A few weeks ago I took a 3 mile hike alone on a trail in the middle of Tilden Park in Berkeley. You can see by the photo above that we’re in a pretty severe drought in California these days; instead of lots of greenery, much of the surrounding scenery was a dull yellow. I…
I always knew I’d be a working mom but I never quite realized what a redundant phrase that was until I had a baby 19 months ago. Suddenly the meaning of the phrase “full time job” seemed completely insufficient. Forty hours a week? Try ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY EIGHT. In my career I’ve participated in…
My husband dumps all of his spare change on his nightstand every night. Then every few months I haul it to TD Bank, where I play that game in which you dump it in the giant cylinder and guess how much you have. I am always wildly off. I guess something like $6 and it’s more…
Tomorrow is spring. Let’s high-five about that, shall we? With spring comes change and I’m excited to announce that Plucky HQ is heading to the Bay Area! Starting May 1, I’ll be based in Berkeley, CA. I’m very excited to connect with West Coast agencies and start-ups (while continuing to travel a bunch for other…
A few weeks ago I was hanging out with friends, all of whom work in different industries. We shared war stories about the places we’d worked; it got us laughing and finally someone joked, “where are the good companies, anyway?” I’ve been thinking about that question lately. Are there good companies? Are there bad companies?…
First, put your weapons down. By “weapons”, I mean: the negative sentiment left over from your previous meeting, the stress you felt this morning when your kid peed on the floor, the remnant energy you held in while being polite to the client, your frustration with the way the payroll software locked up your screen,…
There’s someone on your team who embodies the spirit, heart and work ethic you value most at your company. This priceless person just walked into your office and told you (hopefully gently) that it’s time for him to leave the company. She needs to stretch different muscles or he got the opportunity to build robots…
I spent the majority of last week at Owner Camp, a small conference for the leaders of small digital agencies. Owner Camp gathers about 30 leaders to share and learn with each other while creating an incredibly supportive network in the meantime. Oh sure, the dinners were fun and the golfing was fun (… so…
I start every Monday morning at a cafe in Chelsea, where I have breakfast with a few other solo entrepreneurs. We update each other about our weeks, what our focus will be, where our travels are taking us. We teach each other how to use IFTTT; we recommend accounting software; we high-five about clients won…
Next week I’m speaking to a group of students at Dickinson College, a small, liberal arts school in Pennsylvania. It will be my first time in an undergraduate classroom since my days at Muhlenberg (another small, liberal arts school in Pennsylvania, wouldn’t you know it?) and so much has changed about the world. These people…
I went to my local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library the other day to pick up a book I’d put on hold. When I couldn’t find it on the shelves, I approached the woman working the help desk. She looked it up and saw that it had mistakenly been sent to a different branch,…
We’re newly into Q4 of 2013, but you may be well into planning for 2014. What have you been meaning to put energy into? Where are you headed? And what will it take to get there? My expertise is people. So if your goals for the next year have anything to do with the humans…