How large technology companies still lead innovation in the world is the focus of a freelance story I wrote for Temple Review, the alumni magazine of Temple University.

Read the story here or download the PDF here, on page 24.

An earlier nut graf: Innovation has been seen as strictly in the purview of tiny, agile startups, taking an idea and bringing it to market. But as the speed of new technologies continues to quicken, the need for large businesses to help bring products to market becomes even greater. So big corporations are not only playing a remarkably underplayed role in innovation, they are also innovating in how they change the world altogether.

Give it a read and then check some of the extras from my interviews that didn’t make it into the piece.

Munir Mandviwalla

• Founding chairman of Fox’s Management InformationSystems Department
• ‘Small businesses may be the inventor or the conceiver or even who brings that innovation to the initial market, but you really need the larger firm to actually see these innovations through
• LiquidHub is also a company that is letting IT lead. Campbell’s is heavily outsourced IT, while Merck has very high internal IT, but both focused on innovation.
• “We have this herd mentality of chasing the next great startup that will save the world,” Munir says. “We just believe it’s true, but we need a network of big players to make it happen globally.”
• “In corporate culture of the 80s and 90s, you’d say, ‘if you buy IBM, you cannot get fired,’ because there was such a movement with conservatism and IBM was that safe choice that would work and was no risk and did not really show innovation.
• “Really, the largest part of success with innovation in technology has to do with standardization. When there is too much standardization, you find new innovation, but to really grow that innovation to start, a company needs distribution power that startups or other small companies just don’t have.
• “There is a fortuitous relationship between small and large firms. Large firms have these tools to create success and small firms don’t have much to lose so they will bring new products, but in technology, they usually cannot grow themselves. They have to die or be acquired or have their idea stolen altogether, for it to really succeed.”
• Using the technology of Mosaic, a University of Illinois project that is called the first popular graphical web browser, Microsoft developed Internet Explorer and began packaging it with its Windows operating system. “Without Microsoft, the Internet and the browser would not be as ubiquitous as it is today. Despite the power of that technology, it took the explosion of what became a large company to truly spread that innovation to non-technical types.”
• “Cisco really did most of its innovation through acquisition.
• “But now, innovation is a hot word for old boring corporate America, and they’re serious about it because if they think it’s just a fad, they’ll never survive.”
• “A lot of companies want to sit on their asses, and wait for good things to come around. During the financial boom, it was much easier to finance innovation acquisition.”
• “You look at the creation of the Internet and find large, somewhat bureaucratic organizations really fuel that innovation, something like HTTP protocol needed to come from a force that was something like a large company to create standardization.”

EDWARD QUINN

• “It’s always interesting to make something from nothing. The larger companies provide a platform for when that technology becomes adopted.”
• “When you look at how quickly the country adopted radio, then TV, then the internet and now social networking, you see the role for the big company to provide market acceptance or infrastructure for all of those.”
• “We’ve had products sit in our vault and now we want to just take the intellectual property and package a solution when it fits a demand.”
• “Microsoft is moving to a cloud model. If you’re a big software company, you have to wondering how do you charge. The business models of the last five years are going to change like they did before then. We have to be excited to take risk.”
• “Big companies are becoming more flexible because they have to be.

LEONARDO MATTIAZZI

• Mattiazzi, who relocated to King of Prussia in 2006 to launch Ci&T’s North American headquarters,
• Leonardo Mattiazzi, ’09, VP of International Business at Ci&T, helped oversee the product get to market. 37 [Feb. 8, 1974], 14 years with Ci&T, moved from Brazil in 2006. summer 2009 MBA graduate
• Ci&T has 1,100 employees but now 35 percent of revenue comes from North America. It’s a progressive, young company that relies mostly on a client basis of big corporations. It’s core business is developing tools and applications for large companies, like Johnson and Johnson and Coca Cola.
• “People focus on smaller startups because it’s sexier. It’s that simple. People love the idea of an entrepreneur taking an idea and creating something new. It’s a story worth telling. Everyone wants that person to be successful, we can relate to that as an individual.”
• Also, when you’re a smaller company, you’re usually identified with one product, so it’s easier for people to identify with your innovation. Walk into a supermarket and you’ll find Johnson and Johnson products everywhere, with innovation behind many of them, but it doesn’t feel innovative.
• “In order to really disrupt the market, an established company needs to take precautions because it’s often not beneficial to their core business. Their resources are assigned to their primary businesses, not creating new ones. Something new needing investment and resources is very tricky.”
• It’s somewhat slower pace of things because these big companies need to get their returns.
• These companies can also create things that are disruptive, but it’s difficult because it’s dangerous to what they have established.
• Big companies have more resources, more experiences and they have a process in place to get to market. You may be very bright but some things require a lot of equipment or expertise or direction. One thing is for sure, innovating requires a lot of trial and error and a smaller company or individual may not be able to experiment in the way a bigger partner can.”
• “A technology startup today is very inexpensive, creating an online product or a mobile app is very cheap today. There is the cloud, open source software, not much need for infrastructure.
  It can happen very quick, but not everything is online or a mobile device. When you look at physical products, like GE or Johnson and Johnson, things that need to be manufctured involves cost. Bigger companies are better prepared than some.
• “I think we’ll see a lot more small companies coming up in new places. There will always be big companies doing innovation, one way or another. Today it’s really expensive technology startup and this happens cheaper and cheaper. The barriers are lower, and they will be even lower in the future. that helps us as individuals.
• “Innovation has been centered in particular places, like the United States, a center of technology and other innovation, particularly in Silicon Valley and happening in other places, like Boston, D.C. and Philly. Now that other countries are becoming more and more important in the world economy, you’ll see this huge population that will have access to what they didn’t have in the past.
• Other countries that are becoming more important in the world economy, well, historically, they had a lack of capital, so people came to the U.S. Now these other countries are developing their own capital markets. It’s a huge opportunity for investors in the U.S., Europe and Japan to work with new places. It’ll be more decentralized.
• I don’t think that means that China will be the center of innovation. I think it’ll be across the world in lots of different places, and large companies have global experience. If a big company can apply ideas across borders, be a ‘cross-pollinator of innovation,’ well, they’ll do well.
• P&G has created products for rural China and India. Who else can do that? Not many smaller companies, when it comes to research, design and distribution.
• It’s one thing to distribute your new improved detergent in the U.S. through Wal-Mart and Target when they are a few blocks apart, but someplace in China, there not might be a paved road. What do you do then?
• How did Fox prepare you for your work? Other than the beer Happy Hours?
• “I had a lot of practical learning, but I needed the theoretical foundation for my work. Fox offers a lot of both.”
• Below check the preview of the Runens mobile app from Ci&T I mentioned in my lede and read from one of the developers or the TechCrunch coverage.

