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Picture Credits: Dow Jones & Company and Jonathan Becker

May 4, 2009 Posted by ej | Career, Fashion, Leadership, People, Politics, Shopping | Business, Business School, Career, Fashion, Harvard MBA, Leadership, Politics, Shopping, Women | Leave a Comment

The Theme From Maude: A Duet – Bea Arthur and Rosie O’Donnell

Okay, admittedly we are getting carried away here with the Bea Arthur/Theme from Maude posts! But we loved Beatrice Arthur and we love the “Theme Song from Maude” so bear with us!

In addition, we haven’t had any caffeine yet so our editorial judgment is a little impaired >:) . . . and with that said, we now present another version of the “Theme from Maude” sung by Rosie O’Donnell with Bea Arthur providing backup!!!!

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Click on the picture to see Rosie O'Donnell Interview Bea Arthur and to hear duet.

Click on the picture to see Rosie O'Donnell Interview Bea Arthur and to hear them sing the "Theme from Maude"

Click on the picture to hear the duet and to see Rosie interview Bea Arthur.

In addition, Rosie also replays the moment on “All in The Family” that the world was introduced to Maude.

During the interview, Bea Arthur also explains how the role came about . . .

it was supposed to be just one episode and all she wanted was for it to be good!!

Bea – It was great!!

=Beatrice Arthur: A Towering Comedic Talent From Another Era (Los Angeles Times)

=Bea Arthur: That Voice, That Wit (New York Times [Slideshow])

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May 4, 2009 Posted by ej | Career, Entertainment, People, Television | Business, Career, Disparity, Entertainment, Television, Women | Leave a Comment

A Tribute to Bea Arthur AND The Theme from Maude!!!

We wanted to start off the week with a tribute to one of our favorites – Beatrice Arthur who recently passed away. We loved her on “The Golden Girls” and we also loved her on”Maude”.

Bea Arthur – Thanks for all the great memories and the great laughs!! You will be missed!!!

See below for a tribute to her talent and we’ve even included the Theme from Maude!!! Enjoy!!

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Bea Arthur: Grand Dame of Comedy; Click to read Courier-Journal.com Article

From The Courier-Journal.com

Beautiful Bea Arthur

Editorial

Some people have a time with talented women who aren’t stereotypically “easy on the eyes.” Witness the recent global meltdown over the realization that a woman with prominent eyebrows, an unstylish ‘do and a sturdy body could actually — yes! — sing like an angel.

Maybe that explains why, when the great comedic actress Beatrice Arthur passed away earlier this week, The New York Times — another “grey lady,” incidentally — ran this inelegant headline: “Bea Arthur, TV Battle-Ax, Dies at 86.” We would note that when Carroll O’Connor died several years earlier, the same pub did not use a headline to call him a “TV Bellowing Bigot,” but that would take us away from our point, which is to praise the body of work Ms. Arthur left behind for those of us in TV Land.

Click to hear "The Theme From Maude"

In “Maude,” she was a liberated woman trapped in the older traditions of a changing world. She was a housewife-plus a brash political junkie and pontificator but ultimately a pussycat.

Her softer side made loud and proud “Maude” palatable. She wore her white liberal guilt like one of her extravagant tunics, the flip side of Cousin Archie’s buttoned-up conservatism. When John Wayne came to visit, everyone expected a showdown; instead, she melted and said, “What the hell, let’s dance.”

Ms. Arthur rang the TV legend bell a second time with her portrayal of Dorothy Zbornak in “The Golden Girls.” Smart, sassy and again vulnerable, Ms. Arthur scored in a role that showed post-menopausal women in fine fashion and even finer fettle — no matter that she had . . . More . . .

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Click below to read a great article from the Los Angeles Times and to see a slideshow from The New York Times:

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May 4, 2009 Posted by ej | Art, Entertainment, Film, People, Television | Business, Career, Disparity, Entertainment, Events, Television, Women | 1 Comment

Business Grads Looking Beyond Wall Street

“For the past decade, a job at an investment bank has been coveted. Now the implosion of Wall Street has not only shaken a generation’s ambitions, it has also unleashed them.”

