Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Staying Immune to the Hype Virus at SXSW
I’m heading off this week to SXSW Interactive, the annual geekfest that remains the only place where I have actually…
Now on Oprah.com: Spice Up Your Dates With Technology
My first post for Oprah.com shares six ideas for how technology can make for better dates.
How to think like a social media artist
If you want to sharpen or deepen your use of social media, try going to art school. That's the big takeaway from my first months here at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. I can't say I'm "going to" art school -- my role heading up the new Social + Interactive...
A novel approach to life online
For the first time in a year, I've lost myself in a book. It's Barbara Kingsolver's latest, The Lacuna-- a marvellous historical novel that centers on a Mexican-American who becomes cook and secretary to Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky. I've disappeared...
How Social Media Is Changing Olympic Coverage
Plenty of locals in Vancouver are stymied in their efforts to decipher just what the protesters want; or more precisely, what it would take to satisfy them.
—Jonathon Narvey
Game play can help grow a community, offer positive mentorship,…
Is Twitter the new delicious?
Delicious, a social bookmarking tool, is like the old boyfriend I rarely see but can’t get out of my heart.
The message of usability
Completing an online form that reminds me that when you're the one GIVING the money out, there's no pressure to create good user experience. I celebrated Valentine's Day the traditional way this year: filling out a really terrible online form for a funding...
The beauty of baffling
It's the nature of Twitter that you baffle half the people who follow you & are baffled by half the folks you follow. I wrote this tonight in response to an old friend who was teasing me about finding half my tweets baffling. It's a comment I get a lot, often from...
An open source bedtime story
Tonight my daughter, a.k.a. Little Sweetie, requested a bedtime story that was "more educational". (Apparently she didn't like my version of the Three Little Pigs, in which the Big Bad Wolf helps the pigs with their unwanted facial hair.) After trying her on the...
We tweet: 6 ways Twitter can strengthen your love
A few weeks ago Rob and I went out for dinner at r.tl, which must have the best URL of any restaurant in the world. A waitress brought us our menus, and asked if we'd eaten there before. "We were here for Valentine's Day," I said. "Actually, I think you were our...
The Harvard Business Review
Staying Immune to the Hype Virus at SXSW
I’m heading off this week to SXSW Interactive, the annual geekfest that remains the only place where I have actually…
Now on Oprah.com: Spice Up Your Dates With Technology
My first post for Oprah.com shares six ideas for how technology can make for better dates.
How to think like a social media artist
If you want to sharpen or deepen your use of social media, try going to art school. That's the big takeaway from my first months here at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. I can't say I'm "going to" art school -- my role heading up the new Social + Interactive...
A novel approach to life online
For the first time in a year, I've lost myself in a book. It's Barbara Kingsolver's latest, The Lacuna-- a marvellous historical novel that centers on a Mexican-American who becomes cook and secretary to Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky. I've disappeared...
How Social Media Is Changing Olympic Coverage
Plenty of locals in Vancouver are stymied in their efforts to decipher just what the protesters want; or more precisely, what it would take to satisfy them.
—Jonathon Narvey
Game play can help grow a community, offer positive mentorship,…
Is Twitter the new delicious?
Delicious, a social bookmarking tool, is like the old boyfriend I rarely see but can’t get out of my heart.
The message of usability
Completing an online form that reminds me that when you're the one GIVING the money out, there's no pressure to create good user experience. I celebrated Valentine's Day the traditional way this year: filling out a really terrible online form for a funding...
The beauty of baffling
It's the nature of Twitter that you baffle half the people who follow you & are baffled by half the folks you follow. I wrote this tonight in response to an old friend who was teasing me about finding half my tweets baffling. It's a comment I get a lot, often from...
An open source bedtime story
Tonight my daughter, a.k.a. Little Sweetie, requested a bedtime story that was "more educational". (Apparently she didn't like my version of the Three Little Pigs, in which the Big Bad Wolf helps the pigs with their unwanted facial hair.) After trying her on the...