• I put roughly an hour and half for email, nearly that long for interviews, three hours for notes and a first draft and a bit more than an hour for finalizing, with another hour for filling new paperwork.

Though I took part in three of 14 JLab-funded Philadelphia Enterprise Reporting Fund projects, first announced here last fall, I led one of them.

For Northeast Philadelphia hyperlocal NEast Philly, I helped lead the editorial direction of a project called District 172: the politics of change after state Rep. John Perzel.

• http://neastphilly.com/john-perzel/

Following the indicted former state Speaker of the House, whose corruption trial has been postponed until the fall, we covered what the impact the loss of a 30-year state leader would be on his district, particularly a small swath that had served as his political base.

Find all the coverage here.

I had the following roles:

• Reported two feature stories, including the final piece on how community building in Mayfair and elsewhere may be undergoing a sea change, and a second piece on the touchy subject of redistricting and Perzel, in addition to some smaller items.
• I interviewed Perzel’s replacement, Democrat Kevin Boyle, his staff and had Perzel fail to respond to comment following repeated attempts through his attorney.
• I spoke to more than a half dozen neighborhood leaders and others with perspective on the matter.
• With NEast Philly founder Shannon McDonald, I helped carve out the editorial direction and direct the Temple University Philadelphia Neighborhoods interns, who were our partnering organization.
• I designed the District 172 branding.
• I developed a layout for the District 172 landing page and worked with Frankford Gazette co-founder Jimmy Smiley to publish it.
• I gave copy and content to Smiley for our Players and Timeline section, two more interactive tools on the page.

The interview was due to run in the Metro but never did. With a year passed and its hook gone, I run it here for all you grammar geeks because there just might be interest in hearing the thoughts of someone who told me: “I also love the semicolon, but that’s just my personal preference.”

Find what I submitted below.

The 125th annual convention of the Modern Language Association [came] to the Pennsylvania Convention Center from Dec. 27 to 30 [2009]. Metro speaks to Rosemary Feal, the executive director of the 30,000-member association for scholars of language and literature.

What can we expect out of an MLA conference?
A lot of professors speaking about literature, psalm, poems, TV shows and all the things that our professors teach in class.  We have sessions on the literary history of Philadelphia, sessions on the future of education. We’ll also have film showings and authors reading from their work. You can also expect eight or 9,000 of us invading all the the wonderful restaurants in Philadelphia.

Why have the MLA conference in Philly?
We ask for bids, but we’re a very big convention, so we need a convention center and the hotels that can support us. Philadelphia is one of those cities that can do it. In the past decade, we’ve been there three times. It’s located right on the northeast corridor, by New York and D.C. Plus, people like to bring their families along, and Philadelphia offers great culture. Everybody finds the city easy to get around, exciting, safe, fascinating, and near to enough of our members that people can come from a lot of nearby cities.

What are you most excited about?
I’m most excited about the convention’s focus on translation. Maybe it doesn’t excite you, but it excites me. Think of all the stuff you read from other languages. You can only do that because of the work from bright people everywhere. We’re bringing in experts from around the world to talk about that impact. That’s exciting to me.

Anyone who has done an academic paper knows MLA works cited style. What do you like most about MLA over competitor Chicago style?
MLA style uses parenthetical references, and I love parenthetical references. If I’m quoting the Declaration of Independence, I don’t have to use footnotes. No footnotes. Parentheses are the way to go.

More than a year ago, I handled a half dozen interviews and a couple rewrites on a story for the Inquirer that covered what Philadelphia workplaces will look like in the future. As is sometimes the case, it never found its home in print.

The story’s primary timeliness has been lost, but I think it still has merit. So, with permission from my editor, I share it below, in addition to a slew of extras from the heavy lifting of reporting.

It was meant to be a localized version of a Time magazine cover story that caught my attention.

Below, read the story, see portions of my interviews that didn’t make it into the piece and watch some related video news pieces

*Please note that the facts, figures, quotations and assertions are fact-checked and correct as of June 2009.

THE FUTURE OF THE PHILADELPHIA WORK PLACE

Not that long ago, there was something of a stable existence in retail.

Sheldon Abba

Sheldon Abba worked in a variety of clothing stores, from independent storefronts to big players like Urban Outfitters. He had a marketing and design background and, he thought, a fairly good sense of his future.

And then the bottom fell out.

With the economy on the slide, he was let go from Walnut Street-retailer Stussy in February, and his perception of that future changed.

“When I was in school, I thought I’d get a steady job with a brand and get a regular paycheck,” Abba, 23, said. “When that job evaporated, I started thinking differently. Maybe I could pay bills doing something like it on my own.”

So, with a handful of friends, he launched S. Industries, an ethereal design and retail company that is based wherever Abba and his cohorts are at the moment. He’s finding steady work through word of mouth but will soon take the venture on the Web through an e-commerce site. It’s a far ride from clocking in as a retail day manager.

The U.S. recession has changed lots of plans, like Abba’s. While entrepreneurs, freelancers and telecommuters have long been part of the U.S. workforce, today’s economic climate seems to have put more people in those roles than in recent memory. So much so that some say independent, remote ventures like Abba’s S. Industries are part of a trend for the future of the nation’s workplace.

That trend may fast become a norm in Philadelphia and across the country in the next five years or more, said Thomas Malone, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology management professor and author of the 2004 book, The Future of Work. Those who do stick to cubicle life may find their offices becoming smaller, closer to home, more mobile and, believe it or not, more fun in coming years, other experts say — all thanks to advances in communication technologies and increasingly casual work environments.

