Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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...
Using Twitter to create social media content that boosts SEO
With so many businesses looking to tap the power of social media -- and so many experts interested in selling to them -- it's no wonder that headlines like this one flourish across the web. Promise people bottom-line maximizing, brand-leveraging, social-media-packed...
Need a woman for your all-male SXSW panel?
I'm looking forward to this year's SXSW (including lots of panels featuring great women), but I've noticed that the all-male panel is alive and well. I'd like to offer up my XX chromosomes (among other qualities) to round out one of the already-scheduled panels...and...
The Harvard Business Review
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...
Using Twitter to create social media content that boosts SEO
With so many businesses looking to tap the power of social media -- and so many experts interested in selling to them -- it's no wonder that headlines like this one flourish across the web. Promise people bottom-line maximizing, brand-leveraging, social-media-packed...
Need a woman for your all-male SXSW panel?
I'm looking forward to this year's SXSW (including lots of panels featuring great women), but I've noticed that the all-male panel is alive and well. I'd like to offer up my XX chromosomes (among other qualities) to round out one of the already-scheduled panels...and...
OneZero
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 10 best tool collections for delicious users
Last week I celebrated my sixth anniversary. No, not my wedding anniversary (we hit number 10 this summer); and not the anniversary of our business (our fifth birthday was a couple of weeks ago). Last week was my delicious anniversary, and after six years I can say...
The small organization’s guide to investing in social media
JSTOR DAILY
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 10 best tool collections for delicious users
Last week I celebrated my sixth anniversary. No, not my wedding anniversary (we hit number 10 this summer); and not the anniversary of our business (our fifth birthday was a couple of weeks ago). Last week was my delicious anniversary, and after six years I can say...
The small organization’s guide to investing in social media
THE VERGE
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...
How much social media is enough?
Today's practice: Focus on quality, not quantity. Today's tweets are full of references to New Year's resolutions: "Tweet more". "Tweet less". "Blog more". "Blog less." "Check Facebook no more than once a day." "Check Facebook at least once a day." You get the idea....
Top 2011 posts from other sites
For the past week, I've been rounding up the top posts from 2011 on this site -- both your favourites and my own. Today, I'm closing out the year by sharing 11 of the best posts I've read elsewhere this year. There are many others that belong on this list, too! Social...