Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Why you should hand your kid that iPhone
I see you looking at me from the other side of the coffee shop?—?yes, you: the hemp-swaddled mom with the slightly sticky child who is playing with that organic wooden toy. You probably hope that toy will teach her hand-eye coordination or bring him into harmony with...
How the Sharing Economy Can Improve Your Next Business Trip
How on-demand apps can help business travellers squeeze every last minute of value out of their time on the road.
Threat-based parenting: Dos and Don’ts
As featured on Medium, a handy guide to getting those pesky kids under control with the power of threats. Thanks to the rise of screens, there’s never been a better time for threat-based parenting.
Why the Sharing Economy Isn’t Such a Boon for the Little Guy
We love to tell the story of the collaborative economy as the rise of the little guy. The data suggests otherwise.
14 things to try if school doesn’t work for your child
If you run into challenges as your kid starts school — or if you’ve been struggling with school challenges for a while, as we have — you’re not alone. Here’s what we’ve learned from the struggle.
When school doesn’t fit: our 2E story
When I sat down to share my insights into navigating the school system with a kid who just doesn’t fit the conventional student mould, I realized that my insights were meaningless without the context of our own experience parenting a 2E (twice exceptional) child.
Why and How to Yes (and Yes Yes)
Yes and Yes Yes is an extraordinary gathering. Here is why I want to go back next year — and how I plan to make the most of it.
How digital tools can manage your kids’ schoolwork and activities
Staying on top of school emails and field trip permissions is a huge headache. Here’s the setup that could make it easier.
14 reasons not to allow your kid to fall asleep in your bed
Trying to convince your kid to stay in her own bed? Here’s a handy list of reasons.
Hey Vancouver: It’s okay to be boring
“Work-life balance”, “relaxed lifestyle”, “not Toronto” — these are the phrases Vancouverites use to describe what makes our city different from other cities. And not coincidentally, they are all ways of saying we’re a city with a slower pace than the vast majority of major North American cities.
The Harvard Business Review
Why you should hand your kid that iPhone
I see you looking at me from the other side of the coffee shop?—?yes, you: the hemp-swaddled mom with the slightly sticky child who is playing with that organic wooden toy. You probably hope that toy will teach her hand-eye coordination or bring him into harmony with...
How the Sharing Economy Can Improve Your Next Business Trip
How on-demand apps can help business travellers squeeze every last minute of value out of their time on the road.
Threat-based parenting: Dos and Don’ts
As featured on Medium, a handy guide to getting those pesky kids under control with the power of threats. Thanks to the rise of screens, there’s never been a better time for threat-based parenting.
Why the Sharing Economy Isn’t Such a Boon for the Little Guy
We love to tell the story of the collaborative economy as the rise of the little guy. The data suggests otherwise.
14 things to try if school doesn’t work for your child
If you run into challenges as your kid starts school — or if you’ve been struggling with school challenges for a while, as we have — you’re not alone. Here’s what we’ve learned from the struggle.
When school doesn’t fit: our 2E story
When I sat down to share my insights into navigating the school system with a kid who just doesn’t fit the conventional student mould, I realized that my insights were meaningless without the context of our own experience parenting a 2E (twice exceptional) child.
Why and How to Yes (and Yes Yes)
Yes and Yes Yes is an extraordinary gathering. Here is why I want to go back next year — and how I plan to make the most of it.
How digital tools can manage your kids’ schoolwork and activities
Staying on top of school emails and field trip permissions is a huge headache. Here’s the setup that could make it easier.
14 reasons not to allow your kid to fall asleep in your bed
Trying to convince your kid to stay in her own bed? Here’s a handy list of reasons.
Hey Vancouver: It’s okay to be boring
“Work-life balance”, “relaxed lifestyle”, “not Toronto” — these are the phrases Vancouverites use to describe what makes our city different from other cities. And not coincidentally, they are all ways of saying we’re a city with a slower pace than the vast majority of major North American cities.
OneZero
How Email destroyed the world
I spent the last day of Western Civilization addressing the very phenomenon that caused our collective downfall: email. On November 8th—Election Day—I spent six hours in a rented studio in Manhattan, taping a new class for Skillshare. Email Productivity: Work Smarter...