“The key message here is that I think we are in the early stages of an increase in human freedom in work, and it just might be as important a change for business as democracy was for government,” Malone said.

Some worry that the expected continued decline in traditional office employees could leave the new worker short on camaraderie and political social skills.

To curb his isolation, though, Abba has launched his venture with friends. They hold their meetings in bedrooms with a computer and a hard drive, listening to music and laughing.

“That’s a different work environment than any work place,” Abba says. “What I’m doing — finding work and making a schedule — is really valuable learning.”

For those who work from home for established companies, there’s another trend in keeping the best of the office: co-working.

For more than four years, Lori Hylan-Cho worked for software companies in California from 2,800 miles away in her Logan Square home near the Philadelphia Art Museum. The software developer and mom, whose hair is not unknown to be dyed purple on occasion, relished the flexibility but lamented the solitude.

“I was going a little nutty,” she said.

So, after making “a New Year’s resolution to get out of the house,” Hylan-Cho rented out space at Independents Hall, a shared office in Old City that rents workplaces to self-employed or other independent workers.

“In the coming years, the place becomes less important than the tools, and managers become more comfortable with distribution,” said Alex Hillman, a freelance Web developer who in 2006 opened Indy Hall with University of the Arts professor Geoff DiMassi. “Companies that want to stay ahead of the curve — if they’re open-minded — will need to explore these options in the traditional worker-employer relationship.”

Hylan-Cho, 40, has worked in software development for 11 years and has watched more and more of her co-workers flee the office.

“Working from home let me put in a load of laundry, be home for packages and sometimes meet the kids for lunch,” she said. She kept in touch with work by way of regular video conferences and instant messaging, connecting with co-workers from California to Texas back to Philadelphia.

That extra freedom kept her loyal, one of the more valuable assets of an employee in the future.

“Businesses are quickly finding that one of the most expensive costs of business is turnover,” said Deanna Geddes, an assistant professor of human resource management at Temple University’s Fox School of Business. So, the Center City office of the future may increasingly be a more inviting place.

Geddes says we might see the rise of the campus workplace for those who, unlike Abba and Hylan-Cho, do stay in the office.

“What successful businesses like Google learned before a lot of others is that people like to hang out, where they can develop friends, and when you have friendships in the workplace, people want to stay,” she said. “The casual campus environment that is more open, with fewer doors and walls, more communal space, games and less restrictive hours, lets people come and go as they please and keeps them invested in the workplace.”

For those who have already left traditional work environments, voluntarily or because of a tightened economy, the recession seems to point work places in a new direction.

“It takes a special kind of person, someone who can separate time and get work done,” Abba said. “That isn’t everyone, but clearly even the old-style offices of the past are going to change.”

-30-

Professor Thomas Malone, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• “We’ll see the economic benefits of very large business, as the same time as the human benefit of very small organizations, the freedom and creativity.”
• “The reason, of course, is a completely new generation of technologies that are reducing the cost of communication to such a low level. A huge number of people can now make sensible decisions for themselves with access to enough information because of the Internet, instead of just following orders.
• “We’ll see more human freedom, more people making more decisions for themselves. We may see more small organizations, where you’re your own boss.”
• A lot of lessons about that future can be taken from the nation’s largest private employer and an online auction behemoth, Malone said. Increasingly, we won’t need or always be able to find a company to employ us.
  “The clerk in Walmart and that seller for eBay represent the difference in what is now and what may come: in how they work, in responsibilities and where and when they have to do them,” Malone said. “Seven hundred thousand people say they make their primary or secondary living on eBay. They are essentially independent store owners with a huge amount of freedom in what they do, what to sell and what prices to set. That’s the future.”
• “Even inside big companies, we’ll see more freedom inside the company, more command and control to coordinate and cultivate. In another meaning of freedom, there will be more choice of when or where they work, with telecommuting for example, we’ll see a decentralization of the workplace. Both of those results are enabled by cheap communication….
• One reason cities grew the way they did was that for many occupations you had to live in a city, near the office to the company you worked for. One of the important trends changed by cheap communication technology is that more and more kinds of work can be done essentially anywhere in the world. What that means, I think, is that people will choose where they live often for reasons other than where their company is because it won’t matter. What that means is the dynamics of cities, i think will change. There are a lot of nice things about living in cities other than just going to work there. So, some people will continue to want to work in cities even though their jobs don’t require them to do so. It’s hard to know what the net impact on a city like Philadelphia will be, but I expect the population of cities may lessen but that the quality of living will go up.
• “The key point is electronic communication is reducing the need to travel to work everyday. You can work at home or near home much of the time. Ten years ago, we used to think that more and more people would become telecommuters. I think that’s not nearly so black and white now. The vast majority of professionals will be telecommuters in the sense that they work some of the time from home or while traveling and surely the professionals who spend all the time working from the office are a minority, but we’ll see a hybrid of office and telecommuting time.
• “If you need an example of a future employee, look at an eBay seller. If those 700,000 people were employees, it would make eBay the second-largest private employer in the country, second only behind Walmart. Of course, they are not employees… That’s all the freedom of any small store owner. It’s on a scale unlike ever before, in any regional or global marketplace. It’s as if an auction company built a retailer — not eBay the company, but eBay the community.
• “In cities, there is a pretty strong division between business and residential neighborhoods. Maybe we’ll see more of a blurring of these distinctions,” Malone, the MIT professor, said. “I think when people don’t have to drive or commute all the way to a downtown of a city, that means they could stay at home. We’ll see more of something I call a neighborhood office building.”It would be a place, Malone said, where telecommuters and freelancers, whose numbers are expected to rise, can work together. It’s a trend called co-working that already has strong roots in Philadelphia.
• ; residential neighborhoods with one or two or more office floors

Professor, Deanna Geddes, human resource management at Temple’s Fox School of Business

• This is a time to play to our strengths as a region. research and biotech, biomedic
• Companies without the sophisticated IT for corporate to retain employees may suffer.
• We might see more choice, allowing younger people to come in at 10 a.m. and work through 8 or stay on to 9.
• Center City could become the place for more campus-orientated workplaces. It’s cheaper to build out of the existing city.
• Taking a mantra from education in 1990s, clicks not bricks. We don’t need all the institutions.
• Work flexibility will be key.
• More and more employees are looking for flexibility. work-life issues and boredom go even further.
• There’s nothing more valuable than a good idea.
• More people want a job that first their lifestyle,  not just someplace to punch a time card.”
• “There will always be a place for corporate headquarters. They may change, get smaller and more casual, but they won’t go away entirely.”
• “There will always be a place for the cubicle jungle,” Geddes, the Temple professor, said. “But we won’t go as much and might not have to travel as far.”

