The most up-to-date work history for me can be found on LinkedIn.

Pertaining to my history in computer-mediated communication (a term that should sufficiently date me), I was lucky enough to have  been allowed to manage a small pre-Internet conferencing system called The WELL during its early and most formative years. The WELL has quite a history as a precursor to social media on the Web.

I learned to listen carefully in groups during the 12 years prior the WELL when I lived in a progressive, spiritual, experimental – and I’d have to add, radical - cooperative community simply called The Farm. In retrospect it was more like a school for living than a modern version of the early settlers.

Stewart Brand, co-founder of The WELL,
hypothesized that the most important expertise  to The WELL would turn out to be collaborative -not technical – skills. It seems to have worked out – the WELL was, and still is, a functional, small-scale social conversation pit and has lived non-stop for 27 years. Not many small businesses have lasted that long.

I learned through that intensive social, business and technological experience the profound truth that people behave just like actual people whether on or offline, in public, private or commercial networks. Trust or lack of it rules. Organizations that adapt  learn more and faster through the synapses of trusted 1-to-1 connections.

I’ve worked for large enterprises and small non-profits over the past 20 years. I’m currently Senior Curator+editor+moderator+community manager of the well-known grassroots content publishing and distribution company – Social Media Today. I stay current and connected: we review as many as 600 submitted articles weekly, publishing over 85. It’s a classic barter arrangement of writers seeking exposure for their expertise and a publisher who provides them more reach than they’d be having by themselves. The traffic brings sponsorships and ads.

I feel confident saying (somewhat darkly, perhaps) that relationships supported over distance by the Web and its social infrastructure will prove to be our species’ salvation. This, today, is all practice.