S04E02: New realities

August 28, 2018

× As always, a shout out to tinyletter.com/pbihr or a forward is appreciated! × Howdy, Still working on getting back into some kind of rhythm. Working in a...

S04E01: A New Season, A Fresh Start

August 4, 2018

Sitrep: I started to write this Friday morning at 8:50am, on the train from Berlin to Cologne to talk at tonight's ThingsCon Salon about trust & tech...

S03E31 of Connection Problem: End of Season 3

June 22, 2018

Sitrep: Greetings from sunny Spokane, Washington. More concretely, from lovely Rocket Market, my favorite hyper local coffee shop/bodega hybrid in the...

S03E30 of Connection Problem: 🍾 30!

June 15, 2018

Sitrep: Welcome to the 30th installment of this newsletter season. Writing this at Toronto airport after an intense whirlwind tour of work things in NYC and...

S03E29 of Connection Problem: AI, weapons, databases

June 8, 2018

Sitrep: I'm writing this on a hot, sunny afternoon in Brooklyn. NYC is the first of multiple stops on a trip that's going to last about a month, working from...

S03E28 of Connection Problem: Data Barons

June 1, 2018

Sitrep: In a slightly mad travel logistics booking spree. I'll be traveling on short notice for a few weeks, so Things Have To Be Sorted. × × As always, a...

S03E27 of Connection Problem: Good Anthropocenes

May 25, 2018

Sitrep: Just back from an intense week of workshopping and travel. It looks like there's a sunny, relaxed weekend ahead. I hope you get to kick back a...

S03E26 of Connection Problem: The End of Enlightenment

May 18, 2018

Sitrep: Writing this on a long-ish series of train rides, at 7:52am, about 2h into the trip, fueled by train coffee. Proceed at your own risk. × × As always,...

Connection Problem S03E25: Ghost voices

May 11, 2018

Sitrep: I'm back from workshops and a ThingsCon Salon in Antwerp, Belgium, where I spent two days thinking through questions around IoT, ideation, design...

Connection Problem S05E24: Book-ish Stores & Cargo Bots

May 5, 2018

Just got back from a brief personal trip to the US. Good news: Traveling on a plane with an infant for the first time turned out to be not stressful! Bad...

Connection Problem S03E23: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

April 20, 2018

Sitrep: Summer is upon us, at least temporarily. I'm pondering travel plans, trying to balance my 2018 resolution to cut down on non-essential travel and...

Connection Problem S03E22: The Mind Is Flat

April 13, 2018

Sitrep: It's Friday afternoon. I just picked up my office badge for Mozilla—turns out as part of my fellowship I get the key to the castle: It feels very...

Connection Problem S03E21: Living with Data in the Face of Adversaries

April 6, 2018

Sitrep: Home with a bug, but in good spirits. The sun's shining, there's a few days of mini holiday ahead, and the backchannels are running red-hot with good...

Connection Problem S03E20: Cities, fish & algo tags

March 30, 2018

Sitrep: It's the Easter weekend, which means a public holiday and a long weekend. (Fun fact: In parts of DE, Good Friday also means tanzverbot, or a dancing...

Connection Problem S03E19: The Reckoning

March 22, 2018

Last week, I forgot to include two items I meant to share. Let me start with those and then head on to the other news. Also, again I'm sending this on...

Connection Problem S03E18: Humans in the Loop

March 15, 2018

Sitrep: I'm typing this on a laptop which might or might not have a working X key. If you see a lack (or the occasional double) X, don't be surprised. The...

Connection Problem S03E17: Maintain the maintainers

March 9, 2018

Sitrep: I'm home with a hot cup of tea and a low fever, and just finished skyping into a meeting for Alexandra DS's #iotmark initiative (more on that...

Connection Problem S03E16: The Craftsman

March 2, 2018

Sitrep: It's cold outside. Like really, really cold. It's so cold that at home, in our house that was built around 1890 and towards the street has the...

Connection Problem S03E15: The internet is regional stacks

February 23, 2018

Thanks for the overwhelmingly positive feedback to receive this newsletter at the beginning of the weekend rather than the end. So it shall be, schedule...

Connection Problem S03E14: Silicon Valley is a four letter word

February 16, 2018

Revisiting the links I bookmarked for this week's Connection Problem, the red thread that emerges is "responsible technologists", with inputs from some...

