Sarah Firisen was born in London, England but has lived in New York for 30 years. Sarah's had a variety of roles over her career, most in and around technology, but the thread through them all has been her passion for helping organizations and their people to deliver on and tell their disruption stories. A strategic, creative innovator and storyteller, Sarah is finishing up a book, The Impromptu Game Plan. This book (and related podcast) explores the career and life stories of people who’ve made pivots in their lives to create more meaningful careers that utilize their strengths and experiences and speak to their passions and values. Email: [email protected]
Website: https://theimpromptugameplan.com/
by Sarah Firisen During the height of lockdown, I was stressed. We were all stressed. We were scared of getting sick and terrified that the most vulnerable among our friends and family would get sick. We were anxious and bored, but many of us, more than anything, were lonely. Very, very lonely. My husband worked…
by Sarah Firisen Who doesn’t love a three-day weekend? If an extra day to relax isn’t good enough, the following week always seems to go quickly, making a Memorial Day, Labor Day, or a bank holiday in the UK, the gift that keeps on giving. Of course, most of us should consider ourselves lucky only…
by Sarah Firisen Google the phrase “is it time to care about the metaverse?” and there are a wealth of articles, mostly claiming that the answer is yes! Are they right? In the next six months, I’m going to start on a home-building project. While I’ve done home renovations before, building a house from the…
by Sarah Firisen I’m going to date myself in a significant way now: when I was in high school, we had to use books of trigonometric tables to look up sine and cosine values. I’m not so old that it wasn’t possible to get a calculator that could tell you the answer, but I’m assuming…
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…
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…
by Sarah Firisen I recently started a new job. The process of looking and interviewing for this job was unlike any other I’ve been through because I now live on the Caribbean island of Grenada. I moved here during the height of the pandemic when everyone was working from home. When I told my plans…
by Sarah Firisen I began the process of cutting the cord when I moved back to NYC from upstate NY 10 years ago. I didn’t sign up for cable or home phone service. Instead, I had a mobile phone and Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu. It felt liberating. Periodically, Verizon FIOS (through whom I…
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…
by Sarah Firisen My name is Sarah Firisen, and I’m 5ft 2 inches tall and work in software sales. But I’m also, or used to be, Bianca Zanetti, a 5ft 9 size 0 (which I’m also not), fashion designer and proprietor of a chain of stores, Fashion by B. No, I’m not bipolar. Bianca Zanetti…
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…
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…
by Sarah Firisen My eldest daughter has a new boyfriend. I met him the other day, and he seems to be a very nice young man. When I told her I liked him, she replied, “He makes me so happy. Happier than I’ve ever been.” The first blush of love is wonderful. Young love perhaps…
by Sarah Firisen When we were young, most of us indulged in the speculation, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” Many of us said things like a firefighter, a doctor, a nurse, or a teacher. As children, we instinctively looked at the world around us and recognized the careers that seemed…
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…
by Sarah Firisen I just spent two months living on the Caribbean island of Grenada. It’s a wonderful place with a somewhat antiquated healthcare system. To visit Grenada, I had to have a negative PCR test within 72 hours of flying. I was planning to go to a clinic and wait in line, which I’d…
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…
by Sarah Firisen When I was in my twenties, I didn’t own handbags, I didn’t even have a wallet, I used to stuff my keys and money into a pocket. This was easy when I had one credit card and not a lot of cash. But as I got older, I began to see the…
by Sarah Firisen I’ve telecommuted from home for many years now. Before COVID-19, I would rarely turn my camera on when I was on video chats. And if I did, I’d make sure to put makeup on and look somewhat professional and put together from at least the waist up. But since lockdown started in…
by Sarah Firisen I was a Philosophy major in University from 1988-1991 (degrees are 3 years in the UK). To be accurate in British terms, I read Philosophy. Some friends and I would socialize with a group of our professors. We’d often talk and drink late into the night in the living room of one…