Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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...
There are motherf&!#ing blogs on the motherf&!#ing plane!
About an hour ago I tweeted the following: Desperately trying to think of a tweet that makes it clear I'm tweeting from the plane, w/out making it sound like that's the point. The responses to this tweet were so fantastic that I just have to round them up:...
Mac users, meet your menu bar
Can you recognize the signs of SMBB? Selective Menu Bar Blindness affects millions of Mac users, but has yet to be widely recognized as a chronic and debilitating condition. Patient X -- let's call her "Shmalexandra" -- was treated for a classic presentation of the...
Silence the voice of your inner blogging critic
On especially bad days this is what the voice in my head says: [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/9856414" params="show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700" width="100%" height="81" ] But here's the good news: there's nothing like hearing your...
15 resources to accelerate your social media learning
I just got back from a fantastic day at the 20th annual Dynamic Women in Business Conference at Harvard Business School. What an incredible event! If the students who organized it weren't going to be busy running the world's next generation of startups, non-profits...
How Apple could offer “digital valet” service
I spend a lot of time tweaking my systems. And by a lot, I mean....a lot. Between my Macbook Pro, iPhone, iPad and our two home media servers, I figure that I'm upgrading something every week. Then there's my online system: the widgets I install on my WordPress blog,...
Breaking up affordably
What can you learn from Sprint's fantastic new ad for its mobile billing package? Check it out: Now, the lessons: Do not break up via electronic media. Nobody is interested in hearing about the technical considerations behind a personal, social or business decision...
3 tech alternatives to the lost-and-found
Yesterday Little Sweetie returned home without her retainer. This is the moment we have been dreading for the four months since she got it. While interrogating her about possible locations for said orthodontic appliance, I couldn't help digressing into a conversation...
Learning to live with your lover’s virtual past
William Quincy Belle has a hysterically funny take on Shape's annual sex survey, which (among other things) looks at the impact of technology on our sex lives. Here's my favorite part of his blog post: 72 percent of women admitted in the survey to looking through a...
The Harvard Business Review
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...
There are motherf&!#ing blogs on the motherf&!#ing plane!
About an hour ago I tweeted the following: Desperately trying to think of a tweet that makes it clear I'm tweeting from the plane, w/out making it sound like that's the point. The responses to this tweet were so fantastic that I just have to round them up:...
Mac users, meet your menu bar
Can you recognize the signs of SMBB? Selective Menu Bar Blindness affects millions of Mac users, but has yet to be widely recognized as a chronic and debilitating condition. Patient X -- let's call her "Shmalexandra" -- was treated for a classic presentation of the...
Silence the voice of your inner blogging critic
On especially bad days this is what the voice in my head says: [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/9856414" params="show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700" width="100%" height="81" ] But here's the good news: there's nothing like hearing your...
15 resources to accelerate your social media learning
I just got back from a fantastic day at the 20th annual Dynamic Women in Business Conference at Harvard Business School. What an incredible event! If the students who organized it weren't going to be busy running the world's next generation of startups, non-profits...
How Apple could offer “digital valet” service
I spend a lot of time tweaking my systems. And by a lot, I mean....a lot. Between my Macbook Pro, iPhone, iPad and our two home media servers, I figure that I'm upgrading something every week. Then there's my online system: the widgets I install on my WordPress blog,...
Breaking up affordably
What can you learn from Sprint's fantastic new ad for its mobile billing package? Check it out: Now, the lessons: Do not break up via electronic media. Nobody is interested in hearing about the technical considerations behind a personal, social or business decision...
3 tech alternatives to the lost-and-found
Yesterday Little Sweetie returned home without her retainer. This is the moment we have been dreading for the four months since she got it. While interrogating her about possible locations for said orthodontic appliance, I couldn't help digressing into a conversation...
Learning to live with your lover’s virtual past
William Quincy Belle has a hysterically funny take on Shape's annual sex survey, which (among other things) looks at the impact of technology on our sex lives. Here's my favorite part of his blog post: 72 percent of women admitted in the survey to looking through a...
OneZero
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...
11 best practices for managing your social network memberships
Between the Wordpress.com hack, the Honda Canada hack and the Playstation hack, I feel like my favorite online identities have been seriously compromised. Nor am I the only one: the recent attack on PBS servers has also created potential identity risks for PBS...
10 ways Microsoft Kinect will change our world in the next decade
Six months after our Kinect arrived in our lives, it's mostly unused. But that doesn't mean it's any less transformative than I'd hoped...just in different ways than I predicted. In our household the Kinect's shining moment came on New Year's Eve, when our first...
Social media for small organizations: Why size matters
10 ways you can tap the value of the Delicious community
A social bookmarking service that draws value from both its user and developer communities, Delicious makes it easy to keep track of your favorite web sites. Here are 10 ways you can tap into the unique value of the Delicious.
Lady Gaga and the transcendent narcissism of social media
Lady Gaga’s on- and offline relationship to her fans is a case study in the power and perils of social media narcissism.
11 social media tools that put entrepreneurs on the right strategic path
My latest post for the Harvard Business Review was inspired by a trip I made to Romania earlier this spring. I visited Bucharest and Cluj as part of the School for Startups, a highly successful UK-based entrepreneurship program created by Doug Richard. S4S is running...
JSTOR DAILY
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...
11 best practices for managing your social network memberships
Between the Wordpress.com hack, the Honda Canada hack and the Playstation hack, I feel like my favorite online identities have been seriously compromised. Nor am I the only one: the recent attack on PBS servers has also created potential identity risks for PBS...
10 ways Microsoft Kinect will change our world in the next decade
Six months after our Kinect arrived in our lives, it's mostly unused. But that doesn't mean it's any less transformative than I'd hoped...just in different ways than I predicted. In our household the Kinect's shining moment came on New Year's Eve, when our first...
Social media for small organizations: Why size matters
10 ways you can tap the value of the Delicious community
A social bookmarking service that draws value from both its user and developer communities, Delicious makes it easy to keep track of your favorite web sites. Here are 10 ways you can tap into the unique value of the Delicious.
Lady Gaga and the transcendent narcissism of social media
Lady Gaga’s on- and offline relationship to her fans is a case study in the power and perils of social media narcissism.
11 social media tools that put entrepreneurs on the right strategic path
My latest post for the Harvard Business Review was inspired by a trip I made to Romania earlier this spring. I visited Bucharest and Cluj as part of the School for Startups, a highly successful UK-based entrepreneurship program created by Doug Richard. S4S is running...
THE VERGE
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...
Love in flames: finding the joy in hostile comments
"I don't know why you care about the shit that a bunch of total strangers say about you on the Internet." This was my mom's delightfully candid and potentially comforting response to this week's comment eruption on my Harvard Business Review post. My mom is quite an...
Saying goodbye to pen and paper
My latest blog post for Harvard Business Review has provoked a strong reaction to the idea of saying goodbye to the paper notebook. Here's my own take on the experience of giving up on paper and pen. 4.00 22.95 Alexandra Samuel Those 25 characters, comprising a tip, a...