See Steven Greenhouse’s New York Times article below for additional detail and to find out where today’s Business School Grads are looking for jobs.

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Business Grads Looking Beyond Wall Street

Daniel Miller, Nanxi Ling, center, and Jessica Levy are graduating from Wharton this spring. Many in the class of '09 are discouraged about job prospects.

Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times

PHILADELPHIA — Riana Paige, an undergraduate senior at the Wharton School of Business, had a high-paying internship at JPMorgan Chase last summer and was disappointed when she did not receive an offer for a full-time job after graduation. Now she is pursuing a job teaching in Dubai, or working for a wine importer.

Click to see New York Times (Video): Life After Wharton

Daniel Miller, a Wharton senior who interned last summer at a boutique private equity firm in Manhattan, became so discouraged by his search for jobs in finance that he began thinking about becoming a rabbi.

Jessica Levy, also a senior at Wharton, the nation’s most prestigious undergraduate business program, was stunned when her supervisor at UBS told her that although she had done a terrific job as an intern, the bank could not offer her a job after graduation. Her dreams of investment banking quashed, she recently took the Foreign Service exam and is vying for a job at the State Department.

“A lot of my peers, we’re exploring things that we used to not even think of as an option,” Ms. Levy said. “A finance major who was minoring in music was suddenly looking into opening a jazz club. All of a sudden, I saw that a lot of Wharton people were interesting.”

For the last decade, a job at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley or another investment bank has been considered the most coveted prize for many of the nation’s best and brightest college students. But the implosion of Wall Street — the vaporization of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, the general humbling of investment banks — has not only shaken a generation’s ambitions, but also unleashed them. More . . .

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=Strategic Shift is Expected from New Chief at Sunoco (The New York Times)

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Picture Credit: Laura Pedrick for The New York Times

April 28, 2009 Posted by ej | Career, Economy | Business, Business School, Career, Economy, Employment, Leadership, Money, Wall Street, Women | Leave a Comment

Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business: #48 Lynn Elsenhans

This week we introduce you to Lynn Elsenhans, the CEO and President of Sunoco. She’s #48 on Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business list.

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Lynn Elsenhans, CEO and President Sunoco

Lynn Elsenhans

CEO and President

Sunoco

Previous rank: New
Age: 52

Elsenhans, named CEO in July, is the first woman to head a major U.S. oil company. Though the company is huge (revenues were more than $40 billion in fiscal 2007), net income fell 9%, to $891 million, and the market cap is only about $5 billion. Some analysts are expecting a strategy shift.

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Click here to read more on her:

=An Interview with Lynn Elsenhans (Rice – The Magazine of Rice University)

Patrick Lencioni, Real Simple

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Picture Credit: Sunoco

April 16, 2009 Posted by ej | Career, Leadership, People | Business, Career, Leadership, Power, Women | Leave a Comment

Getting Organized: 10 Strategies for Busy Moms

From our friends at CNN.com and Real Simple.

In this article, the author makes a very simple suggestion – Why don’t you manage your home like you manage your organization? Then, he shows you how to apply core business principles to the management of your life.

FYI – Patrick was recently named by Fortune as one of the 10 New Gurus You Should Know

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Ten Business Strategies to Organize Your Home

About 11 years ago, two big things happened in my life: My wife and I started a family, and I launched a consulting firm. For years I was much more successful at running my company than managing our family — probably because I was taking specific steps to improve my business, then going home and winging it.

Well, a few years ago, it occurred to me that this made no sense, and that my family was in fact an organization, too — the most important one in my life.

That realization was probably provoked by an innocuous (or so I thought) comment to my wife: “You know, honey, if my clients ran their companies the way we run this family, they’d go out of business.”

