Gayle Laakmann McDowell | Technology Woman

If you haven’t checked out PeopleOfWalmart yet, you’re in for a treat. Pages of entertainment from America’s classiest individuals (yes, mother of mullet-baby, I’m speaking to you). One of my favorite websites just got a little bit better: it just launched EmptySpaceAds! Move your mouse to the margins of the page and you’ll see the [...]

Since discovering the wonder of outsourcing nine months ago, in October 2008, I’ve outsourced approximately 300 hours. That’s 300 hours that I got to spend reading or playing (or working…) while various assistants re-formatted an e-book, researched traffic stats for competing sites, scheduled apartment visits, got price quotes for vacation rentals, designed posters for an [...]

A guest blog post I wrote for Women Grow Business: Working for Microsoft, Google and Apple, I not only became a better engineer – I became a better entrepreneur. Their successes and failures, encapsulated in these five lessons, provided me with invaluable instruction in how to build a company and effectively compete. #1. Build a [...]

Good news bloggers and website owners!  CareerCup has just launched its new affiliate program.  CareerCup’s affiliate programs allows website owners to post a link / ad for CareerCup’s interview guide and, in return, collect some of the revenue from any sale.  Best of all, it’s super-easy to use! We offer two designs: Horizontal (example) and Vertical [...]

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve started outsourcing. A lot. Most of the outsourcing goes to an (awesome) assistant in the Philippines, who does everything from online research to document editing. She’s great, and she’s quite literally changed my approach to working. Although most people are merely intrigued by my hiring a remote assistant, a surprising [...]

Microsoft Loyalty Scorecard:+ 1: Using Microsoft search at work.- 1: Using Microsoft search to prepare for your upcoming interviews… at work. Kumo is Microsoft’s new search engine that was released internally this month. No one seems to be talking about it much externally, and it doesn’t show up in Google Analytics under “Search Engines”. Kumo [...]

After I left Google and got the travel bug out of my system, I joined a tiny funded start-up called EmptySpaceAds. What excited me about EmptySpaceAds was more than just the product (although that was pretty neat) – it was the opportunity. With just one employee, EmptySpaceAds was small enough that I would lead the [...]

Last week, TechCrunch re-posted snippets from an email list for former googlers. This article was set up to make an obvious conclusion: Google is not the fairy tale land of employment. Wait, wait, you mean not everyone loves their job at Google? Shocking! A logical person might point out that what one person loves another [...]

I’ve been using Talkinator, an embeddable chat program for websites, for a few months now. I realize I might be the only post-1995 site to want a chatroom, but it’s actually rather useful. For example, when people are discussing, say, Microsoft Interview Questions, they’ll jump in the chatroom to discuss problems. This use was expected. [...]

Yes, folks, it’s true. April 11th, almost three years after my first day as a Googler (or “Noogler”), was my last day. Did I hate it? Did something go horribly wrong? Did the company completely change? No no, nothing like that. I loved Google. It’s a fantastic company, particularly for engineers. You’re driving the products, [...]