Xconomy National

About

Our Mission
Our Team
Our Board
Ethics
The Xconomists

Xconomy is dedicated to providing business and technology leaders with timely, insightful, close-to-the-scene information about the local personalities, companies, and technological trends that best exemplify today’s high-tech economy.

We are the authoritative voice on the exponential economy, the realm of business and innovation characterized by exponential technological growth and responsible for an increasing share of productivity and overall economic growth.

We deliver this valuable content through a unique global network of localized blogs, events, conferences, and other initiatives designed to better connect people and ideas.

Our Mission

Robert Buderi
Founder, CEO, Editor in Chief
Before launching Xconomy, Bob was a research fellow in MIT’s Center for International Studies. He previously served as Editor in Chief of MIT’s Technology Review, leading the magazine to numerous editorial and design awards and overseeing its expansion into three foreign markets, its introduction of electronic newsletters, and its organization of highly successful conferences. Earlier, as BusinessWeek‘s technology editor, he shared in the 1992 National Magazine Award for “The Quality Imperative,” a special issue of the magazine. Bob is also the author of three books about technology and innovation. Guanxi (2006) looks at Microsoft’s Beijing research lab as a metaphor for global competitiveness. Engines of Tomorrow (2000) describes the evolution of corporate research. The Invention That Changed the World (1996) examines the work of a secret lab at MIT during WWII. Bob served on the Council on Competitiveness-sponsored National Innovation Initiative and as an advisor to the Draper Prize Nominating Committee. He has been a regular guest of CNBC’s Strategy Session and has spoken about innovation to many organizations, including the Business Council, Amazon, eBay, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.

Rebecca Zacks
Cofounder, COO, Executive Editor
Rebecca was previously the managing editor of Physician’s First Watch, a daily e-newsletter from the publishers of the New England Journal of Medicine. Before helping launch First Watch, she spent a decade covering innovation for Technology Review, Scientific American, and Discover Magazine‘s TV show. In 2005-2006 she was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. Rebecca holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Brown University and a master’s in science journalism from Boston University. Before becoming a journalist, she worked in the MIT lab of Nobel Prize–winning neuroscientist Susumu Tonegawa.

Wade Roush
Chief Correspondent and Editor, Xconomy San Francisco
Wade is a veteran journalist with a focus on information technology. As a staffer with MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, he served as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before joining TR, Wade was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia. He has a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard University and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. His work has appeared in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, and Encyclopaedia Brittanica, and he has been a guest commentator on CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH, NPR, and PBS.

Bruce V. Bigelow
Editor, Xconomy San Diego
Bruce joins Xconomy from the The San Diego Union-Tribune, where he was a longtime business reporter covering technology, aerospace, and other subjects. He was a member of the newsroom team awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting, and received other awards for disclosing the extraordinary casualty rate among San Diego-based Titan Corp.’s employees in Iraq, and for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego startup company. He graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a B.A. in English Literature and has a M.S.J. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.

Gregory T. Huang
National IT Editor and Editor, Xconomy Boston
Greg has covered science, technology, and business as a journalist. He was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he covered advances in computing, robotics, and devices. His writing has appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly‘s website. Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab, and published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Luke Timmerman
National Biotechnology Editor and Editor, Xconomy Seattle
Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. Before joining Xconomy, he was the national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News, where he led coverage of major biotech companies like Amgen, Genentech, and Biogen Idec. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.

Arlene Weintraub
East Coast Biotechnology Editor and Editor, Xconomy New York
Arlene is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences and technology. She was previously a senior health writer based out of the New York City headquarters of BusinessWeek, where she wrote hundreds of articles that explored both the science and business of health. Her freelance pieces have been published in USA Today, US News & World Report, Technology Review, and other media outlets. Arlene has won awards from the New York Press Club, the Association of Health Care Journalists, the Foundation for Biomedical Research, and the American Society of Business Publication Editors. Her book about the anti-aging industry, Selling the Fountain of Youth, was published by Basic Books in September 2010.

