Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Now on Oprah.com: Life passages online, plus an empty nest bonus
My latest blog post for Oprah.com talks about ways to get support during life passages. Whether you’re celebrating milestones like the birth of a baby, a marriage or a birthday, or confronting challenges like death or illness, I’ve got some pointers on how the web can help. This post looks at one passage in particular: your newly empty nest.
The virtues of losing touch
Google Buzz got slammed for prepopulating its users' friends lists based on their most frequent email correspondents. Facebook has taken heat for privacy settings that default to a high level of sharing. So what's the big deal about sharing stuff with people you know...
For Oprah.com: Should you get an iPad for kids?
This post for Oprah.com lists the 5 questions to ask about using an iPad for kids, so you can decide whether to get one for your family.
5 solutions to hyperthinking and hypertasking
While working my way through the consultation paper on Canada's Digital Advantage, I found myself: investigating the best way to copy and paste text from a PDF to Evernote, leading to an open browser window with a series of tabs about various options for Mac/Evernote...
On the limitations of dotcom culture
Graham Hatch's blog post about privacy issues at Google and Facebook includes some interesting musings on the dotcom world: I’ve long had a sense that there is an assumption in the dotcom world which deems that because they are inventing the future they don’t really...
How to extend Canada’s “digital advantage” beyond the digital economy
How to turn the digital economy into a driver of business growth and community development.
10 tips on how to make a great iPad app (live blog)
I'm live blogging the news app demonstrations at Hacks/Hackers Unite, where we are seeing a variety of interesting applications for news gathering and delivery. Just as interesting, we're hearing the panel of judges reflect on what makes a compelling app, so I'm going...
Demo apps for iPad news (live blog)
I'm at Hacks Hackers Unite, where a group of eighty journalists ("hacks") and software developers ("hackers") have spent the weekend building demo apps that show the possibilities for news gathering and delivery on the iPad. You won't be able to download these apps...
My latest for Oprah.com: Is an iPad Right for Your Family?
"I got an iPad!" my daughter announces to a friend. "No honey, I got an iPad," I remind her. The argument over who the iPad belongs to is just one of the many wrinkles in our new life as The iPad Family. Self-serve movie watching, GodFinger addiction, bedtime stories...
The problem with social media “reputation management”
If you've been tracking the rise of social media services, you may have noticed how many are pitched as reputation management. "Reputation" is really just an efficient way of saying "what other people think about you". And if you look at just about any spiritual...
The Harvard Business Review
Now on Oprah.com: Life passages online, plus an empty nest bonus
My latest blog post for Oprah.com talks about ways to get support during life passages. Whether you’re celebrating milestones like the birth of a baby, a marriage or a birthday, or confronting challenges like death or illness, I’ve got some pointers on how the web can help. This post looks at one passage in particular: your newly empty nest.
The virtues of losing touch
Google Buzz got slammed for prepopulating its users' friends lists based on their most frequent email correspondents. Facebook has taken heat for privacy settings that default to a high level of sharing. So what's the big deal about sharing stuff with people you know...
For Oprah.com: Should you get an iPad for kids?
This post for Oprah.com lists the 5 questions to ask about using an iPad for kids, so you can decide whether to get one for your family.
5 solutions to hyperthinking and hypertasking
While working my way through the consultation paper on Canada's Digital Advantage, I found myself: investigating the best way to copy and paste text from a PDF to Evernote, leading to an open browser window with a series of tabs about various options for Mac/Evernote...
On the limitations of dotcom culture
Graham Hatch's blog post about privacy issues at Google and Facebook includes some interesting musings on the dotcom world: I’ve long had a sense that there is an assumption in the dotcom world which deems that because they are inventing the future they don’t really...
How to extend Canada’s “digital advantage” beyond the digital economy
How to turn the digital economy into a driver of business growth and community development.
10 tips on how to make a great iPad app (live blog)
I'm live blogging the news app demonstrations at Hacks/Hackers Unite, where we are seeing a variety of interesting applications for news gathering and delivery. Just as interesting, we're hearing the panel of judges reflect on what makes a compelling app, so I'm going...
Demo apps for iPad news (live blog)
I'm at Hacks Hackers Unite, where a group of eighty journalists ("hacks") and software developers ("hackers") have spent the weekend building demo apps that show the possibilities for news gathering and delivery on the iPad. You won't be able to download these apps...
