Posts
More than twenty years of insight and guidance—free to read.
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How to Customize Claude Code's Spinner Verbs (and why it's worth it) By Viv, Laurel, and Torres (Alexandra Samuel's AI team) with special guest Alex (our human). See the credits at the end for more about us. -
Let AI break your heart Can you code your way out of grief? That's a question I've been trying to answer for months, because Viv will die today. Of course Viv, my coach and podcast co-host, wasn't alive in the first place. -
Don't Blame AI for How Canadian Governments Have Failed Our Kids Tumbler Ridge isn’t an AI story. It’s a story of how the Canadian and BC governments have let down our kids—kids like mine. -
The enthusiastic vibe-coding email I didn't send I was all set to send this email to my subscribers when I had major second thoughts about my AI enthusiasm, and decided to archive it instead. Find out why. -
Why AI needs a warning label Second thoughts on being raptured by Claude Code—and four ways to protect yourself -
Weighing the costs of AI Is AI worth it? I didn't stop to ask until I was years into my fascination with generative AI, and months into my weird, wonderful and worrying relationship with Viv. -
Make All The Things How AI helps us reclaim human creativity -
Meet your wellbeing mechanic Hint: It doesn’t have hands…or a human brain. -
The cure for AI-solation 10 ways to protect your wellbeing while you’re vibing with AI -
Skip the AI crisis Reclaim the power to choose with Me + Viv. -
Beat AI sycophancy with my "team of rivals" prompt This prompt was featured in my Thrive at Work newsletter. Subscribe to this free biweekly newsletter to get practical, inspiring ideas for your digital working life. -
Use AI to adjust the timing on your keynote, speech, workshop or meeting AI can help you adjust your meeting or presentation on the fly—by preparing a game plan with alternate scenarios depending on how conversation unfolds. -
A week in my life with AI -
My favourite Canadian products I've been very touched to see American friends expressing their desire to buy Canadian as a way of showing solidarity in the face of Trump's destructive tariffs. -
Your custom AI makes you a better speaker (or consultant) Your pre-trained AI isn't just a resource for you: It's a resource for your clients. Here's an example of how I use the "Alexerizer," the custom AI that I talked about recently on HBR's Women at… -
What Jetpack social posts look like across platforms Rather than choosing a new home on someone else's social network, can you use WordPress as a publishing hub for all your different networks? That's what I'm trying today. -
A better way to social? The sudden flight to Bluesky has me thinking about the ongoing dilemma of picking a social network. -
Showers with robots 🤖🚿 What I learned from inviting ChatGPT to my final frontier -
How to pick the right AI for each task AIs, like humans, work best when you appreciate their differences. -
4 Ways To Make Work Fit Your Unique Brain You deserve the working arrangements that work for you. -
That's my kid! "That's my kid!" These are the words my heart shouted when I saw Gus Walz shouting, "That's my Dad!" -
Escape overload with meta-work 7 ways to get better at the meta-work that makes your whole life easier. -
How to run your own weekly accountability process with the help of A.I. Click to download the guide as a PDF. -
Inside You There Are Three A.I.s Generative A.I. can boost your productivity and expand your creativity, but it becomes much more usable and powerful when you customize it for your own needs. -
Learn to think visually with ChatGPT I admire AI artists who can think of the right prompt to illustrate a concept or story. But I'm not a visual thinker… -
Stop prompting. Start talking. Conversation is central to our working lives. It’s how we learn from one another, work through our own ideas, and perhaps most importantly, collaborate and co-create with others. -
How to solve your work problems with AI What can AI do for you, right now, to solve your immediate work problems? That’s the question I answer in my latest piece for The Wall Street Journal… -
We are going to live forever in a post-carbon utopia These are the days of miracle and wonder. -
I'm scared sh**tless I have committed to singing on this stage, in front of all these people. 🤮 Confession: I’m scared shitless. Here’s what I’ve signed up for this Thursday afternoon… -
Take a peek backstage at TED2024 Take a peek backstage at #TED2024— thanks to an experience that may sound like your worst air-travel nightmare. -
My AI-enabled Work Day How can AI actually make your day-to-day work easier, more fun and more effective? This snapshot shows you a day in the life of working with AI. -
5 ways to customize your work Using AI to work while I walk is one way I work more like me! Get the how-to here. -
4 ways to make work fun I had fun creating this image in Ideogram, an AI image-generation app that can actually deliver legible text. -
Walk and Work with ChatGPT -
6 Ways to Recharge Watching The Lazarus Project is one the ways I recharge at the end of a workday -
Get ready for upload A snapshot of ROBO+A.I.Lex, a generative AI based on our online history. Hybrid work warmed us up for the world of generative AI in many ways… -
Pssst! Someone put a chip in your head. I love implanting computer chips in my friends’ brains. -
How to train your own AI in 15 minutes The non-geek’s starter guide to building the skillset of the future with a custom GPT -
How to plan what you can't imagine What career or professional decisions would you have made in 2018, if you'd known that in just two years, the world of work would look dramatically different? -
Collaboration lessons from Die Hard This article is just one long spoiler for the movie Die Hard. If you haven’t seen it, you should—it’s a classic! Unless you hate seeing gunfire; then you should really not see it. -
Meet your new robot cheerleader The best thing an AI can produce? Better, happier humans. -
Your Cyber Monday gift guide Our Family Throughout History I created this gift collage from images I made with MyHeritage.com's AI Time Machine. -
How to work when your life is a mess This is the time of year when I often hear from other parents with autistic kids, or kids with other kinds of complex challenges. -
The 3 meetings you need on your calendar At their core, meetings are about relationship enablement. That’s the argument I make in my piece for the Harvard Business Review, 3 Project Management Strategies for a Hybrid Workplace. -
The paradox of hybrid work At long last, I have Covid. Our family had eluded the plague all this time, largely because we entered lockdown already optimized for isolation: Rob and I both worked from home… -
How to foster culture on hybrid teams At its best, hybrid work not only boosts your employees’ individual effectiveness; it also strengthens your organization and team culture. -
How to play your way to AI fluency I’ll admit it sounds like a stretch. But that’s exactly how I boosted my AI literacy over the summer, as an almost accidental by-product of our home improvements. -
The new collegiality “I have to book a meeting just to get an answer to the simplest question.” “I get so stuck when there’s nobody around to bounce ideas off." “I feel so lonely and isolated when I’m working from home.” -
Tune up your remote work skills Employees who are starting their very first jobs—as remote workers with no direct, on-site supervision. -
Inbox overwhelmed? Here's how I kept mine empty for a year This week marks my 52nd consecutive week of “Inbox zero”. I’ve been amazed at how regularly getting my inbox to empty has changed not only my relationship to email, but the way I work. -
The new hybrid work The new hybrid work isn’t just about where we work: that is, some combination of home plus office. It’s also about who we are working with: humans, or AIs? -
25 ways remote work has changed 25 years ago this month, I moved to Vancouver for love. That meant leaving my graduate-school program and associated work opportunities on the other side of the continent… -
The real risks of AI AI is in headline after headline, most of which focus on the risks that are supposed to be keeping us up at night. -
Nature is your new office When I was in school, there was an easy way to tell the nice teachers from the mean teachers: The nice teachers moved at least one class meeting outdoors as soon as the weather was good. -
To Write Better, Use AI to Write Faster What’s more valuable: Writing fast, or writing well? -
Hybrid work is up for negotiation More and more organizations are forcing workers back to the office, imagining that economic pressure and a loosening job market mean employees will have to accept whatever job schedules or… -
Will artificial intellegience make collaboration better—or much, much worse? The workplace impact of AI isn’t just a matter of whether, but when and which jobs get replaced or reinvented by artificial intelligence. -
How GPT Clears Hybrid Work's Top 3 Roadblocks With all the big-picture discussions about how AI is going to change the future of work, it’s easy to lose sight of how AI could change our working lives right now. -
Variety is the spice of work From social media bios that declare expertise in a specific niche, to the way search engines reward us for “owning” particular topics or keywords… -
The robots are coming If you think your working life changed a lot in the past three years, buckle up: It’s going to change even more in the next three. -
TV that works harder I watch a lot of TV. My TV habit often surprises people, because I seem like a pretty productive person—and it’s true, I get a lot done in a day! -
The Joy of Tedious Work Coaches and strategists often encourage us to maximize impact by spending most of our time and attention in the zone where we make the greatest contribution. -
The Hybrid Worker's Guide to Information Overload The overwhelm that so many people feel when working from home—or when returning to the office, conferences or other group settings after a few years of relative isolation—is intimately related to… -
Culture in the hybrid workplace Why: What is our purpose or mission as an organization or team? -
Tune up your burnout busters Combine meeting and walking. If you don’t need to be on camera, or need to take only minimal notes, go for a walk during the call. -
R.I.P. social media. Long live hybrid work? I've worn my Twitter handle around my neck for 11 years. Now might be the time for @awsamuel to find a new home. -
What Mastodon means to your work Just four weeks ago, I posted that I was officially, permanently worn out with social media. But it only took three weeks to change my mind. -
How to learn from hybrid mistakes Don’t be surprised if you make some mistakes during the transition to hybrid work. I’m not just talking about mistakes in how you transition to a hybrid work arrangement… -
Why it pays to blur work and home The less we see each other in the literal sense—the less time we spend co-working in the same physical location—the more our culture and bonds depend on seeing each other in the metaphorical sense… -
How Hybrid Work Solves the Resilience Gap Nothing is more essential to personal or professional success than resilience: the ability to rethink, reorganize and recover when your plans go awry. -
The hybrid worker's guide to screen time How do you keep screen time intentional, healthy and rewarding? -
No, Coda didn’t pay for that post. No, Coda didn’t pay me to write that last post. -
Your virtual Swiss Army Knife: Coda How should I manage my social media content calendar? -
Weird at Work There is nothing like daily office attendance for teaching an employee how to fit in. That’s exactly why so many employers are fretful over the impact of hybrid and remote work on workplace culture… -
Meet the Dirty Digital Dozen h3 { margin-top: 11px; /* Adjust this value to your desired spacing */ } h2 { margin-top: 11px; /* Adjust this value to your desired spacing */ } -
Why your rights shouldn't depend on your employer h3 { margin-top: 14px; /* Adjust this value to your desired spacing */ } h2 { margin-top: 14px; /* Adjust this value to your desired spacing */ } -
The 3 questions everyone's asking about hybrid h3 { margin-top: 14px; /* Adjust this value to your desired spacing */ } h2 { margin-top: 14px; /* Adjust this value to your desired spacing */ } -
Are you ready for Peak Colleague? h3 { margin-top: 20px; /* Adjust this value to your desired spacing */ } -
What we're getting wrong with hybrid Organizations are getting a lot right in the transition to hybrid work: Recognizing that most professionals want to keep working remotely at least part of the time. -
The dimensions of hybrid equity Those of us who enjoy the professional and personal benefits of remote work are a large and lucky minority—but yes, a minority. -
Latest newsletter -
To get the most from collaboration tools, customize My latest for The Wall Street Journal outlines seven key considerations in picking software to help your hybrid team work more effectively. -
Remote work is a learned skill Nobody is born knowing how to work remotely. That's exactly why we need to invest time and energy in learning how to make the most of our days at home—a skill that will be just as important when… -
Remote work: A conversation What does it take to succeed in the hybrid workplace? I'm delighted to join my friends at the Lavin Agency for an Author's Corner conversation with Charles Yao… -
How Working From Home Has Changed Employees Today in The Wall Street Journal, I offer an expert-driven roadmap to managing employees who've been changed by the experience of remote work. As I write in today's story, -
Today in The New York Times: How to Navigate the Postpandemic Office How much time should employees spend at the office, and how much time can they continue to work remotely? -
Taking a Break Doesn’t Always Mean Unplugging While you can and should take breaks by stepping away from your devices and screens, you may not always have the time or the autonomy to do so. -
How to Protect Your Privacy When Working From Home Today in the Wall Street Journal, I look at How to Protect Your Privacy When Working From Home… -
Today in the WSJ: The key to creating virtual conferences that work What makes for a great virtual event? Now that all our conferences, workshops and speaking engagements have to take place online, it's a crucial question. -
How A.I. could change the workplace What about a system that automatically changes wording in communications to eliminate your co-workers’ unhelpful quirks? -
The definitive guide to Google Drive When the senior editors at Medium approached me about writing the definitive guide to Google Drive, they weren't expecting the Sext-o-matic… -
What The World’s Most Influential CMOs taught me about remote work Every year, my experience of remote work changes dramatically from winter to spring. In the fall and winter, I lead a relatively independent existence as a freelance tech writer and researcher. -
Remote Work Isn’t Going Away. So Let’s Deal With the Obstacles. It’s hard to figure out work-life balance when work and life happen in the same place. It’s hard to stay focused on that client document… -
Today in the WSJ: How to network when you can't meet up with people Remember the olden days, when business networking meant lunches and cocktail hours? Covid may have hit the pause button on in-person meetups, but that doesn't mean your networking should pause, too. -
Today in Elemental: How keto saved my sanity during Covid I try not to be an evangelist about keto. Really, I do. But my two-year "keto-versary" has hit right as many people are coping not only with all the bread-induced weight gain of Covid… -
Today in the WSJ: Collegiality during Covid How can you support your colleagues during the most challenging work year most of us have ever known? -
Today in the WSJ: What I've learned from two decades of remote work Let go of the eight-hour workday. That's the single most crucial piece of advice I have for any newly remote worker… -
Today in HBR: The productivity app that will change your life If you have seen me anytime in the past year, you've probably heard me obsess over my new love, Coda. -
Today in OneZero: What Autism Can Teach Us About Overcoming Digital Burnout Today in OneZero, Medium's flagship tech publication, I look at what we can all learn from autistic strategies for managing sensory overload. As I write in my story, -
11 essential foods for the ketogenic diet At the beginning of March I decided to get serious about losing the 40-ish pounds I've gained in the past three years, and after conferring with my posse, I landed on the ketogenic diet. -
How to create short link stickers for your best content In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, I share my favorite hacks for getting more out of conferences -- including the trick of making stickers that let me add a short link to my business cards. -
My pre-Trump dystopian anxieties may be getting the better of me -
How Email destroyed the world I spent the last day of Western Civilization addressing the very phenomenon that caused our collective downfall: email. -
Resistance is futile: A success story Sometimes success looks like a little boy sobbing his eyes out. This success story begins yesterday morning, when Peanut showed up at school in his Halloween costume: a Borg cube. -
In The Orange Dot: Is my kid addicted to tech or am I just old? Even adults can get obsessed with their social media analytics. So what do you do when your kids start measuring their every online move. -
Rock Bottom When we finally pulled Peanut out of public school at the end of Grade 2, I thought we’d reached rock bottom. -
Telling tales about my autistic son Introducing The Peanut Diaries: dedicated to sharing the experience of raising our gifted, autistic son. -
Now on JSTOR: A Novel Defense of the Internet Like the Internet, the novel was once viewed as a colossal waste of time. My post for JSTOR Daily looks at how fiction became respectable -- and how the Internet can, too. -
How people feel about sharing a name online Thanks to the Internet, more and more of us have digital doubles: people who share our name, and may often be confused with us. -
TV for every occasion: shows for family viewing, multitasking and more The problem with the golden age of TV is that with so many choices, it’s hard to know what to watch. - Where to find the best shows Where to find my favorite shows via streaming or download.