Resistance is futile: A success story
Sometimes success looks like a little boy sobbing his eyes out. This success story begins yesterday morning, when Peanut showed up at school in his Halloween costume: a Borg cube. For those of you who aren’t Star Trek fans, let me explain that the Borg are a race of...
In The Orange Dot: Is my kid addicted to tech or am I just old?
Even adults can get obsessed with their social media analytics. So what do you do when your kids start measuring their every online move.
Rock Bottom
When we finally pulled Peanut out of public school at the end of Grade 2, I thought we’d reached rock bottom. We had a 7-year-old with a basket of diagnoses and labels: anxiety, ADHD, sensory processing issues, tic disorder, fine motor lags and a 99.99th percentile...
Telling tales about my autistic son
Introducing The Peanut Diaries: dedicated to sharing the experience of raising our gifted, autistic son.
Now on JSTOR: A Novel Defense of the Internet
Like the Internet, the novel was once viewed as a colossal waste of time. My post for JSTOR Daily looks at how fiction became respectable — and how the Internet can, too.
How people feel about sharing a name online
Thanks to the Internet, more and more of us have digital doubles: people who share our name, and may often be confused with us. I try to keep track of all the other people out there named "Alexandra Samuel", and yet I also feel vaguely uncomfortable with the fact that...
TV for every occasion: shows for family viewing, multitasking and more
The problem with the golden age of TV is that with so many choices, it’s hard to know what to watch. This guide and cheat sheet helps you choose the right shows for four different occasions: dedicated viewing, multitasking, working out and family viewing.
JSTOR DAILY
How Email destroyed the world
I spent the last day of Western Civilization addressing the very phenomenon that caused our collective downfall: email. On November 8th—Election Day—I spent six hours in a rented studio in Manhattan, taping a new class for Skillshare. Email Productivity: Work Smarter...
Resistance is futile: A success story
Sometimes success looks like a little boy sobbing his eyes out. This success story begins yesterday morning, when Peanut showed up at school in his Halloween costume: a Borg cube. For those of you who aren’t Star Trek fans, let me explain that the Borg are a race of...
In The Orange Dot: Is my kid addicted to tech or am I just old?
Even adults can get obsessed with their social media analytics. So what do you do when your kids start measuring their every online move.
Rock Bottom
When we finally pulled Peanut out of public school at the end of Grade 2, I thought we’d reached rock bottom. We had a 7-year-old with a basket of diagnoses and labels: anxiety, ADHD, sensory processing issues, tic disorder, fine motor lags and a 99.99th percentile...
Telling tales about my autistic son
Introducing The Peanut Diaries: dedicated to sharing the experience of raising our gifted, autistic son.
Now on JSTOR: A Novel Defense of the Internet
Like the Internet, the novel was once viewed as a colossal waste of time. My post for JSTOR Daily looks at how fiction became respectable — and how the Internet can, too.
How people feel about sharing a name online
Thanks to the Internet, more and more of us have digital doubles: people who share our name, and may often be confused with us. I try to keep track of all the other people out there named "Alexandra Samuel", and yet I also feel vaguely uncomfortable with the fact that...
TV for every occasion: shows for family viewing, multitasking and more
The problem with the golden age of TV is that with so many choices, it’s hard to know what to watch. This guide and cheat sheet helps you choose the right shows for four different occasions: dedicated viewing, multitasking, working out and family viewing.
THE VERGE
To Write Better, Use AI to Write Faster
What’s more valuable: Writing fast, or writing well? Thanks to GPT and other generative AI tools, you don’t have to choose. In fact, you may find that writing more quickly (with the help of Al) lets you produce much better writing. Turning speed into quality...
Hybrid work is up for negotiation
More and more organizations are forcing workers back to the office, imagining that economic pressure and a loosening job market mean employees will have to accept whatever job schedules or flexibility they’re offered. These remote-skeptical employers need to pay close...
Will artificial intellegience make collaboration better—or much, much worse?
The workplace impact of AI isn’t just a matter of whether, but when and which jobs get replaced or reinvented by artificial intelligence. AI is already rewriting the rules of how we work together—by reshaping our interactions with other humans. That’s the flip side of...
How GPT Clears Hybrid Work’s Top 3 Roadblocks
With all the big-picture discussions about how AI is going to change the future of work, it’s easy to lose sight of how AI could change our working lives right now. But the more time I spend using ChatGPT, and honing the skill of coaxing really useful responses...