I’ll spare you the gory details of her response and just tell you that we eventually decided to figure out whether the tools and concepts I applied with my clients might help our home run more smoothly. I’m here to report that they absolutely did and might help you, too. (Don’t worry: None involve persuading a 10-year-old to endure the agony of a performance review.) Real Simple: How to make good decisions

1. Identify your core values. Companies define their core values because they provide a great framework for making all kinds of decisions. To apply this idea to your family, think about what common traits each spouse admires in the other. One of the things I love about my wife is that she is unafraid to speak her mind or stand up for her beliefs.

We wanted to pass that trait on to our four sons, so we made it a core value. (Our others are creativity and passion.) Then, when one of the boys was sent to the principal’s office for defending a classmate who was being bullied, we made it clear that he should be proud that he had stood up for a friend.

2. Establish a single top priority. If everything is important, nothing is. Too many companies fail because they spread their time and energies too thin. Answer this question: “In addition to our day-to-day responsibilities, if we accomplish one big thing as a family in the next few months, what should it be?” And then work on it. It could be anything from “Help Dad get healthy” to “Spend more time together as a family at home.” Real Simple: 14 shortcuts for everyday tasks

3. Keep your values and top priority visible. You don’t need an engraved plaque to remind you of what’s important. But it’s good to have a ready reference. My wife and I were out on a date around the time we were coming up with our family’s list of values and top priority. She borrowed a waiter’s pen and wrote them on the paper tablecloth. After dinner she neatly tore off that section and stuck it to our oven, where we could see it every day. More . . .

Digital Version of Real Simple Article

View the Digital Version of this Article

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April 16, 2009 Posted by ej | Career, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Parenting, Work-Life Balance | Business, Career, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Magazines, Marketing to Women, Parenting, Women, Work-Life Balance | Leave a Comment

Success Magazine May 2009: The Women’s Issue!

success-magazine-cover-may-20091 The May 2009 issue of Success Magazine is The Women’s Issue!

Okay, so maybe it’s not officially a women’s issue >:), but it’s pretty close and we don’t mind!!

In it you will find several inspiring articles that profile very successful women entrepreneurs, athletes, activists and more.

For example, the cover story tells the story of Suze Orman and how she turned adversity into success. Did you know that before she applied to become a broker at Merrill Lynch she worked as a waitress for seven years and earned on average $400 per month? She just wanted to own a restaurant, but when a broker lost all her money . . . the rest is history!

In addition, there is the article entitled “Women of Influence” that profiles Maya Angelou, Indra Nooyi, Maria Shriver, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Melinda Gates.

AND there is a profile of one of our favorites Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx.

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Here’s more info on what you can find in this issue: suze-orman-cover-story-inside-picture

Success from the Ground Up: The Story of Money Maven Suze Orman, by Erin Casey

A crushing loss in the stock market propelled Suze Orman to become one of America’s favorite financial advisers.

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Women of Influence by Erin Casey

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Maya Angelou, Melinda Gates, Indra Nooyi and Maria Shriver have empowered and inspired us. They have led causes and corporations and created opportunities for many. See how they are changing your world.

View the Digital Version of this Article

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Enterprising Women by Joanne Eglash

Women run almost half of all privately held businesses – and they’re quietly gaining an edge on the competition by using innate talents and skills. What do they do differently?

View the Digital Version of this Article

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Back on Track by Mary Vinnedge

A humiliating and very public firing taught Deborah Norville valuable life lessons and helped shape her outlook. Read how she pulled herself out of the doldrums and how she encourages others.

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Paving the Way by Don Yaeger

Billie Jean King continues to push the envelope to improve tennis and create opportunities for everyone.

More . . .

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April 13, 2009 Posted by ej | Education, Leadership, Magazines, Money & Investing, People, Politics, Sports, Women & Sports | Business, Career, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Money, Politics, Sports, Women | Leave a Comment

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy Leaving Google to Become CEO-in-Residence at Accel Partners

As seen on Gigaom.com

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The Google Senior Exodus Continues

