You would think as a journalist that the transition to, or the addition of, blogging would come naturally to me.

But I need an event, a story, a person, an idea to inspire me. So I'm looking forward to being inspired by two days at the Marketing to Women conference next week at Chicago's Cultural Center. I will be live blogging throughout the conference so catch up with my thoughts on the speakers, ideas, and presentations.

You can also catch me on Twitter. Just click on the feed on this page. You can also search for #m2w to see what all of us are tweeting about.

I also will moderate a panel of top marketers from brands such as Frito-Lay, Shutterfly, and Office Max on the final day, April 30, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. I hope you'll join us as we talk about the freshest ideas in reaching the women's market

Watching Sarah Palin nail her speech earlier this week did nothing to change my personal feelings about her--and her politics. But watching her deliver a strong, powerful speech that energized the Republicans in St. Paul gave me much to worry about.

Palin wasn't just playing politics, she was playing branding--or her conservative Republican handlers were.

Her speech was a classic branding play. Here is a brand--call her Brand Palin--who was tarnished right out of the gate. It was easy a week ago to dismiss Palin as unqualified. It was easy to be snarky about her hair. It was easy to criticize her mothering skills. She reminded me of a brand that many of us love to hate--Wal-Mart. We like to be snarky about that brand too: it's too big, it's too brash, it's bad for the environment despite changing its lightbulbs, it's sold guns.

But we forget that there are lots of Wal-Mart moms out there. If we diss and dismiss Palin, we diss those women. Today, Palin and McCain are headed to suburban counties outside of big metro centers--including one in my backyard, Macomb County just north of Detroit. They are reaching out to women who do see themselves in Palin as hard as that is to believe.

They like her brand even if they don't necessarily like her politics. A good number of these women likely have political leanings that would compel them to vote Democrat. But they don't see themselves in the Obama-Biden brand. That brand is too highbrow, too classy. Obama-Biden isn't even Target; it's more of Whole Foods no matter Biden's working class background.

Palin makes them feel proud of who they are. They may not be the salmon hunting, pistol packing, basketball shooting women--as Cindy McCain so proudly pointed out about Palin. But they do like that she tells jokes about being a hockey mom. They are hockey moms--particularly the women of Macomb county who probably can find Red Wings branded merchandise somewhere in their house. Hockey moms are a tougher breed than the old soccer moms. Palin makes them feel good about being one. I'm just waiting for hair salons to receive requests for the "Palin" up-do. That's not being snarky. These women want to identify with someone and Palin gives them a brand that they can wear comfortably--all the way up from her new suits to her hair.

And what of her family? She embraced them, showing off all of them to the world. Just like a good marketer facing crisis she turned her negatives into positives. She was proud of them, all of them. That was a star turn of branding. Of course, now she can't complain when someone wants to question issues surrounding her family. She used them to her advantage. She'll have to learn what marketers often have learned the hard way--when you embrace your faults others will nail you for them. It's not nice, it's not fair, but it's reality. It's politics.

Since I posted my blog on Sarah Palin yesterday, I have had a number of colleagues and friends email me about my opinion. There was the expected, "right on, you nailed it." But the more illuminating have been the conversations with those who tell me I'm so, so, so wrong.

They point out that Barack Obama is equally unqualified for the presidency as Palin. Others are parsing Obama's qualifications against Palin. I'll leave my comments on that for a later blog.

But what these conversations have made me ponder is this: will we choose our president the way we choose our brand of cars, stores we shop at, clothes we where? Are we Target or Wal-Mart? Are we Chevys or Toyotas? Will we choose our president because we see ourselves in them? Do we, in fact, need to see the candidate in the mirror?

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My first reaction to John McCain's vice presidential pick was: slam dunk.
Why? Because I've been saying for weeks that both candidates have to win over white suburban women--and not only the women who are Hillary Clinton supporters. Sarah Palin is the kind of women other women can like--especially married women with children who are social conservatives. Obama doesn't appeal to these women. Nor does his wife Michelle. She's too poised while Palin is pretty and approachable. I don't actually think Hillary appealed to these women either. So McCain, I thought, had seen the need to reach out these women...

But as the news sinks in of Palin's overnight rise to vice presidential nominee, I find myself insulted. Insulted and disrespected and angry. I think every women in America should feel the same way.

