Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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...
3 ways short links can help you drive traffic to your blog or web site
This week I showed a colleague a few of my favorite tricks with link shorteners -- you know, the services that replace http://www.YourVeryLongURL.com/then-the-directory-name/plus-the-long-name-of-that-specific-page with http://bit.ly/sh0rtl1nks. After sharing some...
Strengthening weak ties online: A first response to Gladwell’s take on social media activism
Malcolm Gladwell has a new piece on Twitter, Facebook and social activism that is a must-read for people working at the intersection of politics and technology, and which feels especially timely after spending the past five days at Web of Change. He argues that the...
Students use the internet to keep in touch with parents | Easier
A UK insurance firm has released the results of a study that looks at how students use the internet to keep in touch with parents: According to the study, parents rely heavily on social media platforms like Facebook to keep tabs on their children once they've left...
Addicted to Internet addiction
Thanks to Tonic for pointing me towards Mark Malkoff's unusual retreat from supposed Internet addiction: by spending 5 days offline, in the bathroom. Malkoff's stunt was clearly more relevant as fodder for his online videos that as an insightful investigation into...
The accidental online society
Anil Dash's blog post last week on The Facebook Reckoning includes this terrific summary of what's at stake for us in inventing our new, social media-ted society: But what if I weren't my own boss? What if my family couldn't accept parts of my identity? What if I...
Keep your Facebook friends from revealing your secrets
The T-List has a very readable, useful and detailed post, Are Your Facebook Friends Revealing Secrets? The post points out that when you leave a post on a friend's Facebook wall, their privacy settings (whether they allow their wall posts to be viewed only by friends,...
Another voice for your real life online
Suzanne Moore at the Mail Online has written my favorite recent social media polemic, Why my friends on Facebook and Twitter matter as much as those in the real world. As a journalist, I am a fan of both Facebook and Twitter and am rather bored of people telling me...
Bathroom graffiti, meet social media
The back-to-school rhythm of September has stayed with me in the years since I graduated myself, but it has fresh resonance this September as I'm back in an academic environment. Here at Emily Carr the pace has quickened, the cafeteria is jammed and the anxious faces...
The Dirty Truth About Digital Fasts
Last year it was the staycation. This year it’s the digital fast. "How I unplugged" — from Twitter, from a…
The Harvard Business Review
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...
3 ways short links can help you drive traffic to your blog or web site
This week I showed a colleague a few of my favorite tricks with link shorteners -- you know, the services that replace http://www.YourVeryLongURL.com/then-the-directory-name/plus-the-long-name-of-that-specific-page with http://bit.ly/sh0rtl1nks. After sharing some...
Strengthening weak ties online: A first response to Gladwell’s take on social media activism
Malcolm Gladwell has a new piece on Twitter, Facebook and social activism that is a must-read for people working at the intersection of politics and technology, and which feels especially timely after spending the past five days at Web of Change. He argues that the...
Students use the internet to keep in touch with parents | Easier
A UK insurance firm has released the results of a study that looks at how students use the internet to keep in touch with parents: According to the study, parents rely heavily on social media platforms like Facebook to keep tabs on their children once they've left...
Addicted to Internet addiction
Thanks to Tonic for pointing me towards Mark Malkoff's unusual retreat from supposed Internet addiction: by spending 5 days offline, in the bathroom. Malkoff's stunt was clearly more relevant as fodder for his online videos that as an insightful investigation into...
The accidental online society
Anil Dash's blog post last week on The Facebook Reckoning includes this terrific summary of what's at stake for us in inventing our new, social media-ted society: But what if I weren't my own boss? What if my family couldn't accept parts of my identity? What if I...
Keep your Facebook friends from revealing your secrets
The T-List has a very readable, useful and detailed post, Are Your Facebook Friends Revealing Secrets? The post points out that when you leave a post on a friend's Facebook wall, their privacy settings (whether they allow their wall posts to be viewed only by friends,...
Another voice for your real life online
Suzanne Moore at the Mail Online has written my favorite recent social media polemic, Why my friends on Facebook and Twitter matter as much as those in the real world. As a journalist, I am a fan of both Facebook and Twitter and am rather bored of people telling me...
Bathroom graffiti, meet social media
The back-to-school rhythm of September has stayed with me in the years since I graduated myself, but it has fresh resonance this September as I'm back in an academic environment. Here at Emily Carr the pace has quickened, the cafeteria is jammed and the anxious faces...
