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I am possibly the oldest living Internet journalist in Germany. and definately one of the very first bloggers here, having started my „Online Diary“ way back in 1995.

I was born in 1950 in Washington State, but I have lived in Germany for almost all of my adult life.

Over the years, I have become an experienced public speaker, book author and moderator and TV anchor in the fields Digital Transformation, Digital Ethics, Digital Identity Management and IT security.

My next-to-last book, Digital Enlightenment, which I wrote together with my friend Ossi Urchs, has recently been published in English .

My latest book, Digital Transformation – why Germany is asleep at the switch and what needs to be done right now! , published in German by Carl Hanser, has become a standard textbook for non-technical managers involved in IT decision-making.

I am currently writing a new book entitled Wild Wild West – What the history of the American West can teach the world about the future of the Digital Society. In it, I draw close paralles between the lawless days of the Wild West and the equally lawless early years of the World Wide Web – which we still live in today. Like the settlers of yore, we will need to create order out of chaos, establish rules and a level playing feld and battle the modern robber barons of the „Digital Gilded Age“ who have created seemingly overpowering monopolies and locked us into their business models and platforms based soley of greed and exploitation. Like Standard Oil and other conglomerates in the last half of the 19th century, we need to reign in GAFA and others if we want to create a digital world which is fit to live in. This will not happen without struggle, and we need to prepare for it.

As the former editor Net Investor, a business magazine, as well as a contributor and columnist for a number of leading European newspapers and magazines, I have a proven track record for objectivity and for critically evaluating the impact of technology on business processes and markets.

Lately, I have accepted the editorship of Smart Industry – the IoT Business Magazine, which explores the exciting possibilities and challenges of a totall connected world and features articles on such topics as Industry 4.0, Cognitive Computing, Predictive Analysis, and Artificial Intelligence.

 

curriculum vitae

books

speaker topics

Cole family history

Links & stuff

21 years of blogging

Pinterest

moderator

New Media Training