It took a couple tries, but Microsoft finally had a critical hit with the Surface Pro 3. It was what we wanted the first Surface to be. It wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty damn useable. But at$800 (and going up to nearly $2,000), it’s also expensive. The Surface 3 is Microsoft’s attempt to get in on that lower-priced action, and semi-resurrect the failed “RT” line.
GMC has announced that it has updated the Terrain SUV and the updated vehicle has been unveiled at the New York auto show. The 2016 Terrain gets new front and rear fascias, a new grille design, power dome hood, LED running lamps, and additional updates. Certain models can also get safety features like side blind zone alert and rear cross … Continue reading
Email, cloud storage links, AirDrop, NFC — file storage transfer is a pain. Though effective most of the time, those methods aren’t effective all the time. There’s a better way (I promise). Already available for OS X and Windows, the Infinit file transfer service is also going to be available for iOS and Android, starting today. With a few taps, … Continue reading
US air warfare superiority is hardly a given anymore — sometimes the nation’s very pricey new fighter jets aren’t even airworthy, let alone dominant. Even the military’s science arm, DARPA, said that “US military systems today are often too expensiv…
If you’ve been sitting, wishing and waiting for your Android handset to let you make free data-based calls, then today’s your lucky day. Our chums over at Engadget Spanish have discovered that WhatsApp’s long-promised voice calling is now available t…
Even Patrick Quinn, co-founder of the popular Life of Dad social media network for dads, was shocked by the flood of photos the site received after posting this picture of a “101-year difference” between a new baby and the family’s oldest living relative.
The photo was shared by Sarah Hamm of Gilbert, Arizona. She had brought her two-week-old daughter Kaylee Rowland to meet her 101-year-old Grandma Rosa Camfield.
The photo inspired more than 120 readers to post their own multigenerational photos and new ones are being added every day, said Quinn. But the real shocker for him, he says, was that many of the photos claim an even bigger age gap than 101. “Our highest gap in age was 112 years, which is pretty amazing,” he said.
“People were really drawn to the image for reasons we didn’t foresee. They thought of all of the things this woman has seen and lived through in her lifetime and imagined how her experiences will shape the life of the baby just starting her own journey,” Quinn told The Huffington Post.
Hamm said even she was delighted that her photo triggered such a response. Grandma Rosa, she noted, was born on June 13, 1913 on Friday the 13th. She was the youngest of two children and had an older brother. Rosa has three children, five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren and currently lives with her oldest daughter in Chandler, AZ.
“My grandma was born and raised in Michigan where she spent all her life until 2007 when she moved to Arizona. She went to school in a one-room school house,” Hamm told The Huffington Post. “Her dad was the first one in their town to own a vehicle. She went back to college when she was 43 and became a school teacher in Ludington, MI.”
The reader reaction delighted co-founder Tom Riles. “Our audience started sharing pictures of their families that illustrated the gaps in ages between the oldest and the newest members. To think that they grew up in entirely different worlds than what the newest members will experience, yet their influence, values and love will pass on through them and others to come is simply amazing,” he said.
It really is. Check out other beautiful images of great-grandparents with their great-grandchildren here.
You can see more of what readers sent Life of Dad here.
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Krystal Kinney is a founding partner and Lead Brand Strategist for THR33FOLD, an interactive and digital marketing agency that creates transformative experiences between consumers and brands.
As Lead Brand Strategist, Krystal Kinney has spearheaded the agency’s directional growth, creating a fully integrated agency that manages and builds global brands by leveraging digital, grassroots, social and public relations. Since its founding, Kinney has held several key management positions in the agency that include leadership across industry verticals including Finance, Tech, Food and Consumer Products. With 10+ years of experience guiding marketing and brand strategy for both B2C and B2B organizations, Kinney combines vision and insight to help businesses connect with consumers and grow their brands.
How has your life experience made you the leader you are today?
I overcame a great deal of adversity in my youth, which I believe had an impact on me as a leader. I grew up Texas, in a household with a mother that battled Lupus and schizophrenia. During a time when most girls are thinking about school and what to be when they grow up, I was a care giver with adult-like responsibilities.
I further battled the culture of my home state, which encouraged women to reach as high as a “MRS.” degree, followed by a Masters in shopping. To make matters worse, I had strong opinions. Through this adversity, I learned the value of having a vision for yourself, which has served me well in my career. I realized that holding fast to a vision, allows one to overcome many obstacles — limitations become a matter of perspective. At THR33FOLD, I feel I lead best when I am able to get teams to come together around a common vision, especially when it comes to client work and the brands we help grow.