The Dirty Truth About Digital Fasts
Last year it was the staycation. This year it’s the digital fast. "How I unplugged" — from Twitter, from a…
OneZero
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...
Create a category-specific series box with WordPress, Thesis and Organize Series
I use the terrific Organize Series Plugin for Wordpress, which I highly recommend for anyone who regularly posts multi-part blog series. You can see it in action on series all over this site, such as my recent series on 7 days to inbox zero. It lets you easily add...
How Twitter filters can help you cope with your fear of missing out
UPDATE: Seesmic is now part of Hootsuite, which doesn't support filtering based on excluding keywords. So during SXSW, I use Tweetdeck, which lets you filter a stream to exclude any tweet that includes a specific term. If you've been using Facebook, Twitter,...
11 surprising insights into the future of mobile & BlackBerry from Tyler Lessard, VP of RIM
Tonight I attended presentation by Tyler Lessard VP of Developer Relations for RIM. There are 3 million downloads daily from BlackBerry store even though they have a fraction of the number of apps available on the Android and iPhone stores. ESPN reports more traffic...
Using your e-mail signature to fight inbox overload
It's day 5 of my vendetta on mandatory e-mail replies and I'm feeling the pain. On the one hand, I'm as committed as ever to changing the attitude that every e-mail needs a response -- an attitude that is totally out-of-step with every other channel of online...
Mindful of social media
Lori Deschene of TinyBuddha has a fantastic post on 10 Mindful Ways to Use Social Media at Tricycle. It's hard to pick just one to share but if I have to... If you propose to tweet, always ask yourself: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? Sometimes we post...
Two tweaks for your e-mail vendetta auto-responder
Yesterday I set up a vacation responder as part of my e-mail vendetta. If you're thinking of doing the same, you might note a couple of tweaks: I forward multiple e-mail addresses to a single Gmail account. But Gmail's vacation responder doesn't do a good job of...
Don’t try this at home: Implementing the e-mail vendetta
Today I declared war on e-mail. Well, not all e-mail: just the tyrannical assumption that we should all reply to every single message we reply. In a blog post for the Harvard Business Review, I called for a vendetta on the mandatory universal reply. That means...
JSTOR DAILY
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...
Create a category-specific series box with WordPress, Thesis and Organize Series
I use the terrific Organize Series Plugin for Wordpress, which I highly recommend for anyone who regularly posts multi-part blog series. You can see it in action on series all over this site, such as my recent series on 7 days to inbox zero. It lets you easily add...
How Twitter filters can help you cope with your fear of missing out
UPDATE: Seesmic is now part of Hootsuite, which doesn't support filtering based on excluding keywords. So during SXSW, I use Tweetdeck, which lets you filter a stream to exclude any tweet that includes a specific term. If you've been using Facebook, Twitter,...
11 surprising insights into the future of mobile & BlackBerry from Tyler Lessard, VP of RIM
Tonight I attended presentation by Tyler Lessard VP of Developer Relations for RIM. There are 3 million downloads daily from BlackBerry store even though they have a fraction of the number of apps available on the Android and iPhone stores. ESPN reports more traffic...
Using your e-mail signature to fight inbox overload
It's day 5 of my vendetta on mandatory e-mail replies and I'm feeling the pain. On the one hand, I'm as committed as ever to changing the attitude that every e-mail needs a response -- an attitude that is totally out-of-step with every other channel of online...
Mindful of social media
Lori Deschene of TinyBuddha has a fantastic post on 10 Mindful Ways to Use Social Media at Tricycle. It's hard to pick just one to share but if I have to... If you propose to tweet, always ask yourself: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? Sometimes we post...
Two tweaks for your e-mail vendetta auto-responder
Yesterday I set up a vacation responder as part of my e-mail vendetta. If you're thinking of doing the same, you might note a couple of tweaks: I forward multiple e-mail addresses to a single Gmail account. But Gmail's vacation responder doesn't do a good job of...
Don’t try this at home: Implementing the e-mail vendetta
Today I declared war on e-mail. Well, not all e-mail: just the tyrannical assumption that we should all reply to every single message we reply. In a blog post for the Harvard Business Review, I called for a vendetta on the mandatory universal reply. That means...
THE VERGE
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.
Rain swag for the farmers market
NameRater: A search tool for evaluating a possible name change
Wanted: a search tool that evaluates the search engine visibility of your prospective married name, or the name you are considering for your baby.
SinglesMob: An app for turning parties into mixers
Envisioning an app that lets you blast your single friends with the news that you are at a party with a lot of single guys (and not enough women) or vice versa.