The future of innovation

by Sarah Firisen For a long time, an accepted principle of corporate life has been that to take advantage of spontaneous ideation to drive innovation, people need to be in the same physical space. To encourage innovation, Apple, the accepted exemplar of an innovative company, built its headquarters in such a way as to try to…
Now your Roomba is spying on you as well

by Sarah Firisen About eight years ago, I was in downtown Manhattan and went into a Warby Parker store, an eyewear retailer. I didn’t post anything on social media about it, but I did have location services enabled on Facebook. Later that day, Facebook started showing me ads for eyewear (something it had never done…
The future of working from anywhere you want
The future of cutting the cord
Innovating the future of office life

by Sarah Firisen Over the last few weeks, I’ve been spending more time in the office than I have since the start of COVID. I work for a technology start-up, and our New York office used to look and feel just as shows like Silicon Valley portrayed such offices: cool furniture, fancy coffee machines, lots…
Living a purposeful life in the metaverse
The education innovation dilemma

by Sarah Firisen Many years ago, I returned to my old high school for a visit with friends who were classmates back in the ’80s. Exploring the school and marveling over what had changed and what remained exactly the same, we ventured into the language lab. The room smelled exactly the same as it had…
The Innovation of the Great Resignation

by Sarah Firisen I recently spent a few weeks in the UK, which is suffering from a labor shortage post lockdown like the US. Though, unlike the US, some of the UK’s problems are self-inflicted Brexit wounds. The shortages are rippling through every sector, and as in the US, that includes hospitality. Coming out of…
The future of happiness
The future of more meaningful work….post-lockdown, corporate workers take stock
The future of not working

by Sarah Firisen I recently had a conversation with someone I know who is around 50 and has been out of work since the COVID-19 pandemic started. He’s had a challenging life over the last 20 years or so dealing with addiction. While he once had a successful career, since rehab, he’s been working pretty…
Zooming our way to better health – the future of the doctor’s visit
One good thing about COVID-19, we finally got the tech to work

by Sarah Firisen This Christmas, I stayed in a Marriott in the town where my kids live. Like most people, my business and personal travel has mostly ground to a halt in the last 9 months. So I was pleasantly surprised by the check-in experience the hotel provided me to allow for social distancing. I’m…
Innovation in a time of COVID-19
A brave new world to live and work in
Taking virtual education beyond Zoom: How VR and AR can help
When the Real World turns Virtual…the new reality of office life?

by Sarah Firisen Two months ago, COVID lockdown was still new; in the US it was horrific that 3,000 people had died and I wrote about some possible longer-term technology innovation that might come out of this crisis. Fast forward to today and the US has just passed an unimaginable, grim milestone, 100,000 dead. And while…
Technology in a time of Covid-19
The Sephora Syndrome

by Sarah Firisen First off, let me just get this out of the way: we share too much data about ourselves knowingly with companies and they collect, use and share even more than most of us are aware of (read through those lengthy privacy notices recently?). And unless you live in Europe with its pretty…