Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Will artificial intellegience make collaboration better—or much, much worse?
The workplace impact of AI isn’t just a matter of whether, but when and which jobs get replaced or reinvented by artificial intelligence. AI is already rewriting the rules of how we work together—by reshaping our interactions with other humans. That’s the flip side of...
How GPT Clears Hybrid Work’s Top 3 Roadblocks
With all the big-picture discussions about how AI is going to change the future of work, it’s easy to lose sight of how AI could change our working lives right now. But the more time I spend using ChatGPT, and honing the skill of coaxing really useful responses...
Variety is the spice of work
From social media bios that declare expertise in a specific niche, to the way search engines reward us for “owning” particular topics or keywords, the modern professional world loves to signal that depth matters more than breadth. But breadth and variety are essential...
The robots are coming
If you think your working life changed a lot in the past three years, buckle up: It’s going to change even more in the next three. That’s because artificial intelligence is now mature enough to dramatically change the way many of us do our work. And while it may be...
TV that works harder
I watch a lot of TV. My TV habit often surprises people, because I seem like a pretty productive person—and it’s true, I get a lot done in a day! But I also watch a lot of TV: four or five hours a day, according to both subjective experience and hard data. If those...
The Joy of Tedious Work
Coaches and strategists often encourage us to maximize impact by spending most of our time and attention in the zone where we make the greatest contribution. We’re told: Focus your days on the projects and tasks where you have something unique to add, or where only...
The Hybrid Worker’s Guide to Information Overload
The overwhelm that so many people feel when working from home—or when returning to the office, conferences or other group settings after a few years of relative isolation—is intimately related to the cognitive, psychological and sensory challenges of living in a state...
Culture in the hybrid workplace
What does hybrid work do to our organizational culture? How do we help nourish a sense of culture within a distributed team? Why do I feel so disconnected from my colleagues, or so isolated in my time at home? These are questions I hear when speaking with...
Tune up your burnout busters
Combine meeting and walking. If you don’t need to be on camera, or need to take only minimal notes, go for a walk during the call. I’ve found that these meetings often allow me to be more creative—and make a stronger personal connection—than what happens on a...
R.I.P. social media. Long live hybrid work?
Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has sent me into mourning — not just for that once-beloved social network, but for social media in general. And with that grief has come something like recognition: recognition that my optimistic view of hybrid work parallels the...
The Harvard Business Review
Will artificial intellegience make collaboration better—or much, much worse?
The workplace impact of AI isn’t just a matter of whether, but when and which jobs get replaced or reinvented by artificial intelligence. AI is already rewriting the rules of how we work together—by reshaping our interactions with other humans. That’s the flip side of...
How GPT Clears Hybrid Work’s Top 3 Roadblocks
With all the big-picture discussions about how AI is going to change the future of work, it’s easy to lose sight of how AI could change our working lives right now. But the more time I spend using ChatGPT, and honing the skill of coaxing really useful responses...
Variety is the spice of work
From social media bios that declare expertise in a specific niche, to the way search engines reward us for “owning” particular topics or keywords, the modern professional world loves to signal that depth matters more than breadth. But breadth and variety are essential...
The robots are coming
If you think your working life changed a lot in the past three years, buckle up: It’s going to change even more in the next three. That’s because artificial intelligence is now mature enough to dramatically change the way many of us do our work. And while it may be...
TV that works harder
I watch a lot of TV. My TV habit often surprises people, because I seem like a pretty productive person—and it’s true, I get a lot done in a day! But I also watch a lot of TV: four or five hours a day, according to both subjective experience and hard data. If those...
The Joy of Tedious Work
Coaches and strategists often encourage us to maximize impact by spending most of our time and attention in the zone where we make the greatest contribution. We’re told: Focus your days on the projects and tasks where you have something unique to add, or where only...
The Hybrid Worker’s Guide to Information Overload
The overwhelm that so many people feel when working from home—or when returning to the office, conferences or other group settings after a few years of relative isolation—is intimately related to the cognitive, psychological and sensory challenges of living in a state...
Culture in the hybrid workplace
What does hybrid work do to our organizational culture? How do we help nourish a sense of culture within a distributed team? Why do I feel so disconnected from my colleagues, or so isolated in my time at home? These are questions I hear when speaking with...
Tune up your burnout busters
Combine meeting and walking. If you don’t need to be on camera, or need to take only minimal notes, go for a walk during the call. I’ve found that these meetings often allow me to be more creative—and make a stronger personal connection—than what happens on a...
R.I.P. social media. Long live hybrid work?
Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has sent me into mourning — not just for that once-beloved social network, but for social media in general. And with that grief has come something like recognition: recognition that my optimistic view of hybrid work parallels the...