My latest for Oprah.com: Is an iPad Right for Your Family?
"I got an iPad!" my daughter announces to a friend. "No honey, I got an iPad," I remind her. The argument over who the iPad belongs to is just one of the many wrinkles in our new life as The iPad Family. Self-serve movie watching, GodFinger addiction, bedtime stories...
The problem with social media “reputation management”
If you've been tracking the rise of social media services, you may have noticed how many are pitched as reputation management. "Reputation" is really just an efficient way of saying "what other people think about you". And if you look at just about any spiritual...
OneZero
The suffering of technology users
I love this paragraph because I think it distills and represents the pain and suffering so many people now feel around the role of technology in their lives: I like technology just as much as the next person, but sometimes I find myself feeling overwhelmed with it...
“Since I started blogging…”
I overhear more and more conversations about how people cope with their lives online. We talk about our day-to-day strategies for coping with e-mail overload. We gossip about our friends' Facebook profiles and worry about whether we should be joining the latest social...
Can documentation save the world?
Yesterday I wrapped up my 2010 Home Media Overhaul and Documentation Festival with a blog post on why to watch TV. But I left another unanswered question on the table: why document your TV setup? Documentation is somewhere between a neurosis and a calling for me. As...
Why on earth would you want to watch TV?
How to automatically organize your Mac’s bittorrents with Plex, Transmission, Automatic and Hazel
Ingredients for a Mac home media center (or two)
Welcome to the 2010 Home Media Center Overhaul and Documentation Festival
How Social Media Can Sustain Your Friendships (from Oprah.com)
This blog post originally appeared on Oprah.com. "I'm writing because I'm an old friend of Angel J.," the e-mail said. "I see from your site that you know her; can you put us in touch?" It wasn't the first time we'd served as a point of reintroduction. Our wedding...
JSTOR DAILY
The suffering of technology users
I love this paragraph because I think it distills and represents the pain and suffering so many people now feel around the role of technology in their lives: I like technology just as much as the next person, but sometimes I find myself feeling overwhelmed with it...
“Since I started blogging…”
I overhear more and more conversations about how people cope with their lives online. We talk about our day-to-day strategies for coping with e-mail overload. We gossip about our friends' Facebook profiles and worry about whether we should be joining the latest social...
Can documentation save the world?
Yesterday I wrapped up my 2010 Home Media Overhaul and Documentation Festival with a blog post on why to watch TV. But I left another unanswered question on the table: why document your TV setup? Documentation is somewhere between a neurosis and a calling for me. As...
Why on earth would you want to watch TV?
How to automatically organize your Mac’s bittorrents with Plex, Transmission, Automatic and Hazel
Ingredients for a Mac home media center (or two)
Welcome to the 2010 Home Media Center Overhaul and Documentation Festival
How Social Media Can Sustain Your Friendships (from Oprah.com)
This blog post originally appeared on Oprah.com. "I'm writing because I'm an old friend of Angel J.," the e-mail said. "I see from your site that you know her; can you put us in touch?" It wasn't the first time we'd served as a point of reintroduction. Our wedding...
THE VERGE
6 qualities to look for in an online date or offline mate
[Online dating] sites tend to emphasize similarity on psychological variables like personality (e.g., matching extroverts with extroverts and introverts with introverts) and attitudes (e.g., matching people who prefer Judd Apatow’s movies to Woody Allen’s with people...
5 online calendars your family can’t live without
If you think online calendaring is for scheduling business meetings, appointments and the occasional lunch date, you're missing out. Online calendars can also be a great way to bring order to the chaos of family life -- if you create or subscribe to the essential...
Focus on your priorities with O.M.F.T.
Last night I was delighted to participate in a panel hosted by Canadian Women in Communications, speaking alongside Rebecca Bollwitt (aka Miss 604) and Gillian Shaw of the Vancouver Sun. CWC President Stephanie MacKendrick did a terrific job of eliciting our...
For Harvard Business book: How do you reward yourself at work?
How do you reward or motivate yourself to complete a task or project? I'm tackling this question in one of my pieces for a forthcoming edition of Harvard Business Review's Getting the Right Work Done. And I'd love your help. Maybe you're the kind of person who takes a...