Bio

I’m a California-based journalist and photographer. My writing has appeared in many newspapers and magazines, and I’ve written, edited, and contributed to more than 20 books and publications.

I'm perhaps best known for my one-on-one interviews with leading writers and thinkers. I'm the former host of Insight & Outlook, a program of ideas heard on many National Public Radio stations in the U.S. and on global shortwave.

My photography has been licenced for editorial and commercial use in books, magazines and newspapers worldwide. My documentary work has won several awards and been exhibited in museums and private galleries in the U.S. and Europe.

Over the past decade, I've devoted much of my time to consulting with academic, government, and nonprofit leaders on issues involving social innovation and civic renewal. I’ve also led several national studies and research projects aimed at understanding how social innovators do their work, the power of informal networks, the uses (and misuses) of collaboration, and how communities transform and renew themselves.

I was born in Washington D.C. in 1965. At the age of five, my family moved to Stockholm, Sweden, where I was raised and educated. I returned to the U.S. in 1990 and now live in Santa Barbara, California, with my wife and our two daughters.