Getting asked to speak at TED2013 was delightful, but especially because I got the chance to redeem myself from my less-than-stellar talk at TEDGlobal. I write about the secrets of getting ready for the “talk of one’s life”, at Linked In… which was a slightly therapeutic moment … a way to work through the nervousness. [...]
Author Archive | Nilofer Merchant
The Economics of Generosity
One of the most powerful talks this last week at TED centers on adapting to a new era, the Social Era. Amanda Palmer has been a disruption in the music industry for some time. (By sheer coincidence, I was sitting at the conference next to some senior executives in the music industry and got to [...]
What is “social”? (An Etymology of Sorts)
Enterprise 2.0, Social Media, Social Business, Social Innovation, Social Era – are they all the same, or are they quite different? Do you know? If you don’t know, you might be using the wrong term in the wrong context. Which doesn’t sound so bad, but the cost of this is to risk misunderstanding, or quite [...]
Designing Workshop & Seeking Your Advice…
I wonder if I can ask for your advice on something? Over the last few months, I’ve been asked to do more workshops and I could use your advice on designing a format and structure that would work best. While a speaker’s job is to passionately share their ideas, workshops are about applying ideas in [...]
Why People Listen to You, Follow You
He taught me so much. Not because of what he said, or even how close we were, but what he embodied. Jerry Witherspoon died of pancreatic cancer a few weeks back. I’ve been mourning his passing quite a bit and — to be entirely real — I’ve been a little surprised by this. You see, [...]
Having a Point of View
“Your writing is better than my writing, but your headlines … they suck.” That nugget of rather direct insight was delivered over a lunch conversation by a best-selling (and incredibly talented) author. At first, I thought what he was talking about was the media-related, buzz-generating kind of thing where the goal was to get someone [...]
Onlyness (The Topic and the Talk at TEDxHouston)
The first step to unlocking talent in the #SocialEra is celebrating something I’ve termed onlyness. Onlyness is that thing that only that one individual can bring to a situation. It includes the journey and passions of each human. Onlyness is fundamentally about honoring each person: first as we view ourselves and second as we are [...]
Sitting is the Smoking of Our Generation
Yesterday, I shared with you the “big” news that I’m speaking at TED at their Long Beach event a short 40 or so days from now. The topic of my talk may surprise you. It’s not on business models of the future, or why collaboration matters, or about the need to dissolve us v. them [...]
The Run Like Hell From List
Such a private thing it is to share this, but I have. The idea of this post started when several months ago, a person who runs a professional networking organization here in the Valley stood me up just shortly before we were to meet. And when I saw her again, she wasn’t even embarrassed by [...]
Speaking at TED2013
Keeping secrets is incredibly hard. I lack the poker face. So, most times, I just avoid people or situations so I won’t spill the beans. And for many weeks now I’ve wanted to write and tell you this news but I was sworn to secrecy… I’ve been invited to deliver a talk on the Main [...]