Strategy & Ideas

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

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 ...

I love halloween. I think it’s my favorite holiday. The thing that I like about it the most is that it’s one of the only days of the year where you have a reason to go out and meet all of your neighbors.  I spent a while last night walking around the neighborhood with Theo… Continue reading

I’m still frustrated with how book buying works. Totally randomly, we ended up watching the Tom Wolfe documentary on TV Friday night.  It was really great — incredible to get a behind-the-scenes look at how he operates.  He is clearly a master of the interview and a master researcher.  He has an inc...

I am writing this from 30,000 feet on my way to San Francisco. I have a great car service which I use every week when I travel.  This morning, I ended up having a long conversation with Reda, one of my regular drivers, about Uber and how it’s shaking up the taxi and car service business.… Continue r...

Alex Hillman has a nice post on his response to Steven Johnson’s Where do Good Ideas Come From, thinking about how we continually process and re-process our information.  It mentions one specific method, which Steven calls “the spark file“.  The idea being that you keep a simple log of “sparks” — th...

Last night, Andy Murray won the US Open — his first grand slam victory — in an epic 5-set match (tied for the longest ever).  I was on a train and missed the whole thing, unfortunately.  But the story is great — Murray won the first two sets, then dropped the second two, only to… Continue reading

I’ve always thought of tennis as perhaps the most difficult of sports.  It’s like hitting a baseball, but while you’re running, and with 90% of the addressable target area out of bounds (in the net, outside the lines, etc).  To top that off, you’re a team of one, battling yourself, inside your head....

The Camellia Network is an organization that exists to support youth who are aging out of the foster system. It’s a new organization, just passing its first year, and yesterday they launched their revamped web platform.  Camellia is a new kind of support organization — rather than provide services d...

I have been intrigued recently by apps that give a new spin on what have previously been stock features of the phone.  Apps that a) improve upon in minor ways or b) really try and re-invent some of the basic things we do every day. Above is a snapshot of my new “home row”.  Sort… Continue reading

This week we are out in Cape Cod with Frannie’s family, hanging out at the beach in Truro (where, incidentally, there was a shark attack a few weeks ago).  This week, we’re renting a different house than normal — it’s an old run-down house next door to the cottages where Fran’s family has vacationed...

Amazing things happen when people are stuck on a bus together. More on that in a bit. I spent yesterday afternoon with Chiefs of Staff and Chief Information Officers from about 10 US cities, at an event convened by the Harvard Kennedy School and Living Cities (a collaborative of large funders who fo...

Last week, I spent some time shopping for a new health insurance plan for our family. Two takeaways: 1) The new Massachusetts Health Connector is really great — the health connector is a state-run exchange that helps you find, choose, and purchase a health plan, either a state-run plan or a private ...

It’s no secret that Kickstarter is radically changing the way people think about launching new products.  They are on a such tear helping projects get funded by the crowd (the latest being OUYA, an open gaming platform, which has raised $5mm so far, 5x its goal), that it’s no surprise that the model...

For the past few months, it seems like I can’t read the news without coming across another horrifying story of sexual abuse within “esteemed” institutions. Today marks the release of the “Freeh Report” — the independent analysis of what happened at Penn State with Jerry Sandusky.  The Washington Pos...

I have two kids — a three year old, Theo, and Brieza, who is one.  It’s been amazing watching both of them grow. What’s funny about little kids growing is how it seems to happen in spurts.  Everything will be going along, normal day to day, and then all of a sudden you stop and… Continue reading

As I write this, I’m sitting on the platform at the Back Bay Amtrak station in Boston, waiting for the train to New York. At 9am (6 minutes ago), I got a text message prompting me to write a blog post today. It said “Get your blog on!  It’s a good thing”.  The text message,… Continue reading