Anatomy Of An Idea

People often ask me about my research techniques. You would think this would be a relatively straightforward question, but the truth is that I have to keep changing my answer, because my techniques are constantly shifting as new forms of search or discovery become possible. Right now, I’m in…

Introducing Findings

I have been dreaming about new tools that would help me capture what I was reading for almost as long I have been reading. During my college years, I lost a semester trying to build an epic Hypercard stack called “Curriculum” that would help me organize all my notes for the courses that I…

Go West, Middle-Aged Man

At some point this winter, mostly likely as I was climbing over the three feet of snow that stayed piled on our sidewalk from late December to February, it occurred to me that I had spent twenty-one years in New York City — exactly half my life. I moved here originally in 1990…

Thoughts on Steve Jobs, The Book

I just finished reading Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography on the flight back to SFO a few minutes ago, and wanted to jot down a few responses while they were fresh in my head.

AOL Acquires Outside.in

Almost exactly five years ago, I went out to lunch with my old friends Mark Bailey and Andy Karsch, and somehow over the course of our meal I got to talking about this idea I’d been harboring for several months about building some sort of web service that would organize local bloggers…

The Innovator’s Cookbook