Cell phones. texting. email. Social networks. There are many ways to avoid confrontation - and all of them technical. For Gen Y, learning to seduce face-to-face may be a bigger challenge than deciding to vote. Yes, technology is a blessing. We stay in touch quickly and effortlessly. But it also condones the worst sin: boredom. How else can you justify 500 Facebook "friends" sharing every banal, insignificant detail of their lives? If the average blogger invested as much time in an actual relationship - or recycling - we might have a cleaner, more connected planet.

It's in the nature of the media and communications industries that those employed in them spend inordinate amounts of time deeply immersed in its minutiae. The effort and intellectual capital that goes into such things on a daily basis is almost suggestive of obsession. While at its best - and such effort undoubtedly pays off to varying degrees - it is, in all cases, at odds with the amount of time and attention consumers give those efforts and the brands they intend to promote.

Devices are gateways. People use and consume media. They don't really think much about their device so much until it doesn't work. Like a doorway, you don't think about what it is or what it does until it doesn't do what you expect it to. Content is; it is the intent and the goal of its audience.

When i sat in on a research panel last year, someone said, "The fact that anyone can lead a luxurious life shows that the meaning of luxury has changed." Even though the research was only from several months ago, there's something about that sentiment that seems incredibly dated and irrelevant now, which made me wonder why. And if indeed it is dated, and things have changed so much, so fast, what does it mean for the luxury business?

The Gray Lady has thrown her petticoat up over her head and invited you in. When The New York Times Corp. held its bring-a-hacker-to-work day last month (more formally known as Times Open), it faced the digital future forward instead of backing into it as so many of its peers have been guilty of doing.

Let's begin by talking about some human beings. They are, after all, what this media thing is all about. We sometimes lose sight of that. We get so caught up in the process of what we do that we forget it is about connecting people. Connecting people to content. Connecting people to brands. And increasingly, connecting people to each other.

The worst thing to happen to network TV in 2008 wasn't the DVR, the writer's strike or the new 90210 (though that last one came close). No, TV's newest nemesis, appropriately enough, is an actual super-villain, albeit a struggling one with a crush on the girl at the laundromat, a video blog, and a tendency to break out in song.

When Jeremy Allaire, chairman and ceo of Brightcove, started his online television technology company a few years ago, he believed an open video distribution system would emerge - thus bypassing traditional programming distribution systems to the tv set. Not so fast.

Respond to email, company first, then personal, with iTunes playing (on iMac) on random play.8-8:45 a.m. Work on PowerPoint presentation on company laptop with iTunes playing (on iMac) on random play.

Freelance writer and author of this month's cover story6:32 a.m. Get out of bed. Curse father for passing along inability-to-sleep-past-6:45-even-when-hungover genes.6:33 a.m. Complete harrowing 13-step commute to work station. Flick computer open. Pull up separate Web browsers for personal and work email addresses, which are kept open all day and obsessively re-checked every 19 seconds.6:36 a.m. Open browser No. 3 for general research and procrastinatory purposes. Start off by reading the headlines up and down my Yahoo home page, then flip over to my fantasy hoops league. Shake a frustrated fist at the Big Guy/Gal above for having felled Kevin …