Om Malik, Gigaom.com

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is leaving Google

In less than a month, Google has lost two senior executives. First, Tim Armstrong, senior VP of sales at Google, left to head up AOL, and now another senior executive has left the company. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, who was President for Asia-Pacific (APAC) & Latin American Operations, has left the company to become a CEO-in-Residence at Accel Partners. Accel has become a trendy resting stop for a lot of recovering executives. Roger Linquist, founder/CEO of MetroPCS; Amr Awadallah (Yahoo alum); and Jeff Hammerbacher, a Facebook alum and Cloudera co-founder, are members of that growing club. There are many theories on why Cassidy left: one being that traveling to Asia every few days can be quite taxing, especially when executives have a young family. Another one is that she got passed over for Armstrong’s position in favor of Dennis Woodside, another senior Google executive from Europe. Regardless, like Armstrong’s exit, Cassidy’s departure shows that Google has to deal with thinning management ranks in coming years. As the economy continues to remain soft, the pruning of veterans from Google’s executive ranks can cause disruption of ongoing operations.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt offered this statement (via PR, of course) on Cassidy’s departure: More . . .

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Picture Credit: Google

April 9, 2009 Posted by ej | Career, Leadership, People, Technology | Business, Career, Google, Leadership, Technology, Women, Work-Life Balance | Leave a Comment

Genevieve Bell of Intel: One of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology

In our continuing bid to highlight women who rock, today we introduce you to Genevieve Bell of Intel, one of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology!

And get this, she’s an anthropologist who studies the culture of consumers and how they use technology in order to help Intel understand their current and potential customers.

Read the profile below and then click here to see what US News & World Report had to say about her:
Keeping An Eye on You (US News & World Report)

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Genevieve Bell
Intel Fellow, Digital Home Group
Director, User Experience Group
Intel Corporation

Genevieve Bell is an Intel Fellow and Director of the User Experience Group within the Intel Digital Home Group.

Bell joined Intel in 1998 as a researcher in the Corporate Technology Group’s People and Practices Research team – Intel’s first social science oriented research team. She helped drive the company’s first non-U.S. field studies to inform business group strategy and products and conducted groundbreaking work in urban Asia in the early 2000s. Bell currently leads an R&D team of social scientists, interaction designers and human factors engineers to drive consumer-centric product innovation in Intel’s consumer electronics business. In this role she is responsible for setting research directions, conducting comparative qualitative and quantitative research globally, leading new product strategy and definition, and championing consumer-centric innovation and thinking across the company.

Prior to joining Intel, Bell was a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University. She has written more than 25 journal articles and book chapters on a range of subjects focused on the intersection of technology and society. Her book, “Telling Techno-Cultural Tales,” co-authored with Prof. Paul Dourish, is being published by MIT Press.

Raised in Australia, Bell received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Bryn Mawr College in 1990. She received her master’s and doctorate degrees in anthropology from Stanford University in 1993 and 1998, respectively.

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Picture Credit: Intel

April 9, 2009 Posted by ej | Career, Education, Leadership, People, Science, Technology | Anthropology, Business, Career, Leadership, Science, Technology, Women | Leave a Comment

The Mommy Wars: Dr. Laura on Stay-At-Home Moms

She’s baaaaaaaack!!! Let the Mommy Wars begin . . . again. . . >:|

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The Mommy Wars: Dr. Laura on Stay-At-Home Moms

Michelle Kung, The Wall Street Journal

Love her or hate her, Dr. Laura Schlessinger knows how to command an audience. Her radio show is heard on over 250 stations internationally, and she’s authored 10 best-selling books. This week, she releases her 16th book, “In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms,” in which she unapologetically urges mothers to remain at home instead of juggle a career and motherhood. Dr. Schlessinger, 62, recently spoke to The Wall Street Journal for a telephone interview.

The Wall Street Journal: When did you get the idea to write about this topic?

Dr. Schlessinger: Probably about 25 years ago. I’m very open about this issue because I’ve been on both sides of this choice. For a long time, I was a career woman and that was it. I didn’t want to have a baby. But I kept feeling as if something was not there. Then one day, I was watching PBS Nova, and a one-hour program they showed on the creation of a life. I just broke down. At that time, I was 35 and had already had my tubes tied. But in that moment, I realized what was missing: this womanly part of me. So I got married, struggled a bit to get pregnant and finally made it happen after a surgery. The feeling of your baby taking nourishment from your body for the first time is amazing, and it remains the most touching moment of my life. So that was the genesis of the book — my transition into motherhood.