We tweet: 6 ways Twitter can strengthen your love
A few weeks ago Rob and I went out for dinner at r.tl, which must have the best URL of any restaurant in the world. A waitress brought us our menus, and asked if we'd eaten there before. "We were here for Valentine's Day," I said. "Actually, I think you were our...
OneZero
Social media for journalists: 10 essential tools
Social media for journalists: 9 feeds for your iGoogle dashboard
Back When Social Media Was Human…
Lisa Barone made my day with an extraordinary blog post, Back When Social Media Was Human… She jumped off from the piece I post this week on the Harvard Business Review site, on The Devolving Meaning of Social Media, and pointed to one particular quote that she...
LinkedIn for journalists: 5 reasons to shoot for 500+ connections
Social media for journalists: 10 ways to use Evernote
A social media resource for moms (and dads)
Nicole Cottrell has undertaken a three-part blog series, 15 ways moms can use social media. Judging from the first part, which went online today, it's going to have lots of great ideas. Here are a couple of my favorite parts: Try using your personal Twitter, Facebook,...
A new social media platform for gay rights reminds us what’s possible with social media
A "developer wanted" posting on Drupal.org pointed me towards a new start-up that plans to use the power of social networking to advance LGBT rights. Here's the more descriptive pitch on the FriendFactor website: Once we launch, people who are LGBT can set up profiles...
Talking about grown-up love online
One of the great miracles of my life is the affection between our two kids. As an only child myself, I always feared the prospective challenge of playing referee among multiple offspring. From what I could see of multi-child families, parenting siblings looked not...
JSTOR DAILY
Social media for journalists: 10 essential tools
Social media for journalists: 9 feeds for your iGoogle dashboard
Back When Social Media Was Human…
Lisa Barone made my day with an extraordinary blog post, Back When Social Media Was Human… She jumped off from the piece I post this week on the Harvard Business Review site, on The Devolving Meaning of Social Media, and pointed to one particular quote that she...
LinkedIn for journalists: 5 reasons to shoot for 500+ connections
Social media for journalists: 10 ways to use Evernote
A social media resource for moms (and dads)
Nicole Cottrell has undertaken a three-part blog series, 15 ways moms can use social media. Judging from the first part, which went online today, it's going to have lots of great ideas. Here are a couple of my favorite parts: Try using your personal Twitter, Facebook,...
A new social media platform for gay rights reminds us what’s possible with social media
A "developer wanted" posting on Drupal.org pointed me towards a new start-up that plans to use the power of social networking to advance LGBT rights. Here's the more descriptive pitch on the FriendFactor website: Once we launch, people who are LGBT can set up profiles...
Talking about grown-up love online
One of the great miracles of my life is the affection between our two kids. As an only child myself, I always feared the prospective challenge of playing referee among multiple offspring. From what I could see of multi-child families, parenting siblings looked not...
THE VERGE
Video: 10 reasons to stop apologizing for your online life
It's time to stop apologizing for your life online. That was the central message of my talk at TEDx Victoria in November, now on YouTube. From valuing your online attention to taking your online creativity seriously as real art, I argue that we can only unlock the...
Excel template: 7 steps to achieving your goals
Do you have trouble making good on your New Year's resolutions? Do you have a hard time staying focused on your most important work? Do you simply get overwhelmed by all the tasks on your plate, and worry about how to get them all done? When I'm trying to stay on...
Social media gives information workers the experience of materiality
Today's practice: If you haven't created something lately, try creating something online. At our all-university kick-off meeting for Emily Carr's spring semester, President Ron Burnett talked about the university's work in terms of materiality; in terms of the work,...
How self-reliance hurts online community
Today's practice: The next time you spend more than 15 minutes struggling with a tech challenge, stop trying to solve it yourself and ask someone for help. When our home media server froze as we were trying to watch a mother-daughter show tonight, I swung into...