About

My name is Venkatesh Rao (I go by ‘Venkat’) and I started writing ribbonfarm in 2007. Since March, 2011, it has been my base for full-time writing, independent research, speaking and consulting.

My other writing includes Tempo, a book about decision-making, an email newsletter called Be Slightly Evil and regular blog bylines at Information Week (on Enterprise 2.0/social business themes) and Forbes (on general technology and business themes).

Ribbonfarm posts have been featured on Slashdot, Kottke.org , BoingBoing, and  the New York Times. They occasionally show up in places like Hacker News, where depending on the mood of the community, they are either savaged or applauded.

Between 1997 and 2011, I pursued a traditional research/entrepreneurial career (a PhD, a postdoc, a startup, and an industrial R&D lab where among other things, I founded trailmeme.com as Entrepreneur-in-Residence).

About the name…

The name ribbonfarm refers to the ribbon farms of 18th century Detroit — strips of lands 2-3 miles long, each with 2-300 yards along the Detroit river waterfront — that the then French governor used to resolve water disputes. I thought it was a great metaphor for a blog trying to get its thin slice of attention from the great river of eyeballs that is the Web. Here is a picture (courtesy, Detroit Public Library) of an 1818 map of Detroit that shows the ribbon farms.

About the tag-line

By experiments in refactored perceptions I mean changing how I see the world by trying to rewire the software in my head through writing. My little geek joke.