Lifetime Learning: listen to my IT Works commencement address

I was proud and charmed to be asked to address the spring 2019 Delaware graduating class of IT Works, an impactful, if small, workforce development program from nonprofit Tech Impact.

This cohort of 18 was the program’s largest so far, and in showing how powerful it is to give at-risk young people a free certificate program for tech support roles, they attracted enough friends and family that the audience was more than 100. The event was cheery, taking place inside the Wilmington offices of CapitalOne, a funder of the program.

You can read a version of my remarks here, or listen below (or download them here)

Listen to my recording at the 4th annual Philadelphia Podcast Festival

Since May 2010, I’ve organized a regular storytelling event among friends called Story Shuffle. Each of the last four years I’ve brought a few of my friends together to record a Story Shuffle during the Philadelphia Podcast Festival.

It happened again.

The event is organized by Nathan Kuruna, an audiophile and photographer — the above photo and these on Facebook (all podfest photos from him here) are from him via his Click Save Photography shop, so give him a look. Earlier this month, the fourth annual was held in part at Amalgam Comics and Coffeehouse in Kensington.

Below listen to the stories I told on Saturday, Aug. 20 with my friends startup savant Archna Sahay, art curator Uri Pierre Noel and documentarian El Sawyer.

Continue reading Listen to my recording at the 4th annual Philadelphia Podcast Festival

Listen to this small business podcast interview with me

PR shop 2820 Press founder Joe Taylor Jr. hosts a podcast with small business owners called the Build.He invited me on.

I talked about the beginning of Technically Media and about my perspective on journalism and its role in our work. It’s an hour-long conversation you can find here.

Below are some highlights I shared:

Continue reading Listen to this small business podcast interview with me

Here’s the audio from my on-stage interview of Philadelphia Mayor Elect Jim Kenney

In front of an audience of 150 civil servants and economic development executives from throughout the mid-Atlantic, I interviewed last week Philadelphia Mayor Elect Jim Kenney for the second annual Rise conference on civic innovation we at Technical.ly organize.

Find the transcript and write-up here. Below listen to the audio,

Continue reading Here’s the audio from my on-stage interview of Philadelphia Mayor Elect Jim Kenney

Philadelphia’s technology distinction: Radio Times appearance [AUDIO]

Preparing for the Radio Times episode: at the table from left, Bob Moul, myself, Roseann Rosenthal and host Marty Moss-Coane
Preparing for the Radio Times episode: at the table from left, Bob Moul, myself, Roseann Rosenthal and host Marty Moss-Coane

The regional distinction that the Philadelphia technology and business community is trying to carve out for itself is integral to the continued improvement of attracting and retaining talent, and that has little to do with the fool’s errand of trying to recreate itself as a far smaller, broad-based Silicon Valley copy cat.

That was among the bigger conversation topics on the hour-long Radio Times episode on which I appeared this week, along with Roseann Rosenthal of Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital and Bob Moul of Artisan mobile.

Continue reading Philadelphia’s technology distinction: Radio Times appearance [AUDIO]

Ghosts Story Shuffle 15: the wind chimes of Philadelphia

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This was my October Story Shuffle contribution. Listen here.

There are ghost books and haunted places in old Philadelphia, but I am not here to tell a fiction. I am here to offer a warning. Scary stories have everything to do with patterns, of what is unfinished: loss, sorrow, missed opportunity and vengeance. It’s not really a haunting. It’s a sinking. Of knowing you do not have control over what is coming, of what is coming for us.

I am not here with a ghost story, but with a warning. Someone in this room is going to die before the month is over, and it’s because of me. I believe the only way to save ourselves is to recognize the patterns, and I have found a pattern. But it could also be our undoing.

Let me explain.

Continue reading Ghosts Story Shuffle 15: the wind chimes of Philadelphia

Four Temperaments of Parenthood: Story Shuffle 10 audio

Story Shuffle 10 happened this month and the theme of Parents offered a handful of interesting stories.

See them all here or listen to mine below.

Listen here.

Continue reading Four Temperaments of Parenthood: Story Shuffle 10 audio