Web designer Alex Hillman, co-founder of Independents Hall

• “What happens when a company is based outside the city, and the employee lives outside the city, but they come to the city to work in a physical space, like a coffee shop or sitting in a park using Wi Fi?” Place starts to breakdown.
• “The risk is low, as it’s a fairly cheap big city. There are a lot of industries and for so long Philly has just been a good place to try new things. It’s in our city’s history.”
• “With some trust for telecommuting or greater freedom and be valuable to the long-term relationship.
• “People react to distractions differently, but ultimately being completely isolated can’t be healthy,” said Hillman. “A combination of factors affect the distribution of the workplace.”
• In 2006, Alex Hillman, a freelance Web developer who caught cabin fever from too many lonely work sessions at home, and Geoff DiMassi, a University of the Arts professor, opened Indy Hall.
• See Technically Philly coverage of Alex Hillman.

Software engineer Lori Hylan-Cho, telecommuter and Indy Hall member

• 
• “Ditching the commute is a big thing. It’s not just that you’re stuck in traffic or on a train, but you’re not with a family. could productive worrk time, but not family time.”
• It was awesome. But it puts a strain on communication. You have to be a very active communicator. You have to make sure you’re around.”
• “I’m used to working with a lot of men, certainly in technical positions,” she said.
• The worst recession in a generation or more has brought on a slew of attention to the future of business and our friendly workplace confines. In the view of some experts, the Web-literate telecommuter is a sign of things to come.
• It’s invaluable for life balance, as you have kids, your job can be more portable giving you a chance to be with your family.”
• “It was a great way to have a job that I love and live where I want to live,” Hylan-Cho, 40, said.
• So, if Hylan-Cho lands another gig that brings her to an office, she might meet with colleagues there for regular meetings, if not traditional full days. Still, she said it’ll be hard to give up the flexibility she’s had for the past few years.
• But, she now no longer telecommutes for that California company. In fact, she says she might look for another chance at the collaboration of a traditional office.
• “I don’t know if it’s the future,” Hylan-Cho said. “But it’s worked well for me.”

Helpful U.S. Census Bureau of Labor Statistics information for Philadelphia employment:

• BLS Mid-Atlantic Information Office
• Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH), 2008-09 Edition
• Employment Projections
• Regional Employment and Unemployment News
• Regional Employment Statistical Data
• Pennsylvania County Employment and Wages presser

As part of a push for a broader readership, back in March Technically Philly announced a content partnership with Philadelphia magazine and its new daily blog.

Fellow co-founder Brian James Kirk has been writing most of the weekly posts, as he’s still freelancing. But last week, I filled in, penning a short feature on five City of Philadelphia departments that could use a touch of Web openness.

The use of technology to transform government has been a growing municipal interest in city halls across the country.

Here, the City of Philadelphia has announced intentions to release a service-orientated 311 iPhone application, it’s applying for ultra high-speed broadband from Google and it’s in hot pursuit of a funded team of developers and technologists which may someday make our every government transparency dreams come true.

The overtures are there, even if the substance hasn’t yet hit the pavement.

Read the rest here.

Mayor Nutter Press Aide Katherine Martin addresses the April Fishtown Neighbors Association meeting.

A few times a month, I go out to civic and town watch meetings in a variety of neighborhoods. Yes, I actually find most of them to be fun — local politics on the smallest of scale.

Since moving to Fishtown, I’ve begun going to monthly Fishtown Action and Fishtown Neighbors Meetings and filing reports for the Fishtown Spirit. It’s all within a few blocks of my house and endearing to be sure. Each month, I’ll probably share those two and any other pieces I might have had in the Spirit.

As I wrote after my first piece for my small, local community news weekly, it’s my way of getting to know new people and the issues facing them in a new neighborhood.

I have one on two controversial proposals in today’s issue:

City officials defended two controversial proposals to close a $150 million shortfall in the city’s 2011 budget at last week’s Fishtown Neighbors Association meeting.

During the 90 minute session that saw raised voices and broad criticism of city spending, Deputy Streets Commissioner Carlton Williams addressed a proposed $300 trash collection fee and Mayoral Press Aide Katharine Martin talked about the two-cent-per-ounce sweetened beverage excise tax. Both proposals need City Council approval and remain executive branch proposals that are vying against ongoing deliberations, including suggestions to raise property taxes and tax smokeless tobacco products.

Read the rest here, or below find other pieces I’ve done in the past few months below.

FACT introduces new SugarHouse General Manager

APR 14 — Wendy Hamilton says she has two main priorities weighing on her mind.

The new general manager of the SugarHouse Casino on Delaware Avenue, which is currently under construction, needs to get the embattled slots parlor opened by mid-September and she wants to give Fishtown residents and others who live near the casino the first crack at the 700 jobs that will be created.

Read the rest here.

Girard Avenue to See Summer Facelift

MAR 31 — This summer looks to be very kind to Girard Avenue through Fishtown.

Updates on two major projects aimed at improving the beauty and functionality of the corridor were discussed at a recent Fishtown Neighbors Association meeting. Both are due to make major strides as the weather warms up.

Read the rest here.

Meet the Neighbors: FNA introduces new board and RecycleBank program

FEB 24 — Dragging those familiar blue recycling tubs to your curb each week can start to earn savings at area retailers for residents who join a new city program.

Read the rest here.

My travel mate Sean Blanda (left), Zurich, Switzerland couch surfing host Dule Misevic, and myself in November 2008.