How has your previous employment experience aided your tenure at THR33FOLD?
I have worked on many brand strategy projects, and I have learned a lot from each one, but I believe the work I did before moving into the agency side of the industry greatly impacted my approach today. At an early age I began work as a child model and spent ten years as talent in the industry. Working on the production side of the business, I was charged with helping to make ideas come to fruition. The hours were long and the pay was little, but I got to travel, experience different cultures and work with great creative minds. The experience taught me the value of teamwork, uncompromised vision and attention for detail. That awareness prepared me for the highly dynamic and evergreen environment of THR33FOLD, where we constantly push the boundaries of digital and social. It takes a team that believes and is passionately obsessive in order to bring vision to life.
What have the highlights and challenges been during your tenure at THR33FOLD?
THR33FOLD is exciting and moves pretty fast. We have grown from a branding agency into a fully integrated interactive and digital agency. Each pivot took a great deal of effort from the entire team and there will be more in the future. Ensuring that everyone pivots together, at the same speed, is always a challenge as the agency grows.
The highlights are always seeing our ideas become reality and seeing our clients’ brands grow as a result of our work. That is very gratifying. A more internal highlight is the pride we felt when we moved from a garage office to a Penthouse in prestigious Coral Gables, Florida — that was pretty exhilarating.
What advice can you offer to women who want a career in marketing?
Never make it about you. It should always be about the team, the brand, the goal; but never about you. Marketing is full of ego-centric people. Everyone is talented and vying to get ahead. When you operate in “me” mode you can’t see or hear through all the noise, you only hear yourself and worst of all, you will be driven by things like fear and greed. Leadership notices when someone really cares about the goal. At THR33FOLD we look for team players, people that are driven by passion and will work to lift other team members up.
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career to date?
A leader is only as good as the people she leads. Surrounding yourself with smart, intuitive and passionate people is crucial to the success of any project. Our role as leaders is to set a vision and to create and foster an environment where teams can succeed.
How do you maintain a work/life balance?
I’ve never been keen on the expression work/life balance. I believe all of it is life, it’s a matter of perspective. I am a woman in the digital frontier of marketing. I am passionate about the work our agency does, and the challenges of our clients keep me up at night. Funny enough, I get just as excited about launching a campaign as I do about vacationing in Europe. As a leader, I am on 24/7, but I choose this role and I have a strong team that supports me. We are all like family. Therefore, I prefer to mix work and life. It feels more natural. If I am running on empty, the team will be low on energy too. We schedule team spa days, we have cocktail hours and team members bring their pets to work. I even bring Muffin, my 22-year-old cat to the office, and we play Rock Band after hours on Fridays. I take vacation when I need to, and we shut the agency down for THR33 weeks in December. The work we do requires us to think and be creative, we therefore strive support our team members as much as possible and foster an environment that allows for magic to happen. Every day we have a chance to impact the way someone experiences life. It’s pretty powerful.
What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace?
I believe there is often a double standard when it comes to women expressing assertiveness in the workplace. On this topic, I have a motto that I try to live by: Think with an iron fist, speak with a velvet glove and always maintain eye contact. Leaders regardless of gender must always lead; still, I often find women often resist following other female leaders. The art of communication can make or break a woman’s climb up the ladder. And unfortunately for us, body language, facial expressions, appearance, verbal communication and tone all get factored in. I suffer from what we ladies call RBF (Resting Bi**H Face) whenever I am thinking. When in meetings, people often think I am irritated by what they are saying, but it’s just RBF. So, I started getting Botox; you would be shocked, people are much more open in meetings. I actually have girlfriends in very senior positions at other companies that do the same.
How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life?
I am lucky to have had people in my life that pushed and coached me along throughout the years. I have high expectations of myself, but I am well aware that sometimes I simply don’t know what I don’t know. I believe that being surrounded by individuals that not only strive to accomplish great things, but also, have high expectations of themselves has helped keep things in perspective for me. My mother was smart enough to tell me every day that I could be anything I wanted. She taught me what it means to never give up, and that life achievement must be worked for. When I was in college, I was mentored by a professor who was working on a book. I would go see him to discuss a paper I as writing and he would say to me, “Here, you read mine.” I always took this as his way of saying “don’t hand in an assignment, hand in something insightful that contributes something.” My husband in particular has been one of my greatest mentors. He always challenges me as an equal in business, even with 15 more years of global business experience. He continually encourages me to think and lead at greater levels.
