Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Five Ways Twitter Can Help You Conquer Distraction
If you were going to design the perfect distraction, you’d probably make it irresistibly urgent, gossipy, and/or funny. You’d design…
How Twitter lists can keep you connected to the relationships that matter most
Happiness in 140 characters: building relationships with Twitter
Cool Stuff My Friends Sent Me This Week
One of the things I love about the Internet is its habit of bringing us little presents. No, I'm not talking about the complete set of Reboot action figures that I purchased on eBay for my retro-animation-obsessed kids. I'm talking about all those groovy little finds...
Introducing App Girl
This is a cautionary tale about the dangers of introducing children to technology. Four weeks ago, it was time for the annual ritual of Hallowe'en costume selection. Most years, I have the energy to make one costume, which means that one kid get storebought and one...
Vancouver Sun list of 100 influential women in BC shows influence beyond Twitter
I woke up this morning to the delightful discovery that the Vancouver Sun included me in their list of BC's top 100 influential women. With company like Alison Lawton, Cindy Lee, Susan Yurkovich, Annabel Lyon, Sarah McLachlan, Meeru Dhalwala, Cornelia Oberlander, and...
Social media for journalists: 10 essential tools
Social media for journalists: 9 feeds for your iGoogle dashboard
Back When Social Media Was Human…
Lisa Barone made my day with an extraordinary blog post, Back When Social Media Was Human… She jumped off from the piece I post this week on the Harvard Business Review site, on The Devolving Meaning of Social Media, and pointed to one particular quote that she...
LinkedIn for journalists: 5 reasons to shoot for 500+ connections
The Harvard Business Review
Five Ways Twitter Can Help You Conquer Distraction
If you were going to design the perfect distraction, you’d probably make it irresistibly urgent, gossipy, and/or funny. You’d design…
How Twitter lists can keep you connected to the relationships that matter most
Happiness in 140 characters: building relationships with Twitter
Cool Stuff My Friends Sent Me This Week
One of the things I love about the Internet is its habit of bringing us little presents. No, I'm not talking about the complete set of Reboot action figures that I purchased on eBay for my retro-animation-obsessed kids. I'm talking about all those groovy little finds...
Introducing App Girl
This is a cautionary tale about the dangers of introducing children to technology. Four weeks ago, it was time for the annual ritual of Hallowe'en costume selection. Most years, I have the energy to make one costume, which means that one kid get storebought and one...
Vancouver Sun list of 100 influential women in BC shows influence beyond Twitter
I woke up this morning to the delightful discovery that the Vancouver Sun included me in their list of BC's top 100 influential women. With company like Alison Lawton, Cindy Lee, Susan Yurkovich, Annabel Lyon, Sarah McLachlan, Meeru Dhalwala, Cornelia Oberlander, and...
Social media for journalists: 10 essential tools
Social media for journalists: 9 feeds for your iGoogle dashboard
Back When Social Media Was Human…
Lisa Barone made my day with an extraordinary blog post, Back When Social Media Was Human… She jumped off from the piece I post this week on the Harvard Business Review site, on The Devolving Meaning of Social Media, and pointed to one particular quote that she...
LinkedIn for journalists: 5 reasons to shoot for 500+ connections
OneZero
Another view of the Internet in 1971
Rob Cottingham, who was actually around in 1971, remembers the early Internet a little differently. He's annotated the Computer History Museum's 1971 ARPAnet map, which I included in my kick-off on my 40 years of looking back on the Internet: Thanks, Rob, for this...
One 40-year-old looks back on the Internet, c. 1971
As I approach my 40th birthday, I look back on 40 years of life online.
Why I’m happy to pay for the New York Times
My latest blog post for the Harvard Business Review is a celebration of the New York Times' new paywall. OK, maybe not a celebration of the paywall itself, but a celebration of the decision to alpha test the paywall on Canadian readers. This news gave me the same rush...
Twitter makes jet lag even more painful
It was 3 in the afternoon, but it could have been 3 in the morning to judge from the exhausted faces of a roomful of entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs constitute the up-and-coming generation of businesses in Cluj, Romania, and I had just spent the day talking them...
How many e-mail clients do you need?
Jodie Tonita is a lovely person. She is passionate, funny, kind to children and small animals, and an amazing hula-hooper. Unfortunately she was sent by our alien overlords to ensure I never do my actual work. As evidence, check out this message Jodie left on my...
How to write a blog post in 10 minutes
For Lent, I’ve decided to give up reading about digital fasts
Gosh, how I love digital fasts. And Lent 2011 has given us a bumper crop of digital fasters who now find 40 days without Facebook (or Twitter) more profound and painful than a month without booze, TV or smokes. Well, if they can live without us for 40 days (sniff!)...
How to sustain a social media presence in 3 hours a week
Feel like you don’t have enough time to create a meaningful social media presence? In this post I spell out my step-by-step process for creating and maintaining a high value, useful blog and Twitter presence in just (I mean it!) 3 hours a week.
JSTOR DAILY
Another view of the Internet in 1971
Rob Cottingham, who was actually around in 1971, remembers the early Internet a little differently. He's annotated the Computer History Museum's 1971 ARPAnet map, which I included in my kick-off on my 40 years of looking back on the Internet: Thanks, Rob, for this...
One 40-year-old looks back on the Internet, c. 1971
As I approach my 40th birthday, I look back on 40 years of life online.
Why I’m happy to pay for the New York Times
My latest blog post for the Harvard Business Review is a celebration of the New York Times' new paywall. OK, maybe not a celebration of the paywall itself, but a celebration of the decision to alpha test the paywall on Canadian readers. This news gave me the same rush...
Twitter makes jet lag even more painful
It was 3 in the afternoon, but it could have been 3 in the morning to judge from the exhausted faces of a roomful of entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs constitute the up-and-coming generation of businesses in Cluj, Romania, and I had just spent the day talking them...
How many e-mail clients do you need?
Jodie Tonita is a lovely person. She is passionate, funny, kind to children and small animals, and an amazing hula-hooper. Unfortunately she was sent by our alien overlords to ensure I never do my actual work. As evidence, check out this message Jodie left on my...
How to write a blog post in 10 minutes
For Lent, I’ve decided to give up reading about digital fasts
Gosh, how I love digital fasts. And Lent 2011 has given us a bumper crop of digital fasters who now find 40 days without Facebook (or Twitter) more profound and painful than a month without booze, TV or smokes. Well, if they can live without us for 40 days (sniff!)...
How to sustain a social media presence in 3 hours a week
Feel like you don’t have enough time to create a meaningful social media presence? In this post I spell out my step-by-step process for creating and maintaining a high value, useful blog and Twitter presence in just (I mean it!) 3 hours a week.
THE VERGE
Talk back to Vancouver’s rain on Twitter
Tired of Vancouver’s eternal rain? Talk back to @YVRrain, a Twitter account for Vancouver’s rain clouds.
Unstoppable Timer: mobile app wanted
A timer/clock/stopwatch that disables sleep when active, so I don’t have to turn off my iphone’s auto-lock feature when using my iphone to keep track of time while giving a talk. [EOM]
ClickCentral: a web app for tracking clicks on all tweeted links
I want a single analytics dashboard that shows me click rates for any link I’ve tweeted. Right now I have to look at separate stats for bit.ly, ow.ly, Buffer and alex.loves. [EOM]
Multiplication table app round-up: Blog post wanted
Learning multiplication tables ought to be a lot easier — or at least a lot more fun — in the age of the iPad and iPhone. That’s why I’d love someone to write a blog post rounding up different multiplication table apps.