This picture was taken somewhere between Rome and Paris. I was lucky to make this flight. A story from April, 2018. Behind the scenes of developing LifeSCALE: How to Live a More Creative, Productive, and Happy Life. The car was to pick me up in Rome at 4:30 a.m. for a 6:40 flight to Paris. There, I would eventually connect to San Francisco. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I knew I could sleep over the Atlantic. I was in…
The lost art of being present and making important moments matter
Oh, the irony. Recently on Facebook, I was presented with a memory from nine years earlier. It was a picture from my birthday dinner with a pile of phones strewn across a table. It was almost as if there were a sign that directed people to the table with instructions to leave their phone behind. It was December 8th, 2010 and we were once again in Paris for the annual gathering of the geeks at LeWeb organized by Loic and…
Paris Built a Mini Silicon Valley with STATION F, a Massive Startup Campus Housed in an Abandoned Train Station
you’re a geek, entrepreneur, investor, tech reporter or analyst, startup or all of the above, make the trek to STATION F in Paris. If you could take the best of Silicon Valley and put it in one massive, and I mean massive, connected and glorious campus, it would be STATION F. It is by far, the most ambitious, yet incredibly thoughtful, architecture and assembly for cultivating a startup ecosystem under one roof. The brainchild of French billionaire and Iliad founder…
Disruption as an Ecosystem
I miss Paris. Just as I was thinking this, I discovered an interview I did with EuroNews while in Paris in 2014 for LeWeb. I watched it for the first time and immediately I was sent back to that moment, in a small media room a few floors above the conference. It’s a glimpse into hot new tech trends and a conversation into iterations, innovation and disruption based on my presentation at the event. We explore the differences with each,…
Digital Transformation and the Questions I Never Hear
Following my presentation at LeWeb about the nuances between iteration, innovation and disruption (and the impact of each), I was invited to the business pavilion to share my views on digital transformation. The host for the conversation was my dear friend Benjamin Costantini. Before we could get settled, Ben brought a bottle of champagne on stage, two glasses, we toasted and the discussion started…on the right foot, or taste, I should say. I know he knows my passion for champagne. But perhaps…
When Hospitality Becomes an Art, It Loses Its Very Soul
The title is credited to Max Beerbohm, English essayist, parodist, and caricaturist best known today for his 1911 novel Zuleika Dobson. Taken from his 1918 work, Hosts and Guests, I interpret his work for a new era of hospitality. We live in a connected society now and as such, guests and the experiences they have and share, form the foundation of marketing and service. If we try to scale experiences for the sake of doing so, we miss the essence…
Your invitation to events in Paris and London
These last few months have certainly been a wonderful whirlwind. With the debut of What’s the Future of Business (WTF), a research report co-produced with Altimeter Group colleague Charlene Li (The Evolution of Social Business: Six Stages of Social Media Transformation), and the roll out of the all new Conversation Prism (v 4.0), I’ve been inspired by all of your support each step of the way. Thank you. It is with great privilege that I announce a special book tour…
Plugging into the Future of Humanity: Exploring the Human API
I had the opportunity to present at LeWeb in Paris, arguably Europe’s largest conference dedicated to the future of technology. The theme of the conference explored the Internet of Things, where devices and things connect to one another to perform certain tasks and/or track activities to improve what we already do or make possible what we’re trying to do. The Internet of Things is bigger than we may realize. We are experiencing a shift from a world of inanimate objects…