WSJ: You’re very insistent that mothers should stay at home as full-time moms for the sake of the child. But given our current economic crisis, is that feasible for couples who may require two salaries to make ends meet?

Dr. Schlessinger: Of course this is a huge concern right now with money issues being so tight. But what I have discerned is that people of modest means have been able to handle what’s going on far better than people who are used to having a lot of stuff; it’s the people who put their life’s worth into products, and not people, that are probably the most shell-shocked.

One thing I’ve been happy as peach pie about — because I’m all about the children and the happiness of a woman because that makes the happiness of the home — is that nannies, day cares and babysitters are all collapsing, which is forcing moms and dads to raise their children at home. I’ve gotten a huge surge of mail and calls from people who didn’t make the choice to be at home with their kids, but are just now realizing how wonderful and beautiful it can be. A home should be more than just a place to park yourself after a frenzied day of too much work. So even though there’s less cash, people seem to be happier. More . . .

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Picture Credit: The Wall Street Journal

April 9, 2009 Posted by ej | Career, Parenting, People, Work-Life Balance | Business, Career, Parenting, Women, Work-Life Balance | Leave a Comment

Capital Cool: Members of The White House Staff Illustrate the New Rules for Dress in the Workplace

Illustrating the new rules on how to dress for work.

Capital Cool - Members of The White House Staff Illustrate the New Rules for Fashion in the Workplace (Click image to see Slideshow)

Capital Cool

Taking a cue from Michelle Obama, Joe Zee redefines women’s fashion role in the workplace.

Joe Zee, Elle

A lawyer friend recently remarked over dinner that her office desperately needed my help. It was full of smart, accomplished women, but they just couldn’t get their clothes right. Look at Michelle Obama, she continued, who, when she was an associate at a Chicago law firm, didn’t trade her style for credibility. She’s certain Michelle was the picture of chic, elegance, and authority. (And hell, she landed her husband at that firm!) My friend had a point: Why have working women put style on the back burner?

As her profile has risen, Michelle has in some ways become a reluctant style hero at the same time that she’s ushered in a new era in political fashion. She’s the ultimate career mom who, balancing success with family in Jimmy Choos and J.Crew, raised the workplace fashion stakes. Will the messages of style hope and sartorial change reach the young women who will now be working at the White House? My next challenge!

Two days after the inauguration, I headed to DC to style seven of the smart, successful—and let it be said, beautiful—women from this new administration and, in doing so, illustrate the new rules for how to dress for work. DC has long been in a style recession. My No. 1 rule? Break all the rules—which is why I dubbed them “The No-Hose Administration.”

From what I’ve seen over the years, getting it right at the office can be tough. It’s a daily high-pressure game: You want to appear authoritative and professional but not look like a career drone. Employee handbooks may highlight terms like business casual and corporate attire, but what does it all mean? How do you start to decipher these complex codes that can ultimately get us hired, fired, promoted, or just plain noticed? April being our Work Issue, I am offering my own get-ahead guide to How to Look Good and Still Succeed in Business. More . . .

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Picture Credit: Elle Magazine

March 24, 2009 Posted by ej | Fashion, Leadership, People, Shopping, The First Lady | Business, Career, Fashion, Leadership, Magazines, Michelle Obama, Obama, Shopping, Women | Leave a Comment

Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business: #50 Marissa Mayer of Google

Today, we continue with our look at the women in Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and we introduce you to #50 – Marissa Mayer of Google!

Marissa Mayer,

Vice President, Search Products and User Experience
Google (GOOG)

Previous rank: New
Age: 33

This self-proclaimed “geek” (she was Google’s first female engineer) is the youngest woman ever to make our list. Overseeing thousands of engineers and product managers, she shapes the design of Google.com, Google Maps, Earth, Health, iGoogle, and more.

Click here to read The Adventures of Marissa (San Francisco Magazine)