Moments of crisis, like the shooting in Newtown, tend to produce brief spikes of popular interest in gun control. My research on media attention suggests these spikes are extremely short-lived, and that they may be decreasing in intensity.

I fear that I can no longer travel without technology. Twenty years ago, I loved getting on a bus in West Africa and taking off for a city I'd never been to before, relying on advice from out-of-date travel books and fellow passengers on the bus. Now, I end up using TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Google Maps. I probably eat and sleep better when I'm on the road, but I miss the mystery of travel when it was more random and unpredictable.

I'm not nearly as well organized as I would like. I am a creature of to-do lists and calendars - if something doesn't get onto my Google Calendar, I don't show up for it.

Increasingly, I'm inspired by entrepreneurs who run nonprofit organizations that fund themselves, or for-profit organizations that achieve social missions while turning a profit.

People want to be thought of as something other than a source of money. They want to be thought of as creative, thinking people.

Talking about 'stopping globalization' is unrealistic - and probably not what anti-globalization protesters actually want.

It's fine to have social media that connects us with old friends, but we need tools that help us discover new people as well.