In my ongoing plan to take 2-months for decompression, my current tasks are:

• 5 speaking gigs (1 delivered, 3 more scheduled, 1 probable), which have given me a fresh chance to think about some hard problems.
• A one-day-a-week project exploring some ideas around communication. Not sure if there is a product/company there, but I get to write code, re-learn various machine learning algorithms, and see what’s there.
• Another one-day-a-week project testing to see whether a marketplace is the right solution to a business problem I see. Again, fun learning and writing code.
• A third one-day-a-week project thinking about what lies at the collision between augmented reality, virtual worlds, and several related technology trends.
• Advising/mentoring 3 early-stage startups on product design, technology options, and strategy. Exciting to work with a range of bright, early stage teams!

Guess this might no longer qualify as goofing off…