Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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...
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...
The Harvard Business Review
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...
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...
OneZero
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...
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...
JSTOR DAILY
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...
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...
THE VERGE
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.
