Engineering serendipity is this idea that we can help people come across unexpected but helpful connections at a better than random rate. And in some ways it's based on trying to reassess this notion of serendipitous as lucky - to think of serendipitous as smart.

Ethan Zuckerman

Categorized in : Random People Smart Unexpected

The benefits and consequences of globalization have a great deal to do with whether we're intelligent and thoughtful about how we approach globalization, or whether we're blindly accepting... or blindly resistant.

Ethan Zuckerman

thoughtful benefits intelligent

The wider world is a click away, but whether we mean to or not, we're usually filtering it out.

Ethan Zuckerman

clicks mean world

A world where everyone creates content gets confusing pretty quickly without a good search engine.

Ethan Zuckerman

search-engine confusing world

Twitter is my main tool for ensuring news balance.

Ethan Zuckerman

news balance tools

Curators are great, but they're inherently biased. Curators are always making an editorial decision. Those biases have really big implications.

Ethan Zuckerman

curator bigs decision

The culture around here is much less cutthroat than it is in, say, Silicon Valley, or even within the non-profit culture in D.C.

Ethan Zuckerman

profit valleys culture

It's fine to have social media that connects us with old friends, but we need tools that help us discover new people as well.

Ethan Zuckerman

old-friends media people

I'm not nearly as well organized as I would like. I am a creature of to-do lists and calendars - if something doesn't get onto my Google Calendar, I don't show up for it.

Ethan Zuckerman

google calendars lists

It's becoming clear that the world is listening, so now we're trying to get new groups of people talking.

Ethan Zuckerman

listening talking people

A common language is a first step towards communication across cultural boundaries.

Ethan Zuckerman

communication steps firsts

Creativity is an import-export business.

Ethan Zuckerman

imports creativity

People who know me well have learned to insist that I commit to obligations by opening my laptop and putting them onto the appropriate calendar or list - a verbal agreement and a promise to remember won't work.

Ethan Zuckerman

agreement people promise

The uptake on mobile phones in Africa is phenomenal.

Ethan Zuckerman

mobile-phones phenomenal phones

Re-tweeting is a pretty common practice on Twitter, but on an average day, we see maybe one out of 20 posts is a re-tweet.

Ethan Zuckerman

practice common average

Cute. I'm on the waitlist to beta a new product, and have been offered the chance to move up in the list if I tweet about it. Not doing so.

Ethan Zuckerman

lists cute moving

I fear that I can no longer travel without technology. Twenty years ago, I loved getting on a bus in West Africa and taking off for a city I'd never been to before, relying on advice from out-of-date travel books and fellow passengers on the bus. Now, I end up using TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Google Maps. I probably eat and sleep better when I'm on the road, but I miss the mystery of travel when it was more random and unpredictable.

Ethan Zuckerman

technology sleep book

Talking about 'stopping globalization' is unrealistic - and probably not what anti-globalization protesters actually want.

Ethan Zuckerman

stopping want talking

People want to be thought of as something other than a source of money. They want to be thought of as creative, thinking people.

Ethan Zuckerman

creative people thinking

If we need simple narratives so people can amplify and spread them, are we forced to engage only with the simplest of problems?

Ethan Zuckerman

simple people needs

When I'm playing with circular saws, I'm offline (though often listening to podcasts) and when I sit in the cabin to read or write, it's wonderful to be offline for a few hours at a time.

Ethan Zuckerman

cabins listening writing