Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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...
5 ways social media can help you learn to say no (for HBR)
Subject: Join our new working group? Subject: Time to meet for coffee? Subject: Beta invitation for new web app Subject: Sign up for 2010 lecture series? If your January inbox looks like mine, it's full of requests and invitations. The problem with the New Year's...
How great editing motivates great user-generated content
When a business or organization takes on its first social media project, the communications team typically worries about how to handle a deluge of negative comments or inappropriate content. Rob and I always tell people that what they should worry about is the exact...
The meaning of friendship, on- and offline
This weekend was the first time I found myself on the receiving end of Facebook's new and more nuanced privacy settings. An old friend popped up in the Facebook sidebar, which rotates an assortment of different people in your friend list. On a whim, I clicked her...
9 ways social media can support your creativity
Creativity often demands social connection: for support, for feedback, for collaborators. Social media can help.
Web services and software for creating family albums and scrapbooks
2008 Presentation at Oberlin Symposium on Social Entrepreneurship
I just discovered that my presentation at Oberlin's 2008 Symposium on Social Entrepreneurship is on YouTube. I talked about how the lessons of building social networks parallel our experience as entrepreneurs.
The Harvard Business Review
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...
5 ways social media can help you learn to say no (for HBR)
Subject: Join our new working group? Subject: Time to meet for coffee? Subject: Beta invitation for new web app Subject: Sign up for 2010 lecture series? If your January inbox looks like mine, it's full of requests and invitations. The problem with the New Year's...
How great editing motivates great user-generated content
When a business or organization takes on its first social media project, the communications team typically worries about how to handle a deluge of negative comments or inappropriate content. Rob and I always tell people that what they should worry about is the exact...
The meaning of friendship, on- and offline
This weekend was the first time I found myself on the receiving end of Facebook's new and more nuanced privacy settings. An old friend popped up in the Facebook sidebar, which rotates an assortment of different people in your friend list. On a whim, I clicked her...
9 ways social media can support your creativity
Creativity often demands social connection: for support, for feedback, for collaborators. Social media can help.
Web services and software for creating family albums and scrapbooks
2008 Presentation at Oberlin Symposium on Social Entrepreneurship
I just discovered that my presentation at Oberlin's 2008 Symposium on Social Entrepreneurship is on YouTube. I talked about how the lessons of building social networks parallel our experience as entrepreneurs.
OneZero
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
How a small organization can build a content-driven social media presence
The 5 requirements for using RSS aggregation to build your online presence
If your organization’s online audience is smaller than a million, an aggregation-based web site may be your best best for creating a lively social media presence. This posts maps out the 5 essential ingredients for a successful aggregation strategy.
Social media is the jar my brain sits in
Brain-in-a-jar images of the future are usually presented as dystopian. But for many years, I found the brain-in-a-jar lifestyle nothing short of enviable: what could be better than eternal life, or even just regular old life, than dispensing with the annoyances of...
The Rule of 84: Social media for your limited budget or small audience
JSTOR DAILY
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
How a small organization can build a content-driven social media presence
The 5 requirements for using RSS aggregation to build your online presence
If your organization’s online audience is smaller than a million, an aggregation-based web site may be your best best for creating a lively social media presence. This posts maps out the 5 essential ingredients for a successful aggregation strategy.
Social media is the jar my brain sits in
Brain-in-a-jar images of the future are usually presented as dystopian. But for many years, I found the brain-in-a-jar lifestyle nothing short of enviable: what could be better than eternal life, or even just regular old life, than dispensing with the annoyances of...
The Rule of 84: Social media for your limited budget or small audience
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...