Publications

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

My ten online vices

My ten online vices

There are online activities I never get around to — like organizing my photo library — and then there are the activities that are my eternal time sucks. Here are some of the online activities that have stolen years of my life.

How to use social media to support your personal and business goals and relationships

How to use social media to support your personal and business goals and relationships

Stop keeping up.

That’s the central message of my latest post for Harvard Business Online, in which I argue that we’re seduced by the relentless flood of must-have social networks, applications and gadgets. We focus on keeping up with the latest thing, instead of focusing on what’s important to us and looking for the technologies that support our own personal and business priorities.

Vancouver’s 12 best wifi cafés and restaurants

Vancouver’s 12 best wifi cafés and restaurants

In my search for the perfect Internet café I’ve tried more than my share of Vancouver’s wifi-enabled cafés and restaurants. Just like Vancouver’s neighbourhoods, its wifi cafés and restaurants range from the scruffily hip to the chicly modern.

In this post I round up (and map!) the best of the good-to-great. Every place on this list has reliable Internet service, at least a few accessible power outlets, and decent coffee; on

The 10 ingredients that make a great wifi café

The 10 ingredients that make a great wifi café

Some people prowl the earth in search of the world’s greatest Don Giovanni; others look for the finest shoemaker, the best bookstore, the ideal glass of Pinot Noir. I put my energy where it counts: the search for the perfect wifi café. While I’ve yet to find my Holy 802.11b-enabled Grail, i have pinpointed what makes for the perfect, laptop-friendly coffee spot.

Best tech gadgets of 2009 (so far)

Best tech gadgets of 2009 (so far)

Our contribution to the economic recovery took the form of feverish technology purchasing throughout April, May and early June. Now that the dust and Visa bills have settled, it’s time to stop and rate the roses.

The ratings I’ve assinged to our past 6 months of tech investments aren’t based on assessments of comparative products — though every product on the list was purchased after reading other people’s reviews and comparative

10 action recommendations based on Industry Canada’s Digital Economy conference

10 action recommendations based on Industry Canada’s Digital Economy conference

Today’s Digital Economy conference has surfaced the hunger for a serious effort at moving Canada back into a leadership position in the global digital economy. As the day has unfolded, many people have noted that we need to meet that hunger with a concrete action plan. Here’s my first crack at a set of recommendations, guided by our experience in the emergent field of social media, for both action and further dialogue.

The Harvard Business Review

My ten online vices

My ten online vices

There are online activities I never get around to — like organizing my photo library — and then there are the activities that are my eternal time sucks. Here are some of the online activities that have stolen years of my life.

How to use social media to support your personal and business goals and relationships

How to use social media to support your personal and business goals and relationships

Stop keeping up.

That’s the central message of my latest post for Harvard Business Online, in which I argue that we’re seduced by the relentless flood of must-have social networks, applications and gadgets. We focus on keeping up with the latest thing, instead of focusing on what’s important to us and looking for the technologies that support our own personal and business priorities.

Vancouver’s 12 best wifi cafés and restaurants

Vancouver’s 12 best wifi cafés and restaurants

In my search for the perfect Internet café I’ve tried more than my share of Vancouver’s wifi-enabled cafés and restaurants. Just like Vancouver’s neighbourhoods, its wifi cafés and restaurants range from the scruffily hip to the chicly modern.

In this post I round up (and map!) the best of the good-to-great. Every place on this list has reliable Internet service, at least a few accessible power outlets, and decent coffee; on

The 10 ingredients that make a great wifi café

The 10 ingredients that make a great wifi café

Some people prowl the earth in search of the world’s greatest Don Giovanni; others look for the finest shoemaker, the best bookstore, the ideal glass of Pinot Noir. I put my energy where it counts: the search for the perfect wifi café. While I’ve yet to find my Holy 802.11b-enabled Grail, i have pinpointed what makes for the perfect, laptop-friendly coffee spot.

Best tech gadgets of 2009 (so far)

Best tech gadgets of 2009 (so far)

Our contribution to the economic recovery took the form of feverish technology purchasing throughout April, May and early June. Now that the dust and Visa bills have settled, it’s time to stop and rate the roses.

