Anne Sweeney
I'm naturally curious, and I've always been driven by my curiosity. Curiosity gets people excited. Curiosity leads to new ideas, new jobs, new industries.
Our future is only limited by our commitment to keep the momentum going. Now that television has been set free from all constraints - including time, place, and all previous definitions - what comes next?
Art has been good for my soul. And it's been good for my brain. I think I'm a better painter now than I was a musician growing up. You struggle to see things and translate an image through your hands to a canvas.
If you have a great day at work and you've been hit with all these great ideas and there's a lot of excitement on your team, your mind doesn't turn off. For years I've kept a pad of paper and pen by me at night, because things just occur to you.
A good leader should focus on making sure everyone is being given the tools to do their job, not just expecting - poof! - that they're going to produce great work.
I believe in having total clarity around our goals. I believe in creating these goals together as a group and making sure they're aligned with Bob Iger's goals for the Walt Disney Co. And more than anything, making sure people understand that they have a responsibility to one another.
I really moved through my career based on curiosity about something. I never looked at a title and said, 'I want that.'
I look at power as the ability to get people motivated and to get them to do things that maybe they don't think are important but, in the end, are in pursuit of something greater than themselves.
To have influence, you really don't need to have power. But what you need more than anything else is to have that almost uncanny understanding of what matters to people.
One of the things that is very important to me is how I feel about my team. And not just what their jobs are but what they mean to one another.
I think the must-have power qualities for a female or male power leader are really the ability to focus, to work hard, to be extremely goal oriented and to not let the noise and the nonsense interfere with your mission - what you really feel you want to do with your career and your life.
Too many times, adults walk into situations, and people have already put them in a box: 'Oh, you write comedy.' Or, 'You're the development woman.' And it's not just our profession. It's hard to look at someone and say, 'What else is inside?'
The value of the television network is partly tradition, serving as a navigation device and as a brand. Research shows that people do know and understand ABC as a brand, like Disney.
We saw Hulu as an opportunity to broaden our audience for ABC content.
I think we all realize the consumer has taken control, and they're not giving it back. So as every new technology comes forward, we have to figure out how to integrate it.
I see a lot of women of every age trying to be something else. I see them trying to imitate behaviors that they think belong to successful people.
I am deeply honored that my team is being recognized by H.S.H. Prince Albert II and the Festival de Television de Monte-Carlo for Disney/ABC's role in creating television that inspires and captivates audiences wherever they live.
Piracy is a huge, huge issue for all of these major content companies, and everybody has a different way of addressing it.
The more opportunities people have to experience television on different platforms, the more television they consume overall. So there actually has been a benefit, but the ratings have gone down. But we've seen kind of the horizontal benefit of this. And it remains a great, great promotion engine.
I remember when cable happened and everyone said broadcast was dead, and then satellite happened and everyone said cable was dead, and then DVDs happened and everyone said everything was over. Nothing was over. I'm very optimistic about the future.
Today, television is the most powerful medium in the world. Tomorrow it will also be the most personal. There is no one future for television. It will be defined differently for everyone.
Television has always been something you watch; now, increasingly, it is also something you do.
I am so very honored to be the recipient of MIPCOM's 2011 Personality of the Year. However, the accomplishments that have led to this honor are not mine alone. They are the result of the tireless efforts of so very many talented colleagues.
The more personalized television gets, the less passive the experience will become.
When you are producing for ABC, you are producing for a big tent network. So when you are thinking about your story lines and characters, you are thinking about broad appeal. When you are producing for a niche interest, you are producing for a different audience.
'Dancing with the Stars' is a great format for us. It's a format we license from the BBC, so that can't travel for us, but we consider it a great success. 'Desperate Housewives,' on the other hand, a huge success for us internationally. 'Missing' has actually sold to 80 territories before it's even gone on the air.
Our company has been very forward-thinking about digital technology and the opportunity that it gives us. As we move into a world where we have more and more devices at our disposal, that really means more and more opportunities for the Walt Disney Co. to reach you: through our entertainment, through all of our divisions.
My theme song is always: 'Pay attention to your viewer. Follow them.'
Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you're proud to live.Collection: Positive
It’s amazing what you can do when you stop worrying about failing.Collection: Worry
Before you can make a difference, you have to believe you can.Collection: Inspirational
Take the job or the project that scares you a little. It's the one with the most to teach you.Collection: Leadership
It's not the balanced life we remember, it's the beautiful life.Collection: Life
Surround yourself with the best people and then get out of their way. Give them a chance to exceed your expectations and they usually will.Collection: Leadership
The greatest gifts you can give your team: clarity, communication, and pulling people together around a shared mission.Collection: Team
I never looked at a title and said, I want that.Collection: Titles
If you want to see the future, watch 8 year oldsCollection: Years
I think the greatest thing we give each other is encouragement...knowing that I'm talking to someone in this mentoring relationship who's interested in the big idea here is very, very important to me. I think if it were just about helping me get to the next step, it would be a heck of a lot less interesting.Collection: Encouragement
My theme song is always: "Pay attention to your viewer. Follow them."Collection: Song
While I was in college, I became a page at ABC. Suddenly I was working for Good Morning America, local news, national news. The page is the lowest rung of the ladder, and it's the also the place where you can ask any question and not feel dumb.Collection: Morning
Pages were always supposed to be off-camera - we were supposed to be invisible. But I had a moment where I saw a kid who was ready to flip himself out of the balcony, so I ran down and grabbed him and put him back in his seat. I remember the stage manager taking me aside and saying, "Can you please never do that again? I know you were saving his life, but we have you in the shot."Collection: Kids