Sarah Schmid
Editor, Xconomy Detroit
Sarah joins Xconomy Detroit after working in Communications for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, the state’s business development office, and the Michigan House of Representatives. She’s an award-winning journalist who cut her teeth at the small but fiercely muckraking Missoula Independent, where she carved out a beat covering issues critical to Native American people living in the state of Montana. Her reporting resulted in institutional changes that forced local school districts to better serve Native students. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Montana and proudly calls Detroit “the most fascinating city I’ve ever lived in.”

Curt Woodward
Senior Editor
Curt is an experienced journalist who has covered government, politics and business as a beat reporter—with some sports, agriculture, natural disasters and crime thrown in for good measure. He spent more than eight years with The Associated Press, mostly in Olympia, WA, covering the statehouse, political campaigns, and public policy. Highlights include being footnoted in a state Supreme Court ruling, having a story on government budget gimmicks cited in a college accounting text, and covering visits by the president, vice president, and several presidential candidates. His previous postings with AP included Seattle, Bismarck, ND, and Helena, MT. Curt has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA.

Erin Kutz
Associate Editor
Erin Kutz joins Xconomy with a background in covering business, politics and general news. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Erin previously worked in the Boston bureau of Reuters, where she wrote articles on the investment management and mutual fund industries. While in college, she researched for USA Today reporter Jayne O’Donnell’s book, Gen Buy: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail. She also spent a semester in Washington, DC, reporting Capitol Hill stories as a correspondent for two Connecticut newspapers and interning in the Money section of USA Today, where she assisted with coverage on the retail and small business beats. Erin got her first taste of reporting at Boston University’s independent student newspaper, as a city section reporter and fact checker and editor of the paper’s weekly business section.

João-Pierre S. Ruth
Correspondent
After more than thirteen years as a business reporter in New Jersey, João-Pierre S. Ruth joins the ranks of Xconomy serving as a correspondent for its New York City branch. He has covered telecom players such as Verizon Wireless, device makers such as Samsung, and developers of organic LED technology such as Universal Display Corp. João-Pierre earned his bachelor’s in English from Rutgers University.

Steve Woit
Founding Publisher
Steve is the founder of Riga Ventures, a venture firm that invests in media, software, and Internet businesses. He helped fund 02138, a magazine and website focused on the Harvard University alumni community, which was purchased by the Atlantic Media Group (publishers of the Atlantic Monthly) in 2006. He was a leading investor in Bitpipe, where he served as EVP of Sales and Marketing; the company was acquired by TechTarget for $40 million in 2004.

Steve also worked for 17 years for Patrick J. McGovern, Chairman and founder of International Data Group (IDG), the largest global publisher of technology publications and websites and a leading global technology venture investor. While at IDG, he was responsible for overseeing the launch of new publication and Web-based businesses. He was a General Partner at IDG Ventures and served as Publisher and President of Federal Computer Week, President of Web Shopper, EVP of Computerworld, and Director of Business Development and Vice President/New Products for IDG worldwide. Since 1999, Steve has been an active member of the angel investment group CommonAngels and formerly sat on the group’s Board of Directors.

William A. Ghormley
Senior Vice President, Business Development
Bill has worked in marketing and new business creation in a number of industries, including media. His past employers include Polaroid’s OEM organization, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, and Kendall Healthcare. Bill also served as president of the Marketing Science Institute, a Cambridge-based research center created by the Harvard Business School and the Wharton School to measure media impact on customer attitudes and behaviors. Bill studied economics at Stanford, history at Boston College, and business at Dartmouth.

Gregory Calkins
Associate Publisher and Vice President, Business Development
Greg is a seasoned sales and marketing executive who brings over 17 years of experience in the area of business development and start-up management. Prior to Xconomy, Greg founded Calkins Advisors, a business content company focused on connecting thought leaders with business leaders. Greg also spent eight years as a business developer, strategic marketer, and alliance builder for Interactive Sports—a NYC-based media company. His efforts resulted in relationships with nationally recognized media, financial, sports, technology, and entertainment companies. Greg attended Hartwick College studying political science and history.