The ratings I’ve assinged to our past 6 months of tech investments aren’t based on assessments of comparative products — though every product on the list was purchased after reading other people’s reviews and comparative

10 action recommendations based on Industry Canada’s Digital Economy conference

10 action recommendations based on Industry Canada’s Digital Economy conference

Today’s Digital Economy conference has surfaced the hunger for a serious effort at moving Canada back into a leadership position in the global digital economy. As the day has unfolded, many people have noted that we need to meet that hunger with a concrete action plan. Here’s my first crack at a set of recommendations, guided by our experience in the emergent field of social media, for both action and further dialogue.

OneZero

Focus Your Attention Online

The risks of risk management

Risk may not be something you always want to limit online. This post tells you how raising the stakes of your online participation — by posting under your own name, by giving your blog’s URL to your colleagues, by being more candid and authentic in what you say online — can increase the value of your online engagement.

Defining the impact of social media on social capital

Defining the impact of social media on social capital

What are your online friendships worth to the community you live in? That's the practical question that is implicitly raised by Jon Hickman's interesting and slightly perplexing post on Social capital & social media. Hickman writes: ...as academics start to...

Twitter and be gay

Twitter and be gay

Leone Kraus has a fantastic article that covers the particular social media challenges for LGBT folks. As she points out, a guy who keeps his sexual orientation off-the-radar at work may find himself outed online if he's tagged in a Facebook photo taken at a gay...

7 practices to strengthen your online presence

7 practices to strengthen your online presence

This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series 10 reasons to stop apologizing for your online life

True online presence offers opportunities for authentic experience, connection and discovery; opportunities for joy and fulfillment. Practices like meditation, yoga and day-to-day mindfulness help cultivate the capacity for offline presence, so that we live our lives more fully. Now that we live so much of our lives online, we need similar practices for our networked time so that we can integrate our online moments into a meaningful life rather than experiencing them as moments deducted from our “real” lives. Here are some practices that foster online presence.

What we look like when we plug in

What we look like when we plug in

We all see them. Perhaps we are among the guilty ones. We see them at restaurants: Families at dinner; each member plugged into his or her iPad, iPhone or iPod. We see them at work: Colleagues texting and checking statuses on social networking sites while...

JSTOR DAILY

Focus Your Attention Online

The risks of risk management

Risk may not be something you always want to limit online. This post tells you how raising the stakes of your online participation — by posting under your own name, by giving your blog’s URL to your colleagues, by being more candid and authentic in what you say online — can increase the value of your online engagement.

Defining the impact of social media on social capital

Defining the impact of social media on social capital

What are your online friendships worth to the community you live in? That's the practical question that is implicitly raised by Jon Hickman's interesting and slightly perplexing post on Social capital & social media. Hickman writes: ...as academics start to...

Twitter and be gay

Twitter and be gay

Leone Kraus has a fantastic article that covers the particular social media challenges for LGBT folks. As she points out, a guy who keeps his sexual orientation off-the-radar at work may find himself outed online if he's tagged in a Facebook photo taken at a gay...

7 practices to strengthen your online presence

7 practices to strengthen your online presence

This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series 10 reasons to stop apologizing for your online life

True online presence offers opportunities for authentic experience, connection and discovery; opportunities for joy and fulfillment. Practices like meditation, yoga and day-to-day mindfulness help cultivate the capacity for offline presence, so that we live our lives more fully. Now that we live so much of our lives online, we need similar practices for our networked time so that we can integrate our online moments into a meaningful life rather than experiencing them as moments deducted from our “real” lives. Here are some practices that foster online presence.

What we look like when we plug in

What we look like when we plug in

We all see them. Perhaps we are among the guilty ones. We see them at restaurants: Families at dinner; each member plugged into his or her iPad, iPhone or iPod. We see them at work: Colleagues texting and checking statuses on social networking sites while...

THE VERGE

Five ways to say goodbye to scolding tweets

The 6 great tech religions, and how to resist them

It's Friday night again: time for good Jews to light their sabbath candles, or  in our family's religious tradition, to feel vaguely guilty for not even thinking of it. We lead highly secular lives, not because we're techno-centric geeks, but in spite of it. For all...