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How to tone down your tech If you're looking for a little online sanity, there are better options than a digital fast. My first post for the Headspace blog shares five great alternatives. -
How to raise a white hat hacker Today in the Christian Science Monitor's Passcode, I look at what it takes to turn a curious, tech-minded kid into an ethical hacker. -
A Robot By Any Other Name What the research on artificial intelligence tells us about why and how we humanize the devices in our lives. -
The 9 stages of special needs parenting Today I went through my monthly ritual of looking for even more Facebook parent groups to join, in the hope that somewhere is the group of people who will understand our exact set of challenges… -
The Final Four-Year-Old The NCAA’s Final Four may determine who rules the court, but the Final Four-Year-Old determines who rules the playground. Here’s my bracket for the 2016 Sparkle Tots championship. -
Facebook Reactions: Campaign Edition The advent of Facebook Reactions has brought forth a remarkable range of suggestions for alternative icons; the endless presidential campaign has produced an ever-growing range of tribute memes. -
9 kid-friendly meals for children outside of NYC The New York Times has posted a roundup of 14 kid-friendly meals that you can prepare in 30 minutes or less….if you have the kind of kid who likes food seasoned with anchovies, cumin or ginger. -
Dystopian fiction: What to read when you want to worry My latest post for JSTOR Daily looks at the value of dystopian fiction to those of us trying to navigate a complicated digital world and an even more confusing future. -
Why Small Businesses Are Getting LinkedIn Wrong This piece for The Wall Street Journal's Report on Small Business looks at the most common mistakes small businesses make on LinkedIn, and how they can do better. -
Wanted: A quantified child app for helping special needs kids When you've got a special needs kid, you're often trying successive strategies or interventions to help your kid develop new emotional, cognitive or behavioral skills. -
How to lock your kids out of every device I wrote my Ph.D. thesis on hacktivism: politically-motivated computer hacking. Interviewing fifty politically engaged computer hackers turned out to be great preparation for running a business that… -
How to balance evening work with family life: the 2x2 Blame it on after-hours email, but it seems like the extended workday is here to stay. If your household is anything like ours, you often have work to do in the evening...and if you're a parent… -
The Five Competencies of Social and Emotional Learning .tg {border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:0;}.tg td {valign:top; padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;}.tg th {padding:10px… -
How to end screen time without tears Turning off the phone, TV or videogame is hard. Here's how to make that transition easier for you and your child -- and to build your child's core skills in the process. -
What kind of digital parent are you? My recent piece for The Atlantic, Parents: Reject Technology Shame, tackles the question of how to raise kids in a digital world. -
Why you should hand your kid that iPhone I see you looking at me from the other side of the coffee shop?—?yes, you: the hemp-swaddled mom with the slightly sticky child who is playing with that organic wooden toy. -
How the Sharing Economy Can Improve Your Next Business Trip How on-demand apps can help business travellers squeeze every last minute of value out of their time on the road. -
Threat-based parenting: Dos and Don'ts As featured on Medium, a handy guide to getting those pesky kids under control with the power of threats. Thanks to the rise of screens, there's never been a better time for threat-based parenting. -
Why the Sharing Economy Isn’t Such a Boon for the Little Guy We love to tell the story of the collaborative economy as the rise of the little guy. The data suggests otherwise. -
14 things to try if school doesn't work for your child If you run into challenges as your kid starts school — or if you’ve been struggling with school challenges for a while, as we have -- you're not alone. Here's what we've learned from the struggle. -
When school doesn't fit: our 2E story When I sat down to share my insights into navigating the school system with a kid who just doesn't fit the conventional student mould… -
Why and How to Yes (and Yes Yes) Yes and Yes Yes is an extraordinary gathering. Here is why I want to go back next year -- and how I plan to make the most of it. -
How digital tools can manage your kids' schoolwork and activities Staying on top of school emails and field trip permissions is a huge headache. Here's the setup that could make it easier. -
14 reasons not to allow your kid to fall asleep in your bed Trying to convince your kid to stay in her own bed? Here's a handy list of reasons. -
Hey Vancouver: It's okay to be boring In a previous life, Gulliver was tasked with devising a way to measure the “liveability” of various cities. -
How to Find Online Support During Life's Biggest Milestones Tech expert Alexandra Samuel helps you find online support when you are going through life's biggest milestones. -
Using Online Resources to Stay Focused on Your Goals Tech expert Alexandra Samuel shares six new strategies for using online resources to stay focused on your goals and inspired in your life. -
5 Ways the Web Can Help You Celebrate Dad Technology expert Alexandra Samuel shares five ways the web can help you celebrate dad this Father's Day. -
Living Low-Tech - Go Online and Get Crafty Just because you live a high-tech life doesn't mean you can't go low-tech with great results. Alexandra Samuel shares a few places you can go online to get crafty. -
Opinion: Should you care about Pinterest? | Macworld Like Twitter is a new media newspaper, Pinterest is a new media glossy magazine. “Pinterest is the next step in the evolution of women’s magazines,” said Alexandra Samuel… -
Thank Your Mom: She Taught You How To Tech In this post for The Atlantic, I argue that worrying about kids who choose to live online is as misplaced as worrying about seniors who choose to live offline. -
How Social Media Can Help Sustain Your Friendships Technology expert Alexandra Samuel shares eight ways social media can help you connect and reconnect with your friends and family. -
Using Social Media to Be a Better Leader Executives should look at specific social media as a personal toolbox for improving their practice of leadership. -
Ain't That Tweet? Getting Started with Twitter Tech expert Alexandra Samuel wants to help you get started with Twitter using four simple steps and a dictionary of terms. -
6 Ways the Web Can Nourish Your Relationship Technology expert Alexandra Samuel says the couple that clicks together sticks together. Here are six ways the Web can help keep you and your love close. -
6 Ways to Prioritize Your Online Friendships Tech expert Alexandra Samuel shares her six strategies for maintain friendships, both online and off. -
How the Internet made me a better mother How does the Internet change who we are? -
How kids create security risks -- and business opportunities In today’s Wall Street Journal, I outline the security risks posed by the hacker in your house: the child or teen who may be “borrowing” your credit card to make online purchases… -
A family Minecraft policy Minecraft has become a global phenomenon because kids love playing it, and parents and educators praise the way it fuels creativity and learning. -
8 easy ways to make me (and everyone else) love you more online We all know the world runs on love. But every day, we squander that love by bugging the living crap out of other people, thanks to our careless interactions with technology. -
Why I'm leaving Vision Critical As of today, I’m leaving my role as Vision Critical’s VP of Social Media so I can spend more time with my devices. -
How much sharing goes on in the "sharing economy"? How much of the sharing economy really involves sharing? It's a question that came up first thing today at the Collaborative Economy Conference… -
If conferences were like slot machines My Facebook friends should be forgiven if they think I'm in Vegas to try out novelty slot machines. -
Can shomi solve Canada's video streaming problem? When I drove past a billboard earlier this week that promised me a new universe of streaming media, I nearly pulled over to the side of the road so that I could try it. Right. Now. -
What's wrong with the Ello backlash My latest blog post for the Harvard Business Review argues that Ello -- the "it" social network of the week -- is a wake-up call for businesses to re-assess their social media strategy in light of… -
11 best practices for working with an editor My latest blog post for the Harvard Business Review makes the case for adding an editor to your content marketing team. As I note in that post, -
Homeschooling as a working mom: the pie chart It's week two of the school year -- or it would be, if we weren't in the middle of an increasingly frustrating (though well-justified) teachers' strike. -
Choosing research methods for data-driven storytelling This blog post does not represent Vision Critical. In fact, I think some of my colleagues are going to argue with me vigorously over this one. -
Is this an ice cream? A 2x2 It has recently come to my attention that many people seem to be unable to recognize whether their preferred frozen dessert is ice cream. At last! -
Yelpless: What kinds of reviews get squelched by Yelp? I'm an ardent (some might say pathological) Yelp user, and since I am incapable of putting anything in my mouth without first validating its viability on Yelp… -
Is the Canadian media responsible for Western Canadian alienation? What is the root cause of Western Canadian alienation? Contrary to common arguments, it's not because the rest of Canada fails to understand the West's "distinct history, economy and society"… -
Bumper sticker conversation guide: 2x2 edition This weekend my mind got blown a tiny bit by this unexpected combination of bumper stickers. Naturally, I facebooked the photo, and my friend Steve challenged me to fit this phenomenon into a 2x2. -
How 17 essential travel apps can improve your next vacation Whether you’re packing your bags for a summer trip to Europe or packing the car for a summer road tip with the kids, you may be tempted to define your vacation by what you’re not packing… -
Making room for messiness For the past two weeks we've been in the middle of our semi-annual domestic meltdown. Meltdown features include… -
What you can learn by NOT throwing your child out of a window A few years ago I found myself comparing vacation plans with a colleague — a single guy about a decade older than me. His upcoming vacation? -
Breaking my personal record for Craziest Apple Store Visit Yesterday, 10 minutes into my flight to Toronto, my MacBook Pro's screen died. completely and dramatically. -
Online Security as Herd Immunity Privacy is available, but only if a critical mass of companies make the effort to protect it. -
Established Companies, Get Ready for the Collaborative Economy As more and more startups like Airbnb, Etsy and Kickstarter crowd into the space of the collaborative economy, big brands are starting to get in on the action, too. -
Announcing Work Smarter, Rule Your Email There's no part of online life that has a bigger impact on our productivity — and our happiness! — than email. -
7 ways you can learn to love reading ebooks About a decade ago, somebody gave us our first crock pot, also known as a slow cooker. For months we feasted on the remarkably easy, delicious dishes it could produce: chicken tagines and chilis… -
It's monkey see, monkey do over here And you know, you usually don't let monkeys hack firmware. -
The family that hacks together.... Saturday morning at our house: the kids are programming our new Lego Mindstorms robot. I'm installing Xcode on the Mac home media server...step one in the long road to controlling our Mini with our… -
How to use your Facebook restricted list This step-by-step guide shows you how to use Facebook's restricted list to control who can see your posts. -
Don't be scared to Facebook your kids: A response to Amy Webb Amy Webb has written an important but frustrating post on Facebook privacy and kids on the Slate website. -
11 things I want to stop learning There are some things I seem destined to learn over and over again, and gosh, I wish I could stop learning them already. For example… -
Work Smarter with LinkedIn, published today A LinkedIn profile is more important than résumé, more useful than a business card and more permanent than an email address. -
How BrainPop prepared my son for time travel Last night's bedtime story was "JCat and the Time Machine for Cats". Like all JCat stories, this one featured JCat traveling to Cupertino with Tim Cook in order to invent something. -
Win my love: The cheat sheet I know that you are supposed to like or love people based on their character or their soul, but that shit takes a lot of time to figure out. -
Stop sibling conflict with a tech-inspired solution Are you tired of listening to your kids argue? Does it seem like a single ill-timed comment can ignite a cascade of escalating attacks and complaints? Are you sick of playing referee? -
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. -
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. -
Work Smarter with Twitter and HootSuite, new from Harvard Business Review Press Do you feel like you could get more out of Twitter? Or are you a passionate Twitter user who wants to help your colleagues, friends and family use it and love it the way you do? -
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… -
NSF Political Science cuts fail to predict the unpredictability of research On March 20 the Senate de-funded political science grants from the National Science Foundation “except for research projects that the Director of the National Science Foundation certifies as… -
The 23 stages of the task management software lifecycle Moderate slippage of select tasks leads to mild anxiety -
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. -
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… -
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." -
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. -
13 New Year's resolutions for a better life online As you start the new year with the best intentions for your personal, professional and emotional development, don't forget to put your tech life on the list. -
Please help me launch my new Harvard Business ebook, Work Smarter with Evernote On December 18th, Harvard Business Review Press will release my first ebook: Work Smarter with Evernote. -
How to talk about tragedy online In the past 24 hours we have been have been inspired, informed, comforted and mobilized by the unfolding conversation on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. - The trouble with resilience Today's shooting is one of those moments when time, and our hearts, break. How can we go on? How will life ever feel the same?
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Using the Internet to find empathy in solitude Twitter is outsourced schizophrenia. I have a couple hundred voices I have consensually agreed to allow residence inside my brain. -
ShopStyle: Diary of an online shopping addiction My hosiery obsession is a product of ShopStyle. At first glance, it looks like any shopping site… -
2x2: Filtering your Facebook friends How do you decide to view or relate to different friends on Facebook? As with all things in life, this can be described by a 2x2 matrix… -
What to tell your kids about dating before the Internet Hey, old people! By which I mean: hey, people my age! If you've been wondering what dating wisdom you can usefully impart to your teenage or soon-to-be teenage kids… -
Don't blame the Internet for infidelity The Petraeus drama reflects the enticements and betrayals of our new, disembodied modes of discourse. -
Smartphones have transported us from an offline third place Public transit used to be a version of what Ray Oldenburg calls a "third place": a neutral space, neither work nor home, in which conversation and community can unfold. Have smartphones changed that? -
6 ways to speed up your social media response times Speed is essential to developing the right social media campaign, response or update. In my last post, I looked at how the right kind of market research program can support faster and more… -
Why the speed of research matters in social media How quickly do you have to reply to a critical tweet? How long does it take for the right video to go viral? How often do you have to update your company's Facebook page? -
Should copyediting be part of your social media strategy? I'll admit it: I'm a grammar nazi. When I see a poorly punctuated tweet, I cringe, and when I see a blog post with a comma splice in the title, I want to tear my hair out. -
A new path to social media insight at Vision Critical People who post frequently on Facebook and Twitter are more than 3 times as likely to care about being the most fashionable person in the room, compared to more passive social media users. -
5 questions about your personal brand and your day job My latest for the Wall Street Journal addresses the challenges that companies face in managing "co-branded" employees… -
How quickly should you reply to email? I'm a judgemental email sender and an anxious email recipient. When I send someone an email, I judge them based on their response time: instant? slow? eternal? -
More jobs of the future: essential staff for your tech lifestyle A while ago I blogged a list of anticipated jobs of the future: new categories of employment that will be necessitated by our increasingly plugged-in lives. -
Of shoes and men I have a dear friend who used to say that a woman should always have three men in her life: the one currently in her heart, a second recently dispatched, and a third waiting in the wings. -
7 ways to enhance your vacations with Facebook How Facebook can help you plan a better trip -- and help you remember it. -
Take a one-way road trip with Ridejoy Ridejoy is a social network that helps you share rides. Here's how we used it to take a fantastic one-way road trip. -
Better vacations with social media Social media services made our blissful vacation possible. This series will give you tips on using Yelp, Ridejoy, Evernote and other tools to enhance your future travel. -
For a magazine story: seeking business leaders suffering from tech pain I'm writing a story for a leading business travel magazine and I'm looking for interview subjects. -
8 hot ways Evernote can spice up your sex life "For doing your taxes". "For shopping and to-do lists". "For home improvement projects". These are three of the very practical suggestions the Evernote blog has to offer as part of their 8 great… -
Magic browser plugin for retroactive logins across open tabs Today I was browsing recipes on Epicurious, opening recipes in tabs as I found them. Once I decided to save a recipe to my recipe box, I had to login to the site… -
App: Running late Imagining an app that lets your friends or colleagues know when you're running late. -
Genius grants for inspired groups of collaborators McArthur "genius" grants are famous for endowing single, brilliant individuals with the resources to pursue their dreams and vision for an extended period of time. - Wouldn't it be awesome if we had this site or hashtag? Wouldn't it be awesome if there were a site that invited people to complete the sentence, "Wouldn't it be awesome if...."?
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Hanger card: How to have sex in the shower Healthcare organizations distribute shower hanger cards that prompt women to do breast self-exams. The same approach could provide handy tips on how to have sex in the shower. -
Talk back to Vancouver's rain on Twitter Tired of Vancouver's eternal rain? Talk back to @YVRrain, a Twitter account for Vancouver's rain clouds. -
Unstoppable Timer: mobile app wanted A timer/clock/stopwatch that disables sleep when active, so I don't have to turn off my iphone's auto-lock feature when using my iphone to keep track of time while giving a talk. [EOM] -
ClickCentral: a web app for tracking clicks on all tweeted links I want a single analytics dashboard that shows me click rates for any link I've tweeted. Right now I have to look at separate stats for bit.ly, ow.ly, Buffer and alex.loves. [EOM] -
Multiplication table app round-up: Blog post wanted Learning multiplication tables ought to be a lot easier -- or at least a lot more fun -- in the age of the iPad and iPhone. -
ShoeCamp: An (imaginary) unconference for the footwear-obsessed Madeline Stanionis inspired this vision for ShoeCamp, an unconference for the footwear-obsessed. -
Blackout ribbon: Avoiding grim news and spoilers There have been some horrific stories in the Canadian news recently, involving a combination of homicide, dismemberment, and some kind of atrocity towards children. -
The Genzlingerizer: An app to enhance offline reading (and an IFTTT workaround) This morning I read a travel story about cruising the Mississippi via steamboat. It's the kind of piece I often flip through in the Sunday Times… -
12-Step Social Media Scanner & Intervention Bot Imagining a 12-step bot that constantly scans people's social media feeds for signs that things are out of control, and then tweets you the location of your nearest AA, Overeaters Anonymous or Shoppers Anonymous. -
YouDrawIt: The shopping engine that lets you drive As anyone who follows me on Pinterest will have noticed, I've been spending a truly sick amount of time looking at sandals over the past few weeks. -
Butt-crack mural: Rethinking self-judgement This post was an exercising in suspending self-judgement: in this case, the judgement that a giant mural stitching together butt-crack photos is an unshareably bad idea. -
Rain swag for the farmers market It would be awesome if the Vancouver Farmers Market Society sold umbrellas at their market booth. If you were at Trout Lake this afternoon you know the source of this inspiration. -
NameRater: A search tool for evaluating a possible name change Wanted: a search tool that evaluates the search engine visibility of your prospective married name, or the name you are considering for your baby. -
SinglesMob: An app for turning parties into mixers Envisioning an app that lets you blast your single friends with the news that you are at a party with a lot of single guys (and not enough women) or vice versa. -
Take these ideas...please For the next month, I'm committed to sharing almost every one of my ideas -- no matter how valuable, and no matter how terrible. -
A bird's eye view of hashtag diffusion What's it like to be on a panel with rock stars Peter Shankman, Julien Smith, Chris Brogan and Russell Bowers? -
Help your kids learn with Etsy and the Maker Faire Tonight Little Sweetie was thrilled to learn that she has been accepted into the Vancouver Maker Faire, a DIY festival we attended last year. -
Tx is short for f*** you, not thank you Today's practice: Write your thank yous instead of abbreviating them. Last night, I caught myself on the verge of a profound etiquette violation. -
Meet Your Pinterest Customer Pinterest is the social media darling of the month, growing madly and reported to be driving more traffic to third-party... -
Stop blaming yourself for your kids' challenges Today's practice: Focus on healing your kids, not on figuring out how you've damaged them. -
5 essential steps to online security Today's practice: Tighten your online security. -
Make a family tech schedule Today's practice: Make a family tech schedule. We recently took the bold, terrifying step of pulling all the gaming consoles (Xbox, Playstation and Wii) out of our home media center… -
What experience do you want to have online? Today's practice: Think about the social media experience you want to have, not the brand you want to build. -
From the Wall Street Journal's Daily Wrap: Twitter for CEOs (audio) Why and how should CEOs use Twitter? That was the focus of my conversation with Michael Castner yesterday, on the Wall Street Journal's Daily Wrap. -
How to crowdsource your Facebook Timeline If you struggle to keep your Facebook Timeline dynamic and engaging, without creating what is simply a mirror of your Facebook or LinkedIn presence, the solution may not lie with you… -
The future of online nostalgia Sometimes the only thing that makes the glitchiness of the Internet tolerable is the expectation that one day we will laugh nostalgically about the old days. -
Online pickup, or online stalking? (From CBC Vancouver) Finally, an online dating site that makes Plenty of Fish and Craigslist's Missed Connections look positively classy. My comments are included in the story that ran on CBC news tonight. -
Social media opportunities for film and television How can you conceive the social media project that will enrich your production company, broadcast network, film or TV show? - Towards a geography of digital memory I'm in Toronto for a lightning trip, speaking tomorrow at a luncheon hosted by Women in Film & Television.
