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Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Companys workplace advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions.Q: How do I make a good first impression?A: Since this is a work-life advice column Ill focus mostly on how you can make a good impression at work, but many of these tips work for other situations in life. Be interested: Ask questions Its a simple truism of most conversations and human interactions: People like to feel like they’re interesting and important. If you know whom youll be meeting, you can go one step further and do a little research in advance. Job candidates who ask questions about the interviewers own time at the company show that they are interested in both the company and the person they hope to work with. The same goes for meeting potential clients, networking connections, etc.Regardless of if you have the chance to prep or not, you can listen to little conversational doors and jumping-off points to be curious and dig further. Most people casually give little details as they talk. Be a good listener and you can ask a follow-up question that shows you’re engaged. In a world where most people are distracted, overwhelmed, or self-absorbed, paying attention goes a long way. Be interesting: Say something memorable While you should be a good listener and ask questions, you wont make a good impression if you don’t say anything of interest. Sharing an interesting did you know fact related to what you are talking about goes a long way. Its a little harder to plan for this, and you certainly dont want to throw in a random non sequitur. But if you’re generally well-read and well-informed, hopefully a natural opportunity to mention something relevant will present itself. Be helpful People like others who help them. Fast Company contributor and psychologist Art Markman says starting your time with a new team by helping others reinforces a favorable first impression and also generates a sense of support from people you can rely on when you need help in the future. He calls this a service mindset and says its particularly valuable for people taking on management roles. A leader who finds ways to help their team achieve their goals can develop loyalty from the people who report to them, which pays significant dividends down the line, he explains. If youre not a manager, you can make a good impression at a new job by being proactive and developing your own plan for your first 90 days. It will help you to have goals laid out so you dont feel as lost and will make a great impression on your new boss and colleagues.Being helpful works in other areas to make a good first impression, too. If someone you are talking to mentions a problem they are having, following up with a recommendation will make a lasting impression.Want more advice on how to make a good impression? Here you go: Four easy ways to make a memorable first impression How to make a good first impression when starting a new job 3 ways to create a good first impression at your new job 2 surprising science-backed ways to make a great first impression (even virtually)
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E-Commerce
Disability is often framed as something to accommodate instead of celebrate. But Visible Voices, a new digital platform launching today on Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2025, is challenging that mindset. The platform is part magazine, part gallery, and part curated e-shop. As a whole, its repositioning disability as a source of culture, creativity, and style, fueled by the belief that accessibility and aesthetics should not be at odds. Cofounded by journalist Bérénice Magistretti and creative entrepreneur Reuben Selby, both of whom live with invisible disabilities, Visible Voices is the platform they wish existed when they were first navigating those identities, with a Vogue-meets-MoMA editorial approach that leaves traditional disability resources in the past. The result is a cultural rebrand and design manifesto, as visually compelling as it is radically inclusive. [Screenshot: Visible Voices] Why is disability still something we tiptoe around? Selby asks. Why are we reluctant to claim it with pride? We realized there was a space missing. A space where people could feel proud of who they are, not despite their disabilities, but because of everything it taught them. A space that didnt feel clinical or heavy, but vibrant, creative, and human. Bérénice Magistretti and Reuben Selby [Photo: Inez & Vinoodh (Magistretti)/courtesy Visible Voices] Built over the course of a year, the Visible Voices platform is as considered in form as it is in content. The site, which they designed in collaboration with design firm Droga5, integrates accessibility from the ground up, without sacrificing visual impact. Embedded accessibility features on the website include a toggle button to shift between light and dark mode and clickable Text-to-Speech audio versions of each article. Rather than default to conventional accessibility plug-ins or overlays, every design choice was made with both beauty and usability in mind. Foundry studio Modern Type also developed a bespoke, hyper-legible typeface to improve readability across the site. And sound designers at Lucky & Bamba created a sonic logo by translating the braille version of the brands name into a musical scale. The result is a sensory-rich digital experience that invites users to engage with content on multiple levels. Were all used to visual logos, Magistretti says. But what if you cant see a logo? You should be able to hear it, feel it. Thats what weve created, and we hope it inspires other brands to think differently. At the heart of Visible Voices are the three editorial pillars designed to reframe disability through a cultural lens: a