Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
11 surprising insights into the future of mobile & BlackBerry from Tyler Lessard, VP of RIM
Tonight I attended presentation by Tyler Lessard VP of Developer Relations for RIM. There are 3 million downloads daily from BlackBerry store even though they have a fraction of the number of apps available on the Android and iPhone stores. ESPN reports more traffic...
Using your e-mail signature to fight inbox overload
It's day 5 of my vendetta on mandatory e-mail replies and I'm feeling the pain. On the one hand, I'm as committed as ever to changing the attitude that every e-mail needs a response -- an attitude that is totally out-of-step with every other channel of online...
Mindful of social media
Lori Deschene of TinyBuddha has a fantastic post on 10 Mindful Ways to Use Social Media at Tricycle. It's hard to pick just one to share but if I have to... If you propose to tweet, always ask yourself: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? Sometimes we post...
Two tweaks for your e-mail vendetta auto-responder
Yesterday I set up a vacation responder as part of my e-mail vendetta. If you're thinking of doing the same, you might note a couple of tweaks: I forward multiple e-mail addresses to a single Gmail account. But Gmail's vacation responder doesn't do a good job of...
Don’t try this at home: Implementing the e-mail vendetta
Today I declared war on e-mail. Well, not all e-mail: just the tyrannical assumption that we should all reply to every single message we reply. In a blog post for the Harvard Business Review, I called for a vendetta on the mandatory universal reply. That means...
Tied to technology
My latest toy is an iPod nano watch. It's just a plain old iPod nano, but it slides onto a watch strap specially designed to watch-ify it. I loved it for being red and iSomething and tiny but even so I wasn't particularly sure that it was a wise (read: financially...
Kenneth Cole’s Social Media Marketing Lesson
Milions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo…
Could you imagine life without Facebook?
Progressive Media Concepts recently posted an interesting question: What Would You Do If Facebook Shut Down Tomorrow? One I recovered from my blackout (it's my body's automatic self-defense mechanism when faced with the unthinkable) I read on, curious to hear PWC's...
Internet tunes: Craiglist Hookup – Missed Connections
Kate Allen has a great article in yesterday's Toronto Star about the phenomenon that is Craigslist's Missed Connections. It features the true story of a couple who met through MC two years ago...so yes, you can find love that way. Kate interviewed me for the story,...
Social media for the 28th day: 9 tech tips for easier periods
Today's post is a special for my female readers. Gentlemen, please avert your browsers as I'm about to discuss icky girl things that would constitute a betray of my gender if you all keep reading. Ladies, now that it's just us, let's talk about how to optimize your...
The Harvard Business Review
11 surprising insights into the future of mobile & BlackBerry from Tyler Lessard, VP of RIM
Tonight I attended presentation by Tyler Lessard VP of Developer Relations for RIM. There are 3 million downloads daily from BlackBerry store even though they have a fraction of the number of apps available on the Android and iPhone stores. ESPN reports more traffic...
Using your e-mail signature to fight inbox overload
It's day 5 of my vendetta on mandatory e-mail replies and I'm feeling the pain. On the one hand, I'm as committed as ever to changing the attitude that every e-mail needs a response -- an attitude that is totally out-of-step with every other channel of online...
Mindful of social media
Lori Deschene of TinyBuddha has a fantastic post on 10 Mindful Ways to Use Social Media at Tricycle. It's hard to pick just one to share but if I have to... If you propose to tweet, always ask yourself: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? Sometimes we post...
Two tweaks for your e-mail vendetta auto-responder
Yesterday I set up a vacation responder as part of my e-mail vendetta. If you're thinking of doing the same, you might note a couple of tweaks: I forward multiple e-mail addresses to a single Gmail account. But Gmail's vacation responder doesn't do a good job of...
Don’t try this at home: Implementing the e-mail vendetta
Today I declared war on e-mail. Well, not all e-mail: just the tyrannical assumption that we should all reply to every single message we reply. In a blog post for the Harvard Business Review, I called for a vendetta on the mandatory universal reply. That means...
Tied to technology
My latest toy is an iPod nano watch. It's just a plain old iPod nano, but it slides onto a watch strap specially designed to watch-ify it. I loved it for being red and iSomething and tiny but even so I wasn't particularly sure that it was a wise (read: financially...
Kenneth Cole’s Social Media Marketing Lesson
Milions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo…
Could you imagine life without Facebook?
Progressive Media Concepts recently posted an interesting question: What Would You Do If Facebook Shut Down Tomorrow? One I recovered from my blackout (it's my body's automatic self-defense mechanism when faced with the unthinkable) I read on, curious to hear PWC's...
Internet tunes: Craiglist Hookup – Missed Connections
Kate Allen has a great article in yesterday's Toronto Star about the phenomenon that is Craigslist's Missed Connections. It features the true story of a couple who met through MC two years ago...so yes, you can find love that way. Kate interviewed me for the story,...
Social media for the 28th day: 9 tech tips for easier periods
Today's post is a special for my female readers. Gentlemen, please avert your browsers as I'm about to discuss icky girl things that would constitute a betray of my gender if you all keep reading. Ladies, now that it's just us, let's talk about how to optimize your...
