 It's The Cube, here is your host, Jeff Frick. Hi, Jeff Frick here. We're on the ground in Silicon Valley at the SAP Silicon Valley headquarters in Palo Alto, California. We're here for a very special event. It was the makers, women who make America, women in business preview. It's a movie, a documentary put on by KQED. We watched the movie. We had a great panel afterwards, about 200 people in the crowd, and I'm happy to have the panelists take a few minutes so we can kind of bring you, who weren't here, a little bit of the flavor of the action. So we're joined next by Ann Barlow, who's a partner at Peppercom, and also Watermark vice chair. Right. So welcome. Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. So what did you think of the panel? Well, first of all, the group of women I was with, not only on the panel, but really in the room. We're just really energetic, knowledgeable. It was great discussion. Yeah. And it was a good movie, too. We hadn't seen that movie, so we tweeted it out. Really some of the early pioneers, some of these women in advertising and Wall Street and some of the things we don't think about here in the West Coast. Finally, we had Sheryl Sandberg and some tech guy, Meg Whitman on there, and they're like, all right. Finally, so do the Valley Girl. But really some interesting strategies by those women in early days, kind of pre-entrepreneurial opportunities where they just either sucked it up and just out-tuffed them or said, forget it, I'm going to leave and do my own thing. Right. I don't know if they knew how brave they were at that time. And they're all older than I am, but maybe not a whole lot older. But they really did forge new paths. And I think they just felt as if they weren't going to be given what they deserved that they were going to find a way to get there. And really they made life a little easier, at least, for the women who followed them. They're amazing. And you made an interesting comment about your early days, your early career. And you said on Wall Street that you were given a job that you knew they gave you because they had to. So how did that make you feel? Did you feel like you had some responsibility to really do well at that position? You thought, well, this is kind of a screwy deal. I mean, what did you feel like in that situation? It was an interesting situation. I wanted to work on Wall Street, and I wanted to be a broker or trader. I thought that was really interesting. And so I started pursuing that as a career. And I was hired by a place that really I found out later was going to be in trouble if they didn't hire a woman. What I felt was, first of all, some sense of humor because they really didn't know what to do with me. And the other thing was that I did feel that I had to not only do as well as the other men, but I did feel like I had to do better than the men to prove myself. And how long did you stay in that career and why did you leave that industry? I stayed for three years. And then we moved to Toronto, and that was time for me to try something really that I had wanted to do all along, which was PR and marketing. I loved the job that I had. It wasn't because I didn't feel like I had a chance as a woman. It was really because I missed having a creative outlet. So another topic that we touched on on the panel and comes up a lot is kind of this idea of sponsorship. Sponsorship, mentors, and then you added another word that doesn't get often put in the mix. It's a prodigy. Explain what that means when you say that and how you see those roles and the importance of those roles and kind of the management of executing those roles. Sure. So my volunteer job is the vice chair of Watermark, which is for executive women and emerging executive women. And Watermark has a program called Patrons and Protoges. And what that is really about is helping women who are earlier in their career to advance. But one of the things that we learned is that it's not just having women as mentors and people to emulate, but really where we can make a difference is when men get involved. And it's been remarkable not just for the women, but for the men as well. And what are the exchanges? What's the real kind of meat of the value that happens in those types of programs and specific things that they're either learning, taking up, or when they graduate on or they take on that role that they look back and say, wow. This was really the moment. This was really the advice. This was what really helped me. Or is it such a big thing? Is it just more, you know, we meet once a month? We meet once a quarter? We have lunch or we get updated? Well, it's a very specific program. And both the patron and the protégé come together. They set goals. It's a lot about making connections. You know, so much in our career. Our careers are about making connections that can help us to do our jobs, to advance our careers. And men are really good at this. And women are still learning. So what the men who have been patrons have helped us do is really figure out how to do that. And they've opened doors. And didn't realize that the doors weren't necessarily open for the women who they were sponsoring until they went through the program. So that's really been one of the biggest things that women have learned. OK. So we're getting the hook here. Been a long evening, good evening. But you touched on one topic we got to get on, which is dress code. Dress code is I think it's really hard. I mean, it used to be just wore your suit. You know, you knew what you had to wear or you wore. And now people wear everything. We had meetings in New York with time. The only people that had a tie on were the NFL. No other people had a tie on. So what have I supposed to wear? You go to IBM and Raleigh Durham. And there's not a jacket for as far as you can see. So talk about the challenges of dress code and really kind of some strategies that young women and also young men should think about. Right. Or old women and old men. Yes, yes. I forgot about the thing that worked yesterday. So I think the reality is you do have to at least take into consideration the environment you're in. And I mean that both ways. If everyone else is in a suit and you show up in flip flops, it might be a problem. But so is the reverse of that. So you have to start there. And then the second thing is I do think it's important for all of us to think about, well, how am I showing up? And is that OK? There is an argument to be made that why should I care. It's really about me and who I am on the inside. But the truth is we are judged. The book is judged by its cover. So it matters. Think about it. And then find your own style within the context of where you are. Good advice. Great advice. All right, and thanks for stopping by. Ann Barlow, great to have you. Great panel. Thanks for participating. I'm Jeff Frick. You're watching The Cube. We are on the ground at the SAP Silicon Valley headquarters in Palo Alto. Thanks for watching.