Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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...
5 ways to get authentically naked
What’s the line between authenticity and over-disclosure? This post offers 5 ways you can keep track of the boundary between sharing and over-sharing.
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
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...
How to use Thesis to customize your teasers by page and category
I use the Thesis theme for my Wordpress blog. Thesis is much beloved in the Wordpress community because it allows a high degree of customization using its two pages of configuration menus, so even if you know nothing about PHP or CSS you can do a lot to customize your...
How to win friends and influence people…through social media
Dale Carnegie's How to win friends and influence people could be described as the father of relationship marketing and the grandfather of social media. Two recent blog posts revisit the book and highlight its implications for the social media era. J. Eddie Smith's...
The single woman’s guide to texting
My husband and I are closing in on our 10th wedding anniversary, and for the most part, that is great news. About 11.5 years out of our past 12 years together have been very very happy, and if you zero out the months that were tense because one of us had a new Macbook...
Research reveals people can survive up to 24 hours without Internet access
I'm fascinated by the number of people who are experimenting with different forms of unplugging: journalists, bloggers and tweeters who take some kind of solo holiday from connectivity. But a recent study at the University of Maryland took a larger-scale approach,...
An evangelical perspective on information overload
I was fascinated to come across an evangelical take on the problem of information overload. Becky Sweat's article in The Good News reads: information overload can distract us from the most important priority in our lives—our relationship with God. Indeed, a healthy...
10 expert predictions on how the Internet will affect social relations
The latest Pew survey on the Future of the Internet looks at the effect of technology on social relations, and the expectations of 895 Internet experts are overwhelmingly optimistic. It shouldn't come as a major surprise that a sample of people who are selected for...
The Harvard Business Review
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...
5 ways to get authentically naked
What’s the line between authenticity and over-disclosure? This post offers 5 ways you can keep track of the boundary between sharing and over-sharing.
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
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...
How to use Thesis to customize your teasers by page and category
I use the Thesis theme for my Wordpress blog. Thesis is much beloved in the Wordpress community because it allows a high degree of customization using its two pages of configuration menus, so even if you know nothing about PHP or CSS you can do a lot to customize your...
How to win friends and influence people…through social media
Dale Carnegie's How to win friends and influence people could be described as the father of relationship marketing and the grandfather of social media. Two recent blog posts revisit the book and highlight its implications for the social media era. J. Eddie Smith's...
The single woman’s guide to texting
My husband and I are closing in on our 10th wedding anniversary, and for the most part, that is great news. About 11.5 years out of our past 12 years together have been very very happy, and if you zero out the months that were tense because one of us had a new Macbook...
Research reveals people can survive up to 24 hours without Internet access
I'm fascinated by the number of people who are experimenting with different forms of unplugging: journalists, bloggers and tweeters who take some kind of solo holiday from connectivity. But a recent study at the University of Maryland took a larger-scale approach,...
An evangelical perspective on information overload
I was fascinated to come across an evangelical take on the problem of information overload. Becky Sweat's article in The Good News reads: information overload can distract us from the most important priority in our lives—our relationship with God. Indeed, a healthy...
10 expert predictions on how the Internet will affect social relations
The latest Pew survey on the Future of the Internet looks at the effect of technology on social relations, and the expectations of 895 Internet experts are overwhelmingly optimistic. It shouldn't come as a major surprise that a sample of people who are selected for...
OneZero
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 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,...
Facebooking the kids: 12 Dos & Don’ts
Facebook can be a great way to share your family news with a small circle of friends — if you’re smart about using privacy settings. This post rounds up the recommendations from my series on Facebooking the kids.
How to configure your Facebook privacy settings to protect your kids
3 steps to creating a Facebook friend list for your kid-related content
My Facebook profile, now with extra hotness
If you haven't visited me on Facebook recently, you may not have seen my new super-awesome profile. It looks like this: And while you're visiting me, I hope you'll check out my new Facebook page, which I set up to share my writing and work. (I use my profile for...
5 reasons to consider putting your kids on Facebook
An open design process for SIMCentre.ca
This post appears today on the site of the Social + Interactive Media Centre at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Shh...don't tell anyone, but we're redesigning our website. That's the standard attitude towards website redesign, at least since the (merciful!)...
JSTOR DAILY
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 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,...
Facebooking the kids: 12 Dos & Don’ts
Facebook can be a great way to share your family news with a small circle of friends — if you’re smart about using privacy settings. This post rounds up the recommendations from my series on Facebooking the kids.
How to configure your Facebook privacy settings to protect your kids
3 steps to creating a Facebook friend list for your kid-related content
My Facebook profile, now with extra hotness
If you haven't visited me on Facebook recently, you may not have seen my new super-awesome profile. It looks like this: And while you're visiting me, I hope you'll check out my new Facebook page, which I set up to share my writing and work. (I use my profile for...
5 reasons to consider putting your kids on Facebook
An open design process for SIMCentre.ca
This post appears today on the site of the Social + Interactive Media Centre at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Shh...don't tell anyone, but we're redesigning our website. That's the standard attitude towards website redesign, at least since the (merciful!)...
THE VERGE
5 essential steps to online security
Today's practice: Tighten your online security. You'd think that writing a dissertation about political computer hacking would make a girl sensitive to the challenges of online security. And it has, up to a point. But I recently decided to up my level of tech...
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?
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...
From the Wall Street Journal’s Daily Wrap: Twitter for CEOs (audio)
Why and how should CEOs use Twitter? That was the focus of my conversation with Michael Castner yesterday, on the Wall Street Journal's Daily Wrap. You can listen to that interview below, or read the Wall Street Journal story we were riffing off: Better Leadership...