I'm now on vacation, which means this blog is too. Although I enjoy writing, I turn off all electronics for 10 - 14 days a year. As this blog should attest, I'm no Luddite, but the best way I can relax and also give my family my full attention is...

I have been reflecting for a couple of weeks on the significance of some of the young companies that presented at this year's Sun Valley Conference, always hosted so professionally and graciously by Allen & Co.  Thingd presented its vision...

"Workflow" is defined by Wikipedia (the term is shunned by most established (read print) dictionaries) as "a sequence of connected steps ... a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person [or] a group of persons."   I have always found...

Here I am at 33,000 feet again (legally, thanks to Cathay Pacific), listening to one of the truly great jazz compositions – Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis.  Perhaps it was my recent culturally-rich trip to Spain or my brain-jangling, Lost in...

I often get asked when do I find the time to blog.  The answer rather self-evidently is right now.  I, with the not inconsiderable assistance of a 747 and trained crew, am flying at 31,000 feet en route to Singapore. Whichever direction...

My two kids don't like it much when their parents talk about them. Most kids don't, and I was no different. In my fuzzy, pre-lawyer mind I claimed a non-existent copyright in the details of my early life.  So how much worse it must be for Mariana...

For those of you who thought that my recent post on Goldman Sachs was controversial, you will no doubt decide that I have certifiably lost my mind to come to the defense of lawyers. Of all the undeserving species that roam the earth, none is as commonly reviled...

I seldom comment on contentious current events, let alone those that affect clients of Thomson Reuters.  However, the intense global criticism of Goldman, Sachs prompts me to join the debate.  No sooner had the SEC surprised the firm and the...

The Apple iPad launched this past weekend amid mass, but not untoward, hype and hysteria.  I have been playing with Steve’s gift to the media and am seriously impressed – not just with the elegant machine I am holding in my hands, but with the future...

My last post about the 25 books that influenced me the most (see How to Get into my Good Books), has led, predictably, to requests that I compile a similar list for musical influences.  These requests also reveal an interesting correlation between...

Despite my interest, professional and personal, in all things digital, I get asked now and then to cite the books that have most influenced me.  The answer to this question is highly personal.  It does not generate a list of the “best” books...

The girls in the family and I took Walter and ten of his classmates to the Rangers game as his 10th birthday party.  No greater test of parental love has every been devised than stopping 10 soda-fueled boys from inflicting permanent inner ear damage...

The theme for this year’s edition of the World Economic Forum in Davos was “Rethink, Redesign and Rebuild.”   While the actual rebuilding must await the delegates return to their home countries and the transition from talk to action, nonetheless...

Now that Congress is well on its way to passing healthcare (or more accurately, health insurance) reform, it is time for me to return to the topic of financial regulation.  My worry is that with the current predilection of our legislators for policy...

I write on the long way home from a trip that started in Tokyo and ended less than two weeks later in Dubai.  During these 12 days, I visited customers, partners, government officials and staff in Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Hyderabad,...

This week I did something very unusual for a life-long Mets fan: I cheered the Yankees to their record 27th World Series triumph.  I have friends, not even Mets fans, who complain that the Yankees don’t deserve our respect because they simply...

This is a post about curved spacetime.  Don’t worry I am not going to attempt an amateur explanation of our four-dimensional universe courtesy of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.  Instead, this is a story of how the current generation...

Why did early broadcast television often show images of announcers standing in a radio studio speaking into microphones?  Why did early adopters of cell phones sometimes stand in old phone booths to make calls from the street?  And why did the...

I shall turn 50 tomorrow which does not worry me at all.  Not having set goals financial or personal that needed to be achieved by a date certain, I am free to pursue my open-ended objectives: a happy marriage, kids who seek success for their own...

I like to play and to watch tennis.  Roger Federer has been and remains my tennis hero because of his outstanding record of achievement on the court and because of the classy way in which he wins – he is the most complete and the most elegant player...

When my friends at BusinessWeek asked me to contribute an article to an issue they were planning on the role of optimism in business, I was happy to oblige for two reasons.   First, I believed that I had an important case to make...

It's a while since I've written a serious piece in this blog about business or technology strategy, so I thought I would make amends below.  After this dry piece, the few remaining readers of this blog will probably wish that I go back to soccer...

Every year our family spends 10 days or so at our lake house in Finland.  This is not a random choice as my beautiful wife Maarit was born and grew up in this watery land of thousands of lakes.  (She also reads this blog from time to time,...

My son Walter’s spring soccer season ended today – under the rain.  It’s as if we never left London.  Now I understand how prescient these kids were to name themselves the “Aqua Dominators” at the beginning of their blue-shirted season. The...

I recently participated in a series of video interviews with an innovative online service called big think www.bigthink.com. The site describes itself as "a global forum connecting people and ideas."  In a wide-ranging interview, I discussed my...