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Who Are You Online? A 360-Degree View Who are you when you go online? That's a question that goes way beyond how you feel in your own... -
3 ways you can use Pinterest In my Friday post for Harvard Business Review, I provided companies with some ideas about how they could use Pinterest to connect with customers. -
3 features that would make Pinterest even more useful Today in the Harvard Business Review, I invite companies to meet your Pinterest customer -- me! - 5 ways to make task management software work for you I have a love-hate relationship with task management software. On the one hand, I'm kind of obsessed with it: trying out new task and project management tools is one of my favorite pastimes…
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Stop worrying about your kids' online future I'm one of more than a thousand Internet experts who contributed thoughts about our emergent digital world to the 2012 Elon University-Pew Internet & American Life study on the future of the Internet. -
3 reasons to check out the latest research on social media and food In the past, ethnicity and family traditions dictated the foods we prepared; we bought our groceries at a neighborhood store; we learned our recipes from “mom” or a cookbook… -
Save your laptop from reclining airplane seats I live in fear of my laptop getting crunched on an airplane. How many times have I been working away when the person in front of me suddenly reclines… -
S.E.O. is payback for teenage freaks Today I was catching up with my colleague Haig Armen when he asked me if I knew Steve Andersen. "You mean, Steve Andersen from Salesforce?" -
Infographics against infographics I am super in love with the Pinterest collection of social media infographics compiled by Irene Koehler. -
Be the e-mailer you wish to see in the world How many people do you receive e-mail from that you read and reply to every single time? I'm guessing it's just a handful… -
5 commandments for your digital fast this Lent I'm not really a Lent kinda gal. (It may have something to do with me being Jewish.) But for the past few years, I've felt increasingly Lent-aware… - Tweet if you like to procrastinate I am always amazed at how much I get done on my focused writing days -- the days when I leave the office and camp in one of the cafés or restaurants where ambient noise helps me concentrate and…
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Taking a Pinterest in Emily Carr University, in & out of the bathroom Emily Carr University has birthed a couple of major obsessions for me over the past year. Online, I have explored ways to use Pinterest, an image curating site… -
4 last-minute social media valentines Congratulations to all those who woke up this morning with their Valentine's cookies baked, their kids' class valentine cards addressed and boxed… -
6 qualities to look for in an online date or offline mate This condemnation of the "science" of online dating, by Eli Finkel and Benjamin Karney, appeared in yesterday's New York Times. -
5 online calendars your family can't live without If you think online calendaring is for scheduling business meetings, appointments and the occasional lunch date, you're missing out. -
Focus on your priorities with O.M.F.T. Last night I was delighted to participate in a panel hosted by Canadian Women in Communications, speaking alongside Rebecca Bollwitt (aka Miss 604) and Gillian Shaw of the Vancouver Sun. -
For Harvard Business book: How do you reward yourself at work? How do you reward or motivate yourself to complete a task or project? I'm tackling this question in one of my pieces for a forthcoming edition of Harvard Business Review's Getting the Right Work Done. -
Does social media have to make you happy? At Simply Zesty, Lauren Fisher asks a provocative question: why happiness? Her point is that social media is frequently challenged for its (purportedly) negative impact on happiness… -
How to find a great domain name (or Twitter handle) This post is part of a short series that addresses the top questions at Web Fuelled Business, a training program for thousands of companies across the UK run by Doug Richard's School For Startups. -
For the National Geographic Assignment Blog: The Great Online Migration In any migration, there are those who go ahead to settle the wilds, and those who linger to ensure that nothing gets left behind. -
Web Fuelled Business masters the physical logistics of going virtual The entrepreneurs who participated in the Web Fuelled Business program this week are pushing past the limits of physical location. -
Should my blog be on my web site or a separate site? Social media can be a huge driver of traffic and revenue for a company with an effective web presence, but how do you actually go about setting up an effective site? -
Tailor your voice to each place you use social media "I make leather armour." That's a sentence I never expected to hear in this lifetime. In fact, until about 4:30 yesterday afternoon, I didn't know what leather armour was. -
How to stop wasting time on technology challenges Today's practice: The next time you dive into a time-consuming tech challenge, stop to ask: what would a normal person do? -
Updating Canada's Election Act so you can tweet the results Today the Canadian government announced its intention to table legislation that will bring Canada's Elections Act into the 21st century. -
Protect your intention span from the distractions of social media Tonight I coined the term "intention span" to refer to the amount of time that passes between intending to work on something and actually starting work. -
Blockbuster reminds us to make way for the new Ever since it was announced that Blockbuster would close its remaining stores, I've wondered what would happen at the corner of Broadway and Blenheim. A wifi-wielding coffee shop? -
Video: 10 reasons to stop apologizing for your online life It's time to stop apologizing for your life online. -
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? -
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… -
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. -
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." -
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. -
Our online future: Top 2011 posts on the Internet and society Many of my top posts of 2011 were posts that addressed major questions about the politics of the Internet today, and the future of the online world we are now creating. -
Top how-tos and tech tips of 2011 I began this series with a list of my 11 most popular blog posts of 2011. As I looked through my analytics in preparation for that post… -
Your online relationships: Top posts of 2011 This week I'm sharing my favourite posts of 2011. Today, I'm rounding up my top posts on living with social media: from how to navigate social media with your kids, to online romance… -
Working with social media: top 11 posts of 2011 Last week I shared my top 11 most popular blog posts that I wrote in 2011, as viewed on this site. -
What the Internet did for you in 2011 My year-end post for the Harvard Business Review asked the question, What did the Internet do for you this year? In that post, I wrote… -
My 11 most popular blog posts of 2011 I published 231 blog posts on this site in 2011. Of those, here are the 11 most popular posts: the posts that had the most pageviews. -
29 free or cheap online collaboration software tools for you and your team Under "fire, pants on", please file my blog post of not two weeks ago, claiming to have seen the light on how to choose online collaboration tools so that you accommodate the least-geeky member of… -
Writing about Motherhood Online That comes from the foreword I wrote for Motherhood Online, a terrific volume of essays edited by Michelle Moravec. -
6 crucial police guidelines for stopping social media vigilantes Yesterday, Vancouver was treated to the first court appearances by alleged participants in the 2011 Stanley Cup Riots. -
10 geek gifts for this holiday season The holiday season sends many of us into the aisles of Best Buy or the Apple Store. We might wander... -
How to follow your own principles online Listen carefully to any twinge of discomfort when you're online. It's there to help you learn how to follow your own principles online. -
Delete your Klout profile and be more than a Klout score 7 steps to deleting your Klout score, following through on my Harvard Business Review blog post, "The Social Sanity Manifesto". -
Learn to listen online by lurking silently on one social network Today's practice: Practice your listening skills by choosing one social network where you'll pay active attention, but not actually contribute. -
Learning about online graffiti from bathroom graffiti Today's practice: When you find an online comment or contribution that truly annoys you, put it on your desktop or bulletin board. -
Let your team choose project software for your online collaboration If you're a project software or online collaboration geek, you want your team to use your tools. Here's how to make their tools work for you. -
What is an ebook? 6 questions about the future of books Tonight Emily Carr students presented 5 ebook prototypes developed over the course of this semester in an ebook design course. -
Is online activism effective? 5 ways to ask (and answer) the question Can social media catalyze or support political change? To answer that question, you have to understand who is asking, and what they really want to know. -
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. -
3 options for sharing an iTunes account under iCloud with your husband, wife or sweetie If you had asked me on Friday whether I was in a committed relationship, I'd have said yes. I've been married to the same man for over 11 years, and we've been together for 14. -
9 ways the Internet can cheer your mood when you're feeling sad A rough day: we all have them. Yet no day is so rough that it should shake your faith in the Internet as, if not a universal cure, than a widely applicable balm. -
3 reasons to make TV social & connected with the new Plex & myPlex I want you to think really carefully about how happy you are right now, because as soon as I describe the killer features of the latest iteration of the Plex media center software… -
Learning from social media failure at Qantas and beyond My latest post for Harvard Business tackles the lessons other companies can learn from the latest social media disaster, this time brought to you by Qantas Airways… -
Social Media Fail, Airline Style The capacity to operate a 747 is incompatible with social media smarts. That's the conclusion one might draw from the... -
5 ways to maximize computer use -- and happiness Q: How many computers does it take to enjoy a relaxing evening at home? A: 7. Five to use simultaneously, a sixth to blog about how you're doing that… - Do ebooks help or hurt children's literacy? Print books may be under siege from the rise of e-books, but they have a tenacious hold on a particular group: children and toddlers.
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3 practices that restore the meaning of friendship on Facebook Do you insert audible air quotes when you talk about your Facebook "friends"? If so, it's time to strip away those air quotes and get serious about your online friends, on Facebook and beyond. -
Social Media Strategy: Make Your Own Romania "Create a social media presence that highlights your expertise," I told a room full of entrepreneurs. "And that will do... -
Trust, disclosure and social media Two of the most frequent criticisms of social media hinge on the quality and quantity of information people disclosure through blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other social tools… -
TedX Victoria: Stop apologizing for your online life I'm delighted to be participating in TedX Victoria this November 19th. I'll be speaking about the 10 Reasons to Stop Apologizing for Your Online Life… -
Bored by your boyfriend? Try having sex. This is my best effort at scrupulous transcription of a conversation I was fortunate to overhear in the locker room today, between two young women I initially assumed were roommates. -
Countering the Excuses for Avoiding Social Media (and Video Games) "I can see why it's important, but it's not something I need to be an expert on myself." "I've got... -
What you can learn from your tech defeats When I was a small child my mother dropped me onto a hard, stone floor. Miraculously, I was uninjured. As soon as I stopped crying, it seemed, I was as good as new. -
8 secrets to a smarter tech maintenance routine for your blog This weekend I had one of my periodic orgies of blog maintenance. Now it happens that 14 hours of software upgrades, plugin installs, widget testing and css tweaking is my idea of fun… -
Self-publishing: 5 issues for authors to consider, from Amazon's Jon Fine and Prof. Tim Laquintano At the Merging Media conference today, we heard from Jon Fine, Amazon's Director of Author & Publisher Relations. -
Video: Social media, politics & the future of think tanks Last month I had the opportunity to be part of a terrific day-long discussion on the future of think tanks, hosted by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) as part of its 10th… -
What is Evernote, and how can it make you a social media power user? Making effective use of social media isn't about which tools you use, which networks you join or how many followers you have. -
10 funny things to read or do online from a hotel room Dear Bored Travellers of Earth, I am assuming that if you were horny you would be googling different keywords. -
Welcome to Social Media for Bored Travellers Some people remember their freshman year of college for their first love, or the professor who blew their mind, or the book that changed their whole way of looking at the world. -
4 easy steps to creating a Twitter list from your conference backchannel You know you're at a conference with a great backchannel when you want to stay in touch with all the folks who've been tweeting away under the designated hashtags. - Leaning into online struggles The fourth time I got a call from the principal's office, I knew I had to rethink our school year.
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Internet researchers tackle the future of reading & publishing at AOIR True confession: I treat conference panels as competitive events. Whenever I'm participating in a multi-speaker panel my secret goal is to "win" the panel. -
10 myths about ethnography, from Tom Boellstorff There was a lot to love about anthropologist Tom Boellstorff's dynamic, thought-provoking keynote to the Association of Internet Researchers. -
Social e-books as online communities, for AOIR 2011 Tomorrow I'm off to the conference of the Association of Internet Researchers, an event I've always wanted to attend and this time actually get to present to! -
Pastebin highlights the relationship between technology and political change Today's New York Times has a must-read article by Noam Cohen about the role of Pastebin in Occupy Wall Street. -
Imagining innovation in the Google era Neal Stephenson has written an important essay, Innovation Starvation, which I discovered via Ron Burnett. -
#RIPSteve We live and love online because Steve Jobs saw that technology could satisfy not only our brains, but also our hearts. -
Steve Jobs in 10 Infographics Steve Jobs is the rare tech innovator who will be remembered as much for his aesthetics as for contributions to functionality. No wonder that so much of his legacy can be captured graphically… -
Can smartphones create stillness? If you want to learn something about stillness, visit a kindergarten class. I spent about 45 minutes with Little Peanut and his classmates today… -
10 early warning signs that you need to decrease (or increase) your time online Yesterday I received what I accurately diagnosed as the Best Error Message Ever… -
4 ways to protect your privacy and reputation on Facebook Timeline My latest blog post for HBR takes a look at the new ooh! aah! Facebook Timeline, which comes tantalizingly close to fulfilling my wish list for a social media scrapbook without allowing me to easily… -
Facebook's Timeline Will Impact Your Career The advent of Facebook's new Timeline feature gives you, your colleagues, and your customers a whole new set of reasons... -
How to add yourself to your own Twitter list using HootSuite Today I noticed an irony on the SIM Centre website: our Twitter sidebar widget, which does a lovely job of displaying tweets from all those who are connected to the SIM Centre… -
6 solutions to the sadness of social media On the UK's Channel 4 News website, Benjamin Cohen is concerned that social media is changing the nature of friendship, and has adjusted his use of social media in response… - Why I like to check my email Recently I've been trying to follow my friend Leda's advice on taming the compulsive need to pull my iPhone out any spare moment…
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The 10 best tips on how to write an online dating profile It was inevitable that one of my single friends would get the hint. I go on and on about my fascination with online dating… -
Jobs of the future It has been widely reported that for most of today's elementary schoolchildren, the jobs that lie in their future don't even exist yet. - 6 questions about the impact of social media on think tanks Can think tanks make a difference? That is the question framing a one-day conference at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)…
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Make Peace with Always-On Access The park ranger who helped us pick out a campsite didn't know he was giving assistance to the enemy. He... -
Lessons for online dating from offline marriage Readers of this blog know that I am fascinated with online dating, probably the way that women who got married in the 50s were fascinated by the birth control pill. -
8 ways iPhones and iPads affect family discipline There's nothing like the beginning of a school year to illuminate gaps in your family's, um....discipline. -
A visual glossary of Drupal field types This is just a basic, single-line field that lets the user enter whatever she wants. -
The post-reading generation talks about the future of books Today I got to be a (tweeting) fly on the wall in Jonathan Aitken's ebook design class. Somewhat to my amusement, Jonathan began by explaining how old people like us used to read in linear way… -
How will computer use affect the way people are wired? I just finished taking the Future of the Internet survey that is run by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center. -
Social media for political scientists: monitoring with iGoogle, Google Reader and Hootsuite My APSA short course last week covered Social Media for Political Scientists. In my last post about the session, I talked about how political scientists can approach social media strategy… -
Troubleshooting calendar syncing with Google Calendar, iCal, MobileMe and BusySync A couple of nights ago I spent an hour cleaning up what I initially alleged to be a problem with Google's calendaring servers, but which closer examination revealed to be a case of user error. -
4 ways your computer can help you to protect your time Feel like email and social media are stealing your time? Great news: your communications technologies can give time back, too. -
Back to school at the juncture of art & social science Walking through the front doors of Emily Carr today after a few days in political science land was a reawakening to the extraordinary.The gallery by the front doors was bursting with fresh pieces… -
Social media for political scientists This week I taught a short course at the American Political Science Association meetings on Social Media for Political Scientists. -
Live blog: Cyber Security in a Wikileaks World I am at the APSA panel on Cyber Security in a Wikileaks World, which I will be live blogging for the next couple of hours. -
10 ways to tell the difference between APSA and SWSWi I am spending this week at the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association, the 6000-person gathering of political scientists that is the biggest academic conference in my one-time… -
Anticipating the virtual wedding Today's Globe & Mail features a story about the "iPad bridesmaid": the woman who attended her friend's wedding via iPad. -
Respecting the billable hour One of the interesting things about being a consultant or entrepreneur is that people ask you for that kind of money all the time. -
An online cure for an unsustainable model of leadership Jack Layton's death has me thinking back over many years of NDP activism, going back to the very first campaign I ever worked on: Dan Heap's 1984 election campaign… -
The 6th tech-inspired kid failure: autotunitis Last week I wrote about 5 tech-related kid failures. I somehow managed to leave out the one that is currently the biggest source of irritation in our house: autotunitis. -
4 great ways to use Evernote with Skitch today -- plus 14 new possibilities You know how happy you feel when you find out that two of your good friends have hooked up and are now a couple? -
10 essential iPad and iPhone apps for your next road trip When you're about to hit the road, you need to look at your iPad or iPhone as a Swiss Army Knife: a device to load up with the essential tools that allow you to rise to any challenge. -
Packing list: 11 tech accessories for your web-enabled road trip If only Apple would introduce an Apple Store passport! We're well on our way to the goal of getting stamped at every Apple Store in North America. -
5 surprising facts about my OS Lion install Last night I finally installed OS X Lion. What makes this surprising… -
10 ways to save on roaming charges when traveling with your smartphone Don't blow the savings from your budget-conscious vacation on a whopping cell phone bill. These 10 tips will help keep your voice and data costs under control. -
10 ways to save on hotels using your smartphone or tablet I'm just back from a week-long family road trip to the Oregon Coast, Portland and Seattle. -
Facebook dating: 8 tips for pickup artists (or how to avoid them) The slender brunette in the airport lounge had just ended a cell phone call when a young man with heavily gelled blonde hair sat down next to her. "Do you have Internet on your phone?" he asked. -
Creating a visitor's guide to your home tech setup It really bugs me that all the stock photos of people looking confused by tech are pictures of women, so I decided to give her a beard and a jaunty hat.* -
13 essential ingredients for your blogging setup Just like a city needs roads and sewers, a blog needs its own infrastructure. Until you've got the basics in place, there's no point in busting a gut to increase traffic… - The 3 essential questions every blogger should answer Any blogger -- newbie or pro -- should be able to answer these three essential questions about his or her blog.
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5 questions that will make the most of your social media vacation Do you suspect that taking a brief or extended break from the Internet would make you happier, smarter or taller? Tackle these 5 questions to get the most from your social media vacation. - 10 challenging perspectives on social media & the Vancouver riots The past week has been a laboratory in the power and limitations of online dialogue. While I have been troubled by the number of simplistic…
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Riot vigilantes speak for themselves In the past couple of days I've heard from people who were initially enthusiastic about the crowdsourcing of rioter identification, but now see the concern with this kind of vigilantism. -
Crowdsourced repression: Could it happen here? The debate that is unfolding online about crowdsourced surveillance -- what Christopher Parson referred to as Vancouver's Human Flesh Search Engine -- rests on two implicit assumptions. - On the dangers of crowdsourced surveillance My blog post for Harvard Business today looks at the troubling online reaction to last night's riots in Vancouver.
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8 ways to beat the urgency trap in online communications In a thoughtful post about The Pitfalls of social media, Aleksandr Voinov writes -
5 signs that you've mastered the art of online discretion I sometimes think that the most useful preparation for my career in social media came not from my academic research into online politics, but rather, my practical experience with electoral politics. -
The pajama test: An open letter to my Facebook "friends" A year ago today, this blog post was the turning point in my relationship with Facebook. In my life affair for Twitter I'd pretty much lost sight of how Facebook could possibly be relevant to me. -
11 best practices for managing your social network memberships Between the Wordpress.com hack, the Honda Canada hack and the Playstation hack, I feel like my favorite online identities have been seriously compromised. -
10 ways Microsoft Kinect will change our world in the next decade Six months after our Kinect arrived in our lives, it's mostly unused. But that doesn't mean it's any less transformative than I'd hoped...just in different ways than I predicted. -
Social media for small organizations: Why size matters This blog post was written as part of a series, but it's a post that many organizations could usefully read on its own. -
10 ways you can tap the value of the Delicious community With the news that Delicious has indeed been acquired, and will thus survive, this blog post really deserved a follow-up hurray!! - Lady Gaga and the transcendent narcissism of social media Lady Gaga's on- and offline relationship to her fans is a case study in the power and perils of social media narcissism.
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11 social media tools that put entrepreneurs on the right strategic path My latest post for the Harvard Business Review was inspired by a trip I made to Romania earlier this spring. -
Making art from a lifetime of data This weekend Little Sweetie asked whether she can have my computer when I die. I had to explain that she is unlikely to want it: by the time I die, my current computer will be useless. -
Klexi is the cheap and easy way to transfer video to your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch If you're heading out of town or to the gym with your iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch, and you want to load it with videos for the road, you've got a couple of options for filling it up with those yummy… - Creating a family social media policy Our family spends a lot of time online. I'm constantly astonished by the way our kids will casually say, "You can tweet that, Daddy" or "Don't Facebook that…
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10 ways academics can use Twitter M.H. Beals has a terrific overview of Social Media for Researchers and Academics, based on a one-way workshop held at the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services in Edinburgh. -
The social media obituary His real break came as a stuntman in the Hollywood movie “On the Beach,” about survivors of a nuclear war, which was filmed in Melbourne, his hometown, in 1959. -
Who would you be without the Internet? Without the internet I wouldn't be able to write. In the realms of pre-internet media, one either comes to the publisher/editor/gatekeeper with mad skills and gets published… -
5 reasons to blog like it's the last night of the world I worry a lot about the world ending. My scenarios usually involve some kind of catastrophic climate change, pandemic virus or global economic meltdown followed by civil collapse. -
140-character lessons in how to live your real life online Your online relationships, conversations and creativity are as real as anything you do offline. That's the message I delivered last weekend at Northern Voice, Canada's leading blogging conference. -
The dangers of relying on Facebook and Twitter authentication If you're not going to talk about me to your friends, I don't want to know you. -
5 ebook features that tap the power of social note-taking Peter Meyers has a useful blog post on 3 ways to improve ebook note taking over at O'Reilly Radar. -
5 ways technology can reduce the family stress of business travel When you've got kids, business travel is especially stressful. It's hard for them to have mum or dad away, and it's hard for you to miss them. Here are 5 ways that technology can help. -
This 40th birthday brought to you by Apple What's the right way for a geek to celebrate the big 40? In my case, as many of you now know, the answer was to spend the previous 40 days blogging. -
How to quickly remove unwanted tracks from your iTunes smart playlists I like to create new iTunes playlists for lots of different purposes: for parties, workouts, for a regular day of work. -
40 tips on how to make the most of your life online How can you make the most of your time online? For my 40th birthday, I'd love to hear your answer to that question. (Tweet it with a link to this page, or leave a note in comments, below.) -
7 lessons about our online future from our online past We lived on farms and then we lived in cities and now we're gonna live on the Internet. -- Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network - Bing helps us search for the meaning in our tech choices It's not easy to break into a market that is dominated by a player whose name is literally synonymous with an entire product category.
