Josh Sawislak

In his internationally acclaimed book on social trends, Malcolm Gladwell defines the "tipping point" as an idea or behavior's critical mass or point at which the power of its growth drives the expansion. He uses a metaphor, thinking of an idea or behavior like a virus in an epidemic --...

I recently read an interview in the New York Times Magazine with Phil Libin, the CEO of the software company Evernote. If you have ever been interested in the idea of pure outcome-based management, you should watch this company. For context, Evernote is a note taking...

It's time to clear the air. Last week was Telework Week and while more than 70,000 people pledged to work from somewhere other than their office, I have been accused of being a blind advocate for telework... a cheerleader, if you will. And trust me, that is the...

This week, as part of the annual Telework Week event, more than 64,900 people have pledged to work from somewhere other than their office. I could talk about the millions of dollars saved by these people ($5.1M) or the millions of pounds of pollutants they will keep out...

I had a very interesting conversation the other day with some folks from both government and industry about the return on investment (ROI) of telework. The coolest thing about working for Telework Exchange is that we bring smart people from both groups together to find innovative ways to...

Twenty years ago, we used to talk about the transit systems (typically buses and trains) as providing mobility and access. The idea was that people who didn't have cars or didn't want to use them, could get where they wanted to go (mobility) and could have access to work, education,...

In 1811, some English textile workers, fearing changes to their way of life, took axe and sledgehammer in hand and went after the new mechanical looms coming into use during the Industrial Revolution. This attack on new technology because it was new and different (and therefore, bad) usually earned them...

I was catching up on some reading over the Thanksgiving holiday and I came across a piece in The Economist that got me thinking. The column, written under the Schumpeter pen name (or nom de plume if we are getting all français), focuses on management issues. This one was entitled...

A short while back I had the pleasure of hearing former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan talk about innovation and the global economy.

Dr. Greenspan was pretty clear that there is no silver bullet to solve the global financial crisis, but that innovation and smart policy were certainly...

In 1966, director Bruce Brown made the iconic surfer film, Endless Summer. The movie suggests that if you only had the time and cash, you could keep summer alive all year long by chasing the sun between hemispheres. Oh, to wish and hope for such a thing is why we...

There's an old joke about a lost tourist asking for directions in Boston and being told, "You can't get there from here." Like any good saying, this one mixes a little humor and a little truth. But on a really bad day - a day that will be long remembered...

When I started writing this blog last year, a friend asked me what I was going to say. Of course, I told her I was planning to write about telework. "You know, working from home or someplace other than your office," I said. It's becoming a big deal in the...

Welcome back to the inside of my head. If this is your first visit, get ready for a bumpy ride because we are going to do a little traveling this week. I just got back from two weeks on the road and it was a very busy trip. With my...

Have you ever stared at a blank page, with no idea how to start writing? It sucks, doesn't it? I know I am not the first writer to experience this, because people have written books about not be able to write (funny, isn't it?). It's not really writer's block, because...

OK, the government didn't shut down last week. Yes, there was a lot of drama and brinksmanship in Washington over the past few weeks, but cooler heads did prevail and my former colleagues and other friends working for Uncle Sam are still at their desks... or are they? A lot...

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. This is probably the most famous English language pangram (a sentence using all 26 letters in the alphabet.) By the way, that sentence consists of 44 keystrokes and nine words and it took me about 10 seconds to type. So why...

The other weekend I went up the mountains with my friend Larry; since he drove, I offered to pick up the gas. On the way home we stopped to fill up his car and the bill was over $50 - and his tank wasn't even empty. Nationally, the price of...

How many times have you had an e-mail exchange with someone that went on for three, six, even ten back and forth messages, just to set up a meeting? Sure, you could have "had the meeting" via e-mail or even picked up the phone and called, but sometimes you need...

I've used this space to talk about a lot of issues related to telework, such as the personal benefits to the teleworker and the productivity increase it can provide to the employer. I have even talked about the sustainability and security benefits, but today I want to talk to you...

Happy New Year and welcome to 2011. I believe this is going to be a banner year for a number of reasons. First, it kicks off the second decade of the new century. No, 2010 was part of the first decade because there is no Year Zero (remember the false...