Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
My Facebook profile, now with extra hotness
If you haven't visited me on Facebook recently, you may not have seen my new super-awesome profile. It looks like this: And while you're visiting me, I hope you'll check out my new Facebook page, which I set up to share my writing and work. (I use my profile for...
5 reasons to consider putting your kids on Facebook
An open design process for SIMCentre.ca
This post appears today on the site of the Social + Interactive Media Centre at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Shh...don't tell anyone, but we're redesigning our website. That's the standard attitude towards website redesign, at least since the (merciful!)...
Get visual inspiration from Pinterest
I'm trying out Pinterest, which I'd describe as a social bookmarking system for images. You create "Pinboards" of images you like, and "pin" items onto the board when you spot something you like online. The site's default pinboards suggest likely uses: keeping track...
Blogging hubris
Yesterday I made the mistake of bragging about how well I've been doing with my daily blogging practice. And tonight I thought I'd knock off a quick blog post that would keep me in my groove. Instead I found myself learning the ins and outs of last.fm, playlistify and...
Using Syncplicity and Dropbox to put Google Docs on your desktop
How to cope with your life as a social media celebrity
I think that, in a way, we're all sort of acting like celebrities have to act, where you have personal persona and a public persona. You think about what you want to share with your fans. I know that's how a lot of people feel about using Twitter, where, by default,...
Calling all geeks: Are you ready for the GeekOff challenge?
Working as a person of the female persuasion in the world of tech, I mostly do pretty well being surrounded by a lot of guys a lot of the time. My Women's Studies degree may not have fully prepared me for my day-to-day life, but I've found that I enjoy the energy of...
What’s really hurting your relationships?
Today's paper has an article about how hard it is to preserve tight family relationships in a world where we have so many other relationships. It offered 10 signs your friendships might be hurting your family relationships: You can't get through a meal without having...
Call for Papers: Social Media in Higher Education
The Internet and Higher Education has issued a call for papers for a forthcoming special issue on Social Media in Higher Education (PDF). The issue will be edited by Stefan Hrastinksi and Vanessa Dennen. In the call, the editors note: In this special issue, we would...
The Harvard Business Review
My Facebook profile, now with extra hotness
If you haven't visited me on Facebook recently, you may not have seen my new super-awesome profile. It looks like this: And while you're visiting me, I hope you'll check out my new Facebook page, which I set up to share my writing and work. (I use my profile for...
5 reasons to consider putting your kids on Facebook
An open design process for SIMCentre.ca
This post appears today on the site of the Social + Interactive Media Centre at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Shh...don't tell anyone, but we're redesigning our website. That's the standard attitude towards website redesign, at least since the (merciful!)...
Get visual inspiration from Pinterest
I'm trying out Pinterest, which I'd describe as a social bookmarking system for images. You create "Pinboards" of images you like, and "pin" items onto the board when you spot something you like online. The site's default pinboards suggest likely uses: keeping track...
Blogging hubris
Yesterday I made the mistake of bragging about how well I've been doing with my daily blogging practice. And tonight I thought I'd knock off a quick blog post that would keep me in my groove. Instead I found myself learning the ins and outs of last.fm, playlistify and...
Using Syncplicity and Dropbox to put Google Docs on your desktop
How to cope with your life as a social media celebrity
I think that, in a way, we're all sort of acting like celebrities have to act, where you have personal persona and a public persona. You think about what you want to share with your fans. I know that's how a lot of people feel about using Twitter, where, by default,...
Calling all geeks: Are you ready for the GeekOff challenge?
Working as a person of the female persuasion in the world of tech, I mostly do pretty well being surrounded by a lot of guys a lot of the time. My Women's Studies degree may not have fully prepared me for my day-to-day life, but I've found that I enjoy the energy of...
What’s really hurting your relationships?
Today's paper has an article about how hard it is to preserve tight family relationships in a world where we have so many other relationships. It offered 10 signs your friendships might be hurting your family relationships: You can't get through a meal without having...
Call for Papers: Social Media in Higher Education
The Internet and Higher Education has issued a call for papers for a forthcoming special issue on Social Media in Higher Education (PDF). The issue will be edited by Stefan Hrastinksi and Vanessa Dennen. In the call, the editors note: In this special issue, we would...
OneZero
5 reasons to blog like it’s the last night of the world
I worry a lot about the world ending. My scenarios usually involve some kind of catastrophic climate change, pandemic virus or global economic meltdown followed by civil collapse. This intermittent tendency to fret over various doomsday is something I try to deprive...
