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/
We all remember our favorite teacher; the one who inspired us, excited us, saw something in us that perhaps we didn't even see in ourselves and helped us nurture that spark into a flame. For me, that teacher was Mrs. Rocco and I was 8 years old. Before I entered Mrs. Rocco's class, I had…
If you have children, you have probably noticed a fascinating and common phenomenon: seemingly without instruction or reading manuals, they know more about computers and cellphones, in fact most technology, than you do. They impatiently seize controls out of your hands saying, “Let me show you how to do it.” And then, you the parent,…
Sit back and let me tell you a story: a large professional services firm, let’s call them Firm A, once went up for a large job at the Client. Firm A, which had good reason to think a lot of itself, had excellent qualifications for the work and gave, what they didn’t doubt was a…
Recently, my husband received an email from a very casual acquaintance and wondered where this person lived. He Googled them, found their address and was presented, by Google Street view, with a picture of their house, and all within the space of 2 minutes. This exercise caused me to comment to him, “it must be…
Am I an elitist? Am I looking down from the perspective of a middle-class ivory tower when I write about education and the need to reform our education system in innovative ways to help graduate more students who are better equipped to compete in the new global economy? I’ve certainly sometimes been accused of that…
During the last year or so of the seemingly endless health care debate, there has been a lot of hand wringing and yelling about what’s needed to fix the health care system in the US. The funny thing is, if you read anybody who really knows anything about these things, who has thought deeply about…
Hello, my name is Sarah Firisen and I am a software developer and a writer. But wait, my name is also Bianca Zanetti and I used to be a fashion designer with a string of stores. No, I am not schizophrenic, I am Sarah in my real life and Bianca in my Second Life. My…
Last month I got a new Facebook friend, my daughter. Later this month I’m going to my children’s school to talk to the 4th-8th graders (including my daughter) about the perils and opportunities of Social Media. This week, the New York Times published an article, “Teaching about the Web Includes Troublesome Parts” that addresses this…
by Sara Firisen My daughter is a true fashionista; every day brings a new, interesting outfit. The other day she was wearing her Minnie Mouse ears as a hair accessory. As we drove home from school, she took them off, read the words stenciled inside the band, and said, “I got my Minnie mouse ears…
The photo to the right is of our family dog, Treetree (we stupidly allowed a 2 year old to name her and Treetree is what we ended up with.) She’s a yellow Labrador Retriever, a breed notoriously easy to train. Dog motivation, and particularly Lab motivation is pretty simple: they want to please their owners…
This Christmas season I totally shocked my friends and family in a way that I probably haven’t managed to since I announced I was moving in with a man I had known for a few weeks (I married him in the end.) Seemingly, I reversed myself on a topic on which everyone, myself included until…
I have a very geeky 9 year old daughter; there really is no doubt about that. One day last spring, a school friend had transgressed in some way in the class and her “punishment” was to stay inside at recess and clean out the pencil sharpener. My daughter offered to give up her recess and…
by Sarah Firisen I have spent a lot of time recently thinking about corporate innovation; how to define it, how to inspire ideation and how companies can move forward in their implementation of ideas. And the more I read and think about innovation, the more I realize that something far greater is at stake here…