Category: Influences

Please Kill Me (Review)

Pedro Paramo is the book I’ve most given away. It’s a thin, easy to read, very influential novel. It will haunt you. The second book I’ve most given away is Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. Through a series of alternating interviews, PKM traces the history of punk. From New […]

Brewing Stories to Drive the Bioeconomy

When I speak with non-technical, non-biotech audiences, I’m always looking for a place where we can start the conversation. These days, it’s with brewing. Most people, remember, know little-to-nothing about the way biology is impacting their lives. Most people, I believe, want to know. So these days, I start the conversation with beer and wine. Both […]

Organism Design. Minecraft Chemistry.

Organism or microbe design is an emerging industry. It’s analogous to the semi-conductor industry. Companies design and manufacture the semi-conductors found in computers, phones, cars, and televisions. Today, end-users rarely make semi-conductors themselves. They hire the expertise and apply what is manufactured to create a product. Organism design companies are reprograming yeast and bacteria to produce […]

The Sprawl Trilogy

Netflix just started airing Altered Carbon. It’s a rad take Richard K. Morgan’s 2002 cyberpunk novel. One of my favorite genres, cyberpunk typically explores how the street repurposes tech, life in cyberspace and off-planet. Last fall, I reread William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy – Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive. (Neuromancer, BTW, is credited with […]

The Story Grid. Pedro Paramo.

I’m a story nerd. I enjoy re-reading books, re-watching movies. I like figuring out how the authors or film makers put the story together. What hints did they place at the beginning of the story, and resolve at the end? I’ve read plenty of books on writing screenplays, plotting, and character development. Last year, I […]

What I’m Reading

Happy New Year! Over the holidays, I unsubscribed from dozens of newsletters. I was very critical in thinking through whether a newsletter belonged in my email box. Was it helping me stay informed? Was it inspiring? Or, was it wasting (virtual) space? Here are a few of the newsletters I subscribe to stay up to date on biotech, […]

2017 Media Consumed: Highlights

Here’s a link to my Pinterest board of media consumed during 2017. It’s always fun to go back and review what I read, listened to and watched. In many ways, it was a year for cyberpunk because I was anticipating Blade Runner 2049 and I wanted to reread Snowcrash. But overall, I didn’t read as […]

My Futuretech Podcast Appearance

I recently appeared on a podcast talking about messagingLAB, the work we do to translate science for specific audiences, my book What’s Your Bio Strategy?, and how life sciences companies are using the blockchain. Listen on Spreaker. Listen on iTunes.

It’s No Secret, Your Presentation Matters

How you present your business, your story, your offer is no secret. In many cases, it’s the presentation that matters. The voice you use, the magazines your content appears in, the social channels you engage in. Your presentation is the articles, blog posts, and white papers you publish. It’s the videos on your web site and […]