Mission Daily

You may think everything in IKEA is easy to piece together, but what you see in-store and online has taken years, even decades, of iteration to create. Unlike their mattress frames, IKEA’s technology takes more than just an Allen wrench to build. And leading it all is Susan Standiford. Susan grew up with an innate interest in technology. Her father was a historian and journalist and her mother was a physicist, scientist, and mathematician. Because Susan basically grew up in a computer lab, her interest in technology quickly took hold leading her into many important tech roles later in life. From VP of Technology at Disney Interactive to leading the tech team at Travelocity to her current role as Chief Technology Officer of Ingka Group, the strategic partner in the IKEA franchise system- Susan is one of today’s top technology leaders. In her day to day as CTO, Susan plans the company’s product and digital strategies and is working on moving the company into a new digital revolution. “For us, the digital transformation is not about turning IKEA into a technology company. We’re not changing our core values. We’re still trying to generate our mission which is to create a better everyday life for many people by bringing product to people wherever they are in their life. But how do you use digital capabilities and modern ways of thinking about tech to empower all those good things that are IKEA?” On this episode, Ian and Susan discuss how Susan first became interested in technology, what her work looks like as CTO of Ingka Group, and how the role of AR and VR is changing the way people shop.  — P.S. Thanks to our partner, b8ta, this week we will be giving away three Skylight touch-screen photo frames. Enter the giveaway here for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

Ali Diab is the co-founder and CEO of Collective Health, a healthcare technology company that makes employee sponsored health insurance more transparent and simple to navigate. Ali was motivated to start Collective Health after his own medical event. As he was busy recovering from a life saving operation, Ali was served numerous health care bills with no clear understanding of what was owed and for what. He had great health insurance too but even still, the bills were high and not clear or transparent. On a mission to understand the healthcare system, Ali founded Collective Health. “You don't need to know bond math to understand your mortgage, so why do I need to understand every acronym and every medical term to understand my health benefit plan? You shouldn't, it should be plain English. I think that that's intentional. That's the way the industry keeps us out and keeps us from poking at the beehive.” On this episode, Ian and Ali discuss the problems within the healthcare industry, how technology is making a difference, and what Collective Health is doing to move the industry closer to transparency and simplicity.  — P.S. Thanks to our partner, b8ta, this week we will be giving away three Simple Being Weighted Blankets. Enter the giveaway here for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right!  Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

Whitney Bouck is the Chief Operating Officer of HelloSign, a tool that lets users sign documents with legally binding e-signatures. As COO, Whitney is responsible for leading the sales, marketing, customer operations, and business development team. However, she wasn’t always a COO, in fact, she came from the marketing world. She served as SVP of Global Marketing at Box and, prior to that, was Chief Marketing Officer for EMC. For Whitney, the transition from marketing to operations was natural. "I discovered that I like telling stories and helping turn on light bulbs for people. I like learning what their priorities are and helping to problem-solve with them. And those are really a lot of the essentials behind marketing." On this episode, Ian and Whitney discuss everything from how her past work experience in marketing led her to want to become a COO, her three keys to working well with CIOs, and how to market a technical product. — P.S. Thanks to our partner, b8ta, this week we will be giving away three Simple Being Weighted Blankets. Enter the giveaway here for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right!     Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“We all are doing a hero's journey over and over and over and over again. Every time we seek to improve or change something about our lives or try to do something we've never done before it is a hero’s journey in itself.” — Tara-Nicholle Nelson Tara-Nicholle Nelson is a marketer and writer at heart, but before realizing her true passions, it was as a real estate agent that she started her first “customer insights project.” She wanted to help people make better decisions when buying homes, so she created a flow chart for making decisions. That flow chart led to her first book, The Transformational Consumer: Fuel a Lifelong Love Affair with Your Customers by Helping Them Get Healthier, Wealthier, and Wiser.  The book didn’t sell a ton of copies, but one did manage to land in the hands of a founder at HGTV who wanted to license it. This turned into Tara becoming a digital content marketing consultant and PR spokesperson for HGTV. It was the beginning of an inspiring career journey for Tara, one focused on content marketing.  Today, Tara is the founder and CEO of SoulTour and the CEO of Transformational Consumer Insights (TCI), a strategy and customer research firm. TCI builds customer loyalty and engagement with content strategies based on research and customer insights. Tara also serves as a transition coach to a select few transformational leaders at SoulTour, a company that provides programs to help leaders along their journey.  On this episode, Ian sits down with Tara to discuss how she got into marketing after being a lawyer, the transitions she has made throughout her career, and what triggered her desire to write her first book on the “transformational consumer”. — P.S. Thanks to our partner, b8ta, this week we will be giving away three Simple Being Weighted Blankets. Enter the giveaway here for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