A full-length travel story of mine focused on the five year anniversary of CouchSurfing.com at first destined for the Philadelphia Inquirer last January never found a home there. After a back and forth, I went another direction and it got a tad stale for the daily’s travel editor.

So, because I’ve shared other stories that didn’t run as planned, I’ll do so today. Additionally, as always, I also like to share some grafs that were reworked and items I cut from my original story, which also can be seen below.

ZüRICH, SWITZERLAND — I just can’t find chopped beef for cheesesteaks anywhere. But cheese? Well I have my choice of cheeses in the largest city of this European country known for its favorite holey dairy product.

I snag a jalapeno-laced Swiss cheese and settle for a pound of ground beef I plan to mince. After picking up fresh rolls, peppers and onions, I am back climbing hilly Kornhausstrase, a busy road northwest of the city center that rides over the Linth River to Zurich’s residential neighborhoods. As a jet-setting tourist, this is a part of Zürich you would never see. Unless, of course, you are couch surfing, which is why I am here.

CouchSurfing.com, the online hospitality-exchange giant, is celebrating six years this month and has nearly 1.6 million members, but it hasn’t lost its mission. For five weeks in fall 2008, I made something new of the tired European backpacking trip by hopping from one stranger’s couch to another, not for money, but in the name of cultural exchange. I never had a better experience than my first, sleeping on a tan couch in the leafy northern extreme of Zürich, Switzerland.

The sky is gray, cloudy and intimidating, and cars and bicycles whiz past me as I march determinedly, groceries in tow, hoping to get to my host Dule’s big, modern, first-floor apartment before he gets home from work. It’s my second day and nearly my third night in Zürich, but it didn’t take more than 15 minutes for me to decide that Dule deserved a particular thank you.

He isn’t an itinerant wanderer, nor an existentialist looking for meaning or a creep looking for a victim, so perhaps he isn’t who you think is willing to let a stranger crash on his couch. Dule is a Serbian-born, 30-something academic with a Ph.D. from Michigan State and a research job in Zürich. As couch surfing matures, so too, do many of its members.

There isn’t even an implicit agreement to do something in thanks for your couch-surfing host, nor is a host required to offer anything more than a place to sleep – the floor, an extra bed, a bathtub, maybe even a couch. But a funny thing happens when you put your trust in a stranger; you tend to bond awfully quickly. You want to find a way to say thanks.

So was the case with Dule and me. The day before, he found me and my two traveling buddies at our arranged meeting spot, under the blue angel that hangs from the city’s central train station. I told him to look for my Phillies hat, deciding not to describe the haggard appeal that my friends and I had acquired after nearly a month slumming around Europe.

Dule arrived wearing glasses, a smart khaki suit jacket and blue jeans. He offered a warm, if hesitant smile, and snagged one of our bags before leading us to his home. So began my first couch surfing experience and the best, most complete three days anyone could ever have in Zürich.

A founding principle of couch surfing is cultural sharing. So when my friends and I decided we wanted to thank Dule with something more tangible than words, we knew it should be something from the rich culture of Philadelphia – a city we compared and contrasted and raved about to whomever would listen during our trip. During our time in Zürich, Dule was a frequent victim of my Phila-babble, so what better gift than the king of Philly cliché, a founding father of our city’s tasty treats?

I got plenty in return for those cheesesteaks I made. After introducing my friends and me to Zurich’s tram system – when you have to buy a ticket and when you don’t – Dule gave us a breezy outline of the city’s sights. All the tourists go to Landesmuseum, the Swiss National Museum, he said, but it’s dusty, boring and overpriced. Swiss culture is influenced a lot by Germany, but no visitors seem to make it to Zurich’s best bratwurst stand on Theaterstrasse near Schoeckstrasse – where all the locals go and the brown mustard is even spicier than in Philadelphia.

Dule has has hosted more than 100 people since he joined CouchSurfing.com in 2006, so he knows where to point wanderers like myself.

On my first night in Zurich, Dule shared some of his favorite haunts. I screamed with dozens of locals in support of a penalty kick that won a match for the Swiss national soccer team, while sucking down a beer brewed in the city. He talked about walking into traffic at crosswalks – unlike in the States, cars would stop here, he said. I got pushed around in a game of pool I wasn’t prepared to be in, and Dule got me out of paying the money I hadn’t realized I was gambling.

A BBC couch surfing report from fall 2008

Casual knowledge to this local was priceless insight to me, so I quickly fell in love with what couch surfing can mean for your tried and true backpacking trip.

“I can’t help but think,” I told Dule on my first night in Zurich, “that couch surfing is going to be good for me.”

“I know,” Dule said with a giggle. “A hotel won’t seem the same ever again.”

Even the cheapest hostels in Zurich run more than $30 per night, which means Dule saved the three of us close to $300. That total, of course, doesn’t include the tour he didn’t have to give, the thoughts on Swiss culture he didn’t have to share, and the proper fondue party to which he didn’t have to invite us. Of course, in this expensive city, a chunk of those savings went to our big cheeseteak meal, but that’s something important to understand. Couch surfing shouldn’t be thought singularly as a way to save cash, but rather a way to make better use of your money. I’d rather spend my funds on making and sharing a Philadelphia delicacy than on bed linens. Hotels, even hostels, are an offer of a place to sleep, but couch surfing also offers a friend to make.

I now had a warm guide in a foreign land and a friend in Switzerland. Dule now had the same for Philadelphia.

Throughout my jet setting, couch surfing allowed me to learn more about a place than I ever could otherwise in the short few days I allotted for enormous cultural metropolises. As I said goodbye to Dule, he told me that I just might see him in Philadelphia for another cheesesteak.

My couch will be ready.

EXTRAS FROM THE STORY

• My Couchsurfing profile can be seen here
• My original breakout box lede:

The concept of bringing into the digital age the timeless idea of staying with and learning from locals was first conceived in 1999, when Casey Fenton wanted more than a tour book-experience of Iceland.

The New Hampshire native found an online directory of students of the University of Iceland and e-mailed some 1,500 of them asking if he could stay at their homes and get a local perspective on the Arctic country.

