Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
12 inspired dry erase products and tips for whiteboard lovers
For those moments when MindJet, MindMeister, Popplet and other electronic options are just too constraining, the stationery overlords invented dry erase...everything. In the process of writing about how to create a whiteboard for your laptop, I found these crazy...
Erase this computer: a whiteboard for your laptop
This week I was in a meeting with Myron Campbell, an MAA student at Emily Carr. Myron runs Draw by Night, a drawing party that happens every other month in Vancouver (and now, Calgary). Myron had an awesome DBN sticker on his laptop that looked like a dry erase board...
Using HootSuite as your Twitter dashboard
At HBR: Using Twitter to fight distraction
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...
The Harvard Business Review
12 inspired dry erase products and tips for whiteboard lovers
For those moments when MindJet, MindMeister, Popplet and other electronic options are just too constraining, the stationery overlords invented dry erase...everything. In the process of writing about how to create a whiteboard for your laptop, I found these crazy...
Erase this computer: a whiteboard for your laptop
This week I was in a meeting with Myron Campbell, an MAA student at Emily Carr. Myron runs Draw by Night, a drawing party that happens every other month in Vancouver (and now, Calgary). Myron had an awesome DBN sticker on his laptop that looked like a dry erase board...
Using HootSuite as your Twitter dashboard
At HBR: Using Twitter to fight distraction
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...
OneZero
How my custom URL shortener taught me the 10 principles of tech support
The computer that set the standard for tech support in MY house was invented in 1975. Over the years, I’ve come to see that good tech support makes all the difference between having a great time online, and feeling awful every time you switch on a machine.
Waiting for your life online
1974 was the beginning of the end for waiting, as home computer kits and time-sharing systems started to cut into all those hours waiting for the mainframe. Over the years, we wait less and less, as our computers and Internet connections and smartphones get better and better. But waiting may just be something worth waiting for.
7 rules for rule-breakers
The Internet may be based on standards, but it hates rules. Thanks to the Internet we are now faced with almost daily choices about when to obey, and when to defy. If you’re going to be an online rule-breaker (and you probably should be, at least some of the time) these 7 rules can help with your rule-breaking.
1972: ELIZA, IANA and the search for (in)finite attention online
The 1972 Internet gave us ELIZA, a computer therapist, and IANA, which allocates IP addresses. Together they structure our contemporary dilemma: how do we get scarce, human attention in a world of infinite online distraction?
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...
JSTOR DAILY
How my custom URL shortener taught me the 10 principles of tech support
The computer that set the standard for tech support in MY house was invented in 1975. Over the years, I’ve come to see that good tech support makes all the difference between having a great time online, and feeling awful every time you switch on a machine.
Waiting for your life online
1974 was the beginning of the end for waiting, as home computer kits and time-sharing systems started to cut into all those hours waiting for the mainframe. Over the years, we wait less and less, as our computers and Internet connections and smartphones get better and better. But waiting may just be something worth waiting for.
7 rules for rule-breakers
The Internet may be based on standards, but it hates rules. Thanks to the Internet we are now faced with almost daily choices about when to obey, and when to defy. If you’re going to be an online rule-breaker (and you probably should be, at least some of the time) these 7 rules can help with your rule-breaking.
1972: ELIZA, IANA and the search for (in)finite attention online
The 1972 Internet gave us ELIZA, a computer therapist, and IANA, which allocates IP addresses. Together they structure our contemporary dilemma: how do we get scarce, human attention in a world of infinite online distraction?
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...
THE VERGE
App: Running late
Imagining an app that lets your friends or colleagues know when you’re running late.
Genius grants for inspired groups of collaborators
It would be fantastic if some creative foundation endowed a fellowship program that identified talent clusters: groups of tightly collaborative peers, likely in a single place,but possibly applicable to groups that have very tight, web-supported distance collaboration
Wouldn’t it be awesome if we had this site or hashtag?
Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were a site that invited people to complete the sentence, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if….” ?
Hanger card: How to have sex in the shower
Healthcare organizations distribute shower hanger cards that prompt women to do breast self-exams. The same approach could provide handy tips on how to have sex in the shower.