Publications

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The risks of risk management

The risks of risk management

Risk may not be something you always want to limit online. This post tells you how raising the stakes of your online participation — by posting under your own name, by giving your blog’s URL to your colleagues, by being more candid and authentic in what you say online — can increase the value of your online engagement.

Defining the impact of social media on social capital

Defining the impact of social media on social capital

What are your online friendships worth to the community you live in? That's the practical question that is implicitly raised by Jon Hickman's interesting and slightly perplexing post on Social capital & social media. Hickman writes: ...as academics start to...

Twitter and be gay

Twitter and be gay

Leone Kraus has a fantastic article that covers the particular social media challenges for LGBT folks. As she points out, a guy who keeps his sexual orientation off-the-radar at work may find himself outed online if he's tagged in a Facebook photo taken at a gay...

7 practices to strengthen your online presence

7 practices to strengthen your online presence

This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series 10 reasons to stop apologizing for your online life

True online presence offers opportunities for authentic experience, connection and discovery; opportunities for joy and fulfillment. Practices like meditation, yoga and day-to-day mindfulness help cultivate the capacity for offline presence, so that we live our lives more fully. Now that we live so much of our lives online, we need similar practices for our networked time so that we can integrate our online moments into a meaningful life rather than experiencing them as moments deducted from our “real” lives. Here are some practices that foster online presence.

What we look like when we plug in

What we look like when we plug in

We all see them. Perhaps we are among the guilty ones. We see them at restaurants: Families at dinner; each member plugged into his or her iPad, iPhone or iPod. We see them at work: Colleagues texting and checking statuses on social networking sites while...

Social media vs reality

Social media vs reality

There's been a lot of hand-wringing lately about how the Internet is impoverishing our minds, souls and relationships. But Matthew Gallion has written what may now be my favorite articulation of why we should worry about the web in his post on Social Media and the...

Family movie night: The 2×2

Family movie night: The 2×2

Like everything in life, the conundrum that is Family Movie Night can be reduced to a 2x2 table. Common Sense Media has solved a lot of our household media selection challenges, but it's yet to resolve this one. Your kids will find this movie...   Appropriate for...

The Harvard Business Review

The risks of risk management

The risks of risk management

Risk may not be something you always want to limit online. This post tells you how raising the stakes of your online participation — by posting under your own name, by giving your blog’s URL to your colleagues, by being more candid and authentic in what you say online — can increase the value of your online engagement.

Defining the impact of social media on social capital

Defining the impact of social media on social capital

What are your online friendships worth to the community you live in? That's the practical question that is implicitly raised by Jon Hickman's interesting and slightly perplexing post on Social capital & social media. Hickman writes: ...as academics start to...

Twitter and be gay

Twitter and be gay

Leone Kraus has a fantastic article that covers the particular social media challenges for LGBT folks. As she points out, a guy who keeps his sexual orientation off-the-radar at work may find himself outed online if he's tagged in a Facebook photo taken at a gay...

7 practices to strengthen your online presence

7 practices to strengthen your online presence

This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series 10 reasons to stop apologizing for your online life

True online presence offers opportunities for authentic experience, connection and discovery; opportunities for joy and fulfillment. Practices like meditation, yoga and day-to-day mindfulness help cultivate the capacity for offline presence, so that we live our lives more fully. Now that we live so much of our lives online, we need similar practices for our networked time so that we can integrate our online moments into a meaningful life rather than experiencing them as moments deducted from our “real” lives. Here are some practices that foster online presence.

What we look like when we plug in

What we look like when we plug in

We all see them. Perhaps we are among the guilty ones. We see them at restaurants: Families at dinner; each member plugged into his or her iPad, iPhone or iPod. We see them at work: Colleagues texting and checking statuses on social networking sites while...

Social media vs reality

Social media vs reality

There's been a lot of hand-wringing lately about how the Internet is impoverishing our minds, souls and relationships. But Matthew Gallion has written what may now be my favorite articulation of why we should worry about the web in his post on Social Media and the...

