That question has led me to some interesting places, from the White House to the Sundance Film Festival, from the United Nations to the laboratories of dozens of biotech and medical device companies, from Google to Walt Disney World. (The food at Google is far better.)

Lately, I've been doing a lot of writing about the ways that new technologies are changing the entertainment industry, mostly for Variety. (Before that, I spent about a year writing for their arch-rival, The Hollywood Reporter.) I write the weekly "Innovation Economy" column for the Boston Globe, which runs on Sundays. I edit the blog CinemaTech. I've been a contributing writer for Fast Company and Wired since 1997, and my writing has appeared in other places, too, including the New York Times, BusinessWeek, Salon.com, the San Jose Mercury News, CIO, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

That's me with Patrick Rafter, another of the Nantucket Conference founders.

I'm part of the founding team of three conferences that focus on the innovation economy in New England. The Nantucket Conference on Entrepreneurship & Innovation is held every May. Convergence: The Life Sciences Leaders Forum takes place one island to the left, on Martha's Vineyard, every June. And Future Forward, our fall event, bounces around to various venues.

I am also involved in hosting, speaking at, and moderating panels at a number of other events...most of them related to that big question above, and also how established industries and organizations can be more hospitable to innovative thinking.

Some ancient history:

From 2000-2006 I wrote a weekly column for the Boston Globe's Business section called "@large." Before that, I was the "Tech Talk" columnist for Boston Magazine. I've also had the chance to be a talking head on various radio and television shows (which sure beats actual work), including NBC's Today Show, NPR's Talk of the Nation, CNN, ABC News, the Discovery Channel, and New England Cable News. In 2005, the New York Press Club was kind enough to give me an award for "Best Feature Story," for a piece in Fast Company entitled "Fantastic Voyage." Columns that I've written for various IDG tech publications, including the now-defunct Darwin, have won awards from the American Society of Business Press Editors.

I grew up in Miami, where I attended the New World School of the Arts, studying jazz saxophone. At Boston University, I wrote about theater for the Daily Free Press, started a humor magazine called The Rumor, and earned a bachelor's degree from the College of Communication. After college, I worked for a management consulting firm called Lochridge & Company for two years, then was part of the team that helped the Globe launch its Web site, Boston.com.

Currently, I'm living in Cambridge, though I spend a good deal of time in San Francisco and on the road. A few organizations I am proud to support: the New England High School Journalism Collaborative; the Computer Clubhouse; the Media and Technology Charter School in Boston; and Youth Enrichment Services.