Meggie Palmer is on a personal mission to close the gender pay gap. She founded PepTalkHer, an app that helps women recognize their value in the workplace and gives them the confidence to ask for a raise.  Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Meggie spent more than a decade working as a journalist for BBC World, CNBC, Discovery Channel, and others as a Foreign Correspondent & Director.  She loved journalism but realized that it was not going to pay what she needed to retire comfortably. To help create those extra funds, she started a side hustle called Sliding Door Media, which offers media trainings to companies to better tell their story. Once Meggie was ready to fully make the leap and leave journalism, her side hustle was able to provide the support she needed to start PepTalkHer. On this episode, Ian and Meggie discuss the impact the stories we tell about ourselves have on how we and others value us, and how telling the right story can dramatically improve the value we create and receive. — P.S. Thanks to our partner, b8ta, this week we will be giving away three Simple Being Weighted Blankets. Enter the giveaway here for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

You may have heard that print is dead. Or at least it’s dying.  While those statements are not entirely true — there are still very successful print newspapers, magazines, and books out in the world — they do give a bit of insight into the world we’re currently living in that leans more digital every day.  As such, there is a greater need to bring traditional enterprises like publishing houses and magazines into the digital world. That’s where Fred Santarpia enters the picture.  Fred is the former Chief Digital Officer of Conde Nast, and his job was to transform brands like Vogue, The New Yorker, Wired, and GQ from strictly print offerings to digital powerhouses. When he came on board, he explains that building the digital and video side of the business meant he was literally starting from nothing: “We started from zero. That was a blank piece of paper when I got there. So that included everything from really charting the strategy, securing the funding to fund what was effectively a new division of the company, building the technology and the infrastructure to support our video production and distribution, securing the distribution deals, and the revenue operations infrastructure, and frankly, probably most importantly, attracting top digital talent into a company, which at the time was very much only known for its excellence in print. ...That startup kind of environment inside of the broader company really allowed us to build a very special culture and prove that digital success at Conde Nast was indeed possible.” On this episode, Fred explains to Ian the various trials and tribulations he had to go through at Conde Nast, the ins and outs of acquiring new digital properties, and what it means to be a Chief Digital Officer, a relatively new position in many media organizations. — P.S. Thanks to our partner, b8ta, this week we will be giving away three Simple Being Weighted Blankets. Enter the giveaway here for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

The tech world has historically been dominated by men. When you think of tech leaders, the mind almost immediately goes to people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. But women have been making a name for themselves in the tech world, too, and we gathered a few to share some insights on their journeys.  Joining Mission co-founder Stephanie Postles and Mission producer Hilary Giorgi around the table was Alvina Antar, the CIO of Zuora, Julie Cullivan, the Chief People and Technology Officer of Forescout, and Praniti Lakhwara, CIO of Apttus. They each brought with them a wealth of knowledge and experience from decades in the world of IT, and their energy and drive to keep innovating was contagious.  On this episode, each of the women shared how they wound up in the tech field, the methods they have used to successfully build teams and scale companies, and the importance of having the support of fellow women in the field. — P.S. Thanks to our partner, b8ta, this week we will be giving away three Pocketalk voice translators. Enter the giveaway here for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

