Hasta La Gadget!

As Momentage’s Co-Founder, JoAnn is responsible for Momentage’s day-to-day operations, as well as leading the company’s product development and technology strategy. She co-founded Momentage with George Castineiras in 2012 while running their other company, ArtStamps; an innovative company which was the first to offer create your own real U.S. postage for school fundraising.

How has your life experience made you the leader you are today?
I’ve always been naturally curious about how things work. My father encouraged me to question everything and to actively distinguish between fact and opinion.

My ethnic background is half Maltese, half Italian. My temperament reflects this – I’m a survivor that appreciates both tradition and forward progress. My tenacity comes from being the third girl out of four sisters. You need to fight to be heard. These are all great attributes that are incredibly useful for entrepreneurs.

My life experiences have also taught me the value of ‘constructive skepticism’. As a leader, I need this mindset to evaluate my options and stay aware of the drawbacks, as well as the opportunities presented by deals, people and partners.

My parallel role as mother of twins has made me a multi-tasker. I am available instantly, and I juggle tasks constantly.

How did your previous employment experience aid your position at Momentage?
My experience is something of a Goldilocks story. Prior to college, I worked for many years in restaurants. Right after college I worked for the government, and then I spent many years in corporate America prior to working in the startup world. Each one of these experiences gave me a peculiar mix of skills that I incorporate into how I run Momentage.

Serving food taught me to be tolerant of people with odd habits and poor manners. Government jobs taught me patience. Corporate positions gave me a broad skill set and an appreciation for thinking big.

How do you maintain a work/life balance?
Whenever I hear the term “Work/Life Balance” I automatically feel like I don’t do enough. It also seems to be directed disproportionately to women with children. I refer to it as personal/professional priorities. I feel this is more open-ended and realistically achievable. Knowing your priorities makes it easier to address them.

There are times when my family is my 100% priority. At other times my emphasis is Momentage. Sometimes, I can combine these two since Momentage is about capturing moments, and taking family photos and videos of our experiences is something our family enjoys. Occasionally, my priority is having some downtime for me, or quality time with my husband.

What have the highlights and challenges been during your tenure at Momentage?
In a short amount of time, there have been so many highlights and challenges that I could write several books. Highlights include seeing the app in beta and watching the community growing by the day.

I cherish those times when someone raves about the app. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a user or a media person.

As for challenges, I am not a technologist but love and appreciate the technology behind the app. Finding the right talent and having the faith and trust in a technologist has been the biggest hurdle. We finally found an amazing technologist who is building our development team the way I envisioned it. There are always hurdles to overcome, but having the right team in place helps me overcome them..

What advice can you offer women looking to start their own business?
Do it! There’s never been a better time for entrepreneurs.

Before you do anything, write down what you plan to achieve from the venture. If it is purely for financial gain or to be famous, I would reevaluate. I would only start a business if it meets a personal need or aligns with a passion within you. You are going to put your heart and soul in it, so it is important to have the right motivations.

You should also check the support system around you of advisors, friends and family. If it is not strong or sound, I would first work on making this stronger, and really ensure you are surrounded by great people who will give direct and honest feedback and advice.

What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace?
I’m frustrated when women are judged by marital status first. If you are single, many people take your kindness as something more. If you are married with no children, people are convinced that you will be getting pregnant soon and interrupting your commitment to your company. If you have children, people feel that you cannot successfully balance the personal and professional priorities, and that your family life outweighs your work commitment. They think you will leave early and need to take off every holiday. It is extremely challenging, and women feel they have to continuously overcompensate to disprove these preconceptions.

What are your thoughts on Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In book and movement?
Sheryl’s book is a home run. Even though Sheryl’s story is quite different from mine, her descriptions of how she felt along the way, even now at times, hits every chord within me. When I first read her book, it struck me just how clearly she articulated how I feel inside. It really resonated with me.

As I kept reading, I was awakened by how many women lack confidence, no matter how successful they are. My only regret is that the Lean In Movement did not come out sooner, but I am excited for the possibilities it offers my daughter.

I love how Sheryl describes that it is not set out to be a self-help book, a motivational book, an autobiography, etc. It is great because she is relating more than her story in everything she shares.

How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life?
Mentoring is something that needs to be a constant part of your professional and personal growth. Mentoring helps build self-awareness. It’s also important to have someone help you be the best you can be.

I love mentoring young girls because they have so many resources at their fingertips to help them succeed. Of course, it also helps when they think I am cool and interesting for building such a trendy app.

Which other female leaders do you admire and why?
I admire Maya Angelou. Her story and tenacity in facing such huge challenges in her life is truly inspiring. She has helped pave the way for other women, and her books inspire others to have the courage to stand and make a change in their own life. Maya relates to everyone and has fought for all of us in so many ways.

What are your hopes for the future of Momentage?
My hope is for Momentage to go down in history as the company responsible for changing the traditional expectations of an app. Just as people attribute YouTube with being the ground breaking video web channel, I am looking for Momentage to have a similar impact. It is just a brilliant, elegant, multi-dimensional way to share your moments in a single post.

Chicago is home to some of the best architecture known to man, and now it wants the world to know.

Using Italy’s Venice Biennale of Architecture as a model, the city recently announced a major architectural exhibition of its own, set to kick off in October of 2015. If the three-month-long Chicago Architecture Biennial is a success, it will return every two years, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The inspiration is full-circle. Michelle Boone, commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, told the Tribune that the Venice Biennial was born from the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, which was housed in stunning Beaux Arts buildings designed by prominent American architects.