OneZero
How to play your way to AI fluency
Can coat hooks level up your AI skills? I’ll admit it sounds like a stretch. But that’s exactly how I boosted my AI literacy over the summer, as an almost accidental by-product of our home improvements. In the course of replacing our entryway closet with coat hooks, I...
The new collegiality
“I have to book a meeting just to get an answer to the simplest question.” “I get so stuck when there’s nobody around to bounce ideas off." “I feel so lonely and isolated when I’m working from home.” So many of our pain points around hybrid work come down to the...
Tune up your remote work skills
Employees who are starting their very first jobs—as remote workers with no direct, on-site supervision. Managers who are leading teams that include people they’ve never met—and need to support remotely. Professionals who have survived the transition from office to...
Inbox overwhelmed? Here’s how I kept mine empty for a year
This week marks my 52nd consecutive week of “Inbox zero”. I’ve been amazed at how regularly getting my inbox to empty has changed not only my relationship to email, but the way I work. In this article, I’ll tell you how I got to zero and how it’s paid off, so you can...
The new hybrid work
The new hybrid work isn’t just about where we work: that is, some combination of home plus office. It’s also about who we are working with: humans, or AIs? Thinking about hybrid work as an intersection of location and collaboration gives us a much better handle on how...
25 ways remote work has changed
25 years ago this month, I moved to Vancouver for love. That meant leaving my graduate-school program and associated work opportunities on the other side of the continent, and the other side of a national border. I needed some kind of income to keep me afloat in my...
The real risks of AI
AI is in headline after headline, most of which focus on the risks that are supposed to be keeping us up at night. The very people who developed these technologies and brought them to market are now warning us that their creations threaten to wreak….well, they can’t...
Nature is your new office
When I was in school, there was an easy way to tell the nice teachers from the mean teachers: The nice teachers moved at least one class meeting outdoors as soon as the weather was good. The mean teachers ignored the end of Canadian winter and kept us at our indoor...
JSTOR DAILY
How to play your way to AI fluency
Can coat hooks level up your AI skills? I’ll admit it sounds like a stretch. But that’s exactly how I boosted my AI literacy over the summer, as an almost accidental by-product of our home improvements. In the course of replacing our entryway closet with coat hooks, I...
The new collegiality
“I have to book a meeting just to get an answer to the simplest question.” “I get so stuck when there’s nobody around to bounce ideas off." “I feel so lonely and isolated when I’m working from home.” So many of our pain points around hybrid work come down to the...
Tune up your remote work skills
Employees who are starting their very first jobs—as remote workers with no direct, on-site supervision. Managers who are leading teams that include people they’ve never met—and need to support remotely. Professionals who have survived the transition from office to...
Inbox overwhelmed? Here’s how I kept mine empty for a year
This week marks my 52nd consecutive week of “Inbox zero”. I’ve been amazed at how regularly getting my inbox to empty has changed not only my relationship to email, but the way I work. In this article, I’ll tell you how I got to zero and how it’s paid off, so you can...
The new hybrid work
The new hybrid work isn’t just about where we work: that is, some combination of home plus office. It’s also about who we are working with: humans, or AIs? Thinking about hybrid work as an intersection of location and collaboration gives us a much better handle on how...
25 ways remote work has changed
25 years ago this month, I moved to Vancouver for love. That meant leaving my graduate-school program and associated work opportunities on the other side of the continent, and the other side of a national border. I needed some kind of income to keep me afloat in my...
The real risks of AI
AI is in headline after headline, most of which focus on the risks that are supposed to be keeping us up at night. The very people who developed these technologies and brought them to market are now warning us that their creations threaten to wreak….well, they can’t...
Nature is your new office
When I was in school, there was an easy way to tell the nice teachers from the mean teachers: The nice teachers moved at least one class meeting outdoors as soon as the weather was good. The mean teachers ignored the end of Canadian winter and kept us at our indoor...
THE VERGE
How to solve your work problems with AI
What can AI do for you, right now, to solve your immediate work problems? That’s the question I answer in my latest piece for The Wall Street Journal, in the cover story for their latest report on Artificial Intelligence. In 7 Everyday Work Problems AI Helps Me...
We are going to live forever in a post-carbon utopia
Great news! We are all going to live for many more long and healthy years, basking in the wealth and leisure of a society powered by abundant cheap energy and an explosion of medical and scientific miracles. That is seriously how I felt by the end of my week at...
I’m scared sh**tless
Confession: I’m scared shitless. Here’s what I’ve signed up for this Thursday afternoon: Sing out! This is your chance to be part of a very special TED Talk! Renowned Broadway director and TED speaker, Lear deBessonet and Broadway performer, Todd Almond will...
Take a peek backstage at TED2024
Take a peek backstage at #TED2024— thanks to an experience that may sound like your worst air-travel nightmare. You know, that nightmare where the person next to you on a long plane flight actually TALKS to you? That was me, a year ago, on a flight back from New York...