National Postal Museum director retires after 14 years leading Smithsonian branch; Washington Post, 1/10/17

Peggy McGlone, Washington Post; National Postal Museum director retires after 14 years leading Smithsonian branch:

[Kip Currier: I visited D.C.'s National Postal Museum on a whim in 2016 and was very impressed: visually engaging exhibits and great "stories" throughout the museum. Even an on-site post office that I was surprised to find open for business on a federal holiday.]

"Allen Kane had zero experience in museum administration when he became director of the National Postal Museum in 2002. He wasn’t a stamp collector, either.

But Kane knew the U.S. Postal Service, having spent 30 years working there, including stints managing its Gulf War Crisis Team and leading its $800 million marketing effort. Because the Postal Service is the museum’s landlord and largest funder, Kane got the job.

To his surprise, he loved it."

Interview with Jeff Fluhr, chief executive of Spreecast; New York Times, 10/10/13

Adam Bryant, Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Jeff Fluhr, chief executive of Spreecast, a social video platform: Finding Employees Who Fit: "Q. Tell me about your approach to hiring at your current company. A. I’ve found that the softer characteristics of a person — the cultural fit, the chemistry fit, their personality traits, their level of optimism — are far more important than somebody’s experience. What I was often doing at StubHub as the company grew was to say, “O.K., we need a V.P. of marketing and we want somebody who’s been a V.P. marketing at another consumer Internet company, and hopefully, they’ve done these certain things because that’s what we need.” But the reality is that if you get somebody who’s smart, hungry and has a can-do attitude, they can figure out how to do A, B and C, because there’s really no trick to most of these things... Q. What career advice would you give to a graduating class of college seniors? A. One of the things I tell people is that experience is overrated. I still sometimes find myself falling into the trap of thinking, when I’m trying to fill a role, “Has the person done the work that the role requires?” That’s the wrong question. It should be, “Let’s find a person who has the right chemistry, the right intellect, the right curiosity, the right creativity.” If we plug that person into any role, they’re going to be successful."