Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Social media is the jar my brain sits in
Brain-in-a-jar images of the future are usually presented as dystopian. But for many years, I found the brain-in-a-jar lifestyle nothing short of enviable: what could be better than eternal life, or even just regular old life, than dispensing with the annoyances of...
The Rule of 84: Social media for your limited budget or small audience
Creating a social media presence in 2010
Where The Social Network fails, does Gossip Girl succeed?
My latest blog post for Harvard Business Review talks about what The Social Network tells us about social media. Or rather, it looks at what The Social Network doesn't tell us about social media, since the movie used the birth of Facebook as the backdrop for a...
The Social Network: A Good Movie That’s Not About Social Networking
Singin’ in the Rain has been my favorite movie for almost 30 years. It’s got classic music, extraordinary dancing and,…
13 tips for using Facebook events instead of pages, groups or apps
If you’re creating a participatory project on Facebook, consider creating an event rather than a Facebook page. An event can provide an easy way of inviting people into your Facebook conversation, and you can use these 13 tips to make the most of it.
Coming to terms with groupness, on- and offline
How your life online can satisfy your need for belonging, community and “groupness”.
Locative technologies help us redefine what presence means
Simon King has a provocative blog post about the relationship between using technologies on-location, and actually being present in the location where you're checking. He begins by comparing e-readers and smartphones to books or magazines: In my experience, there is a...
Eat my words: a dinner club for copy editors
Rob and I love to go out for dinner, but food is rarely the highlight of the meal. Usually, the high point is the process of copy editing the menu. It's rare (virtually unheard of!) for us to dine at a restaurant that is typo-free, grammatically correct and...
Show + Tech: What I did on my summer vacation
Stinky socks. Talking dogs. Dancing jelly beans. We got to see all of the above -- and more! -- at the SIM Centre's inaugural show + tech. Show + tech is a chance for members of Vancouver's business, art and technology communities to connect with the faculty, students...
The Harvard Business Review
Social media is the jar my brain sits in
Brain-in-a-jar images of the future are usually presented as dystopian. But for many years, I found the brain-in-a-jar lifestyle nothing short of enviable: what could be better than eternal life, or even just regular old life, than dispensing with the annoyances of...
The Rule of 84: Social media for your limited budget or small audience
Creating a social media presence in 2010
Where The Social Network fails, does Gossip Girl succeed?
My latest blog post for Harvard Business Review talks about what The Social Network tells us about social media. Or rather, it looks at what The Social Network doesn't tell us about social media, since the movie used the birth of Facebook as the backdrop for a...
The Social Network: A Good Movie That’s Not About Social Networking
Singin’ in the Rain has been my favorite movie for almost 30 years. It’s got classic music, extraordinary dancing and,…
13 tips for using Facebook events instead of pages, groups or apps
If you’re creating a participatory project on Facebook, consider creating an event rather than a Facebook page. An event can provide an easy way of inviting people into your Facebook conversation, and you can use these 13 tips to make the most of it.
Coming to terms with groupness, on- and offline
How your life online can satisfy your need for belonging, community and “groupness”.
Locative technologies help us redefine what presence means
Simon King has a provocative blog post about the relationship between using technologies on-location, and actually being present in the location where you're checking. He begins by comparing e-readers and smartphones to books or magazines: In my experience, there is a...
Eat my words: a dinner club for copy editors
Rob and I love to go out for dinner, but food is rarely the highlight of the meal. Usually, the high point is the process of copy editing the menu. It's rare (virtually unheard of!) for us to dine at a restaurant that is typo-free, grammatically correct and...
Show + Tech: What I did on my summer vacation
Stinky socks. Talking dogs. Dancing jelly beans. We got to see all of the above -- and more! -- at the SIM Centre's inaugural show + tech. Show + tech is a chance for members of Vancouver's business, art and technology communities to connect with the faculty, students...
OneZero
Today on HBR: A hard look at the hard bodies promised by Tim Ferriss
My latest post for Harvard Business Review takes a hard look at hard bodies: specifically, the hard bodies promised by Tim Ferriss in his book, The 4-Hour Body. In the post I quote three experts I asked for insight into the book's recommendations: Dr. Tieraona Low...
Predicting the future of the “personal brand”
Yesterday Dan Schawbel published an interview with me on his Personal Branding blog. I have previously criticized the "personal branding" vogue both on this site and on my HBR blog, so I warned Dan he might be in for a rough ride! Much to his credit, he didn't shy...
The 8 stages of professional commitment: social media edition
I've recently crossed the commitment threshold. Not the romantic commitment threshold -- heck, that's easy, considering how little software is required (usually). I'm talking about the professional commitment I make to each project I take on, and to each partner,...