Which other female leaders do you admire and why?
There are so many amazing women that inspire me, but two in particular stand out for me, my mother-in-law and Pepsi’s Indra Nooyi. My mother-in-law because she migrated to the US in her early 20’s with four small children and without fully speaking the language. She started and ran a business and managed to raise four intelligent and thoughtful kids — all successful adults today. She is very strong willed, but with an air of elegance. I definitely gravitate towards women that lead people with finesse, women that can gracefully negotiate a million/billion dollar deal, without letting anyone push their buttons. I think this is a talent that women are able to master.
Indra Nooyi, Chairperson and CEO of PepsiCo, is also someone I admire as she strikes me as very genuine. I love how passionate she is about her career, and how realistic she is about work/life balance. I’ve heard her speak about how women often have unrealistic expectations about being able to it have it all. So many women are afraid to admit to themselves or anyone else that they cannot have it all, and I find it refreshing that a woman with over a decade at the helm of a $66 Billion business is so honest about it.
What do you want THR33FOLD to accomplish in the next year?
THR33FOLD has grown significantly year after year and we are projected to almost double again during 2015. Our team has its sights on greater industry diversification and driving deeper into food retail, tech, financial and non-profit sectors. It will be an exciting year.
Michelle Javian is the Co-founder & CEO of Harboring Hearts. She started the organization in honor of her father, who lost his battle to heart disease after a heart transplant in 2008. During the time she spent by her father’s side in the hospital, Michelle witnessed firsthand the need that existed for refuge and community support for heart patients and their families. It was from this realization, and devotion to her father’s memory, that Michelle and Yuki Kotani co-founded Harboring Hearts in April 2009.
Founded in 2009, Harboring Hearts is the only nonprofit organization specifically dedicated to providing affordable, short-term housing for the heart patients and their families that travel to New York City for lifesaving medical treatment. Harboring Hearts’ aim is to help families create a home-like haven as well as access the informative and nurturing resources necessary to enhance their well-being as they attend to the needs associated with serious cardiac disease and care.
Michelle is active in several other charities, including her roles as a Board member of New York Presbyterian Hospital New Leaders, American Heart Association heart advocate and volunteer, and as a Founding Member of Friends of Best Buddies, Manhattan chapter. She was awarded the 2009 Maurice Gurin Memorial Scholarship by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, was a semi-finalist in SELF Magazine’s 2009 “Women Doing Good” contest, and chosen as a Rosewood Hotel and Resorts “30 Under 30” winner in 2010.
How has your life experience made you the leader you are today?
The two most formative experiences in my life are of two different types: one enduring, and one in what feels almost instant. First, my family–grandparents from Armenia who raised my parents who then raised us with an incredible sense of loyalty to those we love and care about, and also a deep work-ethic. Everyone in my family possesses that sense. When my father passed away, he left us far too soon in the second most formidable experience of my life. I knew at that moment I had to do something in my life that would stand as a legacy and testament to the compassion, commitment, and sense of community my father instilled in me and in our family.
How has your previous employment experience aided your position as Co-Founder & CEO of Harboring Hearts?
Though I was only with Bank of America for a short time after graduation, I left to be with my family after my father passed away. During that time of healing, I found comfort and purpose in helping volunteer with other charities, including as a founding member of Best Buddies New York (I had also been involved in DC). Seeing the power of happiness in the healing process, and the smiles on faces of those we helped, inspired me to channel all of what had come before and at that time into something–that became Harboring Hearts. From that exposure, I learned what it meant to work as a team, where a leader can best effect change, and how to see things from the eyes of the people we are serving.
What have the highlights and challenges been during your time as Co-Founder & CEO of Harboring Hearts?
I have a very big vision, and want to help a lot of people. The most challenging part of my role is that this vision has to navigate against the tangible realities of time and how long it takes to get projects to a healthy and productive stage where they can carry themselves forward. The highlights make any of the stress worthwhile: meeting the families we help and knowing we make a difference are the greatest moments of any day.
Tell us about any new projects that you are working on.
The most exciting and new project we have taken on involves our extending Harboring Hearts’ services to California. We will be doing so with a pilot program that is in development and will hopefully launch at Stanford Children’s Medical in the late spring or summer.
What advice can you offer women who are seeking to start their own business?
