Kline, David 1950–

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Kline, David 1950–

PERSONAL: Born 1950.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, CDS Books, 425 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10017. E-mail—david@blogrevolt.com; dkline@well.com.

CAREER: Journalist, writer, business consultant. Former columnist for Wired and Upside magazines; reporter for New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Atlantic, NBC News, CBS News, and Rolling Stone; consultant to Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, Accenture, Discovery Channel, Network Associates, Cordant Technologies, and InteCap. Has also worked as a radio commentator and business speaker.

AWARDS, HONORS: Pulitzer Prize nomination for international reporting.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(With Daniel Burstein) Road Warriors: Dreams and Nightmares along the Information Highway, Dutton (New York, NY), 1995.

(With Kevin G. Rivette) Rembrandts in the Attic: Unlocking the Hidden Value of Patents, Harvard Business School Press (Boston, MA), 2000.

(With Daniel Burstein) Blog! How the Newest Media Revolution Is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture, edited by Arne J. De Keijzer and Paul Berger, CDS Books (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to business periodicals, including Harvard Business Review, Chief Executive, Business 2.0, and Sloan Management Review.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A book about business Web logging.

SIDELIGHTS: As a successful journalist, David Kline has covered stories for a wide range of media. He has reported in several countries, including Bolivia, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan. Kline was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting for his 1979 work in Afghanistan. In addition to his work as a journalist, he also serves as a business consultant to large corporations and is the author of several books.

Kline's first nonfiction work, written with Daniel Burstein, is Road Warriors: Dreams and Nightmares along the Information Highway. In it, the authors provide an analysis of significant advancements made in information technology during the twentieth century by examining events that led up to each innovation and by discussing the specific consequences that followed them. The book also contains interviews with key figures in technology companies who give various points of view on the 'digital revolution.'

Reviewers' reactions to the book varied. Rick Tetzeli, writing in Fortune, found that "reading Road Warriors is like catching up on three years' worth of technological trends without having to sift through the boring stuff." Tetzeli went on to note, however, that the book "covers so many topics that reading it straight through is dissatisfying." Alternately, Mary Paulson, a reviewer for PC magazine, thought that "further discussions about privacy issues, the debate over government intervention, and the ever-increasing split between the haves and the have-nots give the book an added human dimension." Paulson also pointed out that the book "is an intelligently written, enjoyable read."

Kline's next nonfiction work, Rembrandts in the Attic: Unlocking the Hidden Value of Patents, was published in 2000. The book, which Kline wrote with patent attorney Kevin G. Rivette, stresses the value of intellectual property and claims that companies that capitalize on patents and copyrights will gain an advantage over those that do not. "This book makes it utterly clear that executives should be sure they are patenting, or at least assessing, every idea their companies have," observed a reviewer for Whole Earth.

Rembrandts in the Attic was followed in 2005 by Blog! How the Newest Media Revolution Is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture. The book, which Kline wrote with Burstein, is a combination of interviews and essays concerning online Web logs, or 'blogs.' The authors argue that blogs are revolutionary and they analyze the effects of blogs on business, politics, and culture. Carlin Romano, reviewing the book for the Philadelphia Inquirer, stated that Blog! "provides a sophisticated intro to a new container of writing that resembles its predecessors, but also counts as an advance." Other reviewers similarly praised the work. Keir Graff, writing in Booklist, noted that the book "focuses on the larger issues … while steering clear of details that will date quickly." Graff thus concluded that the book is "well worthwhile."