As a mother, I have only one annual over the top activity. It’s in the form of an exuberant advent calendar. Shameless bribery? Perhaps. Guilt-reducing? Check. As much for me as for my sons? Definitely. But its appearance can be deceiving. The 24 little gifts I package up and hang from our kitchen light fixture [...]
Archive for the ‘Parenthood’ Category
Girls, Girls, Girls!
Posted in American culture, Entrepreneurs, Parenthood, tagged George R. Brown Convention Center, Girl Scout Swaps, Girl Scouts, Houston on November 10, 2011 | 2 Comments »
As a girl, I formed many notions about entrepreneurship by devouring every biography in my elementary school. I loved the stories about how a single person like Abraham Lincoln could influence the world. The founder of the Girl Scouts, Juliette Gordon Low, was notably in the group of innovators and leaders who inspired me with [...]
Please pack your knives and go.
Posted in Design, Parenthood, tagged Carnegie Mellon, Chef's backpack, Core77 on September 17, 2009 | 4 Comments »
I’m risking bragging about my son’s birth here, but there are no gushing bodily fluids in this story. I’m talking about him birthing a product. He’s an industrial design student and was part of a three-person team to develop a Chef’s backpack. The team’s design process was nicely depicted and discussed on the hip design [...]
What was–or is–your favorite toy?
Posted in American culture, Design, Parenthood, tagged Big Wheel, ID magazine, John Maeda, Jumbo Cardboard Blocks, Kidrobot, Michael Bierut, Naef, Paul Budnitz, RISD, Roy Stufflebean on September 11, 2009 | 2 Comments »
The current issue of ID (International Design) magazine has an article in which famous designers describe their favorite toy. Most picked items from their childhood. The write-ups are priceless. Who knew that Paul Budnitz (Kidrobot founder) rode his Big Wheel until he was so big that he had to have his dad nail a plywood [...]
Retracing Thoreau’s steps
Posted in American culture, Parenthood, tagged Henry David Thoreau, Walden Pond on August 6, 2009 | 1 Comment »
My oldest son is a minimalist. He lives very frugally both by choice and necessity. So it is no wonder that he has spent part of this summer re-reading Walden Pond and physically retracing Henry David Thoreau’s footsteps. He took me on one of those journeys on Sunday. It was magical, and inspired some interesting [...]
Inside/Outside Jobs
Posted in American culture, Parenthood, tagged Matthew Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft on June 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
One of my biggest adjustments to “real life” (as an industrial designer) post-college was having to be indoors all day. In fact, I’ve never gotten used to it. So, I tell my sons, and their friends, to think hard about that reality when they choose a career. The fact is, most careers are indeed lived [...]
Not-so-innocent high school video class assignments
Posted in Parenthood on April 13, 2009 | 1 Comment »
So I’m taking a brief break from creating stuff for my blog….my son made a couple videos that I am sharing. The first is a mock commercial for condoms. (I guess any public health message was fair game, for this assignment.) If you don’t “get” this one, you will when you read the credits. The [...]
Steal This Idea, Please
Posted in American culture, Parenthood, tagged career break, Executive in Residence, re-entry on March 31, 2009 | 8 Comments »
I had a Eureka! moment yesterday. It took the combination of three observations: The Economist once wrote that an enormous–and largely under-reported–driver of the Irish Celtic Tiger economic boom was the sizeable mass of college-educated women entering, and also returning to, the Irish workforce. In my world I am surrounded by women who have taken [...]
A teenager’s summary of start-up company financing
Posted in Parenthood, Start-ups on March 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
My thirteen-year-old recently asked me, Mom what is the point of raising these “grants” [his word for an investment funding round] for your company? All you do is spend one grant trying to get another grant. Woah. Kinda stopped me in my tracks. A family friend overheard this statement by my son, and said, (with [...]
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