LATEST IDEAS

Two coffee-loving friends lead London’s bean scene

Kurt Stewart and Olaf Wiig have been friends since they were teenagers. It was at this stage that they discovered a shared love of driving vintage Italian scooters around their native New Zealand, listening to music, and most importantly, making and drinking great coffee. Nearly 30 years later and half a world away, that friendship […]
Entrepreneurs find ways to help people around the world

It turns out that nothing seems to inspire community-minded entrepreneurs like travel. Take Aunna Wilson, who returned from a trip a trip to India determined to help girls who were getting bad information about reproductive health. She went on to found Pasand, which educates young women about their bodies. Or Andy Moon, who has spent […]
What’s Happening with Victoria Taylor: All Aboard the Nostalgia Train!
What’s happening with Victoria Taylor: All aboard the nostalgia train

In this biweekly series, WeWork’s director of digital community shares five things that she’s enjoying at the moment.  It’s the most wonderful time of the year! And it’s not just because some song is stuck in my head, which has been alternating between the Fallout 4 soundtrack, the Elf soundtrack, and whatever’s playing in stores. […]
Five tips for starting your own networking group

The best writers’ group I ever belonged to reminded me of something you see in movies. We ate hummus, grapes, olives with pits, and hunks of dark chocolate as we gave each other updates on what we were working on. Then we would write for 30 minutes and share what we’d just created on the […]
Need To Update Your Digital Rolodex? Look No Further
Need to update your digital Rolodex? Look no further

These five apps will make your contact list manageable
A shoemaker’s granddaughter finds a sole mate

While on a weekend trip to New York, Amanda Collins bought a pair of Christian Louboutin heels at a boutique in the Meatpacking District. When she wore them the next day, the entire red sole of her new designer shoes fell off. She went back to get them repaired. The shop’s only solution? Red spray […]
Five guys in Holland create a Fitbit for cows

For Yasir Khokhar, it all started with the thought What are the cows thinking? One day in Holland, he recalls, “I was staring outside my window, looking at the grazing cows and wondered, ‘What are they thinking?’ It was one of those insignificant thoughts that turned into an eureka moment. That’s when the plan emerged.” […]
How to Work More Than One Job Without Hating Your Life
How to work more than one job without hating your life

Those of us who were trying to make a living during the Great Recession know that absolutely nothing is sacred. No one was safe. Now, living in a post-recession world, we’re more careful than ever with our hard earned money. Interest rates recently increased, which is a good sign for the economy, but that doesn’t […]
How should a ‘unch of jocks’ decorate their first office’

The Downtown United Soccer Club was a nomadic bunch for a while. Without a permanent home, the group that organizes soccer teams in and around New York City would get together on the field after a match or head to the nearest pub or coffee shop. And for staff meetings? “We met weekly at Mr. […]
Wearable Devices that Will Make You More Productive Right Now
Wearable devices to make you more productive right now

You may not realize it, but you’ve actually been using a wearable device every day for years now: your smartphone. It fits conveniently in your pocket and becomes an extension of you for every waking hour. Basically, it’s a supercomputer packed with sensors, always on and always connected, with a massive ecosystem of helpful apps. […]
Get That Cool Job: comedy writer

You’ve submitted more Shouts & Murmurs essays than you can remember. You write spec scripts for TV comedies all the time. You’re constantly releasing Vines, YouTube videos, and tweets. Your dream is to be hired as a full-time comedy writer. But what does it really take? What are you doing wrong? What are you doing […]
Best friends create a chic bag that’s all business

Work demands always kept long-term best friends Sarah DeMarco and Nickole Raymond traveling. So the music executive and sports agent maintained their friendship by meeting up in between work destinations. “We used to meet up in airport lounges for lunch and commiserate over the lack of products for women who travel a lot,” says Raymond. […]
Transforming grand opera into an intimate experience

If opera lovers were expecting the usual grand theater, they got a shock when they traveled to Bushwick for a performance by LoftOpera. “To get there, audience members had to walk along a badly lit street where the sidewalk had ended,” recalls Brianna Maury. “And they were thinking, ‘Is there really opera here?’ Then they […]
How to surpass your Kickstarter goal in less than 14 hours

Tired of losing your wallet? Never able to find your phone? The guys behind Ekster feel your pain. Their sleek leather wallet has a built-in tracking device that connects to your phone via an app. And if it’s your phone you can’t locate, your wallet can make your phone ring, even if it’s on silent. […]
7 Last-Minute Holiday Gifts for Your Boss
Seven last-minute holiday gifts for your boss

It’s a tricky thing, buying gifts for a co-worker, never mind if that co-worker is your boss. You could go tried-and-true with a gift card, or pick up a fancy box of chocolates, but those are so impersonal. And what if you get a gift card for a store or service your boss doesn’t like? […]
What your company culture says about your business

Google offers free meals, subsidized massages, nap pods, and foosball games to its employees. Workers at Etsy can take breaks in the meditation room, and Pixar provides a cereal bar, swimming pool, and gourmet cafeteria at its campus. It’s not just about fun perks, though. What all these extremely successful businesses have in common is […]
The startup couple: Two app developers pair off

Dan Heyman and Jess Perez each run their own app startup. They’re also a couple. As two entrepreneurs living under one roof, they use their relationship to their advantage, helping each other’s startup grow. Both Heyman and Perez came from backgrounds that, in hindsight, were clear paths to entrepreneurship. Heyman graduated from Columbia, studied at […]
Google hits the road with ride-sharing service

The next time you use your smartphone to call a car, there might be nobody behind the wheel. Google is planning to use its self-driving cars as part of a new ride-hailing service that will go head-to-head with Uber. Bloomberg reports that Google’s driverless cars have been tested mostly around San Francisco and Austin. These […]