Make sure you are passionate about whatever it is you doing. Honestly, it sounds simple and clear–but this quality is essential. Passion–and the pure senses of enthusiasm and commitment that come with it–is what will get you through the hard times.
How do you maintain a work/life balance?
Meditation is really key for me, as is yoga. Seeing friends and family, especially my little niece and nephew they make me so happy.
What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace?
I have come to see this questions as relative, because many of my friends who are women in the workplace are in so many different professions and fields–some having pressures that I do not experience at Harboring Hearts, and then some I experience but others do not. I would say that some common issues are how we (as a society) are learning to balance the traditional roles of women against the realities of today–family life, having children, and working for equal pay are concepts that are radically different in meaning (and continue to evolve) than was the case when many of our employers (and, parents) came into their own achievements. It is likely though that cultural generations of leadership and innovation will always overlap, but today those are some tensions between the two that come to mind.
How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life?
I wouldn’t be where I am today without mentors. Some of our Board Members, my mother, and other close friends who have been by my side sharing their perspectives: these people have been incredible sources of energy and confidence to stay on course, with lessons and guidance along the way.
Which other female leaders do you admire and why?
There are so many it is almost impossible to pick without leaving someone of great influence out. What I see as a shared-quality in my admirations is the ability for a person to be poised, confident, and stand up for what she believes in while inspiring others to care. A female leader who is willing to fight with integrity for others in need of help–she embodies what I hope to become in my own life, and the type of female leader I admire.
What do you want to personally and professionally accomplish in the next year?
We want to continue to grow the organization by attracting a leadership of movers and shakers who can bring skills and experience to the forefront of our momentum…and to help steer us forward as we build on our past paths, and work towards our future.
Sara was appointed to the role of Chief Strategy Officer at Pandora in February 2014, and is responsible for leading the company’s ongoing business strategy, corporate development and international expansion efforts. Prior to joining Pandora, Sara was an executive in residence at Greylock Partners, where she advised the firms’ consumer portfolio companies and evaluated new investment opportunities.
Sara has 20 years leadership and commercial experience in the operation and expansion of high growth global businesses in emerging technology markets. Sara was previously Vice President, Corporate Development at LinkedIn, where she was a member of the Executive Team, and responsible for corporate strategy, acquisitions and business development. Prior to LinkedIn, Sara spent five years in a range of leadership positions at Microsoft Corporation, including roles building the Xbox business operations, international expansion, and corporate development teams, and advising Microsoft’s Executive Team on growth opportunities, including direct management of a $200M corporate venture fund in China.
Sara has extensive experience building businesses across a broad range of international markets, including Europe, North America, Latin America, Middle East and Greater Asia Pacific. She holds an M.A. with honors from University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
Sara’s favorite Pandora stations include Arcade Fire, Lorde, Example, The Killers, and The XX.
How has your life experience made you the leader you are today?
I was born in New Zealand and spent the early part of my career there. You have 4 million people operating national industries, so people tend to perform a broader range of functions than in larger markets, where role are more specialized. You are forced to work out new ways of achieving great outcomes with limited resources, which develops your problem solving skills and drives an adaptability that translates well in any dynamic market.
How has your previous employment experience aided your tenure at Pandora?
I love working in rapidly evolving environments, addressing opportunities that leverage the best of technology and media to bring personalized services to consumers. Similar to Pandora, Xbox and LinkedIn were both hyper growth companies using technology to expand the boundaries of their markets. Additionally many of my roles have been focused on deploying services globally, and I have lived and worked across Europe, Middle East, China, Latin America and Asia Pacific. That experience is instrumental in operating and developing new international markets for Pandora.
What have the highlights and challenges been during your tenure at Pandora?
The highlight is definitely Pandora’s team and culture. After 20 years in technology, I know how hard it is to build a company where people feel they can be their authentic selves, be ambitious about driving the business, but collaborative in how they achieve that. Ironically our challenge at Pandora is the ‘tyranny of choice’. We have so many options as a business, our priority has to be identifying the areas of focus, being nimble and executing well.
What advice can you offer to women who want a career in your industry?
I think it is critical to focus on something you have genuine passion around. It will be difficult to address the inevitable challenges if you don’t love what you do.
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career to date?
Accept that failure is part of success. If you are moving quickly you will make some missteps. Learn from them, course correct, and keep going. Don’t become paralyzed or overly risk averse.
How do you maintain a work/life balance?