magazine, digital gallery, and curated e-shop. The magazine features stories at the intersection of disability and aesthetics, including hairstylist Anna Cofones mission to make fashion more accessible, textile artist Caterina Frongias use of braille in her tapestries, and activist Nadya Okamotos reflections on living with Borderline Personality Disorder. Florence Burns, Desert, 2022 [Image: courtesy Visible Voices] The creative voices gallery highlights artists who are either disabled themselves or are reshaping how disability is represented in contemporary art. Among them are Florence Burns, a Manchester-based illustrator whose clients include Nike and Channel 4; award-winning photographer Anna Neubauer; and American painter, writer, and disability rights advocate Riva Lehrer. Aliteia, The Ballad of Human Mutations [Image: courtesy Visible Voices] Meanwhile, the e-shop takes a bold stance that says disabled consumers deserve products that are not only functional but beautiful. We didnt want to take the health-related route of selling medtech devices because we want to go beyond this patient-focused narrative and offer disabled people a beautiful, creative, and aspirational hub, Magistretti explains. Anna Neubauer, Megan [Image: courtesy Visible Voices] While many charities, foundations, and grassroots organizations continue to do vital work supporting disabled communities and advocating for systemic change, Magistretti and Selby intentionally structured Visible Voices as a for-profit business. Commerce plays a huge role in pushing culture forward. People buy what brands tell them to buy, so diverse representation is crucial, Magistretti explains. If you only see nondisabled people in campaigns and runway shows, the assumption will be that the market for disabled people is niche, because its invisible. By increasing representation across fashion and beauty, that visibility generates awareness, and awareness creates demand. Blind Beauty [Photo: courtesy Visible Voices] At launch, the store features six brands across three categories, including clothing, accessories, and beauty. Each brand offers a tightly curated selection of 5 to 10 items. Standouts include Neo-Walks vibrant, sculptural canes; Auzis luxury hearing-aid jewelry; beauty brand Human Beautys inclusive makeup; and Liberares adaptive intimates. A visible voices merch line is also in the works, and the team plans to continue growing the store through exclusive collaborations and new brand partnerships that align with their mission. Hearing Aid by Auzi [Photo: courtesy Visible Voices] The bottom line, Magistretti says, is that disabled people arent just patients who need to buy functional medical items. They are consumers who want to buy what they desire, what makes them look good and feel great. The disabled demographic is a huge untapped market with massive spending power. We want to offer them what they want to buy, and show that disability is the next frontier in fashion and beauty.
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E-Commerce
In recent months, the drama around Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), President Trump’s efforts to defund federal agencies, and the court cases challenging these moves have consumed the news. Its understandable that an announcement last month about a small office lease on the Upper West Side of Manhattan being canceled didn’t get much attention. But that 43,000-square-foot space near Columbia University is home to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, or GISS, a NASA research outfit, think tank, and pioneer in climate change research that will see its lease terminated by the end of the month, per a NASA spokesperson. Currently, the institute has no permanent home to move into. Its likely youve seen the building, even if youre not aware of the monumental achievements that have taken place there. The exterior shot of the diner in Seinfeld features that exact building; for decades, scientists working inside have dealt with an occasional fan taking selfies outside. [Photo: Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket/Getty Images] Youre also probably more aware of the ideas hatched inside than you think. During the 60s, when the institute was founded, the terms black hole and quasar were coined inside its walls. In the late 80s, NASA scientist James Hansen became famous for his warnings about the dangers posed by climate change. He was then the head of GISS, and the climate modeling that he and his colleagues did there proved the case. This is the place we came finally to understand the threat to the Earth that global warming representedthe biggest threat in the history of our species, climate advocate and author Bill McKibben told Fast Company. Nothing less than that. Their datasets were what allowed Hansen to go before Congress and speak with authority. He had the numbers and no one else did. The end of GISS as we know it represents many things, including the damage the Trump administration’s cost-cutting is doing to American scientific preeminence. Current head Gavin Schmidt said without funds for a new lease, hes racing to find a new home. (Though staffers haven’t been told where they’re moving to, as of yet, none have been terminated; a NASA spokesperson said, Over the next several months, employees will be placed on temporary remote work agreements while NASA seeks and evaluates options for a new space for the GISS team.) The move comes as the federal government has decried climate science, cut jobs at NASA, and proposed curtailing its mission. But even the existence of GISS showcases the power of a small group of curious, driven people who, if given resources and freedom, can accomplish incredible things. There is something that is quite distinct to working for NASA, said Schmidt. Because, literally the