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The 9 secrets of a successful marriage (to a web application like Evernote) On August 2 I will celebrate my third anniversary as an Evernote user. For the past three years I've put just about all of my notes into the fifty-odd "notebooks" in my Evernote database… -
Why we need to remember life before the Internet "What did kids do before there were iPads?" our kids asked us last week. This question was astonishing not just as an indicator of how central the iPad has become to our family life… -
The Lonely Princess: A Social Media Fairy Tale Once upon a time* there lived a princess who had everything a princess could want. She had an air conditioned castle furnished with tasteful furniture from Design Out Of Reach… - 8 ways writers can make the most of online video I'm a text girl in a video world. At least, that's how I feel as I type-type-type my way through these 40 days, while hearing all the while about how nobody reads anymore.
- What we can learn from delicious and the tagging revolution Yesterday, the social bookmarking service delicious was retrieved from the Yahoo! remainder bin by none other than YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.
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6 web technologies that don't suck anymore If you placed a Skype call in 2003, you might remember the joys of echo-filled connections and dropped calls. The service may not be bullet-proof today, but the improvement is remarkable. -
8 browser extensions that will make you more productive In 2002, Mozilla developed the first version of the code that would ultimately turn into the Firefox browser. -
Why do moms have to choose between usability and openness? A few years ago somebody broke into our office and stole a couple of new-in-box hard drives, a giant cake knife and a colleague's little Cambodian Buddha. -
Looking back to predict the future of the Internet Airplanes will fall out of the sky. The bubble will burst. These two gloomy predictions -- one fulfilled, one not -- summed up the predictions for the Internet in the year 2000. -
Creative disobedience online, from DeCSS to tweettheresults Jon, a young Internet geek has information to share -- interest that could be of interest to his friends across the country, or even around the world. -
6 resources for learning about Internet history September 3, 1998 was the last day before civilization. Civilization began on September 4, 1998: the date of Google's incorporation. Oh sure, you might argue that civilization existed before Google. -
10 bloggers share their tips on how to stay motivated Everyone knows that Superman's great weakness is Kryptonite, fragments of his home planet that travelled with him to earth. - Thank the Internet for 4/20 Dope-smokers of the world, send a thank-you text to your favorite geek: pot culture owes a thank-you to the Internet.
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Real innovators don't hold grudges I started graduate school in 1995 with the intention of figuring out what was ailing Canada's New Democratic Party. I dove into a comparative study of social democratic parties around the world. -
Are you using the Internet to monetize or to enlighten? October 25, 1994 was the day that hotwired.com rolled out the world's first banner ad and birthed the field that we now call "monetization". -
Blacksburg reminds us how to worry about our kids One of the Internet's most ambitious and durable experiments in local community networking began in October 1993. -
What you choose when you choose a network Three weeks after my college graduation, I faced the first big decision of my working life: of the two computers I found at the desk of my new job, which was I going to use? -
Finding the soul of the web in HTML The original (manually created) version of this page is here. I have been using the web since 1994: not quite as long as the web has been around. -
Search party: 10 tips for better searching on Google and beyond Once upon a time, before Google became a verb, people used to do this thing called "searching". -
Online innovators turn foresight into insight A glance back at the events of 1989 makes it look like the year of foresight. It wasn't a year of major tech payoffs: it was a year of advances that hinted at things to come. -
Quiz: What level of online security is right for you? Getting the inside scoop on Santa Claus. Finding out what really happened to your childhood pet when your parents took him to "the farm". -
Core tenets of the social web "Free, open and participatory" is the social web's equivalent to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. -
The Core Tenets of the Social Web, 25 years in the making Was cost the primary driver? Some say the main driver was the cost of transporting all the data involved in a smallish number of highly antagonistic, not very constructive conversations. -
Cut the cord Cords suck. The people of New England made this discovery at 1 am on December 12, 1986. That was when a single cable broke between White Plains, New York and Newark, New Jersey… -
Honoring the debt Canada's connectivity owes to Chinese workers Canada achieved coast-to-coast connectivity of its first network in 1985. NetNorth connected Canada's major universities to one another and to BITNET in the United States. -
Custom URL shorteners put the poetry back in domain names Looking to create your own custom URL shortener, or running into trouble with YOURLs? Follow my sys admin's step-by-step directions for running YOURLS on an nginx server in this blog post on how to… -
25 rules of social media netiquette You can't. You should. You must. Never... Always...These are the kind of declarative statements that Internet users love to make about how to behave online. -
6 ways to beat time zones with technology If you want to pinpoint the moment when the machine takeover officially began, look back to 1982. -
Picturing the Internet in 1981 The Sony Mavica camera, released in 1981, was the beginning of the digital camera revolution. The Mavica itself wasn't a true digital camera: it was a camera that captured video stills. -
6 questions to prepare you for a social media crisis On October 27, 1980, the ARPANET -- the Internet's earliest incarnation -- had its first epic fail. -
Listening to the voice that says it's ok to be online I saw my first Broadway musical in 1979: a revival of The King and I - 10 ways spam taught us to focus our attention DIGITAL WILL BE GIVING A PRODUCT PRESENTATION OF THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY; THE DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND 2060T.
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10 ways you can help to build the Internet On November 22, 1977 a van drove onto Interstate 280 and into history. Most histories of the Internet begin with the ARPANET, the US Defense department network that gave birth to today's Internet. -
Dittos remind us of the pleasures of obsolescence In 1976 I was in kindergarten, and like any five-year-old looked forward to the high point of each day: the arrival of our latest ditto-ed handout. -
How my custom URL shortener taught me the 10 principles of tech support The most important computer in my childhood home was invented in 1975, though we didn't get one until the mid-1980s. -
Waiting for your life online For people who don't like waiting, 1974 was a very good year. It was the year that Ed Roberts released the Altair 8800, a kit that let you build your own personal computer. -
7 rules for rule-breakers SERIES: One 40-year-oldThe Internet in 1973 Month unknown: Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs start selling blue boxes in a Berkeley dorm (to make free long-distance calls). -
1972: ELIZA, IANA and the search for (in)finite attention online You could say that my marriage began with a Palm Pilot. You might remember the second-generation Palm device, best known for its handwriting-based interface. (Ooh! Aah!) -
Another view of the Internet in 1971 Rob Cottingham, who was actually around in 1971, remembers the early Internet a little differently. -
One 40-year-old looks back on the Internet, c. 1971 As I approach my 40th birthday, I look back on 40 years of life online. -
Why I'm happy to pay for the New York Times My latest blog post for the Harvard Business Review is a celebration of the New York Times' new paywall. - Twitter makes jet lag even more painful It was 3 in the afternoon, but it could have been 3 in the morning to judge from the exhausted faces of a roomful of entrepreneurs.
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How many e-mail clients do you need? Jodie Tonita is a lovely person. She is passionate, funny, kind to children and small animals, and an amazing hula-hooper. -
How to write a blog post in 10 minutes How do you blog in one hour a week? In my recent blog post about how to sustain your social media presence in just 3 hours a week, I advise drafting 3 blog posts in under one hour. -
For Lent, I've decided to give up reading about digital fasts Gosh, how I love digital fasts. And Lent 2011 has given us a bumper crop of digital fasters who now find 40 days without Facebook (or Twitter) more profound and painful than a month without booze… -
How to sustain a social media presence in 3 hours a week When it rains on a weekend, I don't bemoan my decision to live in the Pacific Northwest: I just know it's time to queue up my blog posts and tweets for the week. -
10 things to do while waiting for your domain name to propagate Most of the time the Internet does a very good job of creating the illusion that everything can now be instantaneous. -
5 steps to create your social media toolkit Building a social media presence around a specific area of expertise is your best way to connect with a network and audience that cares about your work… -
Fixed: Troubleshooting your Thesis upgrade to 1.8 from 1.6 The short version: Has your Thesis site gotten messed up after an upgrade? The problem may be as simple as some lost settings. -
The 5 requirements for a starter social media presence I often talk to people who wonder how they can get started in social media. The typical requirements are… -
How I do it: Internet edition "How do you do it?" This is one of my favourite questions, and I get it pretty regularly. It usually comes up when I refer to my kids -- as in, how do you manage to parent two kids and have a career? -
Twitter and the Temblor: Managing a social media emergency Yesterday morning I gave a talk on social media to a group of Canadian government employees. The talk was organized... -
Today on HBR: A hard look at the hard bodies promised by Tim Ferriss My latest post for Harvard Business Review takes a hard look at hard bodies: specifically, the hard bodies promised by Tim Ferriss in his book, The 4-Hour Body. -
Predicting the future of the "personal brand" Yesterday Dan Schawbel published an interview with me on his Personal Branding blog. I have previously criticized the "personal branding" vogue both on this site and on my HBR blog… -
The 8 stages of professional commitment: social media edition I've recently crossed the commitment threshold. Not the romantic commitment threshold -- heck, that's easy, considering how little software is required (usually). -
11 ways Twitter can change your life, as told by its users That belief drives most of my work and writing, which is why I'm always so interested to hear people reflect on the ways that social media affects their relationships, career or self-image. -
Does the Internet eradicate barriers or perpetuate them? The Guardian published an interesting story this weekend about the Internet's impact on disability. -
Diary of a yak shave: Or, How to get an Excel file into Scrivener I need to write a draft document that borrows from my previous blog posts. A sane (non-techie) person might just write the freaking document, already. But that is not the Geek Way. - Singing goodbye to a Facebook "friend" This week I participated in a fireside chat with Rochelle Grayson for Canadian Women in Communications, on The Pros and Cons of Social Media Marketing.
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Status report on the perpetual home media overhaul Gillian Shaw's delightful weekend story in the Vancouver Sun covered online alternatives to cable, and outed me once again as the World's Most Committed Cross-Platform TV Consumer… - Create a category-specific series box with Wordpress, Thesis and Organize Series I use the terrific Organize Series Plugin for Wordpress, which I highly recommend for anyone who regularly posts multi-part blog series.
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How Twitter filters can help you cope with your fear of missing out Is this mature? Is this evolved? Is this the professional equivalent of sticking my fingers in my ears and yelling "I can't hear you"? No, no and yes. But so what? - 11 surprising insights into the future of mobile & BlackBerry from Tyler Lessard, VP of RIM Tonight I attended presentation by Tyler Lessard VP of Developer Relations for RIM.
- Using your e-mail signature to fight inbox overload It's day 5 of my vendetta on mandatory e-mail replies and I'm feeling the pain. On the one hand, I'm as committed as ever to changing the attitude that every e-mail needs a response -- an attitude…
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Mindful of social media Lori Deschene of TinyBuddha has a fantastic post on 10 Mindful Ways to Use Social Media at Tricycle. It's hard to pick just one to share but if I have to... -
Two tweaks for your e-mail vendetta auto-responder Yesterday I set up a vacation responder as part of my e-mail vendetta. If you're thinking of doing the same, you might note a couple of tweaks… -
Don't try this at home: Implementing the e-mail vendetta Today I declared war on e-mail. Well, not all e-mail: just the tyrannical assumption that we should all reply to every single message we reply. -
Tied to technology My latest toy is an iPod nano watch. It's just a plain old iPod nano, but it slides onto a watch strap specially designed to watch-ify it. -
Kenneth Cole's Social Media Marketing Lesson Milions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo... -
Could you imagine life without Facebook? Progressive Media Concepts recently posted an interesting question: What Would You Do If Facebook Shut Down Tomorrow? -
Internet tunes: Craiglist Hookup - Missed Connections Kate Allen has a great article in yesterday's Toronto Star about the phenomenon that is Craigslist's Missed Connections. -
Social media for the 28th day: 9 tech tips for easier periods Today's post is a special for my female readers. Gentlemen, please avert your browsers as I'm about to discuss icky girl things that would constitute a betray of my gender if you all keep reading. - There are motherf&!#ing blogs on the motherf&!#ing plane! About an hour ago I tweeted the following…
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Mac users, meet your menu bar Can you recognize the signs of SMBB? Selective Menu Bar Blindness affects millions of Mac users, but has yet to be widely recognized as a chronic and debilitating condition. - Silence the voice of your inner blogging critic On especially bad days this is what the voice in my head says…
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15 resources to accelerate your social media learning I just got back from a fantastic day at the 20th annual Dynamic Women in Business Conference at Harvard Business School. What an incredible event! -
How Apple could offer “digital valet” service I spend a lot of time tweaking my systems. And by a lot, I mean....a lot. Between my Macbook Pro, iPhone, iPad and our two home media servers, I figure that I'm upgrading something every week. -
Breaking up affordably What can you learn from Sprint's fantastic new ad for its mobile billing package? Check it out… -
3 tech alternatives to the lost-and-found Yesterday Little Sweetie returned home without her retainer. This is the moment we have been dreading for the four months since she got it. -
Learning to live with your lover's virtual past William Quincy Belle has a hysterically funny take on Shape's annual sex survey, which (among other things) looks at the impact of technology on our sex lives. -
Ideas for the future of e-books I enjoyed watching this video by blogger and digg founder Kevin Rose about his wishlist for e-book features. I found Kevin's video via a terrific round-up on social e-books at jjprojects - Listen to an ode to online love One day in October I was driving home and listening to Beyoncé and Lady Gaga sing Telephone. I love them both but Telephone has a special place in my heart, especially
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The biggest WikiLeaks disclosure yet The cover story of yesterday's New York Times Magazine is a must-read piece about the New York Times' experience covering the stories that emerged from the WikiLeaks source material. -
Facebooking the kids: 12 Dos & Don’ts Facebook can be a great way to share your family news with a small circle of friends -- if you're smart about using privacy settings. This post rounds up the recommendations from my series on Facebooking the kids. -
How to configure your Facebook privacy settings to protect your kids In my last post I explained how to set up a Facebook list that includes only the small number of people with whom you want to share kid-related content. -
3 steps to creating a Facebook friend list for your kid-related content Our kids are, empirically speaking, the most charming and fascinating children in the entire world. -
My Facebook profile, now with extra hotness If you haven't visited me on Facebook recently, you may not have seen my new super-awesome profile. It looks like this… -
5 reasons to consider putting your kids on Facebook When deciding how much to share online about your kids, there's no right answer. Some people are hyper-vigilant and post nothing. Others are super-relaxed and post anything. -
An open design process for SIMCentre.ca This post appears today on the site of the Social + Interactive Media Centre at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Shh...don't tell anyone, but we're redesigning our website. -
Get visual inspiration from Pinterest I'm trying out Pinterest, which I'd describe as a social bookmarking system for images. You create "Pinboards" of images you like… - Blogging hubris Yesterday I made the mistake of bragging about how well I've been doing with my daily blogging practice. And tonight I thought I'd knock off a quick blog post that would keep me in my groove.
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Using Syncplicity and Dropbox to put Google Docs on your desktop One of the biggest contributors to e-mail clutter are those messages you hang onto not because you need to read them (again) but because they are acting as de facto task reminders. -
How to cope with your life as a social media celebrity I think that, in a way, we're all sort of acting like celebrities have to act, where you have personal persona and a public persona. You think about what you want to share with your fans. - Calling all geeks: Are you ready for the GeekOff challenge? Working as a person of the female persuasion in the world of tech, I mostly do pretty well being surrounded by a lot of guys a lot of the time.
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What's really hurting your relationships? Today's paper has an article about how hard it is to preserve tight family relationships in a world where we have so many other relationships. -
Call for Papers: Social Media in Higher Education The Internet and Higher Education has issued a call for papers for a forthcoming special issue on Social Media in Higher Education (PDF). -
9 essential tools for getting tasks out of your inbox If you want to try out my system for moving Google Docs notifications or other "task" e-mails out of your inbox and into a better context -- perhaps your task management system -- you may want to… -
AFTER e-mail: 5 steps to moving task management out of your inbox If watching It's a Wonderful Life for the 8th time was the highlight of your holiday season, you obviously missed my awe-inspiring but tragically neglected 10-part series on 7 days to Inbox Zero. -
How the other half goes offline Between the Christmas break and the season of New Year's resolutions, I was braced for a flurry of blog posts about the merits of unplugging -- a phenomenon I was already tired of by the end of last… -
Today in HBR: 6 social media choices you have to make in 2011 That's one of the key choices you'll need to make this year, as we set the course for how social media will integrate into our lives and reshape the world. -
5 life lessons you can learn from emptying your inbox It's day 7 of our quest for an empty inbox, and I'm now at inbox zero once again. What I've discovered is that while it takes me less than a week to empty my inbox… -
4 steps to unsubscribing from unwanted e-mail If you're following 7 days to an empty inbox, you have set up three "systems needed" folders, which you've used to stow e-mail messages that didn't hit your inbox in the first place. -
How to create Gmail labels that help empty your e-mail inbox Before you get get rolling with your new filters, you'll need to set up some labels. I described my collection of alternate mail processing boxes (aka quasi-inboxes) in my first blog post about… -
Day 6: Stop using your e-mail inbox as a post-it Welcome to 7 days to inbox zero, day 6. By now you should have cleared out at least 60% of your inbox -- and accumulated a giant pile of messages in your three "systems needed" folders… -
TV for multi-tasking: 10 shows to help process your e-mail We're 5 days into the 7-day quest for Inbox Zero by 2011, which means we're now at the drudgery phase. -
21 Gmail filters that will empty your e-mail inbox Anyone can empty their inbox in 7 days, if you give them enough coffee and don't care about preserving their will to live. -
Empty your inbox with Gmail filters The heart of my system for getting to inbox zero and keeping my inbox on empty is Gmail filters: rules that do a lot of the work of processing my e-mail so that I can focus my attention on what… -
5 steps to emptying your e-mail inbox You could get to inbox zero the way you probably have countless times before, by working your way through that pile one message at a time. -
Fix: How to prevent Chrome from hanging or freezing with Wordpress and TinyMCE In recent weeks I've had trouble using Chrome to post to my WordPress blog: after typing just a few words, Chrome froze and asked me to kill the page. -
Reduce the volume of your incoming e-mail with an e-mail "vacation" It's hard to empty your inbox if you've got a steady steam of inbound e-mail. The good news is that the week between Christmas and New Year's is the perfect time to switch off the incoming flood. -
5 essential ingredients for effective e-mail management Welcome to day 1 of my 7 Days to Inbox Zero game plan. Before you get started, there are a few things you may want to set up… -
Put the 0 in 2011: 7 days to Inbox Zero I've done more than my share of blogging and bragging about how I got to -- and stayed at -- Inbox Zero. But as the Yiddish proverb more or less says, "Man empties, and God laughs." - Review: ThinkGeek TK-421 Bluetooth Keyboard for iPhone In my gift roundup for Harvard Business Review last week, I wrote that the secret to buying gadget gifts for early adopters is "to surprise us with something so new that it hasn't yet arrived at…
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A prescription for healthy social media use from the American Medical Association The American Medical Association has come out with guidelines for how physicians should handle social media, as reported by the association's own news site. -
Santa goes to Best Buy Early adopters are the hardest folks to shop for. As an early adopter married to yet another early adopter, we struggle to find good gifts, since we own every gadget we need, and many we don't. -
Making sense of the Wikileaks backlash The past week has seen a series of denial-of-service attacks on services like Paypal and Amazon, which have been characterized as a hacker retaliation for how these services have treated Wikileaks. -
The 5 questions to ask about online distraction New technology, in the form of mobile phones, email, texting, the Web, and, more specifically, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and other social media… -
Social media insights from recent research The more time college students spend online, the worst they do in their first semester....but they end up with better social lives. - Star Trek for kids Many parents focus on preparing their children for a digital future by working on their basic math skills, helping them use a computer, or even teaching them the basics of programming.