It worked, and Fenton resigned himself to couch surfing the rest of his traveling days. Four years later – after a hand in the dot com bubble – Fenton launched CouchSurfing.com and the site has thrived since, letting people of all kinds experience travel in a new way.

• I didn’t know what he looked like beyond a small, grainy photo from his Couch Surfing profile. So, I made at least three false starts, smiles and extended hands to the wrong stranger. He recognized my Phillies hat and my accompaniment – a college buddy and his brother, both looking as haggard as I was after a long day of travel from Lyon, France, via Strausbourg.
• We shook hands as if agreeing on a business deal. Then we were off to his neat apartment a short walk from the city’s center. And just like that, my couch surfing career and the best three-day tour anyone could ever have of Zurich, Switzerland began.
• On my last night in Zurich, like I would in Budapest, my host and I exchanged the most important element of culture: food. I bought the ingredients and made Swiss-modified cheesesteaks: local cheese and stripped beef on fresh rolls. Dule hosted a proper Swiss fondue party: bread in a garlic cheese and then fresh fruit dipped in melted Swiss chocolate.
• And that’s how cheesesteaks became appetizers for my first authentic fondue party.

A portrait of romance as captured by Keith Angelitis.

My first clip for the Fishtown Spirit ran in last Thursday’s issue, and my second ran yesterday.

Keith Angelitis just started a fire in the front room of his Frankford Avenue studio. He has a jacket on and a ball cap pulled over his ruffled brown hair. Big front windows welcome the sunlight that pours in and fills his 15-foot ceilings.

He is relaxing in a wooden chair, a prominent member of an otherwise sparsely furnished room, warmed by an old wood-burning stove. In the corner is an over-sized closet that Angelitis built during the beginning of his continuous renovation of 2452 Frankford Ave. Read more here.

Below the scoop on why I got involved with the Spirit.

Some people join a bridge club. When I move into a neighborhood, I find out how people get their news and information and try to get involved.

I bought a house in the Philadelphia riverward neighborhood of Fishtown last month, so of course I’ll use the Fishtown Spirit — one of two local weeklies — for some extra cash and, more important, the chance to meet people in my new neighborhood.  Since spring 2004, the Spirit is the only newsweekly based in the neighborhood — its major competitor the Star was purchased by the Inquirer‘s parent company and its headquarters were moved to suburban Trevose, Pa.

After moving in, I reached out to Maryanne Milligan, the Spirit’s editor whom I had interviewed for a story I did for the Inquirer, she connected me with the first story — which ran below the fold on the front page of last week’s issue.

Perhaps more to come.

Sex columnists seem to have something in common.

That was a thought that came to my mind last January, while talking at the beginning of 2009 to friend who wrote a sex column for his college newspaper. None of my existing freelance contacts seemed all that interested in the topic, so I went shopping for someone who was.

I found a buyer in a Web site for sexuality, but I was just developing my freelance career and not yet stern in my not-writing-for-free policy, so I agreed to finish a draft before agreeing to terms.

When it came in, my editor balked, the economy worsened, advertising declined and freelance budgets were continually slashed, and so the story has sat ever since. Today, I share it here: a profile of the mindset of someone who just might be a sex columnist.

What does a sex columnist look like?

Timaree Schmit went through 12 years of Catholic school and came out the other side a sex columnist.

Timaree Schmit

The 26-year-old graduate student at Widener University outside Philadelphia writes Sex with Timaree, a popular sex column featured weekly on the Barbershop Notebooks, a blog maintained by Temple University [now Columbia University] hip-hop professor and Fox News contributor Marc Lamont Hill. Schmit, raised in Western Nebraska, describes herself as liberal and sexually experienced, yet says her column often gives men the impression she’s more flippant about sexual encounters than she really is.

In other words, she just might be the prototype of a successful sex columnist, according to research by Dr. Pepper Schwartz, a sociology professor at the University of Washington, author of a host of related books including Everything You Know About Love and Sex is Wrong, and a former sex columnist for Glamour.

“You’d be amazed at the level of ignorance and the level of isolation out there,” Schwartz says. “Sex columnists serve a big role.”

But what does your friendly neighborhood sex columnist who is filling that role look like? Like many professions, it seems a certain set of characteristics are often shared by those drawn to the allure of writing about the most intimate details of their lives and others.

“It’s definitely important to understand who you’re getting information from,” Schwartz says. So why not put a mirror up to your favorite tawdry advice columnist?

Often, they’re liberal and personable and self-identify as being sexually experienced, like you might guess. But also, Schwartz says, their columns may be a vehicle to normalize their own taboo behaviors, yet they are likely a lot less confident than their writing may suggest.

Your average sex columnist was likely raised in a family that was either extremely sexually repressive or expressive, Schwartz says, and it also turns out that many are a lot less promiscuous or even adventurous than their writing may suggest.

“I don’t know one thing about sex,” says E. Jean Carroll, the venerable advice columnist for Elle whose content often gets intimate. “That’s the same for all columnists. We are not necessarily the people we seem to be in print.”

Carrol, whose column has run in Elle since 1993, is currently working on a book about college sex – “because it’s the juiciest time in the history of the world” – but along the way took an interest in campus sex columnists. Last year, Carroll mined the country’s best and posted their work on her Web site, AskEJean.com. She saw commonalities even among those aspiring for the craft.

“They are there to be stars,” says Carrol. “The young ones love to share their personal experiences, you know, like leaving their underwear at the fraternity house or waking up next to someone you can’t quite remember. It’s a social move, a way to get dates and get attention on a crowded campus.”

In many of their columns, Carrol agrees, there is a tendency to promote as common the sexual misadventures of their friends and themselves, a trend that may run through the heart of many writing in the form professionally.

“I know sex workers and kinksters and freaks,” says Dan Savage, who writes Savage Love, the syndicated column often heralded as the pantheon of sexual-advice today. “So, perhaps I subconsciously strive to normalize behaviors that others regard as taboo out of a devotion to my freaky friends.”

Below Savage speaks about the ‘strangest’ letters he’s received.

