Mathew J. Schwartz is a freelance writer, editor, and photographer based in Oxford, England. He writes frequently about technology, business, culture, careers, politics and travel, as well as about usability — that is, the practice of making things easier to use.

Mathew's business and technology writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The Boston Globe, InformationWeek, Information Security Magazine, The Times of London and Wired News, as well as at such news outlets as CNN.com and Forbes.com. He has also detailed the world's top intranets, authored numerous usability reports, and contributed to the Fodor's Paris guidebook series. Corporate writing clients have included life-insurance firm SBLI, Intel, Hurwitz Group, as well as numerous consulting companies (on a contract basis).

Previous writing experience includes being a senior editor at Computerworld Magazine (1999-2001), a business and information technology weekly with a circulation of 350,000. He authored feature stories for the technology and business sections of the magazine, and contributed online news. His "Building a Better Laser" article in the May 29, 2000, issue of the magazine was one of three articles in Computerworld's nascent Future Watch feature, focusing on future technology, that won a "Best Department" award for the magazine from the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE). He has also appeared on Fox-25 News at 10 in Boston to detail technology trends and consumer electronics.

Prior to Computerworld, he held writing and editing positions at Cambridge Information Network, a business community for senior technology executives, and for such publications as Client/Server Computing and Software Magazine.

Mathew also has extensive experience creating and running online communities. He helped establish Computerworld's communities. Before that, he authored research reports and created content for CIN, a.k.a. Cambridge Information Network (1999), a restricted, global, members-only community for 3,500 CIOs. Prior to CIN, he was an early employee at theglobe.com (1995-96), a pioneering online community, where he led its editorial operations.

As a photographer, Mathew has over two decades of professional experience in black & white, color and more recently digital photography. In addition to producing stock photography for clients -- concentrating on portraiture, travel, and nighttime photography -- he also created written and visual profiles for annual reports.

Mathew studied English literature, critical theory, and Spanish literature, earning his B.A. with honors from Cornell University in 1995 and his M.A. from the University of Buffalo (SUNY-Buffalo) in 1997. He spent an undergraduate year studying English and Spanish literature at Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland.

He is an avid Ultimate frisbee player, former Emergency Medical Technician (EMT-D), oboist, and in the not-distant past became highly conversant in French.

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