Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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 return of “I don’t know”
Fifteen years ago, "I don't know" was a regular part of our vocabulary. And then it all changed. I remember the night, shortly after I got my first high-speed connection, when a group of my friends were over and got into a conversation about Clifford the Big Red Dog....
Missing out on Twitter
I made a number of confessions in my Northern Voice talk on Coping with Social Media, and in Gillian Shaw's related story for the Vancouver Sun. But the one that was met with the most surprise -- and in a couple of cases, horror -- was the revelation that I no longer...
Still social after all these years
Ron Burnett has an interesting blog post on whether Twitter (and other social media) are really social. Ron is the President of Emily Carr University, where I run the Social + Interactive Media Centre. The crux of his argument is that Twitter is not as conversational...
5 solutions for coping with social media
Read Gillian Shaw's story about my social media methodology in the Vancouver Sun. Is social media something you have to cope with? Or is social media something that can help you cope? In my talk today at the Northern Voice blogging conference, I made my best case for...
6 Ways to Get Wired and Inspired
We tend to think of setting goals and seeking inspiration as highly personal. But achieving our goals is not always a solitary pursuit: The encouragement and resources of a larger community can help us do something we couldn’t do alone. Your computer can support both sides of this equation.
On Oprah.com: What to do on Twitter when you’re getting started
This post for Oprah.com shows what to do on Twitter when you’re getting started. Learn the basics of using Twitter, like how to find great people to follow, or check out this Twitter glossary.
Do social networks make birthdays better?
Today is my 39th birthday. Among other things this means I've now spent 2/3 of my life online, since we got our first computer when I was 13. (Apparently it also means that a year from now I'll be forty, which all my forty something women friends tell me will be the...
Gist shows the future of social media profiling
One of the best side effects of my recent contact management overhaul was the discovery of Gist. Gist is essentially the mutant offspring of CRM (customer relationship management) and RSS aggregation/social media monitoring. It's one of those tools you never thought...
The Harvard Business Review
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 return of “I don’t know”
Fifteen years ago, "I don't know" was a regular part of our vocabulary. And then it all changed. I remember the night, shortly after I got my first high-speed connection, when a group of my friends were over and got into a conversation about Clifford the Big Red Dog....
Missing out on Twitter
I made a number of confessions in my Northern Voice talk on Coping with Social Media, and in Gillian Shaw's related story for the Vancouver Sun. But the one that was met with the most surprise -- and in a couple of cases, horror -- was the revelation that I no longer...
Still social after all these years
Ron Burnett has an interesting blog post on whether Twitter (and other social media) are really social. Ron is the President of Emily Carr University, where I run the Social + Interactive Media Centre. The crux of his argument is that Twitter is not as conversational...
5 solutions for coping with social media
Read Gillian Shaw's story about my social media methodology in the Vancouver Sun. Is social media something you have to cope with? Or is social media something that can help you cope? In my talk today at the Northern Voice blogging conference, I made my best case for...
6 Ways to Get Wired and Inspired
We tend to think of setting goals and seeking inspiration as highly personal. But achieving our goals is not always a solitary pursuit: The encouragement and resources of a larger community can help us do something we couldn’t do alone. Your computer can support both sides of this equation.
On Oprah.com: What to do on Twitter when you’re getting started
This post for Oprah.com shows what to do on Twitter when you’re getting started. Learn the basics of using Twitter, like how to find great people to follow, or check out this Twitter glossary.
Do social networks make birthdays better?
Today is my 39th birthday. Among other things this means I've now spent 2/3 of my life online, since we got our first computer when I was 13. (Apparently it also means that a year from now I'll be forty, which all my forty something women friends tell me will be the...
Gist shows the future of social media profiling
One of the best side effects of my recent contact management overhaul was the discovery of Gist. Gist is essentially the mutant offspring of CRM (customer relationship management) and RSS aggregation/social media monitoring. It's one of those tools you never thought...
OneZero
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...
Warning: Common sense on Twitter
It was bound to happen sooner or later: someone has actually offered some actually human level, common sense about RTs. You know RTs: "retweets", the Twitter equivalent of blowing a kiss, or maybe it's more like picking the lice out of someone's hair and eating it....
Where are you at?
I have become so habituated to referring to people in my tweets as @robcottingham, @morganbrayton, @kk etc. that I'm starting to think of "at" as part of my friends' names. You know, the way Spanish names often include "de la" or Hebrew names include a "Ben" this or...
The next frontier in hierarchy-busting with social media
Lots of organizations suffer from the pain of incorporating social media into command-and-control structures. The very structures that were once a source of organizational efficiencies are not only superceded by technologies that make those efficiences irrelevant;...
Wanted: LadyJoiners
My life is basically a series of social network and web app sign-ups, with a few friends, colleagues and tasks stuffed into the interstitial moments. So the arrival this week of Path -- what some people might consider YAFSN (Yet Another F*ing Social Network) -- was my...
Tweeting the daily life of our future-ancient world
Bill Caraher's post on Historical Figures in Social Media drew my attention to a bevvy of ancient worlders now tweeting away: iTweetus (a Roman soldier), iHerodotus (Greek historian), and Plutarch (ditto). I love the mashup of old-nerd-meets-new-nerd, which reminds me...
If we didn’t have computers…
LOVE Social Media but If we didn't have computers-wouldn't need #SocialMediab/c we wouldn't have stopped being social in the 1st place. When I first shared this interesting tweet from online pal Brenda Johima, it was with some reservations. After mulling it over for a...
JSTOR DAILY
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...
Warning: Common sense on Twitter
It was bound to happen sooner or later: someone has actually offered some actually human level, common sense about RTs. You know RTs: "retweets", the Twitter equivalent of blowing a kiss, or maybe it's more like picking the lice out of someone's hair and eating it....
Where are you at?
I have become so habituated to referring to people in my tweets as @robcottingham, @morganbrayton, @kk etc. that I'm starting to think of "at" as part of my friends' names. You know, the way Spanish names often include "de la" or Hebrew names include a "Ben" this or...
The next frontier in hierarchy-busting with social media
Lots of organizations suffer from the pain of incorporating social media into command-and-control structures. The very structures that were once a source of organizational efficiencies are not only superceded by technologies that make those efficiences irrelevant;...
Wanted: LadyJoiners
My life is basically a series of social network and web app sign-ups, with a few friends, colleagues and tasks stuffed into the interstitial moments. So the arrival this week of Path -- what some people might consider YAFSN (Yet Another F*ing Social Network) -- was my...
Tweeting the daily life of our future-ancient world
Bill Caraher's post on Historical Figures in Social Media drew my attention to a bevvy of ancient worlders now tweeting away: iTweetus (a Roman soldier), iHerodotus (Greek historian), and Plutarch (ditto). I love the mashup of old-nerd-meets-new-nerd, which reminds me...
If we didn’t have computers…
LOVE Social Media but If we didn't have computers-wouldn't need #SocialMediab/c we wouldn't have stopped being social in the 1st place. When I first shared this interesting tweet from online pal Brenda Johima, it was with some reservations. After mulling it over for a...
THE VERGE
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...
Does social media have to make you happy?
At Simply Zesty, Lauren Fisher asks a provocative question: why happiness? Her point is that social media is frequently challenged for its (purportedly) negative impact on happiness: What’s also strange, is the idea that social media in some way owes us happiness,...
