Senior Vice President
William Morris Agency
New York, New York
In my first job, I worked as a secretary for the two fiction editors at McCall's. I also read manuscripts from the "slush pile" that came in from hopeful amateur writers everywhere. I had two outrageously flamboyant women bosses, and working for them taught me that as long as profit and loss works -- as long as you make money for the company -- you can pretty much work your own way and have your own style. One of the editors was very much a fashion plate, and because of her I took my salary every week to a store on Fifth Avenue and put it toward a gorgeous gold brooch that I'd seen in the window. I had told her about the pin, and she said, "You have to buy it." She arranged for me to have a layaway plan in the fanciest store on Fifth Avenue. "You're working to have things," she used to say. "You have to have fun in this world."
After that, I worked at the Writer magazine. It was a sweatshop, filled with young Radcliffe women working for barely any pay. We would write other people's articles for them and not get credit. The magazine did a poetry issue once, and the editors needed important people to write for it. I had a famous uncle who was the poetry editor of the New Yorker, so at the general editorial meeting, I raised my hand and said, "I can get Howard Moss." There was silence in the room. Then everyone turned to little Joni as if to say, How do you know Howard Moss? Within a week, I was promoted. I got a raise and a better desk. And that's how I learned that everything is about who you know, not what you know.
Joni Evans (jevans@wma.com), a Manhattan-based literary agent, represents such authors as Marcia Clark, Nicholas Gage, Quincy Jones, Fran Lebowitz, Peggy Noonan, and Liz Smith.
Chairman and CEO
Forrester Research Inc.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
We have a formula at Forrester: Trust, which is the glue of business, is created by dependability, quality content, and intimacy with clients. Of those elements, intimacy is the hardest to achieve. If you ever listen to Frank Sinatra sing, it sounds as if he's singing directly to you. That was Sinatra's great skill, and that's what we try to achieve in our business. We want to connect with people on a human level -- to touch them in some way.
I realized the importance of intimacy during my first job after college. I was working as a paralegal in a law firm in downtown Boston. It was a law firm that had deep local roots and tried cases before local juries, so its attorneys tended to connect with their audience in a very personal way. The best ones were able to turn a courtroom into a very intimate place.
I also learned the value of theatricality. To make a good legal case, you have to educate, but you also have to entertain, because the law is really boring. At Forrester, we have to present some fairly radical ideas about the future to large audiences. I often tell our analysts, If you're giving a speech, imagine that you're going before a jury. Put together a convincing case, be theatrical, and connect with your audience on a personal level: "If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit." That's how you become believable and how you make yourself a trusted adviser, so that your clients accept your ideas.
George Forrester Colony (gfcolony@forrester.com) is one of the most frequently quoted commentators in the high-technology industry. Forrester Research, the market-research, analysis, and consulting company that Colony founded in 1983, has a staff of about 90 analysts and a market cap of more than $1 billion.
Executive Director
Technology Access Foundation
Seattle, Washington
My mother cleaned the houses of rich white families in New Jersey's beach towns. She did two houses a day, and she used her time off to clean big vacation homes before each summer season. When I was 13, I told her in no uncertain terms that I had decided I wasn't going to attend college. She didn't say a word, and the first week after school was out, I was riding in the car with her at 8:30 in the morning, going to work. I don't remember why I thought college was such a bad idea, but I certainly do remember scrubbing toilets and floors. I did it every day, all day, all summer. It was my first job -- and I hated it. But it gave me a real appreciation for my mother's hard work and a clear understanding of the value of education.
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