the concept of the universal semiotic of technological experience: a language of images, symbols, and technologies that integrates the conscious and unconscious, the public and the private, in advanced industrial civilization;
zensocialism, an approach to socialism that focuses on the need for simultaneous change at the personal, interpersonal and social levels, blends activism and non-attachment, and aims at the minimally, rather than maximally rational society;
metaphorical metadata, amplifying standard analytical and conceptual classification schemes through classification based on metaphors, symbols, and analogies;[1]
the notion of the streaming body (developed together with Linda F. Crafts);[3]
the notion that the philosopher/musicologist Theodor W. Adorno's model of how to listen to modern music based on his analysis of the individuated nature of a modern musical work is a model for how to be an individuated person in contemporary society.[4]
In addition he works in the following areas: the sociology of digital simulation and of on-line environments; the experience of multiple identities and multiple realities among users of information and communication technologies;[5] and enhancing the experience of music listening. He has worked as a computer programmer/analyst, as a director of academic computing and networking, and as a computer journalist.[6] He has been corresponding editor for the journals Theory and Society and Zeitschrift für kritische Theorie and also writes cultural criticism and reviews.[7]
At Fielding Graduate University he served as senior consultant for academic information projects.