“The mayor of Venice came to Chicago, saw (the exposition), and said, ‘Italy is too consumed with its past. We must be about the future,'” she explained.

The Windy City no longer boasts the tallest skyscraper in America, ever since One World Trade Center in New York controversially claimed that honor last fall. But with so much stunning architecture it doesn’t really matter: No matter how many vanity inches other structures stack on, size has nothing on the Windy City’s style. These 18 buildings are proof positive that when it comes to American architecture, Chicago is on top of the world.

Pavillion at Lincoln Park Zoo South Pond (Studio Gang Architects)

Marina City (Bertrand Goldberg)

The Rookery (Frank Lloyd Wright, Daniel Burnham, John Wellborn Root)

The Carbide and Carbon Building (Daniel Burnham Jr., Hubert Burnham)

Inland Steel Building (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill)

Robie House (Frank Lloyd Wright)

Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. building (Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham)

Lake Point Tower (John Heinrich, George Schipporeit)

Chicago Cultural Center (Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge)

Aqua Tower (Studio Gang Architects)

Museum of Science and Industry (Charles Atwood and Daniel Burnham)

Tribune Tower (Raymond Hood, John Mead Howells, John Vinci)

Crain Communications (formerly Smurfit Stone) Building (Sheldon Schlegman)

Pritzker Pavillion (Frank Gehry)

Sears Tower (What, did you really think we’d call it “Willis”?) (Fazlur Khan and Bruce Graham/Skidmore, Owings & Merrill)

Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago (Mies van der Rohe)

John Hancock Center (Fazlur Khan and Bruce Graham/Skidmore, Owings & Merrill)

35 East Wacker “Jeweler’s Building” (Joachim G. Giaver and Frederick P. Dinkelberg)

Shopping at IKEA is a rite of passage, a compromise or a carefully-considered decision. If you’re within glaring distance of a skyline, you’ve shopped at the retailer of all things Swedish. Though many would assume that a home editor lives on a velvet tuffet, I’ve spent my time, money and sanity at IKEA. (Quite possibly the worst IKEA in the country, at that.) It was a special kind of hell — one that happened when you situate a big-box store across from one of the busiest airports in the Northeast, off one of the busiest roads in the Northeast and near one of the busiest outlet malls in the Northeast. Therefore, this particular IKEA became part-tourist attraction, a place where, after staggering through the aisles to find a $50 bookcase, one can get cursed at in nearly every language — the “It’s A Small World” of rage.

The worst, of course, was to be had on weekends. Yet on weekdays, you’d encounter, without fail, the same types of people who enraged you on a spare Saturday. And on trips to other IKEA locations, I’d find the same people. The stereotypes, in this case, seem to hold true.

Multi-generational families who go there just to have something to do.

There will be The World’s Oldest Person in the group, along with a baby who just learned how to run away from great-great-grandpa. You’ll see the infant charge into a novelty pillow display, as the great-great-grandparent looks on, also wishing for an escape. When the child is contained, they will all walk five-abreast, at a zombie-like pace.

Two young ladies who just got their first place and are SO excited to be there.

Depending on how irate you are, this can occasionally be an uplifting sight. Here are two people on the cusp of adulthood, before their dreams get shattered by all the things your twenties tend to throw at you — terrible jobs, terrible dating choices and the singular misery that is your back after a year of rolling out of a small platform bed. For now, they are so psyched about picking out TV stands with their BFF!

Couples on the 5th stop of their Saturday.

One half of the couple has a determined gleam in their eye; the other, a sad downtrodden look that resembles those puppies in the ASPCA commercials. There might be booze hidden in that fountain soda cup.

Clueless Joe, who is completely debilitated by alllll the choices.

Watch him stare in disbelief at an entire wall of shelves. He had heard about IKEA before, but never thought that there would be so many options.

The parents who “accidentally” leave their kids a bit too long at the communal ball pit.

They’ll have their first date in years over lukewarm meatballs and watery elderflower juice, while pretending not to hear the increasingly irate public address messages asking them to pick up their kid.

Ghost employees.

You’ll get a glimpse of one, and then they’re gone…usually right when you need them. My theory is this: Maybe there used to be employees, but they all died during construction and their souls are unfortunately trapped in the warehouse.

Misplaced tourists.

We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt: Maybe there isn’t an IKEA in their hometown. However, there HAS to be something else they could be doing with their visit to whatever city is closest. Spending time in a warehouse with hundreds of people in various stages of anger (or obliviousness) can’t rank highly when it comes to possible tourist destinations.

Not everyone’s day job includes panoramic views of the northern lights. But for pilots, it’s all in a day’s work.

British Airways recently asked a number of its pilots for their favorite views from the cockpit. From Sydney Harbor to a perfect glimpse of Mount Fuji, their picks are utterly spectacular (and totally cause us to reconsider a career in aeronautics).

Check out their favorite views* below (and don’t forget — what a pilot sees, you can see too!):

1. The northern lights, when flying over North America

2. Central London, on the approach into Heathrow

3. Mont Blanc, on the approach into Pisa

4. Sydney Harbor, when departing from Sydney

5. The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and the bay, on the approach into San Francisco

6. Greenland, on North Atlantic flights

7. The Venice Canals, on the approach into Venice

8. Table Mountain, on the approach into Cape Town

9. The City of Dubrovnik, on the approach into Dubrovnik, Croatia

10. Mount Fuji, when approaching or departing from Tokyo

*These photos were not taken by British Airways pilots — they may not represent the exact path of a typical flight into/out of these destinations. However, they are awesome aerial shots.

And that, kids, is why you shouldn’t take sports too seriously. (Front pages via Newseum.)