Melissa Mayer

In 2012, Melissa Mayer, former CEO of Google, became president of Yahoo. She became president of Yahoo at a time when stocks are declining. People were not sure how she would fix the problem or if she would be able to solve the problem at all. In 2013, a leaked memo from the human resources department of Yahoo appeared online. All employees of Yahoo would no longer be allowed to work from home. This news blinded many employees of the business. No one would be allowed to work from home anymore and those that did would have to find their way into the office. Many were concerned that they might even lose their jobs. Mayer stayed pretty mum about the news for about two months. Her statement on the issue was people are more productive when they're alone, but they're more collaborative and innovative when they're together. Some of the best ideas come from pulling two different ideas together." (Tkaczyk, forbes) Mayer believed in the idea of “propinquity” meaning “physical proximity” (267) The authors of Influencers expand on the idea of propinquity and how it can impact others. Mayer detected that a lack of collaboration could be the source of the companies decline. In order to …show more content…
Many people were frustrated that they would have to give up the extra family time for more time dedicated to work. Other were nervous that they might have to quit because there was not a Yahoo office in their area. Influencers, again references the importance of propinquity by saying “distance kills the chance that people will run into each other and then work together on a shared project” (271) Despite the initial irritated response, Mayer’s idea for more collaboration ended up resulting in several positive ideas. Mayer revealed the newest project of the Yahoo News App. The app uses a more precise technology to produce an accurate report of local weather. This idea was generated from the collaborative efforts of two software