We are at an interesting inflection point in how people are using AI to write online. This week Panagram – the best known AI detection software – released a new free API to detect AI writing on social media feeds. In practical terms, what...

If you sit in front of a screen your job is at risk. That was Robert Sterling’s take in a recent tweet. Meta and KPMG recently announced they were laying off 10% of their staff. Microsoft is cutting 7%. The expectation is those are just the beginning...

We are heartbroken to share that my father, Norman Merz, passed on April 20. He was 99. Dad was born in Newark, grew up in South Orange during the Depression, served in the Navy during World War II, and then married Patricia Powell and raised a family...

The best story about The New York Times this week didn’t appear in the paper. In fact it wasn’t an article at all, but a web site created by a freelance journalist named Ted Alcorn. Alcorn tapped into the paper’s public API to create a dashboard that...

My alma mater, St. John’s College, has just one intercollegiate sport: croquet It started in 1983, with an annual match against the U.S. Naval Academy. Two years later, I attended the third such contest during my freshman year.  Someone took a black...

Dad has a trophy on his dresser of a silver figure wearing a Greek tunic and holding a laurel wreath over his head.  The base reads: “Allenhurst Beach Club, Second Place, 1941.” That trophy has been there most of my life and it was obviously important...

In the fall of 1962, my father drove my mother to Annapolis see his alma mater Cornell play Navy in football. My dad’s a sports fan and I’ve been asking him about famous games he attended and this one turned out to be one of the most memorable. He said...

Sometimes you can win big by playing the game differently. My father shared a story about one of the most famous football games in history. We were asking him about great sports moments he had witnessed such as Joe DiMaggio in the middle of his...

Origin stories can be powerful and effective. I spent the week working on a project to help two founders frame their story. I told them that a successful origin story has three criteria: -It has to be true -It needs to be simple -It must be memorable...

The word of the day is Stammtisch. I was at a dinner party of a group of guys in Manhattan and we were talking about how to communicate more regularly and effectively. Right now, we meet three to four times a year. I always wanted to be part of a group...