Not long ago I tweeted about the bloke who lives behind me. He purpose-built a patio and then mounted a very large LCD on the back wall so that he and his friends could watch the World Cup. He even invited my husband to join them.

Last Saturday evening, they watched the game between Ghana and the US and also celebrated a birthday party. The next morning, I found a souvenir from their evening on the hedge: a pair of Solo Lucky Undies printed with the words: Game ON

I love it!

If by any chance you missed the momentous events of the past four days, you may not know that when our new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard was greeted by her nemesis in Parliament House, the Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott, she whispered in his ear: “Game ON”.

 While the “game” might be on for Gillard and Abbott, many businesses remain unprepared to successfully serve a customer with the profile of our new PM: a powerful, baby-boomer female.

 It’s likely that if Julia Gillard walked into a consumer electronics store, caryard or even a legal office today unrecognised, she could be treated as if she were someone’s grandmother (yes, she’s in that demographic) who doesn’t have a clue about CE or auto technology, or how to manage her affairs without a man to take control.

This is because the owners of these businesses don’t yet realise that the baby-boomer woman is the most healthiest, wealthiest, best-educated and ambitious female in history. And she expects to be taken seriously.

Yet, one industry which is managing to make headway with gender intelligence is the financial sector. Research from US financial giant Citigroup underlines that women are creating and controlling more money than ever before.

“In the wake of the recession, women are on the verge of outnumbering men in the workforce for the first time in history. In today’s economy, that means more women are not only driving purchasing decisions, but also are increasingly controlling the financial decisions in their household,” the research states.

The ascension of Julia Gillard to the highest office in the country has not only put a smile on the faces of most Australian women, it is giving businesses a clear wakeup call that if they are not in the “game”, then they haven’t got a chance of winning.

Then, the ABC’s 10am news bulletin blurted the shock resignation of David Jones CEO Mark McInnes following sexual harassment claims.

That took me back momentarily, as I comprehended this across several levels: the personal, professional and social. To be honest I am still working through these.

But back to the original subject, which I am now starting to use as a filter for the McInnes story.

David Jones has led the country in its ability to secure the female shopper with its carefully honed image of prestige and value. To be honest, this is not just an image. I know many business women who often take themselves off to David Jones for a stress break.

And it works, the retailer has created an environment which is welcoming, and for me much safer than many other retailers with their pointy edges and disinterested staff. So I would go as far to say that David Jones is one of the few Australian retailers to actually demonstrate ‘gender intelligence‘.

So what happened with McInnes? I don’t know the answer to that, but what I do know is that retailers have been under extraordinary stress over the past 18 months since the GFC began to bite. While McInnes has worked at the company for 13 years, David Jones has a much longer heritage and it was then that I believe the ‘gender intelligence’ DNA was laid down. It was McInnes role to continue this.

It’s usually under stress that strange things happen and if there isn’t a deep level of integrity around principles, then people and businesses start to go off the rails.

David Jones now has to go a lot further to prove that it really does hold to the principles of ‘gender intelligence’ and not try to ’pinkwash’ its savvy customers.

Husband: I just been given a great price on a new Teac HD LCD that can record the World Cup onto a USB or a hard drive.

Husband: But I have to keep getting up to change the discs and we can get rid of the extra boxes. And it has three HDMI connections too.

Me: Is that a bad thing that you have to get up to do something? Although getting rid of the boxes is a plus…but I don’t know if it’s worth $3,000?

Husband: Well I hadn’t decided to buy it anyway, I was just getting some prices.

Sound familiar? He wants the technology because he has an immediate need to watch every game in the World Cup and record them so that he can keep watching them over and over and over.

And to be honest I like the idea of getting rid of all the boxes and their cords and plugs.

But marketers still don’t understand that it is always the women who make the final decision. I have seen endless technology advertising focused on the sport but nothing on the reality of what really happens in the family home before the decision is made to get into the car and go down to the retail store.

One of my favoutite newsletters comes from Jn Dalitz Ceo of the Sphinxx network which provides support and services to assist businesswomen in managing their work and life priorities, and leadership development to help them scale the heights in their careers.

During the week, Jen pricked my attention when she linked to a recent article by Forbes detailing how successful women in the US have set their own rules for success in aworld where this has not happened before.

It’s also timely for many marketers to remember that most of these women are the new breed of baby boomer: the healthiest, wealthiest, best educated group of women in  history. The represent a inestimable opportunity for businesses to gorw and prosper in the next decade.

Groundbreakers yesterday and today

According to Forbes, when these women entered business and law two and three decades ago they were groundbreakers in setting a stage for women in the workplace today. At the time, there were no rules for how to succeed–or even a definition of what success for a woman meant–because it had never been done before.

In the article, Campbell Soup senior vice president, law and government affairs Ellen Kaden, agreed, “We knew we had to be twice as good, twice as reliable, and twice as tough-minded as the bright young men who surrounded us, and we worked like horses to prove our worth,” “But few of us had any idea of what success might look like, or feel like, for people like us,” she said.

It was Kaden, along with other women of her generation, who have created their own rules for success. Some of her colleagues include Bridget Healy, executive vice president and chief legal officer of ING, Deborah McWhinney, president of Citi  Personal Banking and Wealth Management at Citigroup; and Vicki O’Meara, executive vice president and chief legal and compliance officer at Pitney Bowes. While they all came from very different backgrounds and work in unrelated fields, their rules for success are surprisingly similar. Six of the key steps they took were:

•Draw on Strengths Gleaned from Parents
•Don’t Over-Plan Your Career
 •Learn From Personal Struggles to Take Everything in Stride
•Find Your Own Leadership Style
•Don’t Let Naysayers Stop You From Doing What You Want
•A Loving Husband, Children and Friends Can Help You Bolster Your Career, Not Detract From It

For many Australian women, these step can be lights to guide them forward, while their male colleagues may like to take the time to ponder on what is really takes for a women to succeed.