Entrepreneur, Consultant, Author, Speaker
Anna started out as an MIT rocket scientist and is now an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and consultant. You can read her blog here, check out the flying car company she co-founded, Terrafugia, learn about her community UAM work, and follow her on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
This spring, the first class of young women to earn the rank of Eagle Scout has been making national news. It’s a major accomplishment for them, and at least on the surface, a major step for gender equality. The response however, reveals just how much pervasive sexism still exists in our society.
Read MoreRecently, the FAA released its V1.0 vision for an urban air mobility (UAM) airspace access concept. Essentially, the FAA is proposing to have a series of “aerodromes” connected via “corridors” in which UAM aircraft can operate largely separately from the rest of the national airspace (NAS). Within those corridors, UAM aircraft would be in contact with a Provider of Services for UAM (PSU) which would subsequently be part of a network of PSUs, facilitating the data channels necessary for deconfliction and communication with and between UAM aircraft. Also within those corridors, operations would be governed by Community Based Rules (CBRs), which the FAA intends to approve but not to write. The whole system is intended to accommodate a progression through “crawl”, “walk”, and “run” phases in which the industry is increasing both the frequency (or “tempo”) of operations and the extent of autonomy that is present on the aircraft.
Read MoreBeing out in front is amazing, but it’s also exhausting. A lot has been written on avoiding burn-out, on work-life balance, and on self-care. I find a lot of that useful – particularly advice about being out in nature and getting exercise and sleep, but in my experience it isn’t enough. So how do you keep momentum when it’s you that you are following?
Read More"Unless you have courage, a courage that keeps you going, always going, no matter what happens, there is no certainty of success. It is really an endurance race."
― Henry Ford
You can’t be an entrepreneur unless you can play pretend. You have to be able to see what no one else can, what could be. We could see a Transition®, wings out, ready to fly.
Read MoreIt’s easy to let your bylaws be a bunch of legal boilerplate that doesn’t seem particularly relevant to the daily functioning of your organization. But they can also form the underpinnings of either dysfunction or of the authority and process that can mature and streamline things for years to come.
Read MoreI didn’t march because I’m in the middle of potty training my toddler, and I think that about sums it up. ...in the broader context of my life, I made the decision I thought best at the time: I stayed home and chanted “We pee in the potty”, no signs necessary. Since potty training is at once all-consuming and incredibly boring, I’ve had a lot of time to think. So here are five of the reasons I think we as a society still have so much work to do.
Read MoreWe have a chance to choose compassion or hypocrisy. Blue has been asking Red to show compassion and respect for those not like them. Demanding, really. Saying that if they don’t, they are stupid and bad and undeserving of political power. And not surprisingly given that setup, they didn’t do it, but that dosen’t make their fears any less real. ... They are still people worthy of being treated as people. Everything we stand for is hollow if we can’t extend compassion now.
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There is work left to me, inherited by me because I am American, because the woman we are here to honor did not have time to complete it, because it is never done. It is my strength, my breath, my blood that must do the next thing. Then she will not have died — and I will not have lived — in vain.
Read More4. Employ one meaning per word and one word per meaning.
Read MoreMy husband is a truly brilliant man, capable of great feats of observation - he can tell you the type of aircraft flying overhead with a casual upward glance, or the make and model of any number of cars on the freeway - so why can’t he see dirt? My answer: because he’s not a housework chicken sexer.
Read MoreThe light in me recognizes the light in you. The light in me recognizes the light in the people doing the harm as well.
Read MoreOne of the first steps is creating a company is creating authority. The more “out there” the idea, the more important it is to pay attention to this step.
Read MoreHaving a birth plan, particularly a natural one, seems to be a punch line. Only naïve, first time moms would ever pretend to have a document that lays out how you want what is perhaps the single most significant event in two (at least!) people’s lives to go. Having a birth plan is cast as demanding, foolish, and maybe just a little much. Well, I had one, I was passionate about it, I did everything I could for months to increase the odds of things going the way I wanted them, and I got it, in all the ways that mattered.
Read MoreFrom that moment on and with each breath and blink that follows, you will be more and more you. More and more responsible for your own happiness, your own destiny, your own success and failure. Of course I will be here. Of course I will do everything in my power to give you a good foundation, to teach you what I can, to be the best example I can be. But it will be up to you.
Read More“Enough” is everywhere. We’re told we have it, to leave it alone when we find it, to strive for just that and no more to preserve our sanity, to work so that everyone on the planet has it. In a moment of overwhelm recently I told the room that I felt like whatever I did it just wouldn’t be enough. I wouldn’t be good enough. (At what? anything, everything!) But what is “enough”? And who gets to decide?
Read More1. Persistent gender inequalities in earnings, leadership roles, job satisfaction, and workforce participation exist in the United States and in developed nations around the world. These workplace inequalities are reinforced by an uneven distribution of family caregiving work - especially around the birth of a child - and a self-reinforcing negative cycle is created.
Read MoreThe best part of a snow day isn’t that real pants are optional though, it’s that nature gives us the gift of time. Forces completely outside of our control blow into the city with sensational news coverage and mountains of fluffy white stuff. There’s the mania of storm preparation: filling gas cans, stocking the pantry, throwing elbows for the last bag of ice-melt, bringing in firewood to stay dry by the hearth. Then as darkness falls, the calm settles in. The flakes start to fall in earnest. You can hear the wind swirling around the eaves. And there you are, snug inside with no choice but to amuse yourself as you best see fit for the next day or so. It’s time to let go and be still.
Read MoreBe kind. Be clear about where & who you are. Most importantly, the only reason to do something like this is if you both really want to do it for yourself.
Read MoreI will figure out how, not to “have it all”, but to be all of who I am.
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