COLLABORATIVE CREATIVITY

After receiving several encouraging messages from female readers who liked my 2010 Guys’ Gift Guide, I thought I’d follow up with my holiday gift suggestions for women.   Herewith, a preview of the goodies I am considering placing under the tree for the lady in my life.  Some of these are pure concept, not available [...]

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Each year at this time, people ask me if I have any suggestions for cool holiday gifts.  Without further ado, allow me to present my very own version of “My Favorite Things” for the world-traveling technology lover. 1.  Sony Alpha NEX-5 $700 or less online Smallest most powerful camera that uses interchangeable lenses.   Half [...]

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There’s a lively debate underway about the erosion of privacy in digital media, focusing lately on the careless handling of Facebook data by bottom feeder RapLeaf.   This is a useful discussion but it does not address the proliferation of surveillance technologies that now pervade the real world around us. I’m not referring to your web browsing habits (there is [...]

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Today  the UK firm Visual DNA announced that Robert Tercek has joined their Board of Directors.   Here’s the link to the TechCrunch coverage. For several years, Visual DNA has been developing sophisticated tools for online publishers and advertisers, operating as Imagini Europe.  Now the company is

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While the US government struggles to control spending on 20th-century obligations like an overseas empire and bloated entitlement programs, it may be instructive to consider where other nations invest their money.   The pragmatic Chinese leadership puts government money to work via investment in 21st-century infrastructure that will accelerate business in the years to come.  Take a look [...]

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Will California lead the nation in legalizing pot?   A few years ago, this question would have seemed absurd, even unthinkable. As recently as 2007, federal agents in full body armor and automatic weapons raided Hollywood pot dispensaries.  This action took place within the context of chronic Orange Level Terror Alerts, so the population was [...]

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There’s a group of smart entrepreneurs and businessmen in town that I respect quite a lot.  They recently had a big discussion about the value of coaching.  Not professional sports coaching, but career coaching. Most of the guys responded in a predictable fashion:  they were snide and dismissive about the concept of life coaching.   The [...]

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Call it the Success Paradox.   When an organization reaches a new stage of growth, it may experience cataclysmic internal turmoil. The Success Paradox happens to startup ventures that lack a cohesive management structure:  when the company makes a growth leap, say, from 25 to 50 employees, or from 100 to 200 employees, the shift [...]

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Bold speculation from MIT Media Lab founder Nick Negroponte at the Techonomy Conference in Lake Tahoe. Citing the rapid decline of film photography and music as precedents, Negroponte speculates that “It’s happening. It is not happening in 10 years. It’s happening in 5 years.” http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/06/physical-book-dead/ This is a little bolder than my prediction that physical [...]

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Some readers objected to my blog post a few weeks ago that forecast the end of printed books by 2016 http://bit.ly/dcI6UC , protesting that bound books will never go away entirely. That may be true, but if print edition books survive, it won’t be anywhere near the scale of today’s print business. I stand by [...]

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