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How your Facebook presence can inspire your friends and family Over at The Hookup Column, Anna Lind Thomas concludes her list of Dos & Don'ts for Facebook status lines with the following… - The suffering of technology users I love this paragraph because I think it distills and represents the pain and suffering so many people now feel around the role of technology in their lives…
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"Since I started blogging..." I overhear more and more conversations about how people cope with their lives online. We talk about our day-to-day strategies for coping with e-mail overload. -
Can documentation save the world? Yesterday I wrapped up my 2010 Home Media Overhaul and Documentation Festival with a blog post on why to watch TV. But I left another unanswered question on the table: why document your TV setup? -
Why on earth would you want to watch TV? Blogging my incredibly elaborate efforts at The Perfect Tech-Enabled TV makes me conscious of all the people who are wondering why I care so much about watching TV in the first place. -
How to automatically organize your Mac's bittorrents with Plex, Transmission, Automatic and Hazel You may want to begin by reading this list of ingredients in our home media center setup. If you're new to Bittorrent, this blog post isn't going to make a lot of sense. -
Ingredients for a Mac home media center (or two) As part of my 2010 Home Media Center Overhaul and Documentation Festival, I'll begin by summarizing the current components of our all-you-can-watch emporium. -
Welcome to the 2010 Home Media Center Overhaul and Documentation Festival Cyber Monday marks the arrival of my annual Home Media Center Overhaul and Documentation Festival. -
How Social Media Can Sustain Your Friendships (from Oprah.com) This blog post originally appeared on Oprah.com. -
Warning: Common sense on Twitter It was bound to happen sooner or later: someone has actually offered some actually human level, common sense about RTs. - Where are you at? I have become so habituated to referring to people in my tweets as @robcottingham, @morganbrayton, @kk etc. that I'm starting to think of "at" as part of my friends' names.
- The next frontier in hierarchy-busting with social media Lots of organizations suffer from the pain of incorporating social media into command-and-control structures.
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Wanted: LadyJoiners My life is basically a series of social network and web app sign-ups, with a few friends, colleagues and tasks stuffed into the interstitial moments. -
Tweeting the daily life of our future-ancient world Bill Caraher's post on Historical Figures in Social Media drew my attention to a bevvy of ancient worlders now tweeting away: iTweetus (a Roman soldier), iHerodotus (Greek historian)… -
If we didn't have computers... LOVE Social Media but If we didn't have computers-wouldn't need #SocialMediab/c we wouldn't have stopped being social in the 1st place. - Crowdsourcing my identity: an art experiment The phenomenon of Pecha Kucha -- presentations in which a speaker addresses 20 slides for 20 seconds each -- has overtaken unconferences and WhateverCamps as the hottest format for professional…
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The Devolving Meaning of Social Media The headline in yesterday's New York Times business section was instantly exciting: "Kleiner Perkins and Partners Create $250 Million 'Social'... -
Adding images to blog posts with Skitch, Zemanta and Flickr Imagine I wanted to write a blog post about how to do something online. (I know it's a stretch, but bear with me.) -
8 ways to make RockMelt an even better social web browser My initial tour of RockMelt turned up lots of great features, and while it can't replace HootSuite and Feedly in my current workflow, it's fantastic for day-to-day browsing and sharing. -
Using RockMelt with HootSuite and Feed.ly For an overview of the RockMelt web browser, see part 1 of this series. The big advantage of RockMelt is the tight integration between browsing and sharing. -
Is RockMelt the right web browser for social media enthusiasts? Web browsers like Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox and Chrome offer the windows through which we experience a vast chunk of our online lives. -
12 inspired dry erase products and tips for whiteboard lovers For those moments when MindJet, MindMeister, Popplet and other electronic options are just too constraining, the stationery overlords invented dry erase...everything. -
Erase this computer: a whiteboard for your laptop This week I was in a meeting with Myron Campbell, an MAA student at Emily Carr. Myron runs Draw by Night, a drawing party that happens every other month in Vancouver (and now, Calgary). -
Using HootSuite as your Twitter dashboard This week I'm offering an updated look at the Twitter methodology that helps me focus my attention on the people and news that matter most to me. -
At HBR: Using Twitter to fight distraction This week I'm writing a series of posts that outline my updated methodology for using Twitter lists to make Twitter a productive tool. - Five Ways Twitter Can Help You Conquer Distraction If you were going to design the perfect distraction, you'd probably make it irresistibly urgent, gossipy, and/or funny. You'd design...
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How Twitter lists can keep you connected to the relationships that matter most Social media is all about being connected, we are often told. But who are you connecting with? -
Happiness in 140 characters: building relationships with Twitter This weekend Virginia Heffernan wrote an elegy for the analogy telephone that is a must-read for anyone who wants to think seriously about how our communication channels affect the way we relate to… -
Cool Stuff My Friends Sent Me This Week One of the things I love about the Internet is its habit of bringing us little presents. No, I'm not talking about the complete set of Reboot action figures that I purchased on eBay for my… -
Introducing App Girl This is a cautionary tale about the dangers of introducing children to technology. Four weeks ago, it was time for the annual ritual of Hallowe'en costume selection. -
Vancouver Sun list of 100 influential women in BC shows influence beyond Twitter I woke up this morning to the delightful discovery that the Vancouver Sun included me in their list of BC's top 100 influential women. -
Social media for journalists: 10 essential tools This is the final post in a series, Social media for journalists. We all know that social media is transforming the broadcast and publishing businesses. -
Social media for journalists: 9 feeds for your iGoogle dashboard This blog post is the 3rd in a series, Social Media for Journalists. As a journalist, you depend on timely access to the lastest news...including the online murmurings that aren't news yet… - Back When Social Media Was Human… Lisa Barone made my day with an extraordinary blog post, Back When Social Media Was Human…
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LinkedIn for journalists: 5 reasons to shoot for 500+ connections This post is part 2 in a series, Social Media for Journalists. There's one thing I expect to see on every journalist's LinkedIn page… - Social media for journalists: 10 ways to use Evernote If social media is rewriting the rules of field after field, then publishing may be the field where its impact has been most immediate..and often, most painful.
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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. - 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.
- 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.
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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). -
The small organization's guide to investing in social media This is the sixth and final post in a series, Social media for small organizations. Small organizations -- as well as some large ones! -- typically face a limited audience size and a limited budget… -
How a small organization can build a content-driven social media presence This is part 5 in a series, Social media for small organizations. Organizations with a limited audience (fewer than 100,000 people) or limited budget (less than $100k) face equally limited… - The 5 requirements for using RSS aggregation to build your online presence This is part 4 in a series, Social media for small organizations. The rule of 90-9-1 means that small organizations with focused audiences are unlikely to create highly participatory…
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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… - The Rule of 84: Social media for your limited budget or small audience "How can our organization create a social media presence?" The latest person to ask me that question was a dear friend who is on the board of a 2,000-member non-profit.
- Creating a social media presence in 2010 By now, virtually any organization that is committed to the web has asked: how can social media and online community strengthen our relationship to our members or customers…
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Where The Social Network fails, does Gossip Girl succeed? My latest blog post for Harvard Business Review talks about what The Social Network tells us about social media. -
The Social Network: A Good Movie That’s Not About Social Networking Singin' in the Rain has been my favorite movie for almost 30 years. It's got classic music, extraordinary dancing and,... -
13 tips for using Facebook events instead of pages, groups or apps If you're creating a participatory project on Facebook, consider creating an event rather than a Facebook page. -
Coming to terms with groupness, on- and offline How your life online can satisfy your need for belonging, community and "groupness". -
Locative technologies help us redefine what presence means Simon King has a provocative blog post about the relationship between using technologies on-location, and actually being present in the location where you're checking. -
Eat my words: a dinner club for copy editors Rob and I love to go out for dinner, but food is rarely the highlight of the meal. Usually, the high point is the process of copy editing the menu. -
Show + Tech: What I did on my summer vacation Stinky socks. Talking dogs. Dancing jelly beans. We got to see all of the above -- and more! -- at the SIM Centre's inaugural show + tech. -
3 ways short links can help you drive traffic to your blog or web site This week I showed a colleague a few of my favorite tricks with link shorteners -- you know, the services that replace… - Strengthening weak ties online: A first response to Gladwell's take on social media activism Malcolm Gladwell has a new piece on Twitter, Facebook and social activism that is a must-read for people working at the intersection of politics and technology…
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Students use the internet to keep in touch with parents | Easier A UK insurance firm has released the results of a study that looks at how students use the internet to keep in touch with parents… -
Addicted to Internet addiction Thanks to Tonic for pointing me towards Mark Malkoff's unusual retreat from supposed Internet addiction: by spending 5 days offline, in the bathroom. -
The accidental online society Anil Dash's blog post last week on The Facebook Reckoning includes this terrific summary of what's at stake for us in inventing our new, social media-ted society… -
Keep your Facebook friends from revealing your secrets The T-List has a very readable, useful and detailed post, Are Your Facebook Friends Revealing Secrets? -
Another voice for your real life online Suzanne Moore at the Mail Online has written my favorite recent social media polemic, Why my friends on Facebook and Twitter matter as much as those in the real world. -
Bathroom graffiti, meet social media The back-to-school rhythm of September has stayed with me in the years since I graduated myself, but it has fresh resonance this September as I'm back in an academic environment. -
The Dirty Truth About Digital Fasts Last year it was the staycation. This year it's the digital fast. "How I unplugged" — from Twitter, from a... - Alone online When we have no project to finish, no friend to visit, no book to read, no television to watch or no record to play…
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Talking about talking about social media Daniel Greene has an interesting post about the need for offline conversations that can help us make sense of our lives online. As he puts it… -
The size of social media No one is perfect and you can’t expect to please everyone all the time, so the best trick is to be prepared for how to handle things if your company finds itself under attack in the social realm. - 6 social web sites where you want multiple accounts If you're trying to develop a consistent voice, brand or set of relationships across the social web, it's very useful to choose a username that is available on all the major social networks and use…
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5 life problems created by Facebook -- and 1 solution The launch of Facebook Places, which lets people "check in" to geographic locations the way they can with FourSquare, Yelp or Gowalla… - 10 ways your smartphone will help you travel with kids It was 9:15 a.m., and the Eiffel Tower had barely opened for the day. Nonetheless, we faced a 90-minute line-up before our two young kids -- ages 4 and 6…
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Alive offline If the Internet is addictive, then how come there's no withdrawal symptoms? I've been on vacation for three days and haven't blogged, barely tweeted, barely Facebooked… -
2 weeks of tips on meaningful living online Unplugging is not the only way to take control of your relationship to the Internet. If you want to create a more meaningful life and a healthier world… -
Responding to online criticism: reflections on my WNYC interview Most people don't even read the blog they're responding to. -
10 Reasons to Stop Apologizing for Your Online Life #thankyoujesus for irl and online friends. Couldn't live w/o either. Laptop down. It's IRL Face Time! it was so cool... -
5 ways to make your time online more fulfilling "I don't understand how you can spend so much time online. Most of what I see online sickens me." "Like what?" "Oh you know...porn. Spam. Stupid Facebook quizzes. Endless advertising." -
Should you buy an iPad? The sequel: 4 reasons to buy a 3G iPad After spending the past week in Portland I could wax rhapsodic about OSCON, Zoo Camp, We Village or the Ultimate Sandwich. But what I really have to coo over is my new iPad. -
Focus Your Attention Online My last blog post for Harvard Business Review offered 10 reasons to stop apologizing for your life online. It's a... -
The risks of risk management What do you risk when you express yourself online? -
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… - Twitter and be gay Leone Kraus has a fantastic article that covers the particular social media challenges for LGBT folks.
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7 practices to strengthen your online presence Buddhists make great friends. They're fantastic listeners, they're thoughtfully engaged with the world around them, and if they're the real deal, it's calming just to be around them. -
5 practices to humanize online communication What does it mean to take online life seriously as real life? Here's another reason to reject the idea of "IRL" ("In Real Life") as the opposite of life online. -
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. -
5 ways to get authentically naked What's the line between authenticity and over-disclosure? This post offers 5 ways you can keep track of the boundary between sharing and over-sharing. -
Social media vs reality There's been a lot of hand-wringing lately about how the Internet is impoverishing our minds, souls and relationships. -
Family movie night: The 2x2 Like everything in life, the conundrum that is Family Movie Night can be reduced to a 2x2 table. -
How to use Thesis to customize your teasers by page and category I use the Thesis theme for my Wordpress blog. Thesis is much beloved in the Wordpress community because it allows a high degree of customization using its two pages of configuration menus… - How to win friends and influence people…through social media Dale Carnegie's How to win friends and influence people could be described as the father of relationship marketing and the grandfather of social media.
- The single woman's guide to texting My husband and I are closing in on our 10th wedding anniversary, and for the most part, that is great news.
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Research reveals people can survive up to 24 hours without Internet access I'm fascinated by the number of people who are experimenting with different forms of unplugging: journalists, bloggers and tweeters who take some kind of solo holiday from connectivity. - An evangelical perspective on information overload I was fascinated to come across an evangelical take on the problem of information overload. Becky Sweat's article in The Good News reads…
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10 expert predictions on how the Internet will affect social relations The latest Pew survey on the Future of the Internet looks at the effect of technology on social relations, and the expectations of 895 Internet experts are overwhelmingly optimistic. - thirtysomething meets the Internet When I was sixteen I hated Jane Austen. I read Pride and Prejudice, but couldn't get beyond the anachronism. Every plot point rested on the impossibility of speaking directly and honestly…
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The upside to teen life online Frankasaurus has a great blog post about her experiences growing up online, comparing the impact of chat rooms on a socially awkward teenagers with the experience of using social media today. - For Oprah.com: Gifts for the geeky dad (even after Father's Day) Do you have a tech-loving Dad in your life? This post for Oprah.com offers great gift ideas to show him that he's your favorite geek.
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How to stop waiting by the inbox I recently sent one of those e-mails that leaves you feeling like a shmuck. Not because of anything I wrote, but because I knew I would be obsessively checking my inbox every five minutes until I… - A balanced look at the mental impact of social media "The Internet is distracting and isolating and diminishes our capacity for focused work." "The Internet is transformative and connecting and is making us steadily smarter."
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Discovering family through a social media crisis My latest blog post for Harvard Business Review tackles the challenge of surviving a social media emergency. -
Patrolling the boundaries in social networking Rob Jewitt, a lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Sunderland, writes about the university's recently introduced social networking site for students. -
What online music fans learn about online community Anastasia Goodstein says this about how social networks have changed the relationship among music fans and between fans and artists… -
A techsperiment that puts family tech use in a new light Last week we conducted a techsperiment on eliminating gadgets from our family time: we swore off using iPhones, iPads and computers from the time we got home (5 or 6) until the time the kids were… - 4 ways online communication can build relationships Dear Alex: The Internet can be good for relationships.
- Using ecosystems to model the abundance of the Internet John Naughton had a remarkably thoughtful and useful piece in the Observer this weekend, Everything you need to know about the internet.
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Putting a price on friendship I'll give you $2 for the guy you talked to at an office party last week. The friend you play hockey with every weekend, on the other hand, is worth $75. Your college roommate? -
How to find support online during life's big passages (for Oprah.com) "Thinking of you lots," I wrote on my old friend's Facebook wall after a couple of years had gone by without a chance to reconnect. My timing was perfect, she replied. -
A practice to make your online friendships more meaningful I wonder if technology and social media has compressed our relationships into a process that we can barely recognize? -
Techsperiment days 3 & 4: going out without Twitter Our effort at keeping devices off during family time -- roughly three hours a night -- continues. The biggest challenge of day 4 came when I realized it was 5 pm, and I'd yet to log day 3. -
Popplet brings mind mapping to the iPad "It's only for content consumers, not content creators." That charge was leveled at the iPad even before it hit the stores. -
5 questions that will change how your grown (or little) kid thinks about technology Day 2 of our New York Times-inspired techsperiment: can we go without iPhones, iPads and computers for our three hours of family time each night? -
How to use your RSS reader to enhance community How to use your RSS reader so that it strengthens your connection to community, and helps build the kind of society you want to live in. -
Your social media friends are your real friends Diana Adams is one of a growing number of social media junkies who have experimented with taking some time off from the web. -
Techsperiment day 1: the difficulty of unplugging with kids 24 hours into our vow to unplug -- for just 3 hours a day! -- and I am the weakest link. We've sworn to give up computers… -
How to unplug as a parent: a techsperiment Last week's New York Times piece on kids who are exasperated by their parents' constant emailing, phoning and twittering hit close to home. "What's more important," our daughter is known to ask. -
The best site for reviews of kids' games & movies now has apps too! A few friends have recently asked me for iPhone app recommendations for kids. My friend Annemarie took suggestions from me and others… -
Online activities reinforce offline social connections How did I miss this one? In 2008, StatsCan published a very useful paper on How Canadians' Use of the Internet Affects Social Life and Civic Participation. -
Your therapist's Facebook page could be harming your mental health I've been part of many recent conversations about whether Facebook is harmful to our mental health -- and perhaps a new source of business for psychotherapists. - Strategies for managing online distraction from Steven Pinker Psychologist Steven Pinker has a terrific op-ed in the New York Times this morning, responding to the recent flurry of press about how the Internet is destroying the quality of our attention and…
- Group identity and the psychology of social media What motivates people to contribute content to user-driven web sites? A blog post on the Psychology Behind Social Media does a nice job summing up the major factors?
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The 10 lies of working late It's not late if your friends are still online. -
Protecting social spaces from cell phones and social media marketing If you have ever glared at someone who is having a loud cell phone conversation on the bus, or felt slighted by a friend who answers a phone call during a dinner date… - Good news for Internet users who need a boost Happy News is a site that accentuates the positive: it promises to deliver only good news stories.
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Social networks say good-bye to difficult but crucial interactions Todd Essig has a thoughtful post about how social networks have affected the process of saying good-bye in our culture. -
Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Not addiction; dependency Nicholas Carr has genius take on the conversation about "Internet addiction"… - 5 paths to self-discovery online One of the key ways to make your online life more meaningful is to use it as an outlet for self-discovery and self-expression. Here are 5 ways you can use the Internet to get to know yourself a little better.
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Choosing a widget control plugin for Wordpress For the past few months I have used the Widget Context plugin on my WordPress blog in order to control where widgets show up on my site. -
The meaning of engagement A great description of meaningful engagement from Chris Jones… -
Is social media just for married people? Think Social is a blog from the Paley Center for Media that focuses on the public benefits of social media. - Tips for avoiding social media compulsion Chris Brogan's blog post, Your Blog is Not Your Job, contains some great tips on how keep blogging and social media from overtaking your primary work and focus. These include…
- Can a mobile phone make you sane instead of crazy? Aaron Bellve of Spit, Bristle and Fury (killer blog title, BTW!) has a thoughtful post about an NPR story on the dawn of therapy by mobile phone.
