Ellen Petry Leanse | |
---|---|
Born | Dayton, Ohio, U.S. | August 12, 1958
Alma mater | San Diego State University |
Occupations |
|
Years active | 1981–present |
Website | ellenleanse |
Ellen Petry Leanse (born Ellen Petry August 12, 1958) is an American author, businesswoman, educator, entrepreneur, and online community pioneer. Leanse has spent 35 years working with leaders at Apple, Google, Facebook, as an entrepreneur, and with dozens of startups. She's a writer on topics of workplace dynamics and a Stanford instructor. Her work has spanned entrepreneurship, corporate leadership, investing, and strategy consulting.
An alum of Apple (1981 – 1990), she launched the company's first online activity through the User Group Connection, an initiative she founded at Apple in 1985.
She was employed by Google from 2008 through 2010 and created a social list-making app Lists by 222do for the initial launch of the Facebook development platform (2007).[ citation needed ]
In 2015, Business Insider published her LinkedIn article about the word "just" and its use across genders. [1] [2] The post received more than three million views. [3] It was originally published via Women 2.0, [1] an organization she advised from 2012 through 2016.
She spoke on "Happiness by Design" at TEDx Berkeley in 2016. [4]
Leanse is an instructor at Stanford University and teaches through the university's Continuing Studies program.
Leanse is a contributing writer to Arianna Huffington's Thrive Global platform.
Leanse was born in Dayton, Ohio, [5] and raised in the Fairglen neighborhood of San Jose, CA. Her father, John Gerald Petry, was a WWII veteran and mechanical engineer who held several patents for automotive lift technology. [6] [7] Her mother, Kathleen Minch Petry, was a secretary and hospital administrator.
She graduated from Presentation High School in 1976 and was named a Bank of America Bicentennial Scholar and was also a National Merit Scholar. She studied art and international business and graduated from San Diego State University with a BA in International Marketing in 1981.
Shortly after graduating she was in a serious bicycle accident and returned to San Jose to recover at her parents' home. It was at that time that she applied to Apple and received a rejection letter, which she challenged. She was hired in November 1981 and wrote about the experience in a 2014 article about the Apple logo and its impact.
Her first job at Apple was as an International Communications Specialist in the Intercontinental division, which distributed and promoted Apple products, primarily the Apple II and Apple III and related accessories, everywhere in the world except for the US and Europe. She launched Apple's first formal product communications (they were newsletters) to these regions and introduced Spanish language versions of these communications in 1986. She also did product launches in the markets they served.
She joined the extended Macintosh team in 1983 as Product Manager for international Macintosh accessories, including local-language keyboards, CCITT and CSA modems, regionally-compliant printers, and power supplies.
In 1985 she was asked to interview for a role as Apple's first "User Evangelist" – a response to frustration in the Apple II installed base that Apple had abandoned, its earliest and most faithful users as it began to focus increasingly on the Macintosh. John Sculley served as a sponsor for this position and she accepted the role in September 1985.
In her nine years at Apple Leanse served on the Macintosh launch team (1984) and led the company's pioneering work in creating online communities. Leanse became an Apple employee in November 1981 and became Apple's first User Evangelist in September 1985. [8] [9]
The User Group track she established at MacWorld conferences brought Apple product leaders including Bill Atkinson, Alan Kay, Guy Kawasaki together with users to exchange information on product priorities and direction.
Leanse led and grew this organization through 1990, when she left Apple.
Her charter was to address the frustration directed at Apple from the Apple II and Apple III installed base - individuals, business people, government officials and education leaders from around the world who had come to feel abandoned by Apple as it turned its attention to the Macintosh.
In 1985 Leanse became Apple's first "User Evangelist," charged to forge relationships with Apple's growing, and increasingly divided, Apple II/Apple III and Macintosh installed base. Her early work connected her with technology influencers including NASA's David Lavery, the Boston Computer Society's Jonathan Rotenberg, and the Berkeley Macintosh User Group's Raines Cohen and Reese Jones.