Savage, who is openly gay, is known for flying in the face of the religious right, like lambasting former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum for telling the Associated Press in April 2003 that he had “a problem with homosexual acts.”

Dan Savage

Santorum was born in the small city of Winchester, Virginia, seemingly a world away from Savage’s Seattle – a coastal urban metropolis like many sex columnists call home. Carrol lives in upstate New York and isn’t unaware of the big city beneath her. Though a native of Nebraska, Schmit says her friends were always liberal and now lives outside of and frequents Philadelphia.

Even Carrol’s college columnists from Midwest campuses were largely liberal and seemed to identify or aspire to big cities, Caroll says, particularly in the northeast and west coast but elsewhere as well.

Krystal Baugher, who wrote a column for the University Leader of Fort Hays State University, left Kansas for graduate school in Chicago. Carrie Pierce, who authored a column in The Maroon Weekly at Texas A&M University, said she has aspirations of a European metropolis in her future. Others had their eyes, unsurprisingly, on the glossy fashion magazines of New York City.

“There are those who say ‘I really like Sex in the City so I’m going to be Carrie Bradshaw and write like her’, which might be the bane of my existence,” Schmit, of Sex with Timaree, says with a laugh. She exemplifies well another standard sex-columnist trait, disarming intimate subject matter with humor.

“It’s definitely best that columnists be funny, so long as that they’re accurate,” Schmit says. “So most are.”

In a recent column, Schmit responded to a reader who wanted advice on dealing with a new girlfriend’s former lover who was still hanging around.

Schmit told her reader to first give it time.

“Things will be hilariously awkward for a bit, but they’ll settle down eventually,” Schmit wrote. “Kind of like the seconds following a queef.”

Voices range, but some sense of levity is perhaps the most common sex-columnist trait of all, perhaps the prime example being Savage.

In a recent column of his, a reader told Savage that Canadian sex counselor Sue Johanson said not to have anal sex because of potential health ramifications and then asked Savage what he would say.

Savage responded: “I would tell people to refrain from fucking Sue Johanson in the ass…”

Of course not everything is funny.

Like the subject matter they encounter, the more intimate suppositions Schwartz intimates about the average sex columnists are, of course, hard to broach and even harder to gauge, like family background.

Schwartz says many sex columnists might find their path by either rebelling against a strict childhood or incorporating one that allowed for sexual exploration.

“My parents were good liberal Catholics in the 70s, and they understood that good liberals were open about sex, were sexually liberal when it came to sex education — the willingness to talk about sex with their kids — but they were raised in very sexually repressed environments, and try as they might, they weren’t very good at creating a sexually liberal environment,” Savage says. “I guess it depends on what your definition of liberal is. My parents strongly felt that sex went with marriage and vice-versa.”

Schmit says she was raised by a “generally reasonable couple of professional educators” but admits to rebelling against her Catholic schooling. Aside from being “almost puppy-like in [her] extroversion,” Schmit says her childhood was otherwise very normal, another element Schwartz says is likely common among sex columnists.

Even with a “missionary purpose,” Schwartz says childhood abuses would make personal, particularly sexual, content uncomfortable.

“So I bet most sex columnists are more likely to have a more traditional childhood in that way,” Schwartz said.

Like those experiences, Elle columnist Carroll says many of her colleagues are often average in their writing, too.

“They just need to get their ideas across,” Caroll says. “I think it attracts people that want to be stars. It’s like watching American Idol during audition week. Sex columnists can be splashy. It’s a social move, so you probably won’t get Leo Tolstoy.”

You will get a curious cohort, though, Schwartz says. The sociology professor with expertise in sexuality is perhaps herself an example that the best in people who want to give advice on sex may be an interest to learn more. Even now as an academic, Schwartz serves as a sex columnist of sorts, writing online for Mens Health and serving as the relationship expert for perfectmatch.com, seeking questions and finding answers.

“Sex columnists, I think, are an interested bunch,” Schwartz says.

Much like Schmit, who first found she was more comfortable talking sex than others. That only made her want to study the scholarship of sex more. A psychology degree and nearly a doctorate in sexuality later, Schmit relishes being able to offer real research-based advice to people in the need of honest, forthright help.

“People need a reliable source, one whom they trust, because sexuality isn’t something people feel comfortable just asking anyone about. Even doctors, their training in sexuality is usually quite abysmal,” Schmit says. “It’s incredible to feel that I can offer something. It [is] changing the world in the way I was best suited to do.”

While Caroll agrees that many do tend to feel they’re doing a real service – “and many of them are right” – it’s important, Caroll says, not to over-complicate a portrayal of the average sex columnist.

“Remember: basically, you’re dealing with people who are show-offs,” Caroll says. “I think in the end, sex columnists just want to get laid.”

EXTRAS

Timaree Schmit

• “It’s definitely an attention-seeking behavior. You can write about anything but choose sex. You’re going to get attention for that, good or bad.”
• Psychology degree at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln
• Widener, the only nationally accredited graduate degree in sexuality
• She lives in Chester but frequents Philly.”Sex columnists, it’s a newish phenomenon in its current incarnation and is just now being fleshed out.”
• “It’s definitely best that they be funny, but definitely important that they’re accurate.”
• Schmitt, who gives a laugh after calling her column-style “edutainment”
• Sexual advice columns, Schmit says, often fall into one of two categories: the entertaining – “like Dan Savage” – or the straightforward – “like when you ask medical doctors why it’s red and seeping things, but the answer isn’t terribly interesting to read.”

College sex is one time in the history of the world when you can do whatyou want. I’m sorry I missed out…Most sex columnists, I say, just want to get a date,” Caroll says

Last month, the Devon Theater, a professional production house in a working-class neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia, canceled the final half of its inaugural season due to state budget constraints.

In going through some documents of mine, I found, perhaps prophetically, a story that never was from back in March when the Devon first reopened. Originally planned for Philadelphia Weekly, its working slug title was ‘Can the Devon survive in Mayfair?’

Perhaps that hope now seems less likely. Below, I share the piece that didn’t run (for a variety of reasons) and some extras from the reporting.

