#nilofer merchant

[cultureofresistance]

Those of us who’ve been otherized actually hold the keys to the breakthroughs the world so desperately needs. That’s not an overstatement. Karim R. Lakhani, a Harvard-based open innovation professor, and Lars Bo Jeppesen, of the Copenhagen Business School, did some research, opening up 166 previously-unsolved scientific problems from the research laboratories of 26 firms to over 80,000 independent scientists around the world. The new players were able to solve one-third of the problems that the research laboratories were unable to solve internally. One-third. Those are new solutions that were previously non-existent. And who were these creative innovators? The research described that “social marginality” played an important role in explaining individual success. Nearly 100 percent of the solution creators came from women and other underseen groups, what the researchers described by the comparative language of “left field,” but we could (and would and should) call onlyness. Because we recognize the value of that distinct spot in the world in which each of us stands.

In ShondaLand: Seek Life Elsewhere - Nilofer Merchant

[petitjeanofficial]

Identity is not just a personal sense, but also a social construct.

Nilofer Merchant

[lqb2quotes]

Connections create value. The social era will reward those … that realize they don’t create value all by themselves.

Nilofer Merchant

ht cogden

[streetsofdublin]

Nilofer Merchant At Inspirefest 2017 [July 2017]-130290 by William Murphy Via Flickr: Nilofer Merchant - Former tech executive & bestselling author One area that i have difficulty with is portrait photography and this is even more difficult in a concert hall or theatre because of the lighting [I am convinced that the lighting is designed to prevent photography]. In order to photograph in difficult environments I purchase a Sony 70-200GM f2.8 lens and while I am pleased with the lens I am still at the bottom end of a steep learning curve. I am seriously considering the Sony 100mm GM lens which may be more suitable but I have decided to delay purchasing it until 2018.

[vidpoker11]

Sitting is the New Smoking This is my second post on the damage of sitting too much today. As regular readers know I feel strongly about the damage smoking does to the body and this very extensive write up of how sitting too much hurts you covers even more ground than I have in previous posts. Tony

[ilostgatsby]

Sitting has become the smoking of our generation.

Nilofer Merchant, TED Talks

[simonterry]

Lessons from Presenting

Last week I had a long and challenging presentation to give. Here’s some lessons that I take away from that experience:

Blogging helped: all the ideas in my keynote had been explored out loud before on this blog. It is so much easier to put together a big presentation when you have ideas that you have worked up, shared and discussed with others. Where I saw gaps in the presentation, I even blogged them to make sure I had worked out what I wanted to say.

Networks helped: a fortnight out from the talk I lost confidence that what I had to say was worth saying. I asked my Change Agent Worldwide colleagues for advice. As ever they were wonderful encouraging me to speak to my passions, tell stories and be practical.

A Role Models helps:: Looking for a role model to emulate, I studied Nilofer Merchant’s TED talk. At once, I saw a way to connect quickly with the audience and to advance my presentation.

Structure helped:With days to go I had my content, but a mess of a presentation. I went back to first principles and used Barabara Minto’s pyramid principle to rebuild the presentation. I discovered my issue. I had forgotten to explicitly make & support my main point. It sounds obvious but your point can get lost in all the action & theatrics. Fixing that helped.

Practice helped: All the way along I had been practising and refining the pitch. There was one more glitch. The night before I delivered the talk I felt my stories were like a laundry list and not very practical. As I grappled with this I realised I needed to add a pattern to help the audience follow the stories. I settled on Idea>Story>So What>Extended Story. This pattern forced me to make the ‘so what’ real in another story of the same organisation. That was good discipline and helped the flow.

Preparation Helps:Because of all the changes I need not have time to commit my talk to memory. I created a bullet point list of key points, lines and transitions. This enabled me to iron out kinks and simplify again. I was very nervous when I woke but the preparation gave me confidence it couldn’t be too bad. Thankfully my nerves vanished as I began to speak.

The audience enjoyed the talk. I couldn't have been more thrilled that the message connected and people had idea to take away and try.

[workbreakroom-blog]

Walk the Talk - Nilofer Merchant

“You’ll be surprised at how fresh air drives fresh thinking...” 

A great perspective on thinking creatively. Find more of Merchant’s information here.