Last Friday’s Asian WSJ, and the online edition (subscription only, I’m afraid), published a feature I’d been working on for a while: The digital divide. I focused on Newmont’s mine in Sumbawa, in eastern Indonesia, and the company’s limited success in introducing e-business to the locals: Newmont’s supply-system project is typical of many around Asia — … Read more
(This is the text of my weekly Loose Wire Service column, syndicated to newspapers like The Jakarta Post. My thanks to Joe Wein for the information that made this column possible.) A lot of people think that online scams happen to other people, but they don’t. They could happen to you. Or a relative, new … Read more
This week’s WSJ.com column (subscription only, I’m afraid) is about what I call The Hole — the absence of decent devices in terms of size, weight and functionality between the smartphone and the notebook. To me it’s not just about cramming everything you can into a smaller device, it’s about making something that people enjoying having with them … Read more
At a conference I have been attending I was asked to explain to PR folk there what journalists want. Apparently, by the time my session came around, the PR folk had been put off by several previous journalists who had presumably used clear language to express what they want because most didn’t turn up. Wisely, since … Read more
You got to give scammers credit where credit is due. This latest wave of e-card spam at least exhibits some imagination on the part of the sender: At first it was from a friend, then a colleague, then a classmate; now it’s neighbors and worshippers sending you ecards. Good on them. I must confess I don’t … Read more