On needing Michelle Obama

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On needing Michelle Obama

For as long as I can remember, my American life has been about politics. I was barely six when we immigrated here, but thanks to my brilliant and opinionated mother, few grade-schoolers were more passionate than I was about everything from the Bill of Rights to the Gulf War. Sundays started with Meet the Press and closed on 60 Minutes; every childhood weeknight belonged to Peter Jennings, and at the risk of really dating myself, few things more greatly revolutionized my college mornings than the introduction of that old “Headlines” email from The New York Times.

Yet, lately, I can barely stand to look at the Times’ front page. Morning Joe’s been replaced by Frasier and Serial. And it isn’t a question of comfort, an escape from the deluge of terrorist attacks and climate disasters and ever more appalling acts of corruption in every unexamined corner. It is, I’ve come to realize, simply this: I feel my heart’s been broken.

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An Innovator's Guide to Intuition

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An Innovator's Guide to Intuition

Wander the halls of the Yale School of Management and it’s easy to believe, in the words of the immortal Little Mermaid, “She’s got everything.” Already state-of-the-art classrooms rest in massive modules, ready to move as whiteboards, Wi-Fi, and whatever’s next become inevitable relics. Theretired brigadier general/skydiving instructor/social psychology Ph.D. who’s invited a group of us — all contributors to a recent book, Peter Drucker’s Five Most Important Questions: Enduring Wisdom for Today’s Leaders — to speak in his leadership development class is every inch the sort of plain-spoken iconoclast I’d want shaping would-be titans of industry. And self-aware students pose questions like — What do we do when people want to hate us?

So when SOM leadership coach Laurie Kelley asks me over Pinot Grigio later what I think her high-flying Millennial charges most need to succeed, I linger a moment in my glass.

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What the UN Taught Me About ‘Innovation’

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What the UN Taught Me About ‘Innovation’

What comes to mind when we hear the words “United Nations”?

Big? Definitely. Powerful? Probably. But — innovative?

That’s what I’m wondering as several excited UN Millennium Campaign staffers escort me through security at the UN’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters one sunny afternoon in the run-up to the UN General Assembly. And to put it plainly, I am bracing myself.

I was here because of UNMC Director Mitchell Toomey and my friend Anand Kantaria, a UNMC stalwart and all-around wonderful human who’d asked me to host the organization’s Peoples’ Voices Awards Ceremony during the GA.

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Dear (well-meaning) white people...

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Dear (well-meaning) white people...

I believe in bodies.

No idea who Naomi Klein is? Doesn’t mean I don’t love seeing you in the thick of that climate rally. Never worked an hourly wage day in your life? I still appreciate the hell out of your labor rights retweets. And on and on unto pure unadulterated self-loving slacktivism.

For activism to achieve its most important goal — effecting actual change — it has to be inclusive. And as someone who came out of the womb caring about causes, I’ve always known the best way forward was together, en masse, from the people taking to the streets to the ones evolving institutions from the inside out.

But I find myself in the wake of this most recent miscarriage of justice — or sidestepping of justice, better put, as not indicting the man who precipitated Eric Garner’s homicide via illegal chokehold means crime and punishment were never even at issue — at something of a loss.

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A Great Recession — and a Great Awakening?

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A Great Recession — and a Great Awakening?

To explain how Millennials were really affected by the Great Recession, I need to tell you about a bank of windows on the southeast corner of 50th St. and 7th Ave. in Midtown Manhattan. I’d walk under it every day on my way to work in the Time & Life Building during the 2000s. And every day, there they’d be—a long line of twenty-something finance boys in starched Wall Street blues perched on the windowsill for their morning meeting...

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When Nerds Attack

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When Nerds Attack

Just a few of my favorite moments from last weekend's Comic-Con International in San Diego—from robot soldiers and robot dragons to a Zombie Parade and whole host of awesomely costumed characters. And for the record, somewhere out there's a Borg queen, a Wolverine, and a Penguin who were so breathtaking I couldn't even get my picture-taking act together, so you can imagine. In short, geektastic does not begin to describe!

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Trayvon Martin, Generation Y, and the Myth of 'Colorblindness'

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Trayvon Martin, Generation Y, and the Myth of 'Colorblindness'

What a hard few days it’s been.

