All his life, he hated brushing his teeth. Getting toothpaste onto a toothbrush can be messy if your fine motor skills are still developing. And, of course, even though you know you’re supposed to replace a toothbrush every three months, who really keeps track of that? So, Houston Diaz decided to invent a solution. And [...]
Author Archive | Nilofer Merchant
Oprah. Oprah. Oprah.
I’ve been trying to act oh, so nonchalant about it, but my first column appeared over at Oprah.com … It’s on the idea of personal reinvention, and specifically how do you find and claim your Onlyness. I’ll excerpt a bit here, and let you wander over to Oprah (did I say Oprah? I did!).com to [...]
3 Ways To Fuel Your Own Growth
There are 3 things that change you: travel, the people you meet, and the books you read. A few weeks back, at the Foster School of Business Innovation conference, I heard Doug Plank, a VC, say that. To take in new ideas is to let yourself be changed. And, there’s probably as many techniques as [...]
Why I Love REI
My friend, Professor Terri Griffith sent this Yelp Review of Acme Bakery tonight because the review takes a side trip through REI… Check it out: This is a delightful tiny, but busy bakery. Everyone in town either knows first-hand how good the bread is or has been tipped off by Yelp. I was visiting from [...]
Ecommerce Market Battleground Shift Because of Legislation
Yesterday, the US Senate passed the online sales tax bill by a 69-27 vote. The measure will shape the e-commerce space, certainly affecting Ebay, Amazon, Etsy and others. The bill still needs to pass the GOP-controlled House of Representatives and receive the signature of President Obama, a supporter, to become law. The legislation would require [...]
The “Trick” to Calm Your Speaker Nerves
Lift one corner of your mouth up. Then lift the other corner up. There. You have it. An asana, or pose, for how to face the world. It’s also the “trick” speakers use to connect. Earlier this week, I shared with you the backstage story of nervousness just as I was about to give my [...]
‘We need a new language for the collaborative age’
Just realized that I never shared with you an article that was commissioned for, and published in the March 2013 issue of Wired (physical) magazine. Language encodes our thinking. To write a new future, we need to use a new language. Let’s stop focusing on the overly narrow term “social media”. Let’s simply be social. [...]
Don’t Listen to Everything
Super loved this by Ann Friedman. For all of you trying to create change in the world either as entrepreneurs or writers or simply by choosing to be kickass instead of kiss ass, you’ve already discovered haters. In Ann’s quest for understanding haters, she created The Disapproval Matrix, which I found to be so perfect, [...]
TED.com releases talk on Walkntalks
The “Sitting is the Smoking our Generation” TEDtalk airs today on TED.com! I can hardly believe it. People always wonder if speakers are nervous. The question is, with enough practice, does this level of professional speaking ever get easy? I myself have had that question, wondering if I was “the only one” who got super [...]
Brain Tattoo
There’s an idea I’ve held inside my brain, like some kind of brain tattoo, indelibly stamped. It’s been there for some 30-years now. It goes something like this: “You’ll feel better when it quits hurting”. I’ve applied this to all sorts of things from business to personal. It came to mind as I was scaling [...]