Big Ask Blog
Shortly after 5:00 p.m. on March 27, 1977, at Tenerife’s Los Rodeos Airport in the Canary Islands, Dutch KLM flight 4805 sped across a densely foggy runway moments from lifting off when it rammed into Pan Am flight 1736 taxiing toward it. All 248 KLM passengers...
What was it like to be the press agent for major Broadway shows and work closely with Yul Brynner, David Bowie, Lena Horne, and countless other stars? Joshua Ellis was the publicist for some of Broadway's biggest hits, including more than a dozen Tony Award winners....
From dating to mating and beyond, many people find it difficult to ask their partners for what they want. I asked Rachel Sussman, LCSW, to shed some light on this topic. She is a licensed psychotherapist, relationship expert, writer and lecturer. Rachel is the founder...
In this interview, Susan Bennett tells us what it was like to be the original voice of the iPhone assistant, “Siri” … her fear-busting “ask” that changed everything … her experience as a backup singer for Burt Bacharach … and her thoughts on the "happy accident" of...
Brian Little is vice president and global head of corporate human resources for Intel. He previously served in senior human resources roles at companies including Ameritech, Amoco, and Zurich Insurance, and was recognized in 2017 by the industry magazine HRO...
In her earliest memory of life in Poland, Ida Paluch was three years old when she, her twin brother, Adam, and older sister, Gienia, witnessed a woman, mad with fear, jump from a building to her death to escape forced relocation and inevitable murder by the Nazis. The...
Could a single question get a bomber to confess? Could "playing dumb" catch an arsonist? What happens when you ask for the truth from powerful people who don't want to answer truthfully? Cynthia Beebe is a retired Senior Special Agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol,...
One afternoon many years ago, after hours of coaching McDonald's corporate presenters for a company-wide conference, I stepped out to grab some lunch. It had been a full morning of back-to-back rehearsals at the company's Chicago-area headquarters. And it was the...
Suffering the effects of a major illness can feel scary and isolating. Getting through it takes not only medical assistance but emotional support. In the story that follows, my friend David Fisk tells of four "asks" that loved ones made on his behalf during a health...
Charity Cox-Hayden is chief nursing officer for Atlas Healthcare Partners, LLC, an ambulatory surgery center (ASC) development and management company headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona with surgery centers in Phoenix, Tucson, and Northern Colorado. She and I recently...