Have you ever had colleagues who became friends? How about friends who became colleagues? We all have, right?

Welcome to living in the grey.

Last night at the Delta T4X Pop-Up Lounge in downtown Manhattan, the founders of Live in the Grey, a new online community offering resources, tools and inspiration for passion-driven individuals, hosted an event featuring executives from BuzzFeed and Vimeo, along with a Grammy-nominated artist.

We talked with co-founder Maneesh Goyal who explained his partnership with co-founder David Munczinski: “There was a kinship and we vibed with each other.”

Goyal continued, “Our friends kept asking, ‘How do you have a job that’s so good for you?’ We were surrounded by people who hate their jobs….Gone are the days when you have a life and a job and they don’t intersect.” Now, they seem to blur.

As they aim to propel a movement for people to find fulfillment in their careers, their panel featuring Melissa Rosenthal, managing creative strategist at Buzzfeed, Chris Diken, director of brand messaging at Vimeo and Emily King, Grammy-nominated musician, focused on their own careers, definitions of success and professional gratification.

Rosenthal mentioned she started out as an intern at BuzzFeed and feverishly posted six stories each day. “It captivated me from a user experience.” Indicating there’s so much learning involved and “if you never fail, you never learn,” she talked about her passion for taking a risk with content.

“If you’re not going to stand out, you might as well not be giving it.” Pushing outside your comfort zone, she said, is where the growth process begins.

She added, “There’s no predictability in what’s going to happen next. That’s exciting! I thrive on that.”

Diken thrives on individualism. He manages to keep his personal passions intact such as writing one poem every day and alluded to working in an environment as a holistic self. That is, a persona that doesn’t draw the line between his professional brand and personal one. One that can technically be described by wearing pizza socks. Yes, you read that right.

The Vimeo exec revealed he enjoys wearing his pizza socks and more importantly, he likes the fact that he can be himself at the office. Describing the old adage of a separate “work self” from the “home self,” well for him, they’re one in the same.

“I love working where you feel normal and can wear pizza socks and express your opinion.” Instead of minimizing a screen while pretending to work on spreadsheets while he’s taking a break watching skateboarding videos, Diken cherishes being able to work in a creative environment where individualism is not rebuked.

Maybe Goyal and Munczinski are onto something by living in the grey where your personal and professional passions fuse with your whole self.

Sure, there are surveys about the best companies to work for but how about the best workplace on the planet? This month’s issue of Harvard Business Review revealed research conducted by Rob Goffee of London Business School and Gareth Jones of IE Business School.

They asked executives if they could design the best company on earth to work for, what would it be like? Results showed six virtues of dream companies:

• You can be yourself.
• You’re told what’s really going on.
• Your strengths are magnified.
• The company stands for something meaningful.
• Your daily work is rewarding.
• Stupid rules don’t exist. Read more

If you’re a fan of author John Gray, Ph.D., you’re schooled by now on his countless relationship books such as Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

Well, after years of conducting research and workshops along with consulting, he and co-author Barbara Annis, have a new book dropping tomorrow called Work With Me. The book tackles eight gender blind spots in the workplace and how to deal with them.

The New York Post interviewed Gray who mentioned women feel like they’re being excluded from situations that may lead to career advancement such as not being invited to get drinks with the guys.

One solution, said Gray, is to actually involve the guy. Instead of blaming him (that could lead to becoming defensive and antagonistic), he suggested focusing on results and possible solutions. “He becomes the solution, not the problem.” Read more

If you’ve ever been asked to be a reference for a top notch colleague, that’s a no brainer. Well, how about a mediocre one or perhaps a lackluster one who needs improvement? It creates hesitation, right?

One delicate reader question in The Wall Street Journal mailbag caught our attention. A family friend asked a reader to give advice to his son. The young man’s gearing up to graduate from college and also has Asperger’s syndrome. The reader tried to be helpful on the phone and gave him advice in an email as well but the reader seeking advice on how to handle the situation ultimately referenced the phone call as “vague…and lacking in social skills.” Read more

According to our friends at ERE.net, LinkedIn made two announcements at its conference this week in Sydney, Australia.

