Latest publications
Read my latest stories for The Wall Street Journal, Passcode, The Harvard Business Review, JSTOR Daily and more.
12 things you don’t know about Rob Cottingham
In a few hours I’ll be thankful for a plate of turkey, stuffing and gravy. Meanwhile, there’s nothing like jamming chunks of bread into the cavity of a formerly living creature to make you appreciate what really matters in life. As I stood elbow-deep in turkey, I found myself reflecting on the person who is at the heart of most of what I have to be thankful for this year
Part 6: A checklist of steps to take before installing the Mac OS on a PC netbook
Think carefully before you hacktintosh your netbook, and make sure to do your homework.
Part 5: How to decide if you should install the Mac OS on a PC netbook
Evaluating the trade-offs involved in a hacktintosh: it’s not all about saving a few bucks on the cost of a Mac.
Remembering Michael Griesdorf
What I learned from my dear friend Michael: about love, about the world, and about having a damn good time.
Part 4: My $400 MacBook Air Light
Living with a hacktintosh: the pros and cons of my newly Macified HP Mini 1000.
Making a Mac netbook, Part 3: How to migrate your current Mac setup to your new Mac netbook
You can get up and running with your hacktintosh a lot more quickly if you make smart use of Apple’s migration manager to copy data, applications and settings from your existing Mac.
Making a Mac netbook, part 2: How to install the Mac OS on a Windows or Unix netbook
A summary of the steps I followed to install Mac OS Snow Leopard on an HP Mini 1000.
Making a Mac netbook, part 1: Why I Mac-ified
Why I turned my HP Mini 1000 netbook into a Mac — after months running it in Ubuntu and Windows.
7 innovations that make travel easier
After seven years in which out-of-town travel was a relatively infrequent (and rushed) experience, I’m struck by how much easier air travel is now compared to my pre-parent days. Here are a few of the non-social-media innovations that make travel much better than it was in 2002.
Social media and the health sector: an introduction with case studies
Social capital, understood as the density of relationships and trust within a community, is a key determinant of health. Individuals are happier and healthier in communities with high levels of social capital, and high social capital communities have stronger economies and more stable political systems. This post provides an introduction to the role of social media in building social capital, illustrated with examples of how health care organizations are using social media for storytelling, connecting and knowledge management.