Postcards

Power Point: Redeploy your skills

"You are certain to change with time and there's a chance your bliss may evolve too. Not to worry: The skills you acquire can always be effectively redeployed."

-- Tom Freston, the former Viacom (VIAB) whose commencement speech we've run in three parts since Wednesday.

As we said, except for Apple's (AAPL) Steve Jobs' extraordinary speech to Stanford grads in 2005, Freston's talk -- which he delivered at his son Andrew's graduation MORE

Freston: Pack a well worn passport and a curious spirit

Here's the third and final segment of Tom Freston's 2007 commencement speech at Emerson College. In earlier posts, Viacom's (VIAB) former CEO shared career lessons and detailed the first two "things you're going to want to be able to say you've done if ever you are called upon to impart wisdom upon the young." Here are Nos. 3 and 4 on that list, along with Freston's warning about what could MORE

Power Point: Take the first step

"I'm optimistic that we're taking a big first step. And yet I want to be realistic. We've got to take a lot more steps."

-- Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer in the New York Times today. Ballmer unveiled Microsoft's new search engine to the public at a technology conference Thursday. The search engine, named Bing, assists users with specific online tasks, helping them refine their searches or extracting the most commonly MORE

Freston: Follow your bliss, but leave room for U-turns

Here's part two of Tom Freston's 2007 commencement speech at Emerson College. In yesterday's post, the former Viacom (VIAB) CEO shared the story of the sudden turn in his storied media career. Here Freston explains the first two things "you're going to want to be able to say you've done if ever you are called upon to impart wisdom upon the young."

One. First and foremost: You're going to want to MORE

Two Lindas leaving lofty corporate posts

Two more Most Powerful Women -- the latest, both named Linda -- are leaving big companies.

One is Royal Dutch Shell's (RDS.A) Linda Cook -- whose exit lends fresh meaning to the term "leaky pipeline." Cook, executive director at the Anglo-Dutch oil giant and No. 3 on Fortune's 2008 international Most Powerful Women list, will leave next Monday after losing the CEO race there, according to the Wall Street Journal. Strangely, MORE

Tom Freston's commencement speech at Emerson College

It's that time of year, so we're sharing one of our favorite commencement speeches with you: Tom Freston's 2007  address at Emerson College.

Pattie Sellers' exclusive profile of Freston, "The Most Wanted Man on the Planet," tells the story of a man who had built MTV and Viacom's (VIAB) vast cable empire, got fired by chairman Sumner Redstone, walked away with $60 million in severance --  and actually knew what MORE

Power Point: Make the most of the extraordinary

"I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences. Today is one of those experiences."

-- Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court, in a press conference following the announcement of her nomination Tuesday. The daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants, Sotomayor was born in the Bronx and grew up in a housing project near Yankee Stadium. After her father passed away when she was MORE

Gerry Laybourne reemerges, wisdom intact

Where in the world is Gerry Laybourne? Last we heard, she sold Oxygen Media for almost $1 billion to General Electric's (GE) NBC Universal. The media-industry icon, who had built Viacom's (VIAB) Nickelodeon before creating Oxygen, has been notably quiet since her mega-sale in the fall of 2007.

In fact, I didn't know what Laybourne was up to until last week, when I ended up at her apartment on the Upper MORE

Most Powerful Women take New York

"Betting on the Future." That's the 2009 theme of Fortune's Most Powerful Women, who convened in New York City last evening for a mega-celebration and some very smart conversation. I'm not sure I belong on stage with three superstars under 40: Bank analyst Meredith Whitney, Google's (GOOG) Marissa Mayer, and Goldman Sachs' (GS) Dina Powell. But there I was (at age 49), talking with them them about how they've navigated MORE

Xerox's next CEO: Ursula Burns

by Jessica Shambora

Yesterday on Postcards we wrote about an historic event: Xerox (XRX) CEO Anne Mulcahy announced she will pass the baton to president Ursula Burns on the first of July in the first ever woman-to-woman transfer of the CEO role in the Fortune 500. Burns will also be the first African-American female to lead a company on the list. (Click here for a 2006 Fortune profile of Burns.)

While Fortune, MORE