For some—the scores of people who thronged New York City’s Times Square, stopped traffic on a Los Angeles freeway, and more—Twitter’s #NoJustice hashtag says all that needs saying about the shooting death of Trayvon Martin on a rainy night in a gated Florida community more than a year ago. For those who saw in George Zimmerman a man unfairly labeled “racist” and worse for trying, however imperfectly, to keep his community safe, it may seem Zimmerman’s been even more vilified in the wake of his acquittal than he ever was on trial. And for the American justice system itself, well—no one will ever call this its finest hour.

But there’s one group that stands to gain something crucial from all this sadness...

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What I Won't Do for My Husband

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What I Won't Do for My Husband

I won’t change my name. I’ve spent the last three decades making the one I have mean something. And I’d like to keep it up, thanks. Which is, I hope, a major part of why he’ll love me always.

I won’t accept a ring. I will gush over my friends’ rings, of course. I will keep my views on the fraught history and general scourginess of diamonds and engagement rings to myself, mostly. But till he...

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Just Hug Those Helicopter Parents

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Just Hug Those Helicopter Parents

Parents always take a lot of heat in conversations about Generation Y. They're overindulgent, over-involved maniacs who've naturally raised kids with the most over-the-top expectations, the critique usually goes, and even when it's parents themselves doing the talking, they can't resist a little self-flagellation.

Just imagine, then, how things might unfold in a crowd full of those poor souls who've...

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A (Wild, Weird, Wired) Week with the US Armed Forces

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A (Wild, Weird, Wired) Week with the US Armed Forces

A few weeks ago, I was wondering if I'd survive five days with the United States military intact. Today, I'm realizing I didn't. First, the backstory. In theory, the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference is "a program sponsored by the Secretary of Defense for civilian public opinion leaders interested in growing their knowledge of the military and national defense issues." In practice, it's as simple as spending a very intense workday with each of the U.S. Armed Forces—Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Army, and Navy. (For the record, that's the order in which we met them, not a value judgment!) And in reality, of course, it ends up being so much more.

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Comic-Con, You Are Beautiful

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Comic-Con, You Are Beautiful

For anyone who's ever wondered what a day at San Diego Comic-Con might be like—and I know there must be one or two of you—here are some highlights from this year's coolest convention with Selwyn Hinds and me. (I say that with nary a hint of snark, by the way; this is our fifth SDCC!) There's also some fun video at the end, but I won't spoil the surprise.

Let the fandom begin...

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Pledge to the Virtual Flag?

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Pledge to the Virtual Flag?

Picture it: A giant Washington, D.C., hotel ballroom, a couple hundred people, and that persistent buzz that precedes every conference, as organizers try to wrangle and the audience willfully ignores them. Then over the din, a recorded voice asks everyone to rise for the singing of the national anthem. We all stand, and I look around for the flag, which I can't find until I realize...

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'Being Human' (and Happy)

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'Being Human' (and Happy)

There's some new video up of the cast of Syfy's Being Human being legitimately hilarious on a panel I moderated recently at the Paley Center for Media. You can watch it here for some of the highest hijinks of the night with Sam Witwer, Meaghan Rath, Sam Huntington, and Mark Stern, Syfy's president of original programming. And if you're up for a little self-indulgent reflection, watching it got me thinking, so here goes...

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Poem No. 1

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Poem No. 1

Here's something I've been tinkering with since the first time I saw a cruise ship sailing down the Hudson River through my living-room window. The scale alone is disconcerting—the Hudson being not at all like the open ocean, and the zillion buildings of downtown Manhattan framing the boat in sections as it passes. So you end up with the distinct impression that's the real, wide world sailing by...

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Do Your Own Growing

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Do Your Own Growing

If you've heard one adage, you've heard them all—or at least it's easy to feel that way in today's jaded, eye-rolling, seen-it-all climate. (And that's just the tweens.)

But every once in a while, a standby surprises you. That's what happened recently when, after speaking on Gen Y at the Kohler Distributor Conference, I listened to Vice President of Sales Frank Windsor's closing remarks. In the midst of discussing product and process innovations, he quoted something old and lovely...

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The (Anti)Social Writer

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The (Anti)Social Writer

I hate social networking. It's not because I hate technology. And not even because I hate people; real social networks are, after all, as old as humankind—and I love humankind.

But I hate social networking because I'm a writer. A really crazy writer. The sort of ridiculous person who can spend 45 minutes writing a three-sentence e-mail, reading it aloud to myself until I'm absolutely sure that...

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