Family movie night: The 2×2

Family movie night: The 2×2

Like everything in life, the conundrum that is Family Movie Night can be reduced to a 2x2 table. Common Sense Media has solved a lot of our household media selection challenges, but it's yet to resolve this one. Your kids will find this movie...   Appropriate for...

OneZero

3 tech alternatives to the lost-and-found

3 tech alternatives to the lost-and-found

Yesterday Little Sweetie returned home without her retainer. This is the moment we have been dreading for the four months since she got it. While interrogating her about possible locations for said orthodontic appliance, I couldn't help digressing into a conversation...

Learning to live with your lover’s virtual past

Learning to live with your lover’s virtual past

William Quincy Belle has a hysterically funny take on Shape's annual sex survey, which (among other things) looks at the impact of technology on our sex lives. Here's my favorite part of his blog post: 72 percent of women admitted in the survey to looking through a...

Ideas for the future of e-books

Ideas for the future of e-books

I enjoyed watching this video by blogger and digg founder Kevin Rose about his wishlist for e-book features. I found Kevin's video via a terrific round-up on social e-books at jjprojects

Listen to an ode to online love

Listen to an ode to online love

One day in October I was driving home and listening to Beyoncé and Lady Gaga sing Telephone. I love them both but Telephone has a special place in my heart, especially I am sick and tired of my phone ringing Sometimes I feel like I live in Grand Central Station...

The biggest WikiLeaks disclosure yet

The biggest WikiLeaks disclosure yet

The cover story of yesterday's New York Times Magazine is a must-read piece about the New York Times' experience covering the stories that emerged from the WikiLeaks source material. Editor Bill Keller talks about how the Times approached this unusual source material,...

JSTOR DAILY

3 tech alternatives to the lost-and-found

3 tech alternatives to the lost-and-found

Yesterday Little Sweetie returned home without her retainer. This is the moment we have been dreading for the four months since she got it. While interrogating her about possible locations for said orthodontic appliance, I couldn't help digressing into a conversation...

Learning to live with your lover’s virtual past

Learning to live with your lover’s virtual past

William Quincy Belle has a hysterically funny take on Shape's annual sex survey, which (among other things) looks at the impact of technology on our sex lives. Here's my favorite part of his blog post: 72 percent of women admitted in the survey to looking through a...

Ideas for the future of e-books

Ideas for the future of e-books

I enjoyed watching this video by blogger and digg founder Kevin Rose about his wishlist for e-book features. I found Kevin's video via a terrific round-up on social e-books at jjprojects

Listen to an ode to online love

Listen to an ode to online love

One day in October I was driving home and listening to Beyoncé and Lady Gaga sing Telephone. I love them both but Telephone has a special place in my heart, especially I am sick and tired of my phone ringing Sometimes I feel like I live in Grand Central Station...

The biggest WikiLeaks disclosure yet

The biggest WikiLeaks disclosure yet

The cover story of yesterday's New York Times Magazine is a must-read piece about the New York Times' experience covering the stories that emerged from the WikiLeaks source material. Editor Bill Keller talks about how the Times approached this unusual source material,...

THE VERGE

Make a family tech schedule

Make a family tech schedule

Today's practice: Make a family tech schedule. We recently took the bold, terrifying step of pulling all the gaming consoles (Xbox, Playstation and Wii) out of our home media center, and sending them on a vacation to the closet. We took this measure in response to our...

What experience do you want to have online?

What experience do you want to have online?

Today's practice: Think about the social media experience you want to have, not the brand you want to build. About three years ago, in a conversation that ultimately led to me shifting gears and joining Emily Carr, the very wise Morgan Brayton passed along a pivotal...

How to crowdsource your Facebook Timeline

How to crowdsource your Facebook Timeline

If you struggle to keep your Facebook Timeline dynamic and engaging, without creating what is simply a mirror of your Facebook or LinkedIn presence, the solution may not lie with you, but with your friends. For the past few months, I've been running a private...