Forming Apple's User Group Connection, Leanse established the first online interaction between Apple and its users in November 1985. This work leveraged existing networks including Usenet Arpanet/Darpanet, The Well, and private Bulletin Board Systems to bring product updates, live interviews, software updates, and other resources with Apple communities worldwide. Active participants included NASA's David Lavery, the Boston Computer Society's Jonathan Rotenberg, and the Berkeley Macintosh User Group's Raines Cohen and Reese Jones. The User Group track she established at MacWorld conferences brought Apple product leaders including Bill Atkinson, Alan Kay, Guy Kawasaki together with users to exchange information on product priorities and direction.
Eighteen months after the release of the Macintosh, owners of Apple II and Apple III personal computers expressed frustration with the limited development of new features for these products. Seeking a commitment to ongoing support of utilities and software, users contacted Apple, published complaints in computer publications, and spoke out at public events such as MacWorld and other trade shows to ask for a future path. Furthermore, as Macintosh users sought more direct means of learning about innovations and capabilities of the Mac and its software (in 1985, standards for customer support depended primarily on written/mailed correspondence) Macintosh users began to ask Apple and software providers for faster access to technical and usability information, as well as upgrades. Apple CEO John Sculley responded by creating a position for a "User Group Evangelist" charged with realigning Apple with its active user community through communication and identification of mutually-beneficial product development.
In September 1985, Apple established the Apple User Group Connection, led by Leanse, in response to input from users in community User Groups including Boston Computer Society and Berkeley Macintosh Users Group, along with user communities within educational, science, and business organizations. [10]
AUGC was formed in response to concerns from users in community user groups that, with the release of the Macintosh, development for existing Apple II and Apple III computers were compromised. The idea was for Apple to share information with its user community directly, rather than through the more traditional support and distribution channels.
The organization successfully encouraged Apple to pursue early internet technology such as bulletin board systems and ARPANET. Leanse's work in the UGC guided her to establish Apple's first connection with users via the early roots of the web – ARPANET, The WELL, Bulletin board systems, etc. It was groundbreaking work that pioneered much of what is possible and done today through social networks and other online communities. Leanse grew and ran the group through 1990 when she left Apple to focus on her personal life. Many of the early UGC contributors have gone on to be real creators and contributors in their own rights. NASA's Dave Lavery, through his work with Apple User Groups within NASA and the Jet Propulsion Lab, was an active influencer of the User Group Connection's early progress.
The early days of Leanse's role aligned her with Apple's passionate user group community and gave her an eye-opening window into a new world: the early roots of the World Wide Web. Through connected BBS networks, Arpa and Darpanet, The WELL, Usenet, and other systems, thousands of Apple users around the world were sharing information and support with each other and using their collective knowledge to make the most of their Apple systems. These pioneering users began to experiment with information-sharing through a few leads in this network, and quickly realized the power that this network had to speed product information, updates, and support to people, using much less effort than the standard method – the U.S. Mail – would have allowed.
AUGC produced promotional videos for Apple products. [11]
In April 2012, PandoDaily included Leanse as one of the top 5 tech marketers. [12] In the article she is attributed as being the pioneer of online community.
She was an employee of Google between 2008 and 2010, charged with leading marketing communications for the Google G-Suite.
In 2013 Leanse joined Stanford University's Continuing Studies faculty to teach the neuroscience of innovation through on-campus and online courses.
She currently teaches an online course, "Unleashing Creative Innovation and Building Great Products [13] " for Stanford, combining principles of "cognitive neuroscience, design frameworks and evolutionary biology,"
Her work and course at Stanford were featured in the article, "Former Google and Apple exec now challenges Stanford students to design products that make people happy [14] " via CNBC.
She has published multiple articles on brain-aware leadership, well-being, gender, and interpersonal dynamics. Her articles have been globally syndicated, receiving up to 8 million views and guiding readers everywhere to new levels of self-awareness and empowerment.