11 ways Twitter can change your life, as told by its users
Online conversations change lives. That belief drives most of my work and writing, which is why I'm always so interested to hear people reflect on the ways that social media affects their relationships, career or self-image. A few months ago I collected some of these...
Does the Internet eradicate barriers or perpetuate them?
The Guardian published an interesting story this weekend about the Internet's impact on disability. Aleks Krotoski writes that her masters' thesis in social psychology demonstrated two ways the web benefits people with physical disabilities: First, the web offered...
Diary of a yak shave: Or, How to get an Excel file into Scrivener
I need to write a draft document that borrows from my previous blog posts. A sane (non-techie) person might just write the freaking document, already. But that is not the Geek Way. So I'm now in the middle of an epic yak shave: Installed a Wordpress plugin that...
Singing goodbye to a Facebook “friend”
This week I participated in a fireside chat with Rochelle Grayson for Canadian Women in Communications, on The Pros and Cons of Social Media Marketing. It was the scrappiest conversation I've ever had from a (notional) podium, probably because Rochelle and I know and...
Status report on the perpetual home media overhaul
Gillian Shaw's delightful weekend story in the Vancouver Sun covered online alternatives to cable, and outed me once again as the World's Most Committed Cross-Platform TV Consumer: And then there are the techno geeks like Vancouver's Alexandra Samuel opting for a...
JSTOR DAILY
Today on HBR: A hard look at the hard bodies promised by Tim Ferriss
My latest post for Harvard Business Review takes a hard look at hard bodies: specifically, the hard bodies promised by Tim Ferriss in his book, The 4-Hour Body. In the post I quote three experts I asked for insight into the book's recommendations: Dr. Tieraona Low...
Predicting the future of the “personal brand”
Yesterday Dan Schawbel published an interview with me on his Personal Branding blog. I have previously criticized the "personal branding" vogue both on this site and on my HBR blog, so I warned Dan he might be in for a rough ride! Much to his credit, he didn't shy...
The 8 stages of professional commitment: social media edition
I've recently crossed the commitment threshold. Not the romantic commitment threshold -- heck, that's easy, considering how little software is required (usually). I'm talking about the professional commitment I make to each project I take on, and to each partner,...
11 ways Twitter can change your life, as told by its users
Online conversations change lives. That belief drives most of my work and writing, which is why I'm always so interested to hear people reflect on the ways that social media affects their relationships, career or self-image. A few months ago I collected some of these...
Does the Internet eradicate barriers or perpetuate them?
The Guardian published an interesting story this weekend about the Internet's impact on disability. Aleks Krotoski writes that her masters' thesis in social psychology demonstrated two ways the web benefits people with physical disabilities: First, the web offered...
Diary of a yak shave: Or, How to get an Excel file into Scrivener
I need to write a draft document that borrows from my previous blog posts. A sane (non-techie) person might just write the freaking document, already. But that is not the Geek Way. So I'm now in the middle of an epic yak shave: Installed a Wordpress plugin that...
Singing goodbye to a Facebook “friend”
This week I participated in a fireside chat with Rochelle Grayson for Canadian Women in Communications, on The Pros and Cons of Social Media Marketing. It was the scrappiest conversation I've ever had from a (notional) podium, probably because Rochelle and I know and...
Status report on the perpetual home media overhaul
Gillian Shaw's delightful weekend story in the Vancouver Sun covered online alternatives to cable, and outed me once again as the World's Most Committed Cross-Platform TV Consumer: And then there are the techno geeks like Vancouver's Alexandra Samuel opting for a...
THE VERGE
The Genzlingerizer: An app to enhance offline reading (and an IFTTT workaround)
I want to set up rules for the publications I read in print, specifying the authors or topics that qualify as must-reads. When said publication appears at my door, I want to launch an iPhone app that tells me which pages to look at in this morning’s New York Times, this week’s New Yorker, or the latest Entertainment Weekly. Then I want an easy way to take whatever I’m reading in print, and convert it to a set of links that are ready to share online.
12-Step Social Media Scanner & Intervention Bot
Imagining a 12-step bot that constantly scans people’s social media feeds for signs that things are out of control, and then tweets you the location of your nearest AA, Overeaters Anonymous or Shoppers Anonymous.
YouDrawIt: The shopping engine that lets you drive
Wanted: a shopping engine that lets me draw the shape I’m looking for — whether it’s a shoe, a shirt or a dress — and then searches the site for items that appear to match my shape.
Butt-crack mural: Rethinking self-judgement
This post was an exercising in suspending self-judgement: in this case, the judgement that a giant mural stitching together butt-crack photos is an unshareably bad idea.