Writing on technology, work, and social practice.
A working archive of essays, public articles, fragments, and notes on how technology reshapes work, organisational life, and social practice: coworking and mobile work, remote-work infrastructure, Web3 and decentralised governance, generative AI, open science, and the practical problem of building with new tools.
Writing, after AI.
The website keeps the archive of past writing. Subscribe on Substack to receive future letters by email.
Featured writing
A first public selection from the archive: longer essays, public articles, and smaller notes that still carry a live question.
AI Innovation in the Shadows
An essay about covert use of AI by employees I wrote in 2024 that became the practical precursor to the later Shadow User Innovation paper published in Innovation.
Jan 2023 · EssayDawn of a New Era in Artificial Intelligence
A long-form essay I wrote in January 2023, a few months after the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022.
Feb 2018 · EssayWhy We Need a New Internet
An essay I wrote when working with the Web3 startup TypeHuman, attempting to situate blockchain and smart contract technology within the long evolutionary arc of general-purpose technologies.
2016 · TalkGovernance of the Immaterial Commons
A 2016 talk-script essay where the coworking research starts to lose some early idealism and sharpen around governance.
Sep 2014 · EssayOrganising for Edgeless Silence
A short essay I wrote in 2014 reflecting on how silence in music has its own kind of rich presence, and the implications of this for organisational design.
Dec 2014 · FragmentLong Moments
A short poem I wrote a few months after my daughter was born in 2014.
Archive
A working index across public essays, older blog posts, applied essays, fragments, and notes. Some pieces are polished public writing; others are kept as historical record.
Letters from the Uncanny Valley
Writing after AI: voice, attention, selfhood, and the strange old technology of making marks for other minds.
Essays on work and organisation
Essays translating research on meaningful work, innovation, creativity, psychological safety, hybrid work, AI, and organisational life into practical questions.
- Jul 2022 Meaningful Work: 7 ways people find work meaningful and 7 ways organisations destroy it Essay
- Sep 2022 The power of narratives in driving innovation Essay
- Nov 2022 The Puzzle of Psychological Safety Essay
- Jan 2023 Dawn of a New Era in Artificial Intelligence Essay
- Feb 2023 How should leaders respond to employee side-hustles? Essay
- Apr 2023 The mystery of creativity at work Essay
- Jun 2023 Blending High Tech and High Touch: Human Moments and the Evolution of Hybrid Work Cultures Essay
- Jul 2023 The Seven Stages of AI Acceptance Essay
- Aug 2023 Understanding the AI Enterprise Tech Stack Essay
- Sep 2023 The Cognitive Revolution: AI, education, healthcare, and HR Essay
- Nov 2023 AI Innovation in the Shadows Essay
Public essays
Articles in The Conversation and Channel News Asia, usually translating research into public argument.
- Nov 2013 Quitting the cubicle farm for coworking The Conversation
- Dec 2018 Don't fall prey to the seductive lure of fancy co-working spaces CNA
- Apr 2020 50 years of bold predictions about remote work: it isn't all about technology The Conversation
- Dec 2020 Co-working spaces look pretty attractive right about now CNA
- Sep 2021 Why can't Australia make mRNA vaccines? Because we don't make enough 'deep technology' companies The Conversation
- Aug 2022 'Let's just do it': how do e-changers feel about having left the city now lockdowns are over? The Conversation
- Sep 2022 'We haven't built it, and they've come': the e-change pressures on Australia's lifestyle towns The Conversation
Historical archive
Earlier blog and Medium pieces. Some are raw, but they show the questions forming before they became academic papers, products, or book projects.
- Aug 2012 Social Innovation Essay
- Dec 2012 On building a new kind of post-westphalian civic economy... Essay
- Jan 2013 The Transcension Hypothesis Essay
- May 2013 Edge to Edge (E2E) Communities: Scalable Collaboration vs Dunbar's Number... Essay
- Jul 2014 What happens when coworking becomes just working? Essay
- Jul 2014 The Dark Matter of Games Essay
- Aug 2014 Much ado about Holacracy: the elusive diagonal in organisational decision making. Essay
- Sep 2014 Organising for Edgeless Silence Essay
- Dec 2014 Structure as Scaffold in Diaphanous Times Essay
- 2016 Governance of the Immaterial Commons Talk
- Sep 2017 Organising for the future Essay
- Sep 2017 Solar Paint and Distributed Energy Note
- Oct 2017 The Darkside of Entrepreneurship Essay
- Oct 2017 Is globalisation in retreat and are entrepreneurs stepping? Essay
- Feb 2018 Why We Need a New Internet Essay
- May 2018 Why we are excited about Web 3.0 Essay
- May 2018 Blockchains and New Power Essay
- Jun 2018 Communities, values and trust as the base layer of the new economy Essay
Fragments
Shorter, more personal pieces kept because they show voice, texture, and the life-practice side of the work.