Postcards

Scenes from the Time 100 bash

I'm just back from a funeral in Pennsylvania -- where I traveled late last night after the Time 100 gala at Manhattan's Time Warner Center. Strange to say, but two wonderful celebrations back to back. The funeral was for my closest childhood friend Meg's father, Jack Denuel, who died after a three-decade battle with MS. He was a great man who never whined and never said a bad word about anyone. Never.

As MORE

Power Point: Seek the adventure

"I learned that life is an adventure and that the best course through life is to approach all of life as an adventure...Getting lost is an adventure from which we can learn uncommon and uncommonly important life lessons."

-- Carleton College President Robert Oden in a college application essay in the Wall Street Journal. At the Journal's request, the presidents of 10 colleges and universities answered an essay question from their MORE

Scenes from the Kindle DX press conference

When I arrived at Pace University at 9:30 this morning in lower Manhattan, the line was already snaking down the side of the building. The crowd, gathered to witness the announcement of a third version of Amazon's (AMZN) Kindle electronic reader, was feverishly tapping at gadgets galore and every so often stepping out of line to take camera phone shots of the assembled group. It seemed their excitement had gotten MORE

Power Point: Worry about your people

"At the end of a day the performance of a company like Kraft has everything to do with the quality of the people that we have in the key roles and so I spend most of my time worrying about whether that's the case, making sure...we have the right people in the right places, that they have the resources that they need to get the job done."

-- Kraft (KFT) CEO MORE

Talent for sale

By Mina Kimes, Fortune Reporter

Looking for work?  Max Messmer, CEO of Robert Half International (RHI), feels your pain.

Messmer heads a $5 billion-a-year staffing empire that makes most of its money finding temporary jobs for financial services workers -- not the easiest task these days. Messmer took the helm in 1986 (far from a temp gig!) when revenues were just $7 million; since then, he's diversified the company by adding consulting MORE

Power Point: Write it down

"You know what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night with a vivid dream? And you know how, if you don't have a pencil and pad by the bed to write it down, it will be completely gone the next morning? Sometimes it is important to wake up and stop dreaming. When a really great dream shows up, grab it!"

--Google (GOOG) co-founder Larry Page in a MORE

BlackBerry and me: a tipping point

Did you hear that Research in Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry Curve 8900 toppled Apple's (AAPL) iPhone as the No. 1 smart-phone in the first quarter? So says research firm NPD Group.

While I've never considered myself a barometer of technology trends, I have to tell you, the fact that I bought a Curve 8300 on Saturday says something about BlackBerry's surging popularity.

You see, I am the furthest thing from a gadget person. MORE

Power Point: Make your own talent

"The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It's not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it's deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft."

-- New York Times columnist David Brooks in an Op-Ed today about how genius has more to do with practice than innate gifts. Brooks quotes examples from MORE

Genentech president jumps to a new life

Another Fortune Most Powerful Woman -- a longtime member of our annual Power 50 list -- is leaving the corporate world. Susan Desmond-Hellmann, who was Genentech's (DNA) president of product development, is heading to the University of California San Francisco as chancellor.

Desmond-Hellmann's departure from business's upper echelons (She ranked No. 13 on Fortune's 2008 Power 50 list) adds to the trend of top women execs leaving corporations and deciding not MORE