Leanse is a study of neuroscience and "brain hacking". Her book The Happiness Hack, published by Sourcebooks in 2017, explores concepts of attention, connection, and life satisfaction through perspectives on applied neuroscience. [15]
The Happiness Hack uses the lens of evolutionary biology and neurochemistry to explore how routine behaviors in modern life can interfere with happiness – and how to "hack back," improving well-being and life satisfaction.
The book discusses various ideas and solutions that are rooted in neuroscience, examining the role of the brain in creating our point of view and how it affects our focus, purpose, and the achievement of true satisfaction, and how opening to new possibilities of thinking differently can help an individual "hack into happiness". The Happiness Hack is a brain-aware guide to bringing more enjoyment, success, and happiness to our daily, and long-term, lives.
By simplifying basic concepts of neuroscience, The Happiness Hack offers insights into stress, distraction, tech addiction, and a sense of disconnection in ways that let readers identify common mental tendencies – and guide the brain toward alternate paths.
Leanse has acknowledged the work of neuroleadership influencer David Rock in her book. She also acknowledges the work of Stanford researcher and neuroanatomist Sarah Eagleman [16] Archived 2018-12-05 at the Wayback Machine , who provided scientific review on the book.
The Happiness Hack launched at a Kepler's Literary Foundation event to a live audience and global livestream. It was selected by Barnes and Noble as a featured book for the 2017 holiday season.
The Happiness Hack was named one of "The 12 Best Productivity Books of 2017" by Evernote. [17]
The Happiness Hack was prominently mentioned in the article, "Former Google and Apple exec now challenges Stanford students to design products that make people happy" via CNBC. [18]
In 2012 Leanse was named a 'Silicon Valley Woman of Influence' by Business Journal. [19]
Leanse has been a board member for D-Rev, the Children's Health Council, and the Menlo Park Atherton Education Foundation (serving the Menlo Park City School District).
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. Devices include the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Vision Pro, and Apple TV; operating systems include iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS; and software applications and services include iTunes, iCloud, Apple Music, and Apple TV+.
Guy Takeo Kawasaki is an American marketing specialist, author, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist. He was one of the Apple employees originally responsible for marketing their Macintosh computer line in 1984. He popularized the word evangelist in marketing the Macintosh as an "Apple evangelist" and the concepts of evangelism marketing and technology evangelism/platform evangelism in general.
Carl Sassenrath is an architect of operating systems and computer languages. He brought multitasking to personal computers in 1985 with the creation of the Amiga Computer operating system kernel, and he is the designer of the REBOL computer language, REBOL/IOS collaboration environment, the Safeworlds AltME private messaging system, and other products. Carl was a Principal Engineer at Roku, Inc. until his retirement in November 2023.
Gen Digital Inc. is a multinational software company co-headquartered in Tempe, Arizona and Prague, Czech Republic. The company provides cybersecurity software and services. Gen is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock-market index. The company also has development centers in Pune, Chennai and Bangalore. Its portfolio includes Norton, Avast, LifeLock, Avira, AVG, ReputationDefender, and CCleaner.
eWorld was an online service operated by Apple Inc. between June 1994 and March 1996. The services included email, news, software installs and a bulletin board system. Users of eWorld were often referred to as "ePeople."
The Macintosh, later rebranded as the Macintosh 128K, is the original Macintosh personal computer, from Apple. It is the first successful mass-market all-in-one desktop personal computer with a graphical user interface, built-in screen, and mouse. It was pivotal in establishing desktop publishing as a general office function. The motherboard, a 9 in (23 cm) CRT monochrome monitor, and a floppy drive are in a beige case with integrated carrying handle; it has a keyboard and single-button mouse.
Eazel was an American software company operating from 1999 to 2001 in Palo Alto and then Mountain View, California. The company's flagship product is the Nautilus file manager for the GNOME desktop environment on Linux, which was immediately adopted and maintained by the free software movement. As the core of Eazel's business model, it is an early example of cloud storage services in the form of personal file storage, transparently and portably stored on the Internet. Renamed to Files, this application continues to be a centerpiece of some free Linux-based desktop environments.
