I was privileged to be invited to speak at StartupFestival Montreal this month - great city, great event, great team [thanks Alistair]. My favorite time was spent meeting with startups. At one point I found myself in the advisor tent with three companies' founders chatting tech, culture, politics, business models and global scene.  Amazingly these founders all grew up outside North America - Singapore, Ethiopia, Norway, Hong Kong and Brazil.  And each had spent a significant time living outside of their native countries. They all run virtual teams but place equal importance on meeting face to face to build their companies.  They understand the importance of the human side of success and are driven not by money or selling their companies to Google or Facebook but want to build something innovative and lasting on their own terms .  That's why we all got into this game to begin with, ey?![nod to Canada!]  

These are exciting times to launch a startup - Internet focused or not.  Technology is quickly becoming a means to an end rather than an end to itself. The way it should be.  We can start building companies that put people and human behavior at the center rather than forcing us humans to alter our behavior to fit the tool.  With that in mind, I spoke about the importance of the people side of tech and your business.  Algorithms alone won't be your differentiator.  Unless you're in bio-tech the tech won't differentiate your company.  The User Experience, Features and understanding of human behavior will be where we are seeing the true differentiators.  A good point in case is Path [see Brendan Mulligan's recent piece] and Nir Eyal's work at Stanford on human behavior.

Here's my talk - enjoy.

This is where I've been jotting down random thoughts, observations and provocations on the impact of technology on people, society and business since 2000. I write a lot more sporadically than I used to , probably because I am out and about having great conversations and tweeting more.

The site has morphed a lot over the years but the main idea remains the same.  Technology is not an end unto itself but a means for us to improve our lives, connect and create.  It empowers us to do things we never thought possible but can also causes some growing pains along the way.  Lately, my work and thoughts hover around some of the following ideas:

• How do we continue to innovate in a connected world?
• What do our lives look like now that we are interconnected?
• How do we create great products & services in a participatory world?
• How do we ensure tech fits into our lives and not the other way around?

I love technology and the web and have been called an "early adopter" but I am also a realist.  I look at everything through a lens of "people matter". I try to call it as I see it.  The brain is still the best & most agile computer we have. In the end its always about people.

I hope you find some inspiration.  You can find my most recent posts below or click on the archives by date or topic.

Thanks for stopping by.   

This year, more than any other, I feel incredibly protective over the memory of 9/11.  I have been surprised by a feeling of anxiety and dread during the drumbeat leading up to today and have found myself getting angry at the inevitable media reflections and documentaries that were to come.  

But, as I woke up this morning, something interesting happened, the anger had vanished.  I am sad but, I also have a sense of calm.  As I reflect on today and the ten years that have passed,  I've come to realize that 9/11 and my experiences downtown have shaped me in ways that I am only now beginning to understand, it is a part of me, how I view the world and how I choose to lead my life.

I have written before about my experience Downtown as a volunteer in the days after 9/11 as well as reflections in the year's since, but I have always felt a bit strange about highlighting my experience.  I have told myself that my experience was not that unique.  After all, I was just a volunteer that arrived on the scene that evening.   I watched the buildings collapse from the safety of my rooftop on the Upper West Side and thankfully did not lose any immediate loved ones.  I spent most of my time as a volunteer a few blocks from the Pile [the actual burning carnage at the center of the relief efforts].  Over the years, I have honored the day quietly in my own way always with a feeling of sadness. For the past few years I did not even post my thoughts as I had in the years immediately following - I simply tucked them away.  

However, today, with perspective and a greater willingness to look inside myself, I realize that for the first time in ten years my primary feelings around 9/11 are not about sadness or grief or what was taken away but about what the events of 9/11 have given me and taught me.   As strange as it may sound I considered and consider myself lucky to have been able to volunteer Downtown. It  gave me a sense of purpose and a place to focus my shock and grief.  On the evening of 9/11, I began the first of many 12 hour nighttime shifts as a Red Cross volunteer working with first responders -getting them to eat, take breaks, change clothes and talk.  As the work on the pile "normalized", I did weekly shifts with a group set up to outfit firefighters for the 30 day tours of duty that continued for months [the NYFD could not afford to keep re-outfitting the teams as they wore out their gear too quickly].  My experiences  enabled me to witness first hand the incredible essence of humanity at its core ; when people perform acts of bravery and dedication and come together to do what's right, even at great risk to themselves. My experience was not the horror and chaos in the moments that followed but of dedication and seeing the best of who we can be.  

 There are many specific moments that stick with me to this day; the family in a pickup truck from Ohio that pulled up in front of our post at 3am with piles of socks and boots, t-shirts and food; the cliche macho Fireman who after 48 hours on the pile looked me straight in the eye and collapsed in my arms as he dragged me to the ground sobbing after I simply smiled at him; the chaplains and clergy who toured the site and performed their sacred duty with compassion and respect; the camaraderie of sharing a 12th cup of coffee with fellow volunteers as the sun rose over NY; getting a lift up the West Side Highway to my apartment and the rows of cheering people and signs that lined the route; the restaurants below 14th street that stayed open for weeks round the clock to feed the volunteers; the massage therapist who smartly realized she would be needed and dragged her table downtown and seemingly never left; how the NY tech community, came together to provide much needed hardware and software  to help process the thousands of people who lined the Red Cross wanting to donate blood and volunteer.

There was a unique atmosphere in this hobbled together group of people from all walks of life, economic status, races and religions.  None of these people were seeking fame or glory - they simply showed up because there was work to be done.   

I realize now that these experiences and others down at Ground Zero informed many small and large choices I have made in my life.  In many ways the seeds of my passion around Tummeling and the Social Web were fueled during the days and months that followed.  Peter Merholz posted my initial thoughts on his blog [my first unofficial blog post]. I spent almost two years launching and running a community center in Lower Manhattan focused on revitalizing downtown using many new technologies to galvanize community, I worked on the first Personal Democracy Forum conference and I moved to San Francisco to join Six Apart.  Sure, I was interested in community and tech before but I had proof of the power of emergent communities and individual people to make a real difference and --well-- this faith has stuck.

Anniversaries exist for a reason, they provide us with milestones and opportunities to honor those who are gone and hopefully to find perspective.  On the Jewish calendar 9/11 comes out during the month of Elul. This month is set aside prior to the start of the Jewish New Year for reflection, accounting for the past twelve months and preparing for those coming. As I set aside time today to reflect on 9/11, I have mixed emotions as I do every year, I struggle with how best to think about my experiences; and 9/11 in general; am I overdramatizing or not acknowledging enough?  This year,  I now know that although my boots and hard hat are tucked away in a storage unit in Manhattan, I carry with me always the lessons I learned Downtown and I am blessed to have been given this gift of first hand knowledge of the best we can be as people.  I try to live from this place. 

This is most definitely a new favorite quote.  I have added Theodore Zeldin to a growing list of sociologists and historians I need to read.  This one seems particularly apt for our time and my work on Tummeling:

"To be a catalyst is the ambition most appropriate for those who see the world as being in constant change, and who, without thinking that they can control it, wish to influence its direction."    - Theodore Zeldin