family;
• receive less recognition for their performance;