That question has led me to some interesting places, from the White House to the Sundance Film Festival, from the United Nations to the laboratories of dozens of biotech and medical device companies, from Google to Walt Disney World. (The food at Google is far better.)

I write the weekly "Innovation Economy" column and blog for the Boston Globe and Boston.com. I've served as a contributing writer for Fast Company and Wired, and my writing has appeared in other places, too, including the New York Times, BusinessWeek, Newsweek, Salon, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, the San Jose Mercury News, CIO Magazine, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

That's me with Patrick Rafter, another of the Nantucket Conference founders.

I'm part of the founding team of three conferences that focus on the innovation economy in New England. The Nantucket Conference on Entrepreneurship & Innovation is held every June. Convergence: The Life Sciences Leaders Forum takes place every May. And Future Forward, our fall event, bounces around to various venues.

I am also involved in hosting, speaking at, and moderating panels at a number of other events...most of them related to that big question above, and also how established industries and organizations can be more hospitable to innovative thinking.

Some ancient history:

Contact info: kirsner at pobox dot com 617-487-8212 (U.S. Eastern Time Zone)

From 2000-2006 I wrote a weekly column for the Boston Globe's Business section called "@large." Before that, I was the "Tech Talk" columnist for Boston Magazine. I've also had the chance to be a talking head on various radio and television shows (which sure beats actual work), including NBC's Today Show, NPR's Talk of the Nation, CNN, ABC News, WBUR's Radio Boston, WGBH's Greater Boston, the Discovery Channel, and New England Cable News. In 2005, the New York Press Club was kind enough to give me an award for "Best Feature Story," for a piece in Fast Company entitled "Fantastic Voyage." Columns that I've written for various IDG tech publications, including the now-defunct Darwin, have won awards from the American Society of Business Press Editors.

I grew up in Miami, where I attended the New World School of the Arts, studying jazz saxophone. At Boston University, I wrote about theater for the Daily Free Press, started a humor magazine called The Rumor, and earned a bachelor's degree from the College of Communication. After college, I worked for a management consulting firm called Lochridge & Company for two years, then was part of the team that helped the Globe launch its Web site, Boston.com.

A few organizations I am proud to support: the New England High School Journalism Collaborative; the Computer Clubhouse; the Media and Technology Charter School in Boston; and Youth Enrichment Services.