Speaker Articles

Career Lessons from a YouTube Star

When a video goes viral on YouTube, a lot of luck is involved for sure. But that luck is often in combination with even more hard work.

At least that was the case for Franchesca Ramsey, a video blogger with more than 29 million views on YouTube. When her video “Sh*t That White Girls Say… to Black Girls” went viral in 2012, she had been writing, filming and posting for more than six years—when she wasn’t entering standup comedy contests, trying to get acting auditions or working at her day job in web design. Read More →

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Must-Have Answers from ‘Ask a Manager’ Author Alison Green

For many employees, the work itself is easy. It’s the office politics that are hard. That’s partly why Alison Green started her blog, “Ask a Manager,” 11 years ago. A chief of staff at a non-profit organization at the time, she kept thinking that coworkers would have made different decisions if they’d had their boss’ or HR’s perspective.

“As a manager, I could see that people weren’t going to get the outcome they thought they were,” Green recalls. “It occurred to me that a lot of people would benefit from knowing what their bosses are thinking when they hear x or what they mean when they say y.” Read More →

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Office Hours: How to Self-Promote Without Feeling Like a Show-off

Talking yourself up when it’s expected, say, during a job interview, is one thing. But doing it during a team meeting or one-on-one with your boss can feel silly, phony, even slimy. As a result, many women don’t do it—and hold back their careers.

So how do you take credit for your work and feel authentic to yourself? Here, three executive women offer their advice: Read More →

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“Bring Who You Are to the Table” and Other Advice from Civil Rights Leader Carmen Perez

As a teen, Carmen Perez was often chosen to be the captain of her basketball team. Still, the national co-chair of the 2017 Women’s March on Washington, D.C., didn’t start seeing herself as a leader until about 10 years into her career working for social justice.

“I always thought my coaches and teammates chose me because they saw that I was fair and not one to compromise my integrity,” says Perez, who wears several hats, including executive director of the Gathering for Justice, co-founder of Justice League NYC and founder of Justice League CA. “But now I also see that my natural tendency of seeing the good in people helps me bridge gaps and bring people together.” Read More →

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Your Unconscious Biases, Revealed

If you think you can’t have unconscious biases against women because you’re a woman, think again.

“We’re just as likely to have them as men because we’re all receiving the same adverse messages and we’re equally susceptible to them,” says Tiffany Jana, D.M., a management consultant and author of forthcoming Erasing Institutional Bias: How to Create Systemic Change for Organizational Inclusion.

Similarly, we’ve all got prejudices against men—yes, they do exist! “Most unconscious biases are in men’s favor, but when a man doesn’t fit society’s mold for a leader, because he’s, say, short or emotionally available, we unconsciously think he’s not leadership material,” Jana explains. Read More →

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