I've moved around a bit. I grew up in Cleveland and have since lived in Chicago, Bulgaria (for just a year), Seattle, Dublin, Ireland, and now Pittsburgh and Asheville. I always had the travel bug and have a particular fondness for Eastern Europe and huge, chaotic cities -- two of my favorites are Hanoi and Cairo.
Writing has been a key part of all my jobs after college. I started out in a couple of PR jobs I hated (and I will forever hold a grudge against a boss who told me I'd never get a real job writing after having worked in PR, although obviously I proved him wrong) and then stumbled into tech writing.
When I look back, it seems kind of amazing that I lucked into being at the center of a bunch of really significant technology developments. I started writing about cell phones before anyone I knew had a mobile phone. I always had the latest model phone in my pocket, on loan from the manufacturer, long before phones were affordable enough for anyone I knew to have one.
I wrote about Wi-Fi when it first came out, for one of the first successful blogs (Wi-Fi Networking News, launched by Glenn Fleishman), back when blogs were new. I distinctly remember attending a press event on Microsoft's campus when they introduced Azure and thinking they were nuts, "cloud" could never be a thing, I thought at the time.
For the last ten years or so I've been an industry analyst. In my most recent role at IDC, I've been thinking and writing about how AI can be and is being used in big companies.
In recent years I haven't really loved having to travel for work mostly because nine times out of ten it means going to Vegas, and if I never went to Vegas again I'd be happy. But back in the day work took me to some amazing places. One of the most unusual events I covered as a journalist was an IEEE meeting in Cyprus. Work has taken me to Singapore, Hanover, Cancun, Barcelona, Nice, London and more.
I've added a list of old clips here just for fun.
Outside of work, I'm proud of having co-founded City Fruit, a nonprofit in Seattle that collects unwanted fruit from backyards and distributes it to people who could use healthy food. It's still going strong. I hike, kayak, fiercely wave anti-Trump signs, and always keep an eye open for friendly dive bars.
Geekwire, How Amazon’s new Seattle office buildings will recycle ‘waste heat’ from nearby data centers, Sept. 15, 2014
The Economist, Making fancy fertiliser, June 20, 2014
The Magazine, Data Harvesting. Farmers consider — and worry about — large-scale cloud-based data collection (sub. req.), May 22, 2014
Seattle Magazine, The Third Man. Is it really just between you and your doctor at Washington’s many Catholic-affiliated hospitals?, June 2014
Sky Magazine (Delta Airlines), The Future of Intelligent Lighting, May 1, 2014
The Economist, Supercomputers: Game on, March 10, 2014
Puget Sound Business Journal, Conflict over marijuana law puts WSU, farmers in bind (sub. req.), Feb. 21, 2014
Medium, Don’t Call Us: Nancy Gohring makes a first world choice in a third world country, Dec. 17, 2013
Seattle Magazine, Mike McCaw’s stills boil and steam local moonshine, Dec. 2013
The Economist, Hot Property, Oct. 15, 2013
The Magazine, Inkheart, July 4, 201
CNN/Money, Lone Signal aims to send ‘hello!’ tweets to extraterrestrials, June 17, 2013
The Economist, Short-wave ga-ga, June 2, 2013
CNN/Money, Own your own Cray supercomputer for a mere $500,000, May 7, 2013
The Magazine, Lifting One’s Spirits, April 25, 20113
The Economist, Talking to Aliens: This is the world service, March 27, 2013
The Economist, Plenty of bits in the sea, Feb. 28, 2013
Wired, Don’t Touch That Dial! Low-Power Radio is About to Make FM Hot Again, Feb. 28, 2013
MIT Technology Review, App Feeds Scientists Atmospheric Data from Thousands of Smartphones, Feb. 1, 2013
Wired, Your Android Phone Could Help Scientists Predict the Weather, Jan. 7, 2013
The Economist, Managing a vacation, Nov. 21, 2012
The New York Times, Because it’s there: putting Everest online, Jan. 23, 2003
The New York Times, NGO networks in Haiti cause problems for local ISPs, Feb. 22, 2010
The New York Times, On the reservation, the web plays dream maker, June 5, 2003
The New York Times, After a long climb, cyberchat on Everest, April 17, 2003
PC World, Egyptians find new routes to the web, Jan. 29 2011
Macworld, Jobs wanted own network with unlicensed spectrum, Nov. 15 2011
The New York Times, Got a (legal) concert recording? Pass it on, March 6, 2003
The Seattle Times, Cray fills need for computer speed, Nov. 18, 2002