One of the more important, more contentious, and more complicated tech policy issues is radio spectrum allocation. It’s an issue I don’t have a lot of background experience in but have been learning a lot about lately. It’s a hot topic right now because the FCC is about to hold incentive auctions to...

Yesterday I spent the day at Princeton with Steve Schultze and the rest of the team at the Center for Information Technology Policy. The topic of my talk was “Peer Progress and Regulation 2.0” — something I’ve been thinking and talking about over the past several months, but haven’t yet written a to...

This morning I am heading down to the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy to talk about Peer Progress and Regulation 2.0.  The pitch goes like this: “Peer Networks” are bringing new organizational and economic dynamics to every sector — unlocking tremendous opportunity and potential. ...

I am so inspired by Kid President.  If you haven’t seen the video, go watch it now, and get your pep talk on. So… with kid on our shoulder, let’s think about how to make NYC more awesome.  From a tech policy perspective :) A few weeks ago the (already awesome) NY Tech Meetup launched… Continue readi...

Today, we announced that USV is investing in Hailo.  I am psyched about this for a number of reasons, but primarily because it’s infrastructure that connects people to their city in new ways. What’s most fascinating is that we almost certainly don’t yet know what those ways are. I want to point out ...

This was a pretty fun weekend for alternative media experiences. Of course, House of Cards launched on Netflix, testing a new model of distribution, and the Super Bowl was interrupted by a 30-minute blackout, leading to a rush to “newsjack” the moment on social media. What I like about both the Netf...

I am bad at email.  Maybe everyone is.  But I feel like I’m worse than most; or at least worse than I want to be. I feel like my inbox should do a better job helping me find emails that are important.  I use Gmail and Priority Inbox, so I don’t mean “important” in that… Continue reading

Yesterday Uber made me feel like a superhero. It was about 10 degrees in Boston, and I was on the T on my way into Cambridge.  And as we pulled in to Kenmore station the conductor notified us that all Green Line trains would be going out of service.  So my train — and every… Continue reading

Happy MLK Day everyone. I just spent the last half hour reading MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.  To be totally honest, I don’t think I’ve ever read it in its entirety before.  It is incredibly powerful and moving.  I encourage anyone reading this to take some time with it today. I pulled a few ...

Yesterday, I went down to DC to visit the US Dept of Health and Human Services – and presented to their Innovation Council (a cross functional working group on innovation) about opportunities to bring “networked thinking” into the health space. This is clearly such an important area, with huge oppor...

Sunday night, Cescalouise‘s iPhone mysteriously went dark.  She had a lot going on Monday, so I gave her my phone to use, then I headed down to NYC for the day and following night. So I’ve been away from home for the last day and a half with no phone.  Not a huge deal, obviously,… Continue reading

I love Google Reader. I’ve used it for a long long time now to keep tabs on things.  I suppose it’s an old school method at this point, but I think it’s just great. The screengrab above is one of my home screens on my galaxy s3.  I have moved to a widgets-only mobile desktop,… Continue reading

I always spend a lot of time around the turn of the new year thinking about self-improvement.  This year is no different. Last summer, at a charity fundraiser for a friend, I bought several sessions of personal coaching. Throughout the fall, I’ve been working with my coach, Lisa Lahey, using her met...

I love milestones.  Times of year that mark change and give you a chance to pause and reset. I think that’s part of why I had such a hard time living in California during college, and why I appreciated the seasons so much when I moved back east.  They provide a very natural rhythm. The… Continue rea...

Since last Friday, my life has seemingly been consumed with thinking about what happened at Sandy Hook elementary school. Maybe it’s the just horrific nature of the event. Maybe it’s that I’m a parent of two small kids, and I haven’t been able to stop hugging and kissing them and thinking about how ...

I have had a hard time finding the perfect to-do list system. I am a light implementer of GTD — I haven’t read the whole book, but I get the basic idea — capture; focus; do.  Stop working from the top of your inbox.  Amen. A few years ago, I started using Things for Mac, which… Continue reading

There is a practically non-stop flow of threats to the Internet.  That’s because the Internet is fundamentally empowering and therefore also threatening to those whose power is diminished. This week, there are two big things on the forefront, which my colleague Albert has written up today.  Both iss...

It’s been a fascinating few days in the politics of information. Late in the day last Friday, the House Republican Study Committee released a report that took a fresh look (for American major political parties) at copyright reform, which has since set off a firestorm. The report addresses three comm...

Yesterday, I spent the day at a meeting on “city innovation” at Harvard’s Kennedy School, with 30 or so CIOs, CTOs, and other technology executives from around the country. I did a short presentation on predictive analytics and cities (slides here) — thanks so much to everyone who sent in comments a...

It’s been a big year for predictive analytics.   I’ve been following Nate Silver’s blog on the election, and his deep data analysis cut through the noise, was consistent, and ultimately proved correct.   And to look at another (eerily prescient) example, look at this 2006 prediction of what a major ...