First up? CheckIn. Here’s how it works: At an event, let’s say you stop by an employer booth and give your name and email address to a recruiter. Although this is technically from a recruiter’s vantage point, the talent acquisition professional can send follow up messages to you through the site. As of July, we hear this will be fully up and running.

As for the other new enhancement, LinkedIn is changing their social campaign. Again, this is from a recruiters standpoint but it’s still good to know the inside scoop. Previously, recruiters could send updates to company followers via their company page. Well, they’ll be able to do it from “Recruiter” going forward and will be able to track responses.

It’s been a busy week for the professional networking site. Earlier this week, they announced an enhancement to LinkedIn Today by introducing multiple channels. Associate product manager Kevin Gu wrote in his blog post on the site, “Through channels you can follow broader topic areas that cross multiple industries and professional sectors. By following channels you will have access to timely and relevant professional news and insights that can help you stay one step ahead and be in the know on what’s trending in your professional network.”

He added, “Channels represent a more comprehensive way to discover, share, and engage with high-quality Influencer posts, top news sources, and SlideShare content — all in one place.”

Now that spring has sprung, maybe you put on a few pounds over the winter? We’re not suggesting you look a little heavier, we’re just saying in case you feel slightly plumper, it’s not your job’s fault. Really, it’s not says Yoni Freedhoff, MD and contributor to U.S. News & World Report.

On the flip side, copious amounts of physical activity don’t translate into significant drops on the scale either.

For instance, last month the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a study which investigated the impact of exercise on weight in half a million men and women. Participants in China self-reported their amounts of daily physical activity broken down into four categories: Work, housework, active transportation and recreation. Read more

According to The New York Times, Hearst Magazines created a new position of president of digital media and hired Troy Young to fill the role.

In the position, Young will work with the company’s 26 online brands in terms of content, revenue production and development strategies.

Most recently, he was employed by digital media company Say Media until last August and for the past three years he’s served as an advisor to a variety of digital media companies, as per his LinkedIn profile. Prior to that, he worked as president and CMO at VideoEgg.

As per the piece, David Carey, president of Hearst Magazines, said Young was hired because “pure plays are increasingly the companies to watch in terms of how quickly they produce product, the orthodoxies they set aside and how they assemble their talent.”

Let’s say your name is Robert. Maybe you should go by Bobby at work? Check that — why not Bob instead? According to a recent report released by TheLadders, the shorter the name, the better (when it comes to your wallet, that is).

Upon analyzing the first names of the site’s six million members against factors such as industry, salary level and location, their experts concluded a correlation between the number of letters in a name and actual salary ranges.

So, if you want to go by Bobby instead of Bob, it’ll cost you about $7,200. Here’s why: Every letter added to a name decreases a salary by $3,600. This could equate to almost $288,000 over a 40-year career for dear ol’ Bobmeister! Read more

Okay, maybe you’ve tried everything to get hired like cold calling a hiring manager, tweeting your prospective employer and snail mailing your resume. When it comes to thinking outside the box, have you considered commenting on a site?

As per a post on paidContent, the new weekend editor at Gawker Media’s auto-focused site Jalopnik got hired because he was a regular commenter. Simply stated, Mike Ballaban apparently got his new job for being an active participant and engaging with the site. Read more

In this episode of Cubes, the crew takes its first trip across the East River to see the DUMBO digs of ad agency Huge. No, they don’t live in a Disney film, DUMBO is New York for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass,” meaning it’s in Brooklyn.

If you’re looking to see what it’s like to work at Huge, here are some small quick facts: The cardboard box was invented in the building in 1879. Huge staffers can bring their dogs to work, copy machines are named after Huge Dogs and Huge conference rooms named after celebrities who are huge but not Huge! For everything else, you’ll need to watch the moving picture show.

You can view our other MediabistroTV productions on our YouTube Channel.