Roy Christopher

My main goal as a speaker and a writer is to entertain and as a scientist is to find novelty. I’m more of the former than the latter and more of a fan than a critic. I usually speak about technology, communication, and social concerns, as well as motivation, and getting things done.

I’m an aging BMX/skateboard zine kid. That’s where I learned to turn events and interviews into pages with staples. The pages and staples have long since given way to text-links and scrollbars, but the rest is basically the same. I still ride bikes, and I still skateboard. I do still commit quite a bit to actual pages, too. I hold a master’s degree in Communication Theory from San Diego State University and am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Communication Studies at The University of Texas at Austin.

Prior to graduate work, I earned a bachelor’s degree in Social Science, and spent over twenty years working as a writer, editor, and designer both on- and off-line. I have written about technology, science, music, and culture for everything from glossy national magazines and regional weeklies to hometown newspapers and homegrown ‘zines, and I have written, edited, designed, and consulted for such diverse organizations as Microsoft, Nike, The MIT Press, MSN Music, ESPN, the United States Army, Xbox, and Zero Skateboards. In addition, I have spoken to students and industry folks at many univeristies (The University of Washington, The University fo Texas at Austin, The University of Illinois Chicago, etc.) and professional conferences (The National Communication Association Annual Conference, South by Southwest, Geekend, etc.).

Recent topics include the following:

• Disconnecting the Dots: How Our Devices are Divisive
• How to Do Stuff and Be Happy
• Release Your Darlings: Platform Building and Postmodern Publishing
• Media and Metaphors: Theory Building in Media Studies, Design, and Architecture
• Follow for Now: Behind the Book and Beyond

My main project from 1997 to 2007 was frontwheeldrive.com. With that site, I established myself as what Disinformation called, “One of the Internet’s leading interviewers of subculture and new-science icons.” I was most recently assistant editor of Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky’s edited collection 'Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Culture and Music' (MIT Press, 2008). My first book is an anthology interviews entitled 'Follow for Now: Interviews with Friends and Heroes' (Well-Red Bear, 2007), which Disinformation named one of the most important books published in 2007, and which Erik Davis called, “a crisp and substantial remix of the major memes of the last decade or so.”