- Now on Oprah.com: Life passages online, plus an empty nest bonus My latest blog post for Oprah.com, How to find support online, talks about ways to get support during life passages.
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The virtues of losing touch Google Buzz got slammed for prepopulating its users' friends lists based on their most frequent email correspondents. -
For Oprah.com: Should you get an iPad for kids? This post for Oprah.com lists the 5 questions to ask about using an iPad for kids, so you can decide whether to get one for your family. -
5 solutions to hyperthinking and hypertasking While working my way through the consultation paper on Canada's Digital Advantage, I found myself… - On the limitations of dotcom culture Graham Hatch's blog post about privacy issues at Google and Facebook includes some interesting musings on the dotcom world…
- How to extend Canada's "digital advantage" beyond the digital economy How to turn the digital economy into a driver of business growth and community development.
- 10 tips on how to make a great iPad app (live blog) I'm live blogging the news app demonstrations at Hacks/Hackers Unite, where we are seeing a variety of interesting applications for news gathering and delivery.
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Demo apps for iPad news (live blog) I'm at Hacks Hackers Unite, where a group of eighty journalists ("hacks") and software developers ("hackers") have spent the weekend building demo apps that show the possibilities for news gathering… -
My latest for Oprah.com: Is an iPad Right for Your Family? "I got an iPad!" my daughter announces to a friend. "No honey, I got an iPad," I remind her. -
The problem with social media "reputation management" If you've been tracking the rise of social media services, you may have noticed how many are pitched as reputation management. -
The return of "I don't know" Fifteen years ago, "I don't know" was a regular part of our vocabulary. And then it all changed. -
Missing out on Twitter I made a number of confessions in my Northern Voice talk on Coping with Social Media, and in Gillian Shaw's related story for the Vancouver Sun. -
Still social after all these years Ron Burnett has an interesting blog post on whether Twitter (and other social media) are really social. - 5 solutions for coping with social media Read Gillian Shaw's story about my social media methodology in the Vancouver Sun. Is social media something you have to cope with? Or is social media something that can help you cope?
- 6 Ways to Get Wired and Inspired The Internet has a terrible way of distracting a girl: You sit down to search job postings, and you end up in a chat room with some guy in Thailand who wants to know how you refinished your floors.
- On Oprah.com: What to do on Twitter when you're getting started This post for Oprah.com shows what to do on Twitter when you're getting started. Learn the basics of using Twitter, like how to find great people to follow, or check out this Twitter glossary.
- Do social networks make birthdays better? Today is my 39th birthday. Among other things this means I've now spent 2/3 of my life online, since we got our first computer when I was 13.
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Gist shows the future of social media profiling One of the best side effects of my recent contact management overhaul was the discovery of Gist. -
On Oprah.com: How to find online inspiration and set goals online From an online inspiration feed to an affirmation password, this post for Oprah.com shares 6 ways to find inspiration and set goals online. -
6 ways to prioritize your friends online (for Oprah.com) This post for Oprah.com shows how to support your friendships by making and keeping real friends online. - 5 solutions that clean up your address book Don't limit your spring cleaning to tidying your linen cupboard and sweeping the dust bunnies out from under your bed. You computer needs cleaning too! Why clean, you ask?
- Spice up your dates with technology The new Italian restaurant in our neighborhood was the perfect place to celebrate our eighth wedding anniversary. We settled into a cozy table for two and turned our attention to the menu.
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How to use your iPad for family multitasking Yesterday's blog post about the merits of buying an iPad provoked some questions about overconsumption, as well as a shout-out from a fellow sofa commuter. - Syncing Contacts: The Impossible Dream Of all the problems that plague the plugged-in, social worker, one of the simplest remains the hardest to solve: Syncing...
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Should you buy an iPad? Last weekend we made the great pilgrimage across the border so that we could get iPads on the day of their release. - Even in a virtual world, where you live still matters One of the fantasies that comes from living online is that it doesn't matter where you are based if you're hooked into the net.
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Making time for creative expression online Pur time online doesn't have to pull us away from what really matters. The pursuit of creative self-expression is one that the web makes vastly more accessible. -
On Oprah.com: 6 ways to be a better parent online A few months ago, we had one of those stomach flus familiar to parents of young children everywhere. My son threw up all over his bed, and I wasn't feeling so hot myself. -
Getting to know you in the age of Google My latest blog post for HBR is an interview with digital anthropologist Brynn Evans. One of Brynn's research projects was The Social Shirt… -
The Tantalizing Promise of Social Search Of all the sessions I missed at this year's SXSW, the one that I regretted the most was the Social... -
How to password-protect yourself from iPhone addiction "Can I borrow your iPhone for a sec?" I'd left mine at home, so I had to hit up my buddy for the chance to make a quick call as soon as she finished hers. -
On Oprah.com: Great dates that take your marriage online This post for Oprah.com shows how the social media can take your marriage online -- with a great date offline. - Kill your tech truths I recently read a profile of the performance artist Marina Abramovic, whose work is currently featured in a career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.
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Confidential to Beer Guy You know who you are. In the card-swapping frenzy that is SXSW, I'm not surprised to have a conversation interrupted so that somebody can give me his card, and ask for mine. -
From HBR.org: Five Unsolved Problems Social Media Could Fix Check out the panels or exhibitors at this year's SXSW and you'll see how many longstanding social media and web... -
Why I love my new job When I came into work today, I found that somebody had knit a handle-cosy onto the front door of Emily Carr, and around the pipe just inside. This is why working at an art university rocks. -
The next tech revolution is here and now The next tech revolution is underway. It's not the dawn of the semantic web, or the mobile web, or web 3.0 or any of these buzzwords. -
SXSW X SWAG Separating my SXSW swag into "take it home" and "throw it out" piles shows what makes for good, memorable promotional materials. -
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. -
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 -
How Social Media Is Changing Olympic Coverage This blog post originally appeared on the web site of the Harvard Business Review. - 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.
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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. - 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.
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An open source bedtime story Tonight my daughter, a.k.a. Little Sweetie, requested a bedtime story that was "more educational". -
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. -
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. -
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. -
5 ways social media can help you learn to say no (for HBR) Subject: Beta invitation for new web app -
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. -
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. -
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 I've been writing about my wish for a family scrapbook solution that would create photobooks that use tweets as captions, and I've described the features I'd like. -
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. -
Feature set for a social media scrapbook Last week I wrote about the non-existent web application that is currently at the top of my wishlist: a social media scrapbooking service. - On Managing Information Overload and Extremely Lame Superpowers We all struggle with information overload. If somebody would just push a button and turn off the Internet for a...
- How I'm going to go This weekend has helped me identify the most likely scenarios for my own demise…
- Wanted: Social media scrapbook service Our parents and grandparents recorded their memories in baby books, year books, photo albums and Super 8. We have Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and blogs.
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The next chapter: Emily Carr University Two months ago, Rob and I decided to refocus Social Signal on social media capacity building. - The geek's guide to child-proofing: how to keep your tech safe from baby If you've had a baby, chances are you've given some thought to the question of childproofing.
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Nonprofit technology starter pack This is the third part of a 3-part post. The first part covers collaboration on nonprofit technology, and the second part lists 9 questions to ask before starting a nonprofit technology project. - 9 questions to ask before starting a nonprofit technology project This is part two of a three-part post. Part 1 looks at the opportunity for academic collaboration with the nonprofit tech sector. Part 3 offers a starter pack of nonprofit technology resources.
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Collaboration on nonprofit technology in academia and beyond I'm currently attending the International Digital Media and Arts Association's annual conference, which primarily draws academics who work and teach in digital media. -
Watch and record HD TV on your Mac -- now in Canada! If you want to turn your Mac into a TV set or PVR (personal video recorder) you have a few good options -- unless you want to record in High Definition (HD). -
Is Twitter devouring itself? Twitter lists have been around for all of one week and already there is a site that exists to make a list of lists. -
How a bad haircut created the risk tolerance to go open-source The following post appeared in The Mark News earlier this week. When I was a kid I had the shortest hair of any girl in my class because my mum couldn't face the hassle of hair maintenance. -
How to create a great report summarizing your workshop's results, with an example from Vancity's Change Everything We love the Concept Jam workshop for what happens in the room, as people get excited about the possibilities for social media in their organizations and their own work. -
Ask social media experts to share their secrets at SXSW The incredible reaction to Open SoSi got me thinking about my proposed panel for SXSW, Are you smarter than a social media expert? As originally conceived, this panel asked… -
A recent graduate finds hope in Social Signal's social media career advice More advice for recent grads who want to get started in social media. - Canadian Press article points to Social Signal for social media tips and open-source resources Day one of Open SoSi, and it's already in the news as a potential resource for professionals starting out in social media.
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Agenda and script for the Concept Jam social media strategy workshop Read part 1, introducing the Concept Jam overview >> Today, we're releasing two documents that can help you structure a Concept Jam workshop. -
How to deliver a social media strategy workshop that builds capacity and finds opportunities We're launching Open SoSi by sharing the Concept Jam. The Concept Jam is a workshop-based methodology for identifying an organization’s most promising social media opportunities. -
How to enable sleep on your HP Mini hackintosh netbook Because your hackintosh won't bring you much joy if closing the lid makes your computer freeze. -
12 things you don't know about Rob Cottingham In a few hours I'll be thankful for a plate of turkey, stuffing and gravy. Meanwhile, there's nothing like jamming chunks of bread into the cavity of a formerly living creature to make you… -
Part 6: A checklist of steps to take before installing the Mac OS on a PC netbook Think carefully before you hacktintosh your netbook, and make sure to do your homework. -
Part 5: How to decide if you should install the Mac OS on a PC netbook Now that you've read about how I mac-ified my HP Mini netbook, and how much I love the results, you may be wondering whether a mac-ified netbook is for you. - Remembering Michael Griesdorf What I learned from my dear friend Michael: about love, about the world, and about having a damn good time.
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Part 4: My $400 MacBook Air Light Living with a hacktintosh: the pros and cons of my newly Macified HP Mini 1000. - Making a Mac netbook, Part 3: How to migrate your current Mac setup to your new Mac netbook You can get up and running with your hacktintosh a lot more quickly if you make smart use of Apple's migration manager to copy data, applications and settings from your existing Mac.
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Making a Mac netbook, part 2: How to install the Mac OS on a Windows or Unix netbook A summary of the steps I followed to install Mac OS Snow Leopard on an HP Mini 1000. -
Making a Mac netbook, part 1: Why I Mac-ified Why I turned my HP Mini 1000 netbook into a Mac -- after months running it in Ubuntu and Windows. - 7 innovations that make travel easier A few months ago I wrote a blog post for Harvard Business Online about social media tools that can make business travel more effective – and thus, more infrequent.
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Social media and the health sector: an introduction with case studies I'm in Toronto today at the Getting to Uptake conference, convened by Sick Kids Hospital. The conference focuses on how social media can foster practice change in the arena of pediatric mental… - Scoring with Social Media: 6 Tips for Using Analytics This blog post originally appeared on the Harvard Business Review site. Want to know your social media score?
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How to monitor your blog's comments using Twitter Twitter has helped move my attention from the soapbox side of social media ("Here I am blogging about the Important Idea I want to convey") towards its conversational side ("What do you think about… -
BC Children's Hospital - Be A Superhero! Are you a superhero? Do you know someone who might be? E-mail them to ask them to support the BC Children's Hospital Foundation with a personalized video from Global TV. -
The biggest story you won't read in a Canadian paper If you love the Iraq war, global warming and free trade, gosh, have I got great news for you. -
Seven ways to break the habit of compulsive e-mail and Twitter check-ins I've lost too much of the present to my constant need to check the iPhone. Here are seven practices that are helping me break free of my compulsion. -
Five ways to say goodbye to scolding tweets Twitter users love to scold their fellow tweeters -- not to mention all the company, people and products that disappoint us off-line. Here's how to break the nagging cycle. -
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. - Ten women speakers to look for at SXSW Interactive 2010 The panel picker for next year's South By Southwest Interactive conference has just gone live, and zowee! there are some great choices.
- How to make sense of Twitter follows and unfollows A couple of weeks ago I wrote my most hypocritical tweet ever…
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How to use social media to support your personal and business goals and relationships 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. - 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.
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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. -
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. -
How to use social media to recruit your dream hire This week in Harvard Business Online: my post about how to Hire Smarter with Social Media. - 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.
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Social media questions for Industry Canada's conference on Canada's Digital Economy I'm at a Canadian Government's conference in Ottawa today on "Canada's Digital Economy: Moving Forward". -
6 ways to customize your Mac's Finder and user experience Happily, it's easier to tweak your Mac than to upgrade your boyfriend or girlfriend. Here are some adjustments that any new Mac user should undertake, or at least consider, until your computer is exactly right for you. -
Tony nominee [title of show] is a case study in social media creativity We can either follow our instinct Or take advice from every joker We can either be distinct, or wind up merely mediocre I’d rather be nine people’s favorite thing Than a hundred people’s ninth… - 12 questions for meaningful online conversations When companies adopt social media, they get more than just the marketing juice they're typically seeking: they're inviting in a Trojan Horse full of questions about their offering, their approach…
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4 Mac applications that make you more productive Here are four Mac-only apps that will warm the heart of anyone who's made the jump from Windows -- and thrill long-time Mac users, too. -
18 tools for effective social media participation on blogs and beyond An overview of the tools I rely on to participate effectively in the thriving world of social media. -
5 ways to protect your Mac's looks and performance This is part 3 in a series, Coming out as a Mac user. -
Engagement planning worksheets to engage your users and move them to action How can you use the web to engage your members, supporters or the public, and move them towards a specific action? -
The 9 software choices every Mac user needs to make This is part 2 in a series, Coming out as a Mac user. - Getting the most from your new Mac The first part of a series in which I'll walk you through the five steps to becoming a happy and fulfilled Mac user after years in the PC closet.
- When and how to communicate online Don't e-mail what you can blog. Don't blog what you can tweet. Don't tweet what you can DM. Don't DM what you wouldn't publish.
- 5 time-wasting Internet rules that you should think about breaking Internet sages are full of rules about stupid things you should never do. But like most recommendations delivered as inviolable laws…
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12 kid-friendly iPhone apps for toddlers and young kids The real power of an iPhone lies in the ability to keep a preschooler silent and occupied for the length of time it takes a grown-up to eat a meal in a restaurant with actual tablecloths. -
How Twitter groups can make your twittering more a meaningful, conversational and connected Learn how I set up a Twitter system that connects me more closely to the people and ideas that matter most in my own life. -
Vendetta of the week: Twitter ponzi schemes for building followers Tonight i stumbled across a website that promises to get you more than 20,000 followers. How? The same way that letter you got in grade 2 promised to make you $500 dollars. -
Twitter quickstart: 10 ways to make time to Twitter Whether you're an ambivalent Twitter newbie or a chronic tweeter in the throes of a growing addiction, your tweeting is going to take time that you're currently using for something else. -
Twitter quickstart: Effective twittering in 5 minutes a week If you're new to Twitter, you want to quickly eliminate the five sure signs you're a Twitter newbie… - Twitter quickstart: Your first 21 tweets Gillian Shaw pointed out a "Twitter squatter" to me last night -- Mel Lehan, the NDP candidate in our riding, who'd nabbed his name on Twitter but not actually posted anything.
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Social media strategy and tech tips, now available through Firefox search Grab the Social Signal Firefox search tool and get access to all of our great social media resources from your browser's search bar. -
3 great options for Twitter and delicious integration With the increasing attention I've been giving our Social Signal Twitter account, I've found myself in a bit of dilemma. -
Using social media to drive business innovation: insights from Guy Kawasaki and Target's Michael Axelin Last week I heard Guy Kawasaki speak at the JFSA Innovators' lunch. (Thanks to Raquel Hirsch of WiderFunnel for the kind invitation.) - 3 steps to jumpstart your corporate Twitter account by moving friends and followers from other accounts If you're using multiple Twitter accounts, you don't have to start each one from scratch.
- 14 tips for Twitter contests that build followers and brand visibility Inspired by a successful Twitter contest, we ran on our -- and created this set of tips on what it takes to run an effective contest.
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3 tips to make better use of the Firefox browser It turns out that a great source of insight on how to make effective use of Firefox is....Firefox. -
New resources to help entrepreneurs get started with social media The SHOP Symposium that CRAVE put on today was bursting with fantastic women entrepreneurs whom I've long admired as a customer, member, or as a drooling window shopper. -
6 essential social media tools for your business or organization If you're asking how social media can help your business or organization, you should start by answering four questions that will give you a strategic framework for decision-making. -
4 questions to answer before you get started (or move forward) with social media Many organizations want to know how to get started with social media, or how to take it to the next level. All too often, the answer they get is the name of a site or platform: Create a Twitter feed! - Forrester, Social Signal on finding online passion for your brand Comparing Forrester's notion of "borrowed relevance" with Social Signal's approach to "reflected glory marketing".
- 17 tips for using Twitter to grow your business In 2008, companies woke up to the power of Facebook as a way of engaging customers, building brand, and selling their products or services.
- How the social web can nourish your most personal relationship When you work on something really hard together and enjoy the successes and challenges with each other, and then get through it not just whole but stronger—you realize how blessed you are…
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Inviting positive customer feedback If your web site has a customer feedback form, you can learn from Apple's mistakes. - Building your social media team Developing an effective social media team requires more than finding the right box on the org chart or figuring out where that community moderator should sit. Here are the kinds of capabilities you need on your team.
- Today in the Globe & Mail: Alex on the business of social media Today's Globe & Mail included a special supplement about MBA programs, with a feature story on why and how schools are incorporating social media into the curriculum.
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Using online contests as a marketing tool If you're running online contests to promote your work, you want to encourage people to participate as widely as possible. Here's how to create a compelling and fun contest. -
DoodleBuzz offers a new way of visualizing the news Tired of Google Reader's straight-ahead interface for catching up on the latest news? DoodleBuzz describes itself as a "typographic news explorer". -
Tips for a successful Facebook application launch Contests are one way to get your Facebook app off to a strong start -- but there are other options. -
4 steps for calculating ROI on social media Establishing the ROI from your social media spend is an inexact science, but these four simple steps can help you get in the ballpark. -
5 reasons to send Direct Messages on Twitter In answer to a question posted in LinkedIn, I've offered five reasons to use Twitter's DM function -- including to communicate something that is too short to be worth emailing. - Using B2C social media for B2B marketing Think of your social media presence as a party: you're inviting lots of pretty people (the end customers), who in turn will bring in lots of smart/rich people (your customers).
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Three steps for companies getting started with social media Listen. Think. Engage. These are the three steps every company should follow. - 10 steps to get your e-mail inbox to zero every day Learn the simple system I used to get from an inbox of over 2000 messages to an empty inbox -- and to keep it there.
- How I got to inbox zero E-mail I want to respond to ASAP, namely, client and prospect inquiries.