140-character lessons in how to live your real life online
Your online relationships, conversations and creativity are as real as anything you do offline. That's the message I delivered last weekend at Northern Voice, Canada's leading blogging conference. My talk, titled Stop Apologizing for Your Online Life, jumped off from...
The dangers of relying on Facebook and Twitter authentication
If you're not going to talk about me to your friends, I don't want to know you. That's the message that your web site is sending if you only accept registrations from Facebook and Twitter users. You can see what I'm talking about at Pinterest, a social network for...
5 ebook features that tap the power of social note-taking
Peter Meyers has a useful blog post on 3 ways to improve ebook note taking over at O'Reilly Radar. As he points out in his post, note-taking is one of the ways in which print books still kick the ass of digital books, since they allow you to "[j]ot notes anywhere you...
5 ways technology can reduce the family stress of business travel
When you’ve got kids, business travel is especially stressful. It’s hard for them to have mum or dad away, and it’s hard for you to miss them. Here are 5 ways that technology can help.
This 40th birthday brought to you by Apple
What's the right way for a geek to celebrate the big 40? In my case, as many of you now know, the answer was to spend the previous 40 days blogging. That met my need for ritual, but what about the day itself? I wanted to do something memorable, something that would...
How to quickly remove unwanted tracks from your iTunes smart playlists
I like to create new iTunes playlists for lots of different purposes: for parties, workouts, for a regular day of work. In principle, the smart playlists feature works great for this -- just select a couple of criteria like "added in the past 100 days" and "BPM [beats...
40 tips on how to make the most of your life online
JSTOR DAILY
5 reasons to blog like it’s the last night of the world
I worry a lot about the world ending. My scenarios usually involve some kind of catastrophic climate change, pandemic virus or global economic meltdown followed by civil collapse. This intermittent tendency to fret over various doomsday is something I try to deprive...
140-character lessons in how to live your real life online
Your online relationships, conversations and creativity are as real as anything you do offline. That's the message I delivered last weekend at Northern Voice, Canada's leading blogging conference. My talk, titled Stop Apologizing for Your Online Life, jumped off from...
The dangers of relying on Facebook and Twitter authentication
If you're not going to talk about me to your friends, I don't want to know you. That's the message that your web site is sending if you only accept registrations from Facebook and Twitter users. You can see what I'm talking about at Pinterest, a social network for...
5 ebook features that tap the power of social note-taking
Peter Meyers has a useful blog post on 3 ways to improve ebook note taking over at O'Reilly Radar. As he points out in his post, note-taking is one of the ways in which print books still kick the ass of digital books, since they allow you to "[j]ot notes anywhere you...
5 ways technology can reduce the family stress of business travel
When you’ve got kids, business travel is especially stressful. It’s hard for them to have mum or dad away, and it’s hard for you to miss them. Here are 5 ways that technology can help.
This 40th birthday brought to you by Apple
What's the right way for a geek to celebrate the big 40? In my case, as many of you now know, the answer was to spend the previous 40 days blogging. That met my need for ritual, but what about the day itself? I wanted to do something memorable, something that would...
How to quickly remove unwanted tracks from your iTunes smart playlists
I like to create new iTunes playlists for lots of different purposes: for parties, workouts, for a regular day of work. In principle, the smart playlists feature works great for this -- just select a couple of criteria like "added in the past 100 days" and "BPM [beats...
40 tips on how to make the most of your life online
THE VERGE
2×2: Filtering your Facebook friends
How do you decide to view or relate to different friends on Facebook? As with all things in life, this can be described by a 2x2 matrix: Love this person Not so much Entertaining Facebooker Add to my "A1 pals" list, which is the news feed I look at most of the time...
What to tell your kids about dating before the Internet
Hey, old people! By which I mean: hey, people my age! If you've been wondering what dating wisdom you can usefully impart to your teenage or soon-to-be teenage kids, you should read Stephanie Martin's thoughtful post on Dating in the Social Media Age. Stephanie...
Don’t blame the Internet for infidelity
The Petraeus drama reflects the enticements and betrayals of our new, disembodied modes of discourse. The come-ons, the flirtations, the stalking, the alleged harassment: all were abetted by the deceptive cloak of cyberspace, and all were immortalized there. It’s a...
Smartphones have transported us from an offline third place
Public transit used to be a version of what Ray Oldenburg calls a “third place”: a neutral space, neither work nor home, in which conversation and community can unfold. Have smartphones changed that?