Jim Edwards
Associate Publisher and Vice President, Business Development
Jim has spent the last 10 years leading the business development efforts for firms in the consulting and performance improvement industry. He was Vice President, Client Relationships for The Madison Consulting Group, enhancing their national presence working with Fortune 100 companies. Most recently, he held the position of Senior Account Executive for AchieveGlobal, the world’s largest performance improvement organization. He graduated from Colgate University with a concentration in Philosophy.

Rachel Botha
Director of Business Development
Rachel has been in the media industry for 6+ years. She began at KnowledgeStorm, a content aggregator, coupling businesses with IT solutions. She comes to us from Ziff Davis Enterprise where she was the Senior Account Executive, expanding the team’s West Coast B2B media solutions. She graduated from Simmons College with a B.A. in Marketing. Before media, Rachel spent time abroad, first in the Peace Corp in Haiti, and later as a private contractor to the US Military in Qatar.

Richard Freierman
Business Manager
Richard has 30 years experience keeping the wheels on the bus, starting at Computer Design & Applications, where he created and managed an engineering support group charged with software technical publications, beta testing, and software release. His subsequent management and operations experience has included the Image and Meaning Conference (MIT 2001), retail management for Video Signals, a 7 store regional chain, and campaign management for four successful municipal elections in Cambridge, MA. Around the dawn of the World Wide Web, Richard was Web guru and creative partner for the Family Surfboard, a website for kids’ online activities. He also co-authored Save the Earth at Work (Bob Adams Inc., 1991) and Corporate Realities and Environmental Truths (Wiley, 1993). While Richard doesn’t get to apply his SUNY Forestry Degree very often in Cambridge, it does help him see the forest for the trees.

Lilly O’Flaherty
Marketing Coordinator
Prior to joining Xconomy, Lilly spent five years in the public programs department of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, providing event marketing and management support for lectures, symposiums, and a series of evening events called Gardner After Hours. During her time at the Gardner she also studied at the University of Massachusetts Boston on a full tuition scholarship from the Boston Globe Foundation, traduating with a Bachelor’s degree in English and Art History. She developed a keen interest in all things media during her tenure as the editor-in-chief of UMass Boston’s student magazine, Lux, where she covered student and faculty research.

Andrew Koyfman
Chief Technology Officer Emeritus
Andrew has eight-plus years of experience in the software industry. He recently completed his MBA at MIT Sloan, where he was involved with the MIT Venture Capital and Private Equity Club and the MIT Sales Club. Prior to Sloan, he was a cofounder and the Chief Architect of Swapthing.com, an online bartering site. Andrew earned a B.Sc. in Math and Computer Science and an M.Sc. in Computer Science at Brown University.

Our Team

Alun Anderson
Alun was variously the Editor, Editor-in-Chief and Publishing Director of New Scientist magazine from 1992 up until 2005, and was a member of the Board of IPC Media, Europe’s largest magazine house and now a part of Time Warner. During his time as Publishing Director at New Scientist, he successfully launched the magazine in the United States, first as an internet-based business and then as a print publication. New Scientist‘s internet business has been particularly successful and its strategic development is used as a business case study for the London Business School MBA course. Earlier he held senior roles at the journals Nature and Science. He has published two books on science and technology in Japan and several scientific papers in the field of behavior and neurobiology.

Alun Anderson has been a Member of the Royal Society Committee on the Public Understanding of Science and a Member of the Council of the University of Sussex and is currently a Member of the Council of the Royal Institution, Britain’s most prestigious science communication organization. He has three times been voted ‘Editor of the Year’ by the British Society of Magazine Editors (1993, 1995 and 1997). In 1997 he was also voted the ‘Editors’ Editor of the Year’. In 2000, the London Evening Standard listed him as one of London’s most influential people and The Australian newspaper named him as one of the world’s top 100 thinkers.

Robert Buderi
(See Bob’s bio above.)

