Estee Lauder

Three talking points for Mother's Day brunch:

1. Research shows that babies born to mothers who ate highly processed foods during pregnancy, have a preference for salty, sugary foods later in life.

2. Why aren't women more well- represented at Facebook, Google and other high-flying tech companies? One college president says we isolate computer science from other subjects; instead, we may want to integrate it with sciences, like biology, or even emphasize its connection to foreign languages. (After all, isn't Java or C++ pretty much a foreign language to most of us?)

3. A good way to sell creams, according to Estée Lauder, is to hold a customer by her right hand. This creates a personal connection - and makes it hard for people to get up and walk away. (Plus, most people are right handed, making it more likely they will look at and smell their right hand later in the day.)

Estee Lauder, left, helps a customer apply lipstick in 1966. Credit: Bill Sauro/World Journal Tribune / Wikimedia Commons

Even with hindsight being 20/20, betting on a woman founding an entirely new industry in the throes of the Great Depression seems pretty unlikely. But, as historian and Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn tells us, it’s the story of Estee Lauder. Read more...