The Apple community is the users, media, and third party companies interested in Apple Inc. and its products. They discuss rumors, future products, news stories, and support of Apple's products. Apple has a cult-like following, especially for the Apple II, Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and luminary staff members. The personal computer revolution, mixed with Apple's vertical integration of its products and services, has increased popularity. Apple's corporate policy of extreme secrecy about future products intensify interest in the company's activities.
Apple Inc., originally Apple Computer, Inc., is a multinational corporation that creates and markets consumer electronics and attendant computer software, and is a digital distributor of media content. Apple's core product lines are the iPhone smartphone, iPad tablet computer, and the Macintosh personal computer. The company offers its products online and has a chain of retail stores known as Apple Stores. Founders Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne created Apple Computer Co. on April 1, 1976, to market Wozniak's Apple I desktop computer, and Jobs and Wozniak incorporated the company on January 3, 1977, in Cupertino, California.
A Macintosh User Group (MUG) is a users' group of people who use Macintosh computers made by Apple Inc. or other manufacturers and who use the Macintosh operating system (OS). These groups are primarily locally situated and meet regularly to discuss Macintosh computers, the Mac OS, software and peripherals that work with these computers. Some groups focus on the older versions of Mac OS, up to Mac OS 9, but the majority now focus on the current version of Mac operating system, macOS.
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar. He was a pioneer of the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, along with his early business partner and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Evangelism marketing is an advanced form of word-of-mouth marketing in which companies develop customers who believe so strongly in a particular product or service that they freely try to convince others to buy and use it. The customers become voluntary advocates, actively spreading the word on behalf of the company.
The Berkeley Macintosh Users Group, or more commonly "BMUG", was the largest Macintosh User Group. It was founded in September 1984 by a group of UC Berkeley students including Reese Jones and Raines Cohen as a focal-point for the nascent Apple Macintosh user community. With more than 13,000 members, or "BMUGgers" at its peak in 1993, the group was the largest, and generally understood to be the most important, Macintosh users group. A few of the notable members include John "Captain Crunch" Draper, the Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah, notorious murderer Enrique Zambrano, early hacker-chaser Cliff Stoll, Inktomi founder Eric Brewer, and may prominent computing journalists like John Dvorak, Ilene Hoffman, Leo Laporte and Adam Engst. An example of the group's omnipresent blue-floppy-disk lapel pin is held in the Smithsonian Institution's American History collection. BMUG's history and activities were closely linked with the MacWorld Expo meetings, traditionally held in San Francisco each January and Boston each August.
Elizabeth Jocelyn "Jake" Feinler is an American information scientist. From 1972 until 1989 she was director of the Network Information Systems Center at the Stanford Research Institute. Her group operated the Network Information Center (NIC) for the ARPANET as it evolved into the Defense Data Network (DDN) and the Internet.
Susan Diane Wojcicki is an American business executive who was the chief executive officer (CEO) of YouTube from 2014 to 2023. Her net worth was estimated at $765 million in 2022.
The Apple User Group Connection (AUGC) was established in 1985 by Apple and led by Apple employee Ellen Petry Leanse. AUGC was formed in response to concerns from users in community user groups that, with release of the Macintosh, development for existing Apple II and Apple III computers was compromised. The idea was for Apple to share information with its user community directly, rather than through the more traditional support and distribution channels. The organization successfully encouraged Apple to pursue early internet technology such as bulletin board systems and ARPANET.
Alex Stamos is an American computer scientist and adjunct professor at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation. He is the former chief security officer (CSO) at Facebook. His planned departure from the company, following disagreement with other executives about how to address the Russian government's use of its platform to spread disinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, was reported in March 2018.
Tristan Harris is an American technology ethicist. He is the executive director and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology.
Camille Hearst is a female African-American entrepreneur and innovator, credited in several online news publications for her decades-long contribution to the technology, social network, digital music service and product design sectors. In addition, she is recognized as a leading woman of color in entrepreneurship. In 2016, she broke barriers as a Women C.E.O. and a founder of color with her startup, Kit.