Renee DiResta is a Mozilla Fellow in Media, Misinformation, and Trust as well as Technical Research Manager at Stanford’s Internet Observatory. She spends her time at Stanford working on forensic analysis of misinformation campaigns, proactive detection, and policy analysis. Mozilla’s Fellowship program explores “internet health — from harassment to accessibility to privacy and security.” In her day-to-day, Renee analyzes design choices and platforms decisions to understand how they affect information integrity. Prior to her interest in misinformation campaigns, Renee received degrees in computer science and political science from Stony Brook University. Her first job outside of school was writing code for a financial trading company. However, she quickly realized she wanted to become a financial trader herself and went on to become an arbitrage trader for seven years before moving to Silicon Valley to work in venture capital at O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. After a few years in Silicon Valley, Renee was bit by the entrepreneurial bug and started her first company, Haven, which uses technology to streamline end-to-end shipment management for global companies. During this time, Renee had her first child and became interested in the anti-vaccination movement, causing her to get involved in advocacy online and begin researching misinformation campaigns. On this episode, Stephanie and Renee dive deep into the red flags or anomalous activity Renee identifies online to point to misinformation campaigns, the responsibility of tech companies to protect users, and so much more! — P.S. Thanks to our partner, b8ta, this week we will be giving away three Pocketalk voice translators. Enter the giveaway here for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

"There's a difference between a job, a career, and a calling." — Ruben Harris Ruben Harris is the CEO of Career Karma, an online coding bootcamp designed to help people become software engineers and support them throughout their careers. Prior to founding Career Karma, Ruben worked across education, health care, politics, finance, and augmented reality — doing it all while documenting his experiences in blog posts. After receiving thousands of emails asking him for advice on how to break into tech, Ruben co-founded the Breaking Into Startups podcast. Eventually, this project sparked his desire to create a his own product, Career Karma, that prepares workers for the fourth industrial revolution.  Coding bootcamps allow individuals to become programmers at a much faster pace than traditional computer science education. There are many coding bootcamps, but from teaching styles to acceptance paths, they are very different from each other. With the Career Karma app, users are matched with the bootcamp that fits their lifestyle and goals. There's also a networking component that helps the new software engineers connect with mentors and peers across the industry.  Coding bootcamps may be the fundamental education in Career Karma, but technology is changing every field. Rubin recognizes this and is working to expand Career Karma’s offerings. "We decided to focus on software engineering first, the reason being that, people keep referring to the tech industry as separate from everything else. But, the tech industry is no longer an industry anymore. It's everything. If you're not tech-driven, you're either going to die or survive for a few years and adapt to the next thing and become tech-driven." On this episode, Ruben sits down with Stephanie to discuss the unique difference he's making for software engineers during their job hunt, lessons he’s learned over his career, and finding the right education that aligns with your career choice.  — P.S. Thanks to our partner, b8ta, this week we will be giving away three Pocketalk voice translators. Enter the giveaway here for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“Whatever you do with your time, I want you to do it with intent. That's the goal here. It’s not about getting off of technology, it’s about using this stuff with intent.” Nir Eyal is a behavioral designer and bestselling author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Hooked identifies a four-step process (called the Hooked Model) that explains how to build habit-forming products. But as Nir began writing about, sharing, and consulting companies using the Hooked Model, he realized that these same tools were causing his own distraction. They took time away from the things and people he valued most. This realization prompted him to write his second and brand new book, Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life.  In Indistractable, Nir addresses the root causes of distraction, honing in on what behaviorally makes us distracted in the first place. According to research, distraction is caused by external and internal triggers.  “We have to face the fact that most distraction starts from within. But what the research reveals is that most distraction is a reaction to a negative emotion. If our behaviors are prompted by these internal triggers, these uncomfortable emotional states, then that means that time management is pain management.” In today’s fast-paced, tech-driven world, distractions live everywhere - from the pop-up ad online to the ping of your phone to the push notification on your computer. On this episode, Chad and Nir explain why we get distracted and identify tactics for how to overcome it.      — P.S. Thanks to our partner, b8ta, this week we will be giving away three Pocketalk voice translators. Enter the giveaway for a chance to win by going to www.mission.org/giveaway. — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org. We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/