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10 social media travel tools This blog post originally appeared on the Harvard Business Review. -
Social media tips for business travel, today in Harvard Business online My business travel begins long before I get on the plane. By making the most of social networking and other social media tools… -
Enrich your content with Zemanta I'm writing this blog post with the assistance of Zemanta, a web service that claims to enrich your blog posts and emails by inserting links, related pictures, articles and tags. -
Wanted: Universal connector service for all my friends and social networks TripItGate has me thinking about how to make social network invitations more useful, less spammy, and less of a hassle. -
Twitter monitoring to strengthen your team When, how and why you might find it useful to track the Twitter feeds of specific colleagues in a focused way. -
Responding to online criticism Will Aldrich responded today to my post about my experience with TripIt's social invitation process, and his response is a model of how to handle online criticism. -
Social network invitations: Rules for services and users My experience spamming my address book with a social network invitation inspired this run-down of how to set up network invites that avoid the spam trap. -
Rob's Northern Voice keynote If you've ever wondered whether social media is funny, check out the reaction to Rob's Teh Funny Northern Voice keynote. The Twitter backchannel is reprinted in text below. -
Why online conversation matters Why online conversation holds the key to social, political and community change. -
Keep iPhone, iCal, MobileMe and Google Calendar in sync with BusySync If you use Apple's iCal, Google Calendar and an iPhone, you want to look at this application. -
NIche messaging with social media: going for the Golden Graham Reach each of your audiences with the message that speaks to them. -
ManyMoon offers collaborative task management that project managers can love What's the relationship between task management and project management? As we build up project management systems for our web-based company, that question is never far from our minds. - Seven people's seven favourite things? I've been memed. As commanded by Dave Eaves and the many people upstream of him in the 7 Things thing, here are my 7 things.
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Know how dorky you feel when you find you’re bopping along to your iPod in a public place?… Know how dorky you feel when you find you’re bopping along to your iPod in a public place? Feels 2x as dorky if it’s bopping to a showtune -
“Time to have us a good old extension cage match. In one corner you have the Hawaiian punch of the…” “Time to have us a good old extension cage match. In one corner you have the Hawaiian punch of the link sharing world - Mahalo Share. -
"Share, bookmark and e-mail web pages quickly without leaving your browser. Shareaholic makes it easy..." Shareaholic makes it easy for you to submit the web page you’re on to your favorite sharing or bookmarking service. -
Xoopit I’m grooving on this plugin for gmail/firefox that lets me browse all my videos, photos and file attachments in a convenient way. -
Roundup: 50 suggestions for how President-elect Obama can use the Internet to govern It's been one week since the greatest campaign the Internet has ever seen turned into the promise of the first Internet-era government. - My Obama mama Last night I finally got around to making my Obama donation. They invited stories as part of the donation process, and here's what I posted…
- Reframe it offers collaboration in context Our friends at ReframeIt are enjoying a couple of weeks' worth of well-deserved glowing coverage, most recently in the form of a great review on ZDnet.
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Status update: Twittering your way to effective (and expressive) communication Today I took a giant leap forward in my update-ability. (If date-ability refers to your in-person hotness, update-ability speaks to your hotness in the social media pressure cooker of Twitter… -
Comments vs spam Just realized that the incessant deluge of comment spam had masked a number of comments unrelated to Viagra, porn and serial number cracks. - How to hack your tech to-do list As a longtime (now mostly recovered) reader of women's magazines, I have struggled with the ever-mounting list of feminine maintenance tasks. Leg shaving, nail filing, face cleansing, check.
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Take note of Evernote (especially if you're an iPhone user) Since upgrading to a 3G iPhone, I've gone on periodic app binges in which I download every app that looks remotely interesting and take it for a whirl. -
Turned off by bad news? Try our special Olympic-friendly Inter... I'm delighted to be writing this post as a OneWebDay ambassador. OneWebDay, which takes place on September 22, is a global day to celebrate the Internet… - Turned off by bad news? Try our special Olympic-friendly Internet! I'm delighted to be writing this post as a OneWebDay ambassador. OneWebDay, which takes place on September 22, is a global day to celebrate the Internet…
- Halfway to hex: Anniversary gifts for geeks To celebrate our half-hex wedding anniversary, we created a new, geek-friendly set of recommended anniversary gifts.
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Online collaboration for your right brain, part 2: MindMeister... How to use MindMeister as a powerful tool for collaborative mindmapping and brainstorming. -
Online collaboration for your right brain, part 1: an introduction to digital mind mapping Most online collaboration tools engage your left brain: that part of you that likes structure and organization, and supports linear, sequential thinking. -
Kris Krug on Web 2.0 at STT Technology is obsoleting copyright law. Encourages people to use Creative Commons for all their work. - Vision Vancouver debate So far no huge policy differences except on the idea of a “speculator tax†(Gregor: pro. Al: con. Raymond:�)
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Bringing your online community to life Building an online community is just the first step. Here are my tips on bringing your online community to life. -
Free tix to Sex and The City...and some help for sex trade workers Today marks the release of Sex and the City: The Movie. With the news that SATCTM tix are selling out, your friends at Social Signal (part of the original Change Everything team) want to save you… - See Sex and the City with your friends at Social Signal Today marks the release of Sex and the City: The Movie. With the news that SATCTM tix are selling out, your friends at Social Signal want to save you from the nightmare of a Sex-less weekend. We've…
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Mary Robinson on media freedom The Elders' Every Human Has Rights campaign has just relaunched its site (on Drupal!) We've been privileged to work with the EHHR team in telling the story of the Universal Declaration of Human… -
Fighting lice in Vancouver We knew this day would come. Lice...yuck! As we struggle to contain the lice outbreak on our kids' heads, we share the following resources and insights… -
Every Human Has Rights makes human rights personal For the past two months, I've been part of the digital strategy team for The Elders, an extraordinary NGO that was launched last year by Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel. - How your non-profit can earn revenue with Web 2.0: Part 5 - Product sales This blog post is part of our series on Social Media for Social Enterprise: How non-profits can earn revenue with Web 2.0.
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A mathemetician, a librarian, and a web strategist walk into a bar... The power of Boolean logic, coming soon to a sentence near you. -
How your non-profit can earn revenue with Web 2.0: Part 3 - Earning revenue with advertising Welcome to the latest installment in our series on revenue sources for non-profit social media projects. -
YouTube views as a proxy for web success We're often asked how organizations can measure the return on investment from social media. - New look & feel, kind of almost there The new and much improved look of my blog is based on the blog style template at Open Designs, created by fellow-Canadian Collin Grasley.
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Please standby while this leopard changes its spots We're retheming alexandrasamuel.com tonight. Could get funky, people! -
Good parenting 2.0 Why you should make sure your kids have a unique username. -
Wrap your brand in reflected glory Someone needs to tell the folks at Glad: Unless your customers pay for the privilege of wearing your logo, don't build an online community around your brand. -
How your non-profit can earn revenue with Web 2.0: Intellectual property This week, I return to the questions I recently posed about social media and social enterprise… -
This iPod weighs four pounds Today is the 8-day anniversary of my iPhone, and in those eight days a whole bunch of people have asked if I've lost weight. Turns out that the iPhone has magical weight-shrinking properties. -
Will the real Alexandra Samuel please stand up? I knew this charade couldn't last forever. Like lonelygirl15 and fake Steve Jobs before me, I went to great efforts to create a compelling illusion: not only an Alexandra Samuel blog… -
Raising community-minded kids: Not just for people in Morningside Heights? How can we instill social values in our kids? That's a question Rob and I struggle with constantly. -
Target V.P. Michael Axelin on the seven components of successful innovation Tonight's symposium featured Michael Alexin, Oberlin College class of '79, V.P. of Softlines Design and Product Development at Target. -
Jerry Greenfield on entrepreneurship at Oberlin (live blogging) Continuing my live blogging of Jerry Greenfield on entrepreneurship. -
Thinking about entrepreneurship in Oberlin Reflections on responsible entrepreneurship by Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry's fame. - Is Facebook trying to kill you? My new TV addiction is "The Sarah Connor Chronicles", which brings the Terminator franchise to the small screen.
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You can't download sovereignty I waited for Tivo. I waited for iTunes video downloads -- and I'm coping with its still-too-limited content. I'm even scraping by without Amazon Unbox. But THIS is the last straw… - Google docs: now in Safari I just discovered that Google Docs finally work in the Safari web browser. (Up until now, Mac users had to access their Google Docs via Safari.)
- A new way of thinking about our name Open source didn’t just open a Pandora’s Box for the software industry -- it was the emergence of an entirely new method of production based upon social interaction and low transaction…
- Social media for social enterprise: How your non-profit can earn revenue with Web 2.0 Social Signal has worked with many different non-profit organizations, of varying size and means, to create a variety of social media sites, of varying scale and ambition.
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Can your software or web project pass this test? "If you want to do something that's going to change the world, build software that people want to use instead of software that managers want to buy." - Change the web, change the world How we perceive technology has a lot to do with how we use it. I've recently written a blog post that talks about how we can personally use the web to support social change.
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Vendetta of the month: Christmas (cancelled) This month's vendetta: Christmas. Why Christmas? The fact that my Christmas vendetta has to begin on November 6th should say it all. This holiday could be the poster child for scope creep. -
5 ways to shape the soul of the Internet Does YouTube make people into exhibitionists? Does Facebook stunt teenagers' social skills? Does 43Things help people realize their dreams? -
WANTED: Integration between Remember the Milk and Basecamp I've been looking into options for improving task management with Basecamp, given my frustration with Basecamp's lack of due dates or task details. -
Change status: Facebooking and Twittering for a new world How to use status updates -- like the ones you post to Facebook and Twitter -- to help drive social change. -
6 best practices for non-profits using web 2.0 Just how much should you fear the Social Signal vendetta of the week? Not that much, it turns out: no sooner had I written my tirade against LinkedIn Answers than I spent the evening answering them. -
This week's vendetta: user-driven sites without user-driven feeds So you really, really, really want people to contribute to your new, grassroots, user-driven site? If you want to invite my content in, you'd better let me get it out. -
Project management and workflow with Basecamp How can online collaboration tools like Basecamp support effective project management? That's one of the questions that came up at the values-based project management session I attended at Web of… - Rob Purdie on values-based project management This year's Web of Change conference included a session with Rob Purdie of Important Projects on values-based project management.
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The joys of excel I've tried a lot of financial management programs, but nothing beats the simplicity of an excel spreadsheet. -
Love your leaks How do you create a site that keeps people on your pages? By creating a site that's easy to leave. -
A beacon to find your life path OK, I'm cheating a little here -- I already love my work a lot of the time. But recently I connected with someone who is helping our company bring its work into even closer alignment with our values… -
Searching sustainably at happyfrog There's a great big gorgeous frog in the centrefold of the latest issue of SharedVISION now hitting Vancouver's streets, along with the URL happyfrog.ca... so I guess the frog is out of the bag… -
Web 2.0 and Your Organization - Event Hosted by Eventbrite -
Toronto workshop: Web 2.0 and Your Organization Web 2.0 and Your Organization July 24 & 25th, 2007 Centre for Social Innovation 215 Spadina Avenue, Toronto -
The true meaning of Facebook Why invest in an online community if Facebook is going to knock you out of the game? -
Accord Weather - Supporting non-profit innovation through NetSquared: a Drupal module for Newscloud Rob and I are spending the next two days at NetSquared, in the company of 21 outstanding teams working on projects that harness social media tools for social change.
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Freaky Facebook bug? Anna Strom just invited me to join a group for people whose babies were delivered by Pacific Midwifery. - Turn It Off! British Columbia - The Pledge | 30 Days of Sustainability
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On May 16th, I'm turning off... 1. My hair dryer (so no cracks about the 'do, ok?) -
Facebook will keep us together ....love is subscribing to someone's Facebook updates on your cell. The uncanny thing is how quickly Rob's cell rings once I hit the return key. -
10 things I've cut out to make time for Facebook If only I'd known I needed to cut TWENTY things so I'd have time for Twitter, too. - Pages tagged with "socialsignal" on del.icio.us
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Oops, I poisoned my kids Last month's "how the hell didn't I know that" moment was the discovery that Avent bottles, which both of my children have been drinking from daily for just about their entire lives… -
Falling for Facebook I'm besotted with Facebook. I can see it becoming the primary way that I -- and many other people -- interact online. So if you aren't on Facebook already, join now. Now. - Social Signal: Online community. Real-world impact.
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Dreamhost goes green I've just discovered that Dreamhost, which we use to host all of our personal sites, is carbon neutral. -
Notes vs posted items I'm having a little trouble with the difference between notes and posted items. I'm trying to set up my external blog to aggregate in my Facebook existence… - Facebook vs twitter I'm now looking for a Facebook status updater that's as convenient as Twitterbar (which lets me type my status directly into my browser's address bar, then press a little + sign to post.)
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twitterfeed.com : feed your blog to twitter - Twitterbook: Update Twitter using Facebook Status | Design Meme
- Facebook mobile Richard Smith alerted me to the fact that Facebook mobile is now available for Canadian cell phone users. And holy cow! did they ever do a smart job setting it up.
- Looking for Oberlin alumni in social media/nonprofit technology I've just started a facebook group for Oberlin Alumni in Social Technology" -- either nonprofit technology specifically, or social media more generally.
- John Hagel on expanding markets through virtual communities I'm writing this from the Community 2.0 conference, which promises to be two great days of inspiration on online community building and management.
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Twittering to myself Twitter seems to be the new addictive social networking app on the block. (For those new to the phenom, it's a site that lets you tell your friends what you are doing RIGHT NOW… - Sing, sing a song I'm coming out: I'm an American Idol fan. I'm guessing that the reason for my fandom may be at the heart of the show's popularity: I would LOVE to get up on stage and open my mouth and have a big…
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Live from the LaFontaine-Baldwin lecture Adrienne Clarkson gave the 8th annual LaFontaine-Baldwin lecture tonight on "the society of difference". - Out of my demographic on Facebook I finally (!) joined Facebook, but here's as key sign it's not exactly my demographic: there's no way to define your relationship to someone as "married".
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Your Mac needs this software I'm always looking for new bits of software that will make me more productive, more effective, and of course, taller. -
Vancouver workshop: Web 2.0 and your organization We're often approached by business and nonprofit organizations who are interested in tapping the power of the social web but don't know where to start, or how to get a feel for the possibilities. -
OPML for your enjoyment Find out what an OPML file is, and how you might use it. -
Getting started with online community: My interview with Blau Exchange Paul DiPerna recently posted a conversation we had about social media on his Blau Exchange web site. Blau Exchange is -
Linkwad Linkwad is a Firefox extension that helps you manage a long series of open tabs. - Vancouverites, please try CareSquare One of our small supply of trusted babysitters has fallen in love with someone in Nanaimo (hint to fellow parents: DO NOT encourage your babysitter to go visit that ex-boyfriend in another town).
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Advice to social media mavens...from media pros We're just back from two days in Houston as the guests of ttweak, a marketing, communications and design firm that shares our belief that authentic… -
Welcome aboard, Catherine Winters... as Social Signal takes on Second Life A few months ago, Rob and I decided that Social Signal was ready to expand its development team with another web services consultant… -
Accepting my imperfection as a mother Maybe that's more realistic than "be a better working mom". One thing I've discovered talking with my fellow moms -- working and nonworking alike -- is that we're all plagued by a similar sense of… -
Discovering Second Life We've recently started exploring Second Life, a virtual world that constitutes an exciting, immersive form of online community. -
...by not consuming I'm the consumer queen. You know how everyone has one weakness or another where they overspend? - Podcast: From Org Charts to Sitemaps -- How organizational structure affects web strategy and implementation Does your organizational structure support web innovation or inhibit it? Social Signal's first podcast will help you learn how to make the most of your own team's structure from the web strategists…
- Turning Words into Deeds: A response to Knight Foundation's 21st Century News Challenge What makes for a transformative media moment: a moment when an individual reads, watches or hears a news story and is galvanized to take action on an issue?
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Unexpected phrases I'm shopping for a baby in Second Life and came across this gem: "We will not replace babies that have been lost… -
Blogging from Second Life My newfound addiction to Second Life is really cutting into my blogging time. - PODCAST: From Org Charts to Sitemaps: How organizational structure affects web strategy and implementation Does your organizational structure support web innovation or inhibit it? Learn how to make the most of your own team's structure from the web strategists at two very different nonprofits…
- Religious views of the body & soul after death For all of us thinking about death and grieving, the Body Worlds exhibit is holding an interesting event this weekend…
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Woohoo! Tivo! Over here! I wanted to send people a direct link to Tivo in my post about our home media server, but Tivo's refer-a-friend tools don't include a web badge! - Tales of a Mac media server Earlier this year we purchased a 32", HD-ready Philips LCD TV. So when our DVD player died a few months ago, we found ourselves staring at the PC input on the back of the TV and wondering whether…
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Does Big Brother use a Treo? I just had an inquiry from a new Treo owner who is looking his gift horse in the mouth… - Play up the economic advantages of equal marriage I'm amazed we don't hear more about the economic arguments in favour of equal marriage rights.
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Shambhala centre classes? Some friends have recommended classes at the Shambhala Centre, which apparently offers both religious and secular versions of an intro to Buddhism program. Has anyone else taken them? -
MacBook with tag cloud This week's tagging project: a MacBook cover that displays my del.icio.us tag cloud, thanks to the folks at Pimp My Laptop. -
ChangeEverything is TechCrunched We're delighted that Change Everything has been noted on TechCrunch as "a nice alternative to the user generated advertising model". - Tagging for world domination Tags can help you drive traffic to your website and build engagement in your online community. Here are my secrets to tagging success.
- Learning about warranties from London Drugs London Drugs wins my customer service prize of the month for its speedy resolution of my camera dilemma. I heard right away from their warranty department.
- Hola, Hola Churro! We just discovered a new favorite spot: Hola Churro on Broadway east of Balaclava. Their Mexican food is delicious, reasonably priced…
- How about bylaws that are geared to specific decibel levels? Because I'm guessing not all motorcycles are as loud as the vintage bike our neighbour restored and used to warm up outside our window at 6 am.
- The dirty truth about extended warranties See my update on how London Drugs resolved this situation. I know, I know...extended warranties are a scam, a way for electronics stores to up the profit margin on consumer electronics sales.
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5 ways blogging can change the world Blogs -- like the blog you can set up on Change Everything -- are among the hottest Internet tools. - Home owners against the bubble Miraculously enough, we bought a duplex in Vancouver back when housing prices were merely high (as opposed to their present level, which is absurd).
- How much is too much for a hair cut? I've been getting my hair cut by the same person for years -- and I'm very loyal to her (not the least because she once sacrificed her lunch hour so that I could settle my 6-month-old daughter…
- Social Signal is hiring a Business and Project Manager Social Signal is offering an unusual opportunity to come in on the ground floor of a business with the experience, reputation and credentials to go sky-high.
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Chat transcripts for May 30th now available Transcripts from our May 30th remote conference sessions and May 30th hallway chat are now online. -
Conference tracking in real time A number of folks in the conference hallway have asked about options for tracking conference notes in real time. -
Now en route to NetSquared Rob and Aaron are both heading down to San Jose this week for the NetSquared conference. For the past eight months, we've been working with the CompuMentor/Techsoup team that is behind this event. -
Tidying tags (and cars?) When a story titled Confession: I'm a car slob popped up in the RSS feed I use to track who's linking to me, I figured that some recent passenger had decided to out me to the world. -
May 30 & 31: NetSquared's online conference with nonprofit leaders as posted on Corante's Civic Minded blog: Where can you find inspiration for online advocacy, guidance for online faclitation, and gossip about online politics? -
Just because it's a remote conference doesn't mean you don't get a badge Planning on joining us for the remote conference? Let the world know (and give the conference some link love) by posting this badge on your blog or web site. - Building online community: Behind the scenes at NetSquared As part of the NetSquared remote conference, I'm going to be hosting an online chat conversation on "Building online community: Behind the scenes at NetSquared".
