Hey NSA, even my kids know snooping is creepy

This morning’s breakfast conversation: ME: I’m feeling upset about how Barack Obama has been reading all the stuff we’ve been posting online — everywhere except Twitter, which refused to cooperate. SWEETIE: That’s creepy. ME: Good news,...

8 kid-inspired features for Apple’s iOS 7

For the past couple of years, our kids’ favorite bedtime stories have featured a feline protagonist whose best friend is Apple CEO Tim Cook. In each story, Tim Cook teleports this cat to Cupertino (Apple HQ), where Tim and cat work on various cat-friendly...

End those digital fasts with these 5 April Fool’s Day pranks

Well, folks, it’s almost that time again: Easter. Also known as the end of Lent. Or what should be known as national coming out day for all the people who’ve just spent the past 40 days doing some kind of digital fast. They inevitably come back with a...

The 23 stages of the task management software lifecycle

Totally on top of all pending tasks Moderate slippage of select tasks leads to mild anxiety Catastrophic failure to complete one or more mission-critical tasks leads to wholesale re-evaluation of career choice, self-worth and why are we even on this earth anyhow?...

3 tricks for monitoring Twitter mentions and trackbacks

The brilliant Lauren Bacon made a big splash yesterday with her thought-provoking post on the emotional work that often gets assigned to women working in the tech world. The response to that post has been so massive that it’s left her with a challenge: how do...

Which Facebook updates could you live without?

The beauty of being married to a man with absolutely no interest in sports is that I would remain blissfully unaware of the start of hockey season, at least until I get to the office Monday, were it not for Facebook and Twitter, which are suddenly overflowing with...

Love in flames: finding the joy in hostile comments

“I don’t know why you care about the shit that a bunch of total strangers say about you on the Internet.” This was my mom’s delightfully candid and potentially comforting response to this week’s comment eruption on my Harvard Business...

Saying goodbye to pen and paper

My latest blog post for Harvard Business Review has provoked a strong reaction to the idea of saying goodbye to the paper notebook. Here’s my own take on the experience of giving up on paper and pen. 4.00 22.95 Alexandra Samuel Those 25 characters, comprising a...