Emma Johnson is a journalist, blogger, radio host, mom, and so much more. She start out as a reporter for a community newspaper and today has tons of prestigious credits to her name, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Worth. Ten years ago she embarked on a career as a freelance writer focusing on business, money, women, parenting and marriage and never looked back.

A little over a year ago Emma started a new venture, her blog Wealthy Single Mommy. Having become a single parent to two young children through divorce, she focused her blog on the joys and difficulties of being a professional single parent, filling an empty niche in the market. On this episode Emma talks about the giant step she took through blogging to open herself up more authentically and talk about her personal life. As a result she's found even greater success. Check out this episode to learn why blogging, even as an unpaid activity, can have a profound effect on your personal and professional brand. And don't miss Emma's recent blog post on how she built her personal brand through the blog.

This week's episode of Women. Connected. brings together great insights and recommendations from some of our most popular podcast episodes. The theme of this episode is "Dominate December," and we've put together some powerful segments from previous episodes that you might have missed. Whether you're looking for a way to stay organized with all the festivities this month or hoping to get a jump on 2014, these smart women have something for you.

Pat Bell is an enthusiastic business leader and consultant devoted to company and career success. Her successful track record of helping her clients build resiliency within and manage company changes speaks a lot about her ability to engage employees. Pat currently serves as the President-Elect of TBW and will assume the duties of President in 2014.

On this episode Pat and TBW Program Director Lisa Benjamin Goodgame discuss the recent Texas Conference for Women which took place in Austin on November 19. The conference brings together more than 5,000 women for a day of inspiring keynotes, networking, and meetings with key business leaders. While Pat and Lisa spent the day talking with hundreds of women about TBW's mission, they also took time out to hear from the speakers and attend workshops and roundtables. Hear their reflections on the brilliant keynotes by Sallie Krawchek of 85 Broads and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Leymah Gbowee, as well as other speakers from the conference. If you missed the conference, this recap will leave you with many of the key insights from the day's fantastic sessions.

Juli Berwald is a freelance science writer based in Austin, Texas, whose work has appeared in National Geographic, among other publications. She began her study of ocean sciences in college, starting her work in the field by scrubbing lab equipment at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Her studies took her to California, where she spent months at a time on research cruises in the Pacific. Love took her to Texas (and away from the ocean), where she recently completed her first book, Spineless, about jellyfish and the health of the oceans.

In this episode Juli talks about her work as a freelance writer and how she transitioned from post-doctoral work to writing textbooks, articles for popular magazines, and eventually her first book. She also discusses technological developments that have made her work possible, particularly Skype and several pieces of software that she pairs with it, allowing her to connect with researchers all over the globe. Her experiences remind us that with a little ingenuity and the right tools we can find solutions that make work we never imagined possible a reality.

When Jessica Shortall was 10 years old, she told her parents she would join the Peace Corps when she grew up. After college she did exactly that, serving in the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan, where she taught English and created a 4,000-book English language library in less than two years. A little more than […]

Orit Ramlet Szulik has lived in seven different countries from the Middle East to Latin America to the United States, where she currently resides. A coach and consultant, Orit has an extensive background in education and her experience informs how she works with clients who are struggling to adopt a new directions for the aspects of their life and work that they want to change. She believes that sometimes we all just need a moment to vent and then reinvent our perspective to move forward.

In this episode Orit offers strategies for managing the overwhelming amount of technology and connectivity we have in our lives. She offers insight into how to reinvent our relationship with technology for better outcomes and better balance. With recommendations on how to give ourselves permission to not be connected 24/7 and recognize that the latest and greatest technology isn't alway a necessity, Orit helps us devise a personal plan for doing more with less connectivity. And for everyone who's ever found herself feeling overwhelmed by commitments, Orit shows us how saying no to one thing gives us the freedom to say yes to something else.

Lois Barth calls herself a technology curmudgeon, but she's learned how to connect with the technology that matters for her business and how to figure out what best serves her life and her work. Lois was the life coach for two of the largest and most prestigious makeover projects in women's magazines (SELF and FITNESS) and has been featured as a source expert for several national magazines. Lois frequently works with employees who want to start their own businesses, helping them develop clarity and a strategy for using their "free" time to lay the foundation for launching their business ideas.

In this episode Lois provides tremendous insight into the important process of deciding when and how to adopt new technology, and why doing it yourself may not always be the best approach. With a lot of humor and good advice, Lois reminds us how valuable our time is as business owners and employees, offering several tools for better managing our priorities and energy to work smarter. If you don't yet think of yourself as a technology diva, this episode will give you the foundation and confidence to make the best choices for yourself and your work.

Elissa Ashwood believes that every one of us can "do technology" and learn the skills that will help us get ahead. She is a business and leadership performance expert helping organizations retain great talent, and individuals grow personally and professionally for sustainable success through her company Truly Accomplished. Elissa says that "being proud of what you do is the ultimate accomplishment," and her work helps client identify what's most important to them, and what will help them accomplish more of that in their personal and professional lives.

In 2012 Elissa became a breast cancer survivor, and in her quest to live life to the fullest she created an online support community that helped her face her illness with strength and humor. As a new software developer, Elissa discovered that she needed to learn something about some of the technology her company was beginning to create, but she quickly realized she didn't need to become an expert. In this episode Elissa reflects on those two experiences and how she learned "enough technology to be dangerous" and make her personal and professional goals achievable.

Elia Albarran describes herself as a people person, a tech person and an artistic person. She's a Jacqueline of All Trades who is a small business owner, the office manager for the web design and development firm Four Kitchens, and helps produce the annual Armadillo Christmas Bazaar in Austin, Texas. As a "digital native" who never knew what life was like before computers and the internet, Elia integrates technology and social media into all aspects of her life.

On this episode, Elia shares great ideas for taking your use of everyday technology to the next level, offering tips for how to use online tools like Google Drive to get work done more efficiently. Building on her experience developing small websites with WordPress, Elia suggests ways to create your own site with the world's most popular blogging platform. As a devotee of "iPhoneography," or taking creative and artistic photos using just a cell phone, Elia also helps listeners navigate some of the best photography apps to make the most of our cell phones as cameras. She offers some excellent insights into how to find free and inexpensive online courses that teach both creative and technical skills which can enhance our value as employees and business owners. So many great ideas in this episode!

Kendra Kinnison is a "habit chef" who believes you can create the recipe for a more purposeful life by adopting tiny habits that lead to big changes. When Kendra isn't interviewing other accomplished and driven people about the the key habits that make them successful, she is the Director of Finance for Port Royal Ocean Resort in Corpus Christi, Texas, and she's also the current President of TBW.

On this episode, Kendra tells us about the process of adopting what she calls "tiny habits" as an effective way to start making changes. Much of what we do everyday is a function of habit, but we do much of it without thinking, or without any solid intention behind it. With examples from her own life, Kendra shows us how to move from intention to action, and along the way she shares a number of technology tools that help support the process. As always, this episode offers great ideas and inspiration in just 30 minutes.