McCain's decision reminds me of marketers who think if they put a woman in their ads, paint their products a pretty color, and tell us they are thinking of us that we will buy whatever they are selling.

Many marketers have grown up since then. John McCain, the marketer and politician, still has a lot to learn. Women aren't a single, homogenous market who will be wowed by the simple choice of a woman being on the ticket.

But McCain seems to think that choosing a woman, any woman, is enough. He doesn't realize that choosing this woman--so inexperienced that it's frightening to think of her as the person a heartbeat away from the presidency--could be and should be viewed as condescending and patronizing. I hope he learns the same lesson as those marketers who wonder why we don't buy their products. It's because their ads don't work. We don't like the colors they pick. We won't stand for being patted on the head and told: "see I was thinking of you."

I would have applauded McCain for picking a woman--but out of all the women in the Republican Party--this was his best choice? I think all women should be asking themselves just what was McCain thinking, but most of all I think Republican women should be asking this:
Is this the best you could do, Mr. McCain?

Two weeks ago on May 8, I gave a speech on the global power of the purse at the Marketing to Women conference in Chicago. From what I could tell from questions from the audience, discussions afterward and the applause (thank you), it was a success. But what continues to surprise me are the frank discussions I have with women who listened to my speech and then said: I never thought of women and economics that way.

What way? I often ask. The way, they say, in which education, money, and economic independence have made us what we are today. Too often as American women, we take for granted all those foundational elements--education, the right to vote, access to capital, the right to own a business--which have made us powerful consumers, powerful voting blocks, and powerful in the country's economy. It isn't until they listen to what is happening to women in other countries that they begin to see the power of what we have in American society today--and that power isn't just about what we can buy. Indeed it is far more about what we can produce from the education that we receive.

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This week I'll be presenting at the Marketing to Women conference in Chicago and listening intently to my fellow presenters about the new tactics and strategies to reach women consumers. I'll be blogging from the conference on Thursday, May 8.

For this blog, I'll be taking yet another look at a country where women are increasingly important to their country's economy. India--soon to be the world's largest country--has boomed along with its Asian neighbor, China. And like China, its women have become a force as consumers and producers.

Technopak/The Knowledge Company, a management consulting firm, took a look at India"s most affluent consumers--a group of 280 million mostly urban-based consumers--to see what India's burgeoning middle-class consumers were buying. The company broke women consumers into three intriguing categories that show how important it is to understand women both in a global and a local context. Here is a link to the complete research article:

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:u2JK9K4i8HkJ:www.ksa-technopak.com/pdf/DTC%2520Presentation%2520-%25201%2520August%25202006.pdf+india+women+and+consumers&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=79&gl=us

The "butterflies" make up 50 percent of the women in the urban affluent class. As the nickname implies these women are all about the looks. They are moving rapidly to luxury goods, especially high-tech products like cellphones and MP3 players. But the second largest group--"old luxury"--make up 32 percent and are not as much about the "bling." These women have grown up with luxury, as the report notes, and may tend toward more traditional luxury goods.

Notably, the third group is called "Mrs. Rationality," a nickname that reflects a more logical, less indulgent buying group. It would be easy to assume that affluent urban women would act and buy alike. But the differences in these three groups show how fast-paced change can shape and mold consumers in unusual ways.

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Recent events--the Senate filibuster of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the first-ever women's business conference in Saudi Arabia--has me pondering how far we have come and far we still have to go in recognizing the power of women on a global scale.

I won't debate the pros or cons of the Ledbetter act here. But the proposed act, which would extend the period of time a person has to sue for pay discrimination, reminded me once again of the gap between the salaries of men and women. The gap--a woman makes 77 cents for every $1 a man makes in the U.S.--remains a critical issue and not only for female employees and the companies for which they work.

It's also a critical issue for the American economy, which depends so heavily on consumers.

Consider if women, the most world's important consumers, had that extra money in their purses? How would they spend it? It might go toward a down payment on a house. It might help buy a new car or help kick start a remodeling project on a home. It is quite possible that women would save or invest those extra funds. Women tend to invest less in retirement accounts than men. Is that because they have less cushion every two weeks when their paychecks arrive?

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