Chris Sheehan
Chris is a managing director of CommonAngels, and is currently either a board member or observer at Carbonite, Outside the Classroom, Most Effective Media, and GateRocket. Within CommonAngels, Chris manages deal flow, due diligence, and the investment process. He also guides the group’s strategic direction and works closely with portfolio companies—and is a managing director of the group’s two $10M venture funds.

Previously, Chris founded Newburyport Partners, a consulting firm that works with investors and their portfolio companies. Chris also served as a venture partner at Industry Ventures, where he was actively involved in the acquisition and management of secondary venture investment portfolios. Chris was also a Director of Corporate Development for BEA Systems, a leading enterprise software company with over $1B in sales. Prior to BEA, Chris led the private equity practice for the Cambridge-based research firm, Stax Inc. He also spent six years with the top ranked investment bank in Australia; he started his career as an equity analyst focusing on the oil and gas sector.

Susan Hunt Stevens
Susan Hunt Stevens is the Founder/CEO of Practically Green, an early stage start-up that helps people live greener and healthier by using technology and social networking to educate, motivate and recognize people for making green changes in their lives. Previously, Stevens spent nine years at The New York Times Company, most recently as senior vice president, digital for Boston Globe Media, where she ran Boston.com, one of the largest news and information sites on the web. She began her career as a management consultant, working for the same leadership team at three different firms, including Alexander & Alexander, Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman) and APM. Stevens joined The New York Times in 1998 as director of marketing for NYTimes.com, left the company briefly in 2000 to co-found and serve as President for Abridge, Inc, a venture-funded e-mail data mining start-up, and rejoined The Times in 2002 as Vice President of Circulation Marketing for The Boston Globe. She was promoted in 2005 to Vice President, Consumer Marketing taking leadership for consumer public relations and brand marketing for The Boston Globe and Boston.com. In 2006, she was promoted the Senior Vice President, circulation and marketing. Ms. Stevens received her MBA from The Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College; she also holds a BA in Government with high honors from Wesleyan University and is a candidate for a graduate certificate in sustainable design at the Boston Architectural College. She serves on the board of the Center for Women & Enterprise, a non-profit that helps women start and grow businesses, and Inspiring Kids, a non-profit in New England that helps schools raise funds in a way that promotes environmental stewardship and social philanthropy.

William C. Taylor
William C. Taylor is an agenda-setting thinker, writer, and entrepreneur. His new book, Mavericks at Work, has been a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, and was named a “Best Business Book of 2006″ by The Economist, the Financial Times, and Amazon.com. As cofounder and founding editor of Fast Company, he launched a magazine that earned a passionate following among executives and entrepreneurs around the world and won two coveted National Magazine Awards. His management blog, “Game Changer,” appears weekly on HarvardBusiness Online, and his column, “Bill Taylor on Big Ideas,” runs in London’s Guardian newspaper. He is a member of the Xconomy board of directors.

Our Board

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We recognize that there’s an important distinction between content generated by career journalists who are committed to the ethical standards of the profession and that generated by experts and insiders like the Xconomists (see below). The Xconomists offer a unique and important perspective on business, technology, and society, but they are also enmeshed in many of the potential conflicts of interest from which journalists strive to free themselves. We think the best strategy here is transparency, and so we have designed the site to clearly indicate which content comes from which type of author, the professional journalist or the expert. We also encourage readers to find out exactly where the Xconomists are coming from by clicking through the links below to their bios.

Ethics

The Xconomists are an unrivaled group of leading technologists, scientists, and business innovators. They will share their views and insights — and from time to time their pet peeves and perhaps a bit of gossip — in the Xconomist Forum. Those with asterisks next to their names (below) have also graciously agreed to serve on our editorial advisory boards.

BOSTON

John Abele*
Noubar Afeyan
Mohamad Ali
Howard Anderson
Bill Aulet*
Dave Balter
Abigail Barrow
Paul Bleicher
Joost Bonsen
Alexis Borisy
Janice Bourque
Shawn Broderick
Rodney Brooks*
Robin Chase
Jennifer Chayes
John Chory
Joe Chung*
George Church
Jim Collins*
Nick d’Arbeloff
Deborah Dunsire
Laura Fitton