I think work life balance is an incredibly personal thing. What works for one person will not work for the next. The key for me has been deciding what my boundaries are, communicating them clearly, establishing structures for maintaining them, and then living by them. Negotiating boundaries daily is very taxing.
What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace?
I consistently see women wary of taking the risks that men are open to. Many women underestimate their capabilities and are reluctant to apply for opportunities that will stretch them. We need to adopt risk profiles that are more ambitious, and believe we will are capable of achieving what we sign up for.
How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life?
Mentors and role models have been a huge influence on my career. I was fortunate to grow up in a country that was very progressive in terms of female leadership: New Zealand was the first country in the world to have the top 3 positions of government simultaneously held by women. Seeing women in leadership roles helps you believe you are capable of achieving that.
Which other female leaders do you admire and why?
I’ve been privileged to have a huge range of incredibly capable women be part of both my personal and professional lives. My cousin Linda Clark was one of New Zealand’s most respected journalists, and political lead for the major broadcaster. She retrained as a lawyer while raising twin boys. Susan Athey at Stanford constantly amazes me. She is an award winning economist, was Chief Economist at Microsoft, has three children and consults for companies on cryptocurrencies. Amy Hood, the CFO of Microsoft is fantastically sharp. The list is long!
What do you want Pandora to accomplish in the next year?
We are at an incredible time in the music industry, where fans and artists are looking for ways to have a direct dialogue at scale. We have a particular focus this year on helping leverage our platform to become an indispensable partner for music makers and help them forge stronger connections with their fans.
The most effective leaders think outside in: outside first, inside second. The true measure of success is not in the organizations, infrastructure or people leaders attract and develop, but in what those organizations, infrastructure and people get done for others.
I gave a talk this month to the Montana Ambassadors, a group of leaders appointed by the governor to improve the well-being of the people of Montana. While in Montana, I got to observe the state legislature in action and to spend time with an amazing collection of Montana’s artistic, scientific and interpersonal leaders including Governor Steve Bullock and Montana native and former Navy Seal Team 6 member Rob O’Neill.
The difference between those working outside in and inside out was striking.
The problem with working inside out.
Leaders working inside out defined success in terms of what they got done.
Montana’s legislature meets for 90 days every other year to approve a two-year budget – constitutionally required to be balanced. Some legislators act like that is the goal. It’s not. What matters is the impact government has with the money it raises and spends. You would expect part-time legislators to stay focused on the people they serve. Yet some were clearly more interested in pretending to be professional politicians as they played small ball over petty squabbles.
Separately, a retired Montana University chancellor told me with pride how he had improved faculty morale over his tenure. However, at the same time, student enrolment declined. Happier faculty educating fewer students can’t be the right order of priorities.
Still another Montana leader talked about strengthening his organization, increasing membership and members’ engagement with the organization. But no one cares about the organization itself. They care what the organization gets done for others.
The problem with working inside out is the trap of getting stuck on the internal capabilities and politics, forgetting that internal capabilities create value only when applied externally.
The advantage of working outside in
Leaders working outside in defined success around what they got done for others.
Many started with a problem or an opportunity and built their internal capabilities to deal with or take advantage of it.
Renelle Bratten realized that well-endowed women often were inconvenienced, uncomfortable or embarrassed playing high impact sports like volleyball or soccer. So she invented a better functioning sports bra for those women and founded Enell.
Steve Holland and Greg Kohn were disappointed in the large amounts of natural gas burned at wellheads in gas flares. So they invented a way to capture that excess gas before it burned off and founded GTUIT.
John and Courtney McKee were living through the continuing decline in the Butte Montana community following the end of copper mining there. So they created Headframe Spirits as a way to strengthen Butte.
Starting with externally focused missions keeps these leaders and their team members focused on what matters and why. It allows them to cut through internal conflicts and politics in pursuit of a common purpose.
Not just outside. Outside in.
Seal Team 6’s Rob O’Neill defined mission success as either rescuing hostages, eliminating terrorists or bringing his whole team home safely. During over 400 missions, he and his colleagues rescued Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates, rescued “Lone Survivor” Marcus Luttrell from the Taliban and killed Osama Bin Laden with no team member ever getting hurt on those missions.
The primary goal was not keeping the team safe. The best way to do that was to keep it out of harm’s way. But Seal Team 6 was created and trained to go into harm’s way to make the world safer for the rest of us as a top priority and to stay safe itself along the way.
Implications
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