Postcards

Guest Post: Andrew Carnegie, version 2.0

Photo courtesy of Marcena Peterson

By John Wood, Founder & Executive Chairman of Room to Read

Here's a quick history quiz. If someone mentions Andrew Carnegie, what image immediately comes to mind? Greedy capitalist union-busting robber baron? Benefactor of thousands of community libraries? Or both? No matter what people think of old Andy's business ethics, historians agree that Carnegie's focus on creating MORE

Power Point: Give us a few weeks

"Why didn't the waters part, the sun shine and all the ills of the world disappear because President Obama came to Europe? That wasn't our expectation. That'll take at least a few weeks."

--White House senior adviser David Axelrod, in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal. As Axelrod quips, repairing U.S. relations with Europe won't happen overnight, but Obama got off on the right foot--helped no doubt by his rock-star status on the MORE

Leaving Google for the start-up world

by Patricia Sellers

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy

Giving up the innovative, we-can-change-the-world culture of Google (GOOG) is hardly an easy decision for any executive who works there. But for Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, who announced this morning that she's leaving Google to rejoin the world of start-ups, the decision was a natural.

"My father drummed into me that I should work for myself," says Singh Cassidy, 39, who is Google's president for Asia-Pacific & MORE

Power Point: Give it up for a good cause

"We have all felt pain, but we can all do more. And doing something in a time like this is much more important."

--Sandy Weill in Tuesday's New York Times, on his decision to move forward on a $170 milion gift to Weill Cornell Medical College. The former Citigroup (C) CEO, who had already given $200 million to the school, had planned to give those extra millions posthumously. But as Cornell MORE

Finding flexibility in your career

Another powerful woman called last week to tell me she's opting out. "I'm going to do what I want to do rather than what I need to do," said Julie Fasone Holder, Dow Chemical's (DOW) SVP and chief marketing, sales and reputation officer

It's the trend lately. If you've been checking into Postcards regularly, you've read about my conversations with high-ranking women choosing the good life vs. the grind. Susan Arnold MORE

Power Point: Go where your goal is

"Why would I be scared? It was in my character to want to acheive my goal and that was where my goal was. So I had to go there."

--Marta Vieira da Silva, a Brazilian soccer player who was named the female player of the year by FIFA for the last three years, in story in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. Marta, 23, plays for the Los Angeles Sol, part of MORE

The job crisis strikes top talent

The job crisis is hitting closer and closer to home. I was struck by this story,  "This Time, Slump Hits Well-Educated Too" in Sunday's New York Times. It mentions that New York City's unemployment rate zoomed to 8.1% in February, from 6.9% one month before. And the prime victims are "an uncharacteristically well-educated group."

I'm seeing the trend all around. Yesterday, my good friend, architect Eric Gartner, whose firm is MORE

Power Point: It's bigger than you

"I think if you're only thinking about yourself, your life becomes diminished."

--President Obama at a French town hall, on the importance of public service. For more on people embracing Obama's "new era of responsibility" read yesterday's post where I talk about the Serve America Act passed by Congress this week. --Jessica Shambora

Ten signs of recovery and renewal

I'm an optimist. Always have been. So take with a grain of salt--or sugar, perhaps--these signs of hope across the board:

1. Maybe print isn't dead. My new Kindle 2 makes me think that even though we may not be reading magazines and newspapers on paper a decade or two from now, long-form stories and beautiful page design can endure. (My Monday Postcard, "Amazon: Thinking beyond the Kindle," stirred debate about MORE

Power Point: Media bosses call a truce

"I want to personally congratulate Jeff Zucker and NBCU on their success in the litigation and thank Jeff for resolving this in a professional manner."

-- Producer Harvey Weinstein in a statement Wednesday, ending a six-month battle over Project Runway. Weinstein admits he erred in moving the show from Bravo--owned by General Electric's (GE) NBC Universal--to Lifetime without giving NBCU a shot to keep it. Lifetime reportedly paid $150 million for MORE