During the COVID-19 pandemic, many U.S. small towns and secondary cities started offering cash and in-kind incentives to attract remote workers eager to escape overcrowded coastal cities. These new incentive schemes, known in economic literature as Remote Work Attraction Incentives Programs (see Strauss … Read More
Author Archives: Alberto


Hustle harder? My ICA 2022 virtual presentation
After two virtual editions (2020 and 2021), the International Communication Association annual conference is back in a hybrid format. I admit that the idea of traveling to Paris to present my work was enticing. However, due to scheduling conflicts, I … Read More

The impact of remote work on US rural regions and secondary cities
On Thursday, March 24 I had the pleasure to present my latest research on the impact of remote work on US rural regions and secondary cities at the Communicative Cities Research Network Symposium 2022, organized by the European Communication Research … Read More

ISA Forum of Sociology
Last month I had the pleasure of presenting at the IV ISA Forum of Sociology. The conference was supposed to take place in 2020 in Porto Alegre, Brasil. Because of Covid, ISA decided to push the forum to 2021 and … Read More

Some shots from my research photo album
In this post, I decided to open my archive and publish some of the pictures I have taken throughout my journey into the Vancouver startup scene. The quality of my shots is…what it is. I am not a photographer and … Read More

It’s an ongoing bromance
What do Silicon Valley and the countercultural movements of the 1960s have in common? The answer is…a lot. At least this is what Fred Turner argues in his highly influential book From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth … Read More

Lines of Work: an interview with Jill Anholt
The Oxford English Dictionary defines serendipity as the “faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident”. Serendipitous was, indeed, my encounter with Jill Anholt‘s art installation Lines of Work. Jill Anholt is a visual artist based in Vancouver and … Read More

ICA 2020 – My first virtual conference ever
The 70th edition of the International Communication Association conference was supposed to take place in these days in wonderful Gold Coast, Australia. By the time you’ll be reading this post, you’d probably already know that the organizers decided to cancel … Read More

On API and digital methods
Just a couple months ago I was celebrating the release of the Meetup Archiver on Github. A little piece of software sending requests to Meetup.com and retrieving data via their official APIs. A software that, I wish, could be useful … Read More

Labora @ 4s 2019 New Orleans
My video for 4s 2019: Innovations, Interruptions, Regenerations, panel on “Disrupting Algorithms: Innovating Work and Life in the Digital Economy” organized by Yujie Chen and Alessandro Delfanti. Video recorded at the Vancouver Public Library Inspiration Lab.