whole universe is your subject. A postcard for the Oxford Hotel, circa 1930-1945 [Image: Digital Commonwealth] A Small Office With Expansive Freedoms Located across a few floors in a former apartment building, GISS has never been a well-outfitted office. Until recently, it was a shithole, said Schmidt, who noted that even though a long-overdue renovation was just finished, the air-conditioning system is still pretty much nonfunctional. But the office decor was never the attraction. It was the people you could bump into. Named after rocketry pioneer Robert Goddard, the institute was established in 1961, and initially called the Institute for Space Studies. It was led by Robert Jastrow, a celebrated researcher and public figure who would help millions of Americans learn about space via prolific writings and TV appearances. Locating in New York City helped attract the leading lights of academia from surrounding universities. Jastrow said the institutes goal was to arouse the interest and enlist the participation of this rich scientific community. It became a hotbed for debate and ideas, hosting seminars and talks that are credited with birthing the concepts behind black holes, quasars, and plate tectonics. A sidewalk bookseller who specialized in sci-fi books positioned himself nearby to pick up business from the high concentration of astrophysicists. Jastrow could be a competitive and energetic bosshe would push researchers to pull all-nighters and even get them to run laps with him around Central Parkbut academic freedom remained paramount. GISS, from the very beginning, was set up as a place with a light federal presence, said Schmidt, who took the reins at the institute in 2014. There would be civil servants, but most of the people there would be postdocs early in their caeer. The idea was to have this kind of fervent, enthusiastic, free from programmatic responsibilities [space]. It wasnt an operational center. We had a lot of workshops. In the 70s, Hansen and others helped work on projects that sent probes to other planets, including Venus and Jupiter. By the early 80s, NASA changed its focus to what was called mission Earth; the agency realized it knew more about the polar ice caps on Mars than it did the polar ice caps on Earth, and sought to rectify that. In analyzing Earths climate, the previous GISS work on other-planetary atmospheres came in handy. Those frameworks could be applied to Earths climate, and its change over time. In addition to that deep bench of multifaceted scientific talent, GISS also had the gear. At the time, it had one of the most powerful computers in operation. While it still used punch cards and spinning disks, it enabled researchers to create the most sophisticated models of climate change that had been done thus far. McKibben remembers spending time by this machine, as Hansen explained what was being computed. I would have been there in the late 80s, right before or after Hansen’s testimony [before Congress], he said. I went a bunch of times, and he showed me around the mainframes and interpreted for me what they were spitting out. It was classic big science of that eraspinning disks and all. Circa 1985 Why Its Climate Models Remain So Valuable Having that technology, steady support, and a revolving cast of experts made it a perfect place to perfect climate modeling. According to Schmidt, as the task of analyzing the climate became more and more complicated, there basically ceased to be university-based climate modeling to predict future temperature shifts a few decades ago. Everything globally is done at labs like GISS, and it offers a substantial benefit to research around the world. The institutes famous temperature series, which it has maintained since the 1980s and provides monthly surface temperature data back to 1880, is provided free. Its not even a line-item in the GISS budget; Schmidt says it comes out of general operating expenses. And GISS continues to be one of, if not the most, influential organizations in the field, Schmidt argues, because it’s cutting edge without being rigid. Its a small, nimble group of roughly 130 researchers without a strict hierarchy, so new ideas and research can quickly be vetted, tested, and applied to the model to improve its accuracy. Circa 2023 [Photo: Robert Schmunk/GISS/NASA] GISS continues to refine and improve its model. Earlier this year, NASA launched a long-delayed satellite project called PACE that will explore phytoplankton growth on the ocean surface, algal blooms and aerosols, and other factors impacting temperature shifts. The institute also remains at the forefront of using machine learning to create models that chart the possible course of climate change. What happens to this work when GISS leaves the only home its ever known remains to be seen. Obviously, it is not our idea, Schmidt said, adding that he doesnt think itll save money or lead to increased efficiency. The lease termination notice does say the work will continue in a new home. Is this going to impact our mission? Yes, of course, he said. Schmidt has made some progress in his search for a new location, but hes far from finished. Hes essentially begging for desks in the neighborhood, looking to find a home at Columbia University, New York University, or the Natural History Museum. He doesnt have any budget, so he cant pay rent and he fears theres a limit to how generous people will be. If you want to bring in people who are going to have interesting ideas and who are going to pursue those ideas, they have to have freedom to do so, he said. They can’t be so drowned with proposal writing or doing operational stuff or having to do some bullshit thing for somebody else. If you want to keep the smart people and creative people, you have to give them autonomy.
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