OneZero
5 questions that will make the most of your social media vacation
Do you suspect that taking a brief or extended break from the Internet would make you happier, smarter or taller? Tackle these 5 questions to get the most from your social media vacation.
10 challenging perspectives on social media & the Vancouver riots
The past week has been a laboratory in the power and limitations of online dialogue. While I have been troubled by the number of simplistic, hostile or unconsidered posts and comments about crowdsourcing the identification of rioters, I have more often been astounded...
Riot vigilantes speak for themselves
In the past couple of days I've heard from people who were initially enthusiastic about the crowdsourcing of rioter identification, but now see the concern with this kind of vigilantism. I'd love to take credit, but I'm not the most convincing voice in this argument....
Crowdsourced repression: Could it happen here?
The debate that is unfolding online about crowdsourced surveillance -- what Christopher Parson referred to as Vancouver's Human Flesh Search Engine -- rests on two implicit assumptions. It's time to get clear about what they are, so that people can talk more...
On the dangers of crowdsourced surveillance
My blog post for Harvard Business today looks at the troubling online reaction to last night's riots in Vancouver. Reflecting on the widespread enthusiasm for using social media to track down criminals, I wrote: I don't think we want to live in a society that turns...
8 ways to beat the urgency trap in online communications
In a thoughtful post about The Pitfalls of social media, Aleksandr Voinov writes Social Media exerts pressure on us to do things immediately and respond to everything immediately. I'm not sure about you, but sometimes I like to think things through and discuss it with...
5 signs that you’ve mastered the art of online discretion
I sometimes think that the most useful preparation for my career in social media came not from my academic research into online politics, but rather, my practical experience with electoral politics. Working on the political staff of a senior elected official (the...
The pajama test: An open letter to my Facebook “friends”
A year ago today, this blog post was the turning point in my relationship with Facebook. In my life affair for Twitter I'd pretty much lost sight of how Facebook could possibly be relevant to me. Then I made the decision that Facebook would be my personal space -- the...
JSTOR DAILY
5 questions that will make the most of your social media vacation
Do you suspect that taking a brief or extended break from the Internet would make you happier, smarter or taller? Tackle these 5 questions to get the most from your social media vacation.
10 challenging perspectives on social media & the Vancouver riots
The past week has been a laboratory in the power and limitations of online dialogue. While I have been troubled by the number of simplistic, hostile or unconsidered posts and comments about crowdsourcing the identification of rioters, I have more often been astounded...
Riot vigilantes speak for themselves
In the past couple of days I've heard from people who were initially enthusiastic about the crowdsourcing of rioter identification, but now see the concern with this kind of vigilantism. I'd love to take credit, but I'm not the most convincing voice in this argument....
Crowdsourced repression: Could it happen here?
The debate that is unfolding online about crowdsourced surveillance -- what Christopher Parson referred to as Vancouver's Human Flesh Search Engine -- rests on two implicit assumptions. It's time to get clear about what they are, so that people can talk more...
On the dangers of crowdsourced surveillance
My blog post for Harvard Business today looks at the troubling online reaction to last night's riots in Vancouver. Reflecting on the widespread enthusiasm for using social media to track down criminals, I wrote: I don't think we want to live in a society that turns...
8 ways to beat the urgency trap in online communications
In a thoughtful post about The Pitfalls of social media, Aleksandr Voinov writes Social Media exerts pressure on us to do things immediately and respond to everything immediately. I'm not sure about you, but sometimes I like to think things through and discuss it with...
5 signs that you’ve mastered the art of online discretion
I sometimes think that the most useful preparation for my career in social media came not from my academic research into online politics, but rather, my practical experience with electoral politics. Working on the political staff of a senior elected official (the...
The pajama test: An open letter to my Facebook “friends”
A year ago today, this blog post was the turning point in my relationship with Facebook. In my life affair for Twitter I'd pretty much lost sight of how Facebook could possibly be relevant to me. Then I made the decision that Facebook would be my personal space -- the...
THE VERGE
NSF Political Science cuts fail to predict the unpredictability of research
On March 20 the Senate de-funded political science grants from the National Science Foundation “except for research projects that the Director of the National Science Foundation certifies as promoting national security or the economic interests of the United States.”...
The 23 stages of the task management software lifecycle
Totally on top of all pending tasks Moderate slippage of select tasks leads to mild anxiety Catastrophic failure to complete one or more mission-critical tasks leads to wholesale re-evaluation of career choice, self-worth and why are we even on this earth anyhow?...
3 tricks for monitoring Twitter mentions and trackbacks
The brilliant Lauren Bacon made a big splash yesterday with her thought-provoking post on the emotional work that often gets assigned to women working in the tech world. The response to that post has been so massive that it's left her with a challenge: how do you...
Which Facebook updates could you live without?
The beauty of being married to a man with absolutely no interest in sports is that I would remain blissfully unaware of the start of hockey season, at least until I get to the office Monday, were it not for Facebook and Twitter, which are suddenly overflowing with...