Connection Problem S03E13: New Futures

February 9, 2018

Note: This week's Connection Problem might easily be the longest yet (it's just shy of 2,600 words), so I took the liberty on sending it out on a weekend. A...

Connection Problem S03E12: The Era of Silicon Valley is Over

February 3, 2018

Sitrep: FRA airport gate, home-bound after a week in SF. The week was super intense, so I didn't get to read anything to share. Instead, some rambling...

Connection Problem S03E11: Ready for take-off

January 28, 2018

Sitrep: I'm typing these first words at Berlin TXL, at the gate and about to board my flight to SFO for a work week with Mozilla, because reasons. On the way...

Connection Problem S03E10: Privacy, Pleats & Public Infrastructure

January 22, 2018

Sitrep: Planning for the year is in full swing. By the end off the week I'll be off on the first work trip to San Francisco this year for a work week with...

S03E09: Bodyheat & Dull Arbitrage

January 15, 2018

Monday, 15 Jan 2018 Sitrep: Monday morning, tired after one of these nights that friends with kids had always warned me about, half-jokingly. Restored...

S03E08: Yes, we GAN

January 8, 2018

Monday, 08 Jan 2018 It's 2018 and we're still here! Mr Orange and Rocket Man haven't blown each other—and as collateral, all of us—up (yet), in the UK...

S03E07: Onwards & upwards

January 2, 2018

Tuesday, 2 Jan 2018 A happy new year! 2017, begone. You won't be missed (I hope). Although globally speaking it does feel distinctly as if it's going to get...

S03E06: Wrong turns

December 18, 2017

Monday, 18 Dec 2017 While writing this week's newsletter, the theme that emerged was that of wrong turns: How could stuff turn out so wrong? It's not a...

S03E05: Connection Problem

December 11, 2017

Welcome back! Sitrep: It's Monday, 11 December 2017. Outside there's the first bit of snow (it doesn't yet stick in the city). First day back at work after...

S03E04: Not always serious, but always sincere

December 5, 2017

Tuesday, 5 December 2017 Sitrep: Typing from our private nest. Apologies for skipping a week. I trust you'll understand—we just had a baby and that, frankly,...

S03E03: Mirror mirror on the wall, are you the smartest of them all?

November 20, 2017

Monday, 20 November 2017 Sitrep: At my desk in between lots of errands that need being run, with my phone always in sight so I won't miss M going into labor....

S03E02: File Not Found

November 14, 2017

Tuesday, 14 November 2017 Apologies for some hiccups in the last episode. Not one but two pictures were missing, including one of a cute cat that an...

S03E01: New Beginnings

November 6, 2017

Hello back, It's been a while and I trust you've been well? Welcome to the launch of Season 3 of this newsletter. By the way, the newsletter also should get...

Two new research reports out: ThingsCon Report on the State of Responsible IoT & View Source Shenzhen

June 15, 2017

Hi, It's been a long time. It may in fact have been several years since the last update I sent, judging by the TinyLetter admin backend. It's good to see...

Portland sitrep, venture capital v sustainability, fixing government

June 15, 2015

Hi there! Typing this newsletter on a hot Portland afternoon in the last week M and I are spending in this lovely city, there are a few things that I've been...

In Portland for a few weeks; ThingsCon is over; Open world game events

May 22, 2015

Hi! After a long-ish absence, a few quick updates. In Portland for a few weeks Every now and then, time permitting, I like to head to a different place to...

3 conferences, 3 client projects, 3 publications. Plus Tesla and online identities.

February 20, 2015

It's February 20 and I'm typing this from the Betahaus Café. I'm in between offices since we moved out of our good ol' space down the street, and home office...

End-of-year madness, ThingsCon, 21c banks & lots of writing. That's my November. How's yours?

November 12, 2014

The end of the year is nigh, and with it, end-of-year deadlines. So it's heads down & all hands on deck for the next few months with client work and...

The Node 008: New website, new office, new ThingsCon (and more)

October 20, 2014

Hello dear friends & colleagues, How are you today? It's been a while! Don't worry, that's usually a good sign! It's just that it's been some quite busy...

The Node #07

July 16, 2014

Hello all of you,As we're all headed into the summer break quickly (or in many cases, have long since entered it), just a few brief updates and shout-...