I met with some sharp graduate students from the Harvard Business School last Thursday. They came in to ISM to discuss the role of social media in luxury brand marketing for a research paper they were writing. As you might expect, they were real go-getter types and crazy organized: they sent an agenda for our meeting, came [...]

It might have been obvious from my earlier posts, but I won’t be jumping on the iPad bandwagon just yet. Here’s why.

I had an opportunity to meet with Jeff Arnold last week to discuss possibilities for leveraging his ShareCare technology, which is completely and utterly mindblowing.

I’m currently reading What’s Right with Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West, by Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf. So far it’s great, but right off the bat he hit me with the classic religious stumbling block: being way, way too literal.

I finished Great Expectations last week on a flight back from DC. Here’s my take on the book, plus a vintage Victorian cocktail to try.

Don’t worry, Mad Men, your jobs are safe, no matter what that social media whippersnapper down the hall is saying.

Tsunamis, earthquakes, and iPads are annoying and extremely lame. Totally useless for human progress. Alas, they are driven by forces far too powerful for us mere mortals to resist or comprehend; we have to whisper the Serenity prayer and accept them. So despite my earlier objections, here goes nothing: a brief visual sketch of an iPad experience I’d like to see. Apologies in advance for all the diagrams.

I despise the Da Vinci Code series and everything it stands for. Those books are like Indiana Jones-themed Harlequin romances. Copies of The Lost Symbol belong on desks that sport hunky firefighter calendars, or in homes that have burned down. Unfortunately, the new iPhone game Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars [iTunes link] borrows heavily from Da Vinci Code. Fortunately, it doesn’t suck.

It’s good to see the street walker—ahem, the “multiservices”—business diversifying a little bit.

Here’s a map sketch for Act I of my game Shark Tank. This piece of the game all takes place in the northeastern part of the 19th floor at the fictional ad agency Daaci & Daaci.

I’ve been working on creating a game. It’s a piece of interactive fiction (IF) based on my career as a creative professional in the often insane world of advertising.

Ghee (Hindi: घी ghī) is a super-clarified butter-based product typically used in Indian cooking. We all know butter makes everything taste better. Ghee is like butter on steroids, mixed with crack.

It’s close. Google might be finally violating their “don’t be evil” mantra by creeping deep into our online social lives. The “Social Search” that Google has been yammering on about for months is almost here.

Fortunately for us long-suffering fans, puzzle pieces seem to be falling into satisfying places. I just wish the show didn’t have to turn into Xena: Warrior Princess to do it.

I can’t believe I’ve never read Great Expectations. It feels like one of those essential ingredients you’re supposed to have baked into your subconscious at an early age, tucked in there next to that mental map of your childhood backyard and the Solar System Song.

The iPad is like one of those Miami Vice-era cell phones you owned, a clunky tentative first wave of tech with too large a form and not enough functionality. And like that MacGyver haircut you were sporting, photos of you proudly brandishing this thing will not age well.

You don’t go through the window so much as go with it. It’s not a graceful descent, but the enthusiasm more than makes up for the lack of talent.

It turns out there’s a lot of great pieces of interactive fiction still being written, and the medium has quietly continued to evolve.

It’s really hard to play a solid game of Dungeon & Dragons on the commuter rail. The polyhedral dice bouncing everywhere, fitfully sleeping commuters knocking your limited edition dwarf figurines around, you know what I’m talking about. Thank the sweet Lords for the nerdish privacy of my iPhone.

So. Cool. My wife is famous. This morning, Michelle was a guest on the NPR program On Point with Tom Ashbrook.

Like a glorious phoenix, this lifeless site shall reconfigure itself into a ongoing masterwork the likes of which the Creator hath never witnessed. You all will bow before its breathtaking relevance to your life.