Before writing this piece for PW, I covered the Devon’s reopening heavily, additionally for the Inquirer, NEastPhilly.com and uwishunu.

As originally written March 2009 and, boy, do I feel like my writing has grown some even in the ensuing months.

Kathleen Murray has already seen ‘Nunsense’ – years ago somewhere in Center City, she said.

But she’s not going to miss the chance to see one of the first live performances held at the resurrected Devon Theater.

So Murray, 76, bought tickets and also became a proud Devon volunteer. Last Saturday [3/14], she had orientation and looks forward serving as an usher, helping with ticketing or costumes or with the summer camp.

She’s an active theatergoer, supporting venues like the Arden and the Keswick, but says there is something special about the Devon being in Mayfair, her blue-collar Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood. That kind of support, Devon executives say, is just what they need to make professional theater work eight miles and a social class or two from Center City.

In Aug. 2004, the Mayfair Community Development Corporation, which has maintained ownership, bought the Devon for $800,000. The 65-year-old roof allowed severe water damage. There was termite-infestation, collapse and decay. As part of an expansive, $6 million plan to reshape the surrounding Frankford Avenue corridor, the CDC wanted to bring theater to the cavernous former adult movie playhouse.

There is little question that they have the attention to launch with a bang. The staying power of a modern, professional arts center in the heart of an Irish working class neighborhood in transition, though, is far less certain.

And in transition is certainly something Mayfair is in.

Mayfair was a new neighborhood in the 1930s, developing on farmland that surrounded older communities like Tacony and Holmesburg. Bounded by Roosevelt Boulevard, Pennypack Park and largely hugging Frankford Avenue, Mayfair, like much of the Northeast, is diversifying today, but still maintains its old working class Irish American roots.

“The Devon cannot exist and thrive feeding on Mayfair alone,” said Mike Lally, the theater’s general manager. “It’s going to start here, but it can’t end here.”

The marketing focus is 15 miles around, he said. They aim to be seen as a Philadelphia, not exclusively a Mayfair or even Northeast Philadelphia theater.

The $6 million cost is a heavy burden, but Lally said revenue from keeping the versatile Devon’s schedule full can help. The Devon can host weddings, community events and, McEnlee mentioned, fundraisers for nonprofits, schools and hero tributes for fallen police officers, firefighters and others. There’s also lease revenue from six storefronts.

For those six storefronts, the CDC has received more than 200 offers, Mayfair CDC Executive Director Brian Patrick King said. But they’ve only accepted two — one of which is Fuse Management, the theater’s production company.

“We want to be selective,” King said. “Because we can be.”

“This model exists across the country,” said Amy Pickering, who is assisting with the theater’s production element and educational outreach. That model includes community interaction, from two-week summer camps, art-gallery space and monthly Saturday reading sessions.

A few hundred people have offered to volunteer as ushers and ticket agents, said Michael Pickering, the Devon’s artistic director and Amy’s husband.

“They’ll even clean the toilets,”  he said. “Anything to be involved and make sure the Devon works.”

But will that neighborhood be enough, if it sustains at all?

“Theater companies have a great fear of leaving Center City because they don’t know if the audiences will follow,” said Karen DiLossi, the director of programs and services for the Theater Alliance of Philadelphia.

There are groups in neighborhoods beyond Center City that are succeeding at performance art though, DiLossi said. Walking Fish Theater is at the forefront of Fishtown’s resurgence, and Chestnut Hill has Stagecrafters Theater. Theatre Exile has opened offices at 13th and Reed streets and has plans for performances at those Bella Vista digs. Act II Playhouse has become a celebrated mainstay in Ambler since opening in 1998, DiLossi said.

“Still, it seems many are afraid to try it,” she said.

“This is professional theater in a community,” said Michael Pickering. “As opposed to just community theater. Our actors are professionals.”

They say their quality performances will put butts in the seats. They better hope so.

“We’re all in,” said King, the CDC director. “It can’t be anything but a win.”

If Murray, the neighborhood boster turned usher, is any example, the neighborhood will do all it can to assure that win.

“Will the Devon survive? I think it will. I certainly hope so. Once the word is out in the community, we can support this. It can pull from across the bridge in Jersey and farther still,” Murray said. “I know I’ll help anyway I can. I can’t see it fail.”

EXTRAS

• “It’s going to be arts, culture and Tony’s pies,” Stephen McEnlee of Fuse Management said of its proximity near the famed tomato pie joint.
• “That’s the only thing the CDC cares about with this project,” Brian Patrick King said. “We’re going to transform this stretch of Frankford Avenue. This block is going to be a model and serve as a gateway to Mayfair.”
• Pickering has had reservations for the March 28 opening for weeks, including one for 24 people from Bucks County.
• Pickerings, 50 and 29, now of Sicklerville, N.J. to work in Atlantic City, came on in January 2008. Met McEnlee in Discovery Church
• “We also have the most expensive curtain track in town,” Mike Lally said of what is dividing concessions from the seated audience in the compact theater.

Joe Mallamaci, owner Tony’s Place

• Three years ago, Tony’s expanded into a third storefront. “We have been waiting three years since for the Devon to open,” he said.
• “This will make people stay in the neighborhood rather than go downtown or to Jersey,” he said.
• Now Tony’s has three rooms. In 1980 bought an adjacent storefront and three years ago, after first hearing about plans to bring the Devon back, bought a third, and now can seat 210 people.
• “We rented the room out, but now we will be able to regularly fill all three stores. We’re trying to employ people again.”
• “My father Dominic and his brother Tony opened this restaurant 57 years ago in 1951. So we have lots of loyal customers. Many of them have left the neighborhood and they still keep coming back. But, they come to eat and they leave,” Mallamaci said. “The Devon will keep them here.”
• “As soon as we heard the Devon was bought by the CDC, we bought another store to accommodate the new customers we knew would come.”
• “Economically, when the economy went bad, we had to close it,” he said of the third room. “But with the buzz and the talk about the Devon, it’s going to make sense again.”
• “I believe in the people over there running it. It’s not just the plays but the graduations, the teacher conferences. I think it’s going to have great long term success.”