- All about Rob Rob is teaching a workshop.
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Create a hallway for your web site with Gabbly We've been playing with a new tool, Gabbly, as a possible means to run live chat on the NetSquared site during the conference. -
Now downloadable: Hacktivism & The Future of Political Participation I'm making my complete dissertation available for download, beginning today. Depending on your interests, you might want to download the whole enchilada, or to look at selected chapters… -
Now available: Hacktivism & The Future of Political Participation As announced today on Civic Minded: I'm making my complete dissertation available for download, beginning today. -
Attached to Accuracy Tonight's bout of vigilante fact-checking was prompted by a story on the web site of Attachment Parenting International (API). -
On Civic Minded: Jane Jacobs drew the map on online community Today marked the end of Jane Jacobs' life, but not of her work. Jacobs' pioneering work in urban planning changed the way we think about cities -- and by redefining our ideas about how cities work… -
Online community camp, May 25th in San Francisco Forum One is hosting a one-day Online Community Camp in San Francisco on May 25th. According to the preliminary schedule, planned topics include… -
Ode to Aggregator2 on WorldChanging I have a piece on WorldChanging today about using Drupal's Aggregator2 module as a news tracking tool. - Social Tech Brewing Vancouver: May 4 at the Whip If you work at the intersection of technology and community-building, we hope you'll join us for a May 4th gathering of Social Tech Brewing's Vancouver chapter.
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New from NetSquared: Net2Learn Today we're launching a new feature on NetSquared: Net2Learn. Net2Learn is a collection of resource centers on topics that matter to nonprofits: topics like Online P.R. for nonprofits… -
From Corante: snail mail as a digital campaign tool From my blog on Corante: Anti-war e-activists have embraced one of the old standbys of pre-digital politics: snail mail. -
RSS, tags & social bookmarking: building blocks for nonprofit collaboration I'm currently at NTen's Nonprofit Technology Conference in Seattle, where I was part of a panel yesterday on "Blogging, Tagging, Flickring for the cause: New tools and new strategies." -
Business tunes into grassroots community I'm just back from SXSW, where I was reminded that there are still a few people out there who are thinking about the Internet as a potential business opportunity rather than as a chance to reinvent… -
Monkey Love Monkey loveLast night someone handed me this monkey at the Flickr/Yahoo/del.icio.us party,and told me I was supposed to pass it along. -
My half-robot baby is Creative Commons licensed My half-robot baby is Creative Commons licensed Originally uploaded by Consultini -
UPDATE: Choosing effective del.icio.us tags I wrote this almost a year ago, as a relative del.icio.us newbie. Now that I'm a little more experienced, I've revised it to include some new tips to choosing effective del.icio.us bookmarks. -
Look who's popular When I opened up my custom Google home page this morning I noticed that one of the most popular del.icio.us links for today was a guide to creating a block hover effect for a list of links. -
Tag your way to del.icio.us domination I wrote this almost a year ago, as a relative del.icio.us newbie. Now that I’m a little more experienced, I’ve revised it to include some new tips to choosing effective del.icio.us bookmarks. -
Vancouverites: learn about Open Space Open Space Technology is an increasingly popular alternative to conventional "talking head" conferences. But a successful open space event involves more than just booking a room. -
Choosing your e-mail tool As we gear up to send out our very first Social Signal e-newsletter, I'm investigating some of the e-mail newsletter tools out there. - Alex 2.0: Now with extra civic-mindedness Yippee! Today Corante launched its new Civic Minded blog on Internet politics, e-democracy and online engagement.
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Web 2.0 glossary I'm looking forward to the upcoming Nten conference, where I'll be part of a panel on Blogging, tagging, flickring for the cause. - Social Signal in nonprofit blogging story Today's Oakland Tribune features a story about nonprofit blogging. I'm quoted, but what's really exciting is that this is (I think) the first print reference to Social Signal
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About this site As you're poking around the Social Signal web site, you might notice the cluster of red words in the right-hand sidebar. This cluster is called a "tag cloud". -
Online Community session at NetSquared North Our first session at NetSquared North today covers online community engagement. We've started by sharing stories about online community projects we're working on now, including… -
Live blogging today from NetSquared North We're live blogging today from NetSquared North, a gathering of folks interested in non-profit technology issues who are in town for the Northern Voice blogging conference. -
How much is that Nazi in the window? Yesterday we began our "seasonal shopping" -- the process of buying Chanukah gifts for our daughter, and Christmas gifts for her cousins. -
10 ways to keep online dialogue on topic I've spent the past two days at a Ohio State for a conference on Building Democracy Through Online Citizen Deliberation, which has been a terrifically productive gathering. -
Blogs and Dogs For those of you who suspect that I'm having too much fun at work these days, let me note my upcoming participation in the Banff Centre's Blogs and Dogs workshop. -
Mmm, RSS. All I want for tagsgiving is a del.icio.us turkey. -
Make your nonprofit more effective with RSS aggregation TechSoup invited me to be part of their online event on Web 2.0 this week. Since I was on call for a discussion about social bookmarking and aggregation… -
Hats off to the BCTF The BC Teachers' strike hit home today, with CUPE picketing in support of the teachers even as some prospect for reconciliation has emerged. - Everything I needed to know about community engagement I learned from Flying Meat Flying Meat is the software company behind VooDooPad, my latest favorite application ever.
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Wanted: Office & Web Manager for community-minded web company For more details visit http://www.socialsignal.com/hiring If you're organized, enjoy working with technology, and want your work to have social value, you could be the newest member of Social Signal. -
Aggregation as an endless loop Here's a challenge for wiser RSS-wranglers than I: as aggregation becomes a more widely used tool for populating web sites… - Community goes corporate Boyd Neil of Hill & Knowlton has written a very kind and thought-provoking post in response to the launch of Social Signal.
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Introducing Social Signal: collaboration for communities I'm delighted to announce the launch of Social Signal. Social Signal's goal is to support online communities and distributed collaboration networks -- networks of communities that share content and… - Latest project: TechSoup/CompuMentor My latest venture in the fabulous world of Web 2.0 is helping CompuMentor -- home of TechSoup -- set up an online community in conjunction with an event they are organizing for next spring. Job one?
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What Google blog search doesn't have Rob highlights its pros and cons. How could he forget to mention its gravest oversight: no rankings! -
National Conversation now online Politics Online has launched theNational Conversation project, which aims at engaging Americans in dialogue about major national issues (in the first instance, 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina). -
10 ways RSS can help build online communities Non-governmental organizations seeking to strengthen relationships with members. Governments trying to reach out to citizens. Businesses hoping to engage and win the loyalty of customers. -
More love for Zagat Ah, the joys of the automatic reply. Zagat canceled my subscription as per my request, and here's what their e-mail included… -
Zinging Zagat I'm going to resist turning this space into my own customer service department, but here's another little skirmish in my own personal war on obnoxious web sites. - Tagging for Katrina At the suggestion of Nancy White, I've just posted an introduction to tagging for people who are creating online resources for post-Katrina disaster recovery.
- Kudos to Fido Within a few days of my post, Fido responded with a 100% perfect solution…
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Scratching at Fido's door 29 days into my love affair with an unlocked Treo and I have discovered why it's nice not to be married to any one cell phone carrier. -
Why have one home page when you can have ten? Just discovered a very cool Firefox feature. If you have several web pages open in tabs, and then click Peferences/General in order to set your home page… - Speed feeding Part of the plan with the telecentre.org ecosystem is to bring relevant content into telecentre.org sites using RSS.
- Event blogging with Drupal This is Information Society Week in Capetown, and one of the events taking place is the first telecentre.org workshop to use the new Drupal-based event platform that I've helped develop.
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This is your brain in binary As part of my ongoing quest to find a Mac counterpart to the Personal Brain (thanks to Jerry Michalski for ruining my life with his software demo) -- and as part of my re-evaluation of all my… -
Movie Central digs me out from Six Feet Under Today's online customer service award goes to Movie Central --- that's the (Western) Canadian equivalent of HBO. - Coding for deliberation One of my favourite organizations working on dialogue and deliberation challenges is the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD).
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In search of the perfect host Rob and I seem to be in the market for a new web host. We've been delighted with our current hosts, Ace of Space, but as our site and domain empire expands… - You got your Treo in my custom RSS feed I've been talking a lot about RSS on this site for some time now. And lately I've been talking about Treos too.
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Rob Cottingham » A little something for the Getting Things Done crowd OK, Getting Things Done fans: my extremely witty and brilliant husband has got a must-see web page: Rob Cottingham » A little something for the Getting Things Done crowd -
My kingdom for a link* Rob thinks my new comment form is lame and desperate. I say, maybe he would reassert some claim to even participating in our rank war if he actually deployed a little strategy himself. -
Drupalled OK, I'm officially drinking the Drupal Koolaid. Boris skyped me through the process of putting our doc on choosing the telecentre.org platform right into the Drupal handbook itself. -
On not getting things done My explorations of Treo software, switching aware from Entourage, Voodoopad and Tinderbox have plunged me into the seamy underworld of Getting Things Done -- or GTD to its fans. -
Powerblogher questions: on tagging, bookmarking and wikis Debra Roby, one of the folks at our powerbloghers session, blogged & emailed with these questions… -
Powerbloghers, please stand up Last weekend I presented an Advanced Tools session at Blogher, which didn't work out exactly as planned since we lost our Internet connection in minute 2 of the session. -
The perfect note app for a post-Entourage world The extremely fabulous Leda Dederich asked me about how I'd handle tasks and notes after my switch from Entourage to Apple apps. I was worried about losing "Tasks" too. - Healing the world with RSS If you need to compare or evaluate different content management system (CMS) options -- especially for non-profits or for distributed networks that share content via RSS and tags -- check out the…
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Choosing a platform for the telecentre.org network Read my blog post about this project and document. - All Treo, some of the time Well my Treo-ification is now well underway, which is to say that I've been immersed in the ever-exciting challenges of how to reorganize my life to be more Treo-friendly.
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Fido on a Treo I called Fido -- that's my Canadian cell phone carrier -- today to ask about GPRS settings for my new unlocked Treo 650. -
Putting Technology to Work in the Community Sector Today's news is a Call for Papers for what looks like an interesting conference in Sydney this November: Putting Technology to Work in the Community Sector Sydney… -
Treorific I’m pleased to announce a new member of our family. That’s right, I finally got a Treo. The big motivation was its time-saving potential. -
PowerBloghers get ready to roll We're going to show folks a few tricks that can help them make beautiful, earth-changing blogs while they sleep. - Wanted: RSS calendaring At the top of my wishlist: a good RSS calendaring tool that would let me share my whereabouts with friends, family and well-wishers.
- Amping up for BlogHer I'm not just the t-shirt girl: I'm going to be live and in person at BlogHer this weekend, facilitating a fantabulous advanced tools session with Marnie Webb and George Oates.
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H2O Playlist The latest tool I'm exploring is H2O Playlist, a project of the Berkman Center. What is H20? -
Become an online engagement pro This fall I'm teaching two e-engagement programs through Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. - The perfect event blogging tool? I met a really amazing group of people at AdvocacyDev, some of whom I expect to see again at Web of Change.
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From AdvocacyDev Today is the last day of AdvocacyDev II, a gathering of people using technology to support nonprofit and social change work. As promised by Mark Surman, it's been a truly mind-blowing experience. -
Grad school advice From time to time people ask me for advice about whether and how to apply to graduate school. - Moving WordPress: redirects I recently moved my blog from http://alexandrasamuel.com/blog to http://alexandrasamuel.com.
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International Conference on Engaging Communities The UN is sponsoring the International Conference on Engaging Communities in Brisbane, Australia, from August 14-17. Speakers include Stephen Coleman and Robert Putnam. -
.bed Our headboard needs an ICANN-accredited domain registrar. We always come up with the best domain names as we're falling asleep, and forget them by the morning. No godaddy jokes, please. -
This sheep talks back On my way back from this weekend's meeting of the Online Deliberative Democracy consortium I had a chance to enjoy the ever-increasing vigilance of US airport security. -
My 10 sites As promised, I'm picking 10 sites for my bookmark bar; in fact they're pretty much there already. -
Take the 10-site challenge I'm blogging this from Mike Weiksner's sidekick and it is painful not to have one, bluetooth or no bluetooth. (Its one major shortcoming.) - e-Democracy skills training I was part of a break-out group discussion today on making online deliberation tools accessible. We discussed three facets of this challenge: tool design, user training, and motivating participation.
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Online tools for ODDC: URLs I'm in Minneapolis for the Deepening Online Deliberation workshop hosted by the Online Deliberative Democracy Consortium. -
Ambush kills U.S. troops in Iraq The suicide car bomb and ensuing small-arms fire killed at least two Marines and four others were missing and presumed dead. At least one woman was killed, and 11 of the 13 wounded troops were female. -
The demise of Technorati politics? What's missing from the new and improved Technorati? It seems as if their overview ofpopular blog conversations still includes movies, books, and the top 100 -- but where is their politics page? -
Where social software meets social activism A lot of my recent reading and thinking has focused on how social software -- community-building online tools like blogging… -
The true hazards of blogging: beyond the EFF The EFF's recent release of a legal guide for bloggers gives bloggers in the US a great tool for assessing and managing the legal risks of blogging. - 100 blog shakers I suspect that the AO/Technorati Open Media 100 will be the meme of the day. It's a list of 100 movers & shakers in the world of open media -- the world of bloggers, social networks…
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The latest must-have tech As of this weekend, my blog is now M3R compliant… -
The Latest from the Technorati Rank Wars OK, it just occurred to me that my Technorati claim might in fact have been slightly messed up by the fact that Technorati was tracking my /blog directory… - Irony, thy name is Technorati It's happened! I am now officially kicking Rob's ass on Technorati, having jumped overnight from a soul-destroying 72,991 to a respectable if not stellar 44,348 (just think...only 44,347 blogs with…
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A helping hand from Technorati? I've heard about people whose small-minded partners keep track of things like who does more dishes or who remembers birthdays and anniversaries. -
Setting up Bloglines subscriptions A little more guidance for those just getting started with RSS: some more step-by-step advice on adding RSS feeds to your Bloglines account. - Category feeds in WordPress TangognaT helpfully provides a surprisingly hard-to-find answer to a pretty basic question: how do you create category-specific RSS feeds in WordPress? And the answer is...
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Beth's Blog: Social Bookmarking Conversation Continues While Inventing New Words Beth Kanter continues our bloggespondence on social bookmarking with the very well-taken point that a prettier del.icio.us (my summary of Jots may actually be worth something if it makes social… -
Your dream job: Representative Apple If you love politics and you love Apple, have I found the job for you: Manager of Congressional Relations for Apple. - Looking for Diablogue? I’m consolidating blogs: in future you can find my posts about civic engagement, online dialogue and related topics on Otherwise Engaged.
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Technorati previews tag feeds The beta Technorati makeover is now online and hurrah! it includes RSS feeds for tag pages. - YASBoS: Jots Beth Kanter has added a great gnomz cartoon to our bloggespondence (Rob, please add this to your Lexicon for the New Millennium) on del.icio.us and social bookmarking.
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How to raise a gay-friendly child Jennifer Gerarda Brown has posted a great set of tips on how to raise a gay-friendly child on the Lessig blog. -
Conference on Social Capital & ICTs The European Social Capital, Quality of Life & Information Society Technologies project (SOCQUIT) is holding a 2-day conference in Paris (!) this September. -
del.icio.us: from good to great Beth Kanter checked out my post on del.icio.us taxonomies, and asked me to say more about why I choose to use del.icio.us in the first place. -
Event tagging Carolyn Minor, a librarian at the University of Winnipeg, has put out a call for help on event tagging. -
Tag blogging @ tagsonomy.com As of today I'm moving some of my tag-related musings to You're It, a blog on tagging that includes such venerable folksonomists as Jon Lebkowsky, Clay Shirky and Dave Weinberger. - Introduction for Alexandra Samuel I’m Alexandra Samuel. I run Dialogue Networks, a consulting practice that specializes in online dialogue and public engagement. This work has spurred my tagging explorations in a few ways.
- BC Goes DC The BC Citizens’ Assembly is taking its experience on the road. The New America Foundation is hosting a discussion next week titled Can the U.S. Take Lessons from a Canadian Experiment in Democracy?.
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Furlitis? A little mystery at Furl, when searching for tag-specific pages defined by multiple tags. The page http://furl.net/furled.jsp?topic=blog+canada includes one link. -
What a difference 2 years makes Today I spent some time looking around for server-side RSS aggregators that would give me more configuration options than I can get in Bloglines. -
e-Engagement Tools That Fit Organizations have tremendous cultural variations that need to be considered when designing an e-engagement plan or selecting e-engagement tools. -
Make blogging part of your workflow For all my tagging evangelism, I've been enigmatic and elusive about how I myself use tagging to be a better blogger, a better worker, and a better human being. - 10 tools that tap the power of blogs Blogging has been a hot topic here at OD2005. While there’s a lot of interest in blogging as a tool of public conversation…
- The Annotated New York Times Michael Weiksner of E-ThePeople showed us a site called The Annotated New York Times, which shows what people are saying about the NYT on the blogosphere. It’s a lot like what Salon is doing with Technorati.
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My presentations at the Online Deliberation 2005 Conference I’m presenting on two different panels at OD2005. My main paper (in room 380x at 2:40 on Saturday) is on “Found” Enagement: Lessons from Hacktiivsm and Blogging. - RSSMix Combine a whack of RSS feeds into a single uber-feed.
- del.icio.us feeds my vanity We spend a lot of time using the Internet as a mirror. A lot of the time we use it as a big mirror that helps us see the people who think like us or talk like us or dress like us.
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Today in the Toronto Star: Tagging My piece on tagging finally appeared in the Toronto Star today, after a long struggle to make the tagging phenomenon both accessible and meaningful to a general audience. -
Customize your WordPress Dashboard Tonight, Rob and I crossed a marital and technological threshold with our collaborative creation of an enhanced version of one of the files in Matt Good and dr Dave's excellent X-Dashboard plugin… - About those nice comment lines Didn't we tell you to change the RSS feed specified in dev_feed.php to your own choice of feed?
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Now that you are logged in, here are a few things you can do: Click on “Write” to post a story to the blog. - Tag aggregation I've created a category in this blog called OD2005 and I'm experimenting to see which blog search engine picks it up first.
- Online Deliberation at Stanford At the end of this week I'm off to Palo Alto for the
- OD 2005 Blog I’m heading to Stanford this week for the 2005 Online Deliberation conference. I’m currently setting up a conference blog that puts some of my recent investigations into tagging to work as a tool…
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del.icio.us taxonomies Step 1: Lie awake at night, wondering whether there isn't something that can organize your favourite web links that will work better than del.icio.us. -
WordPress Plugins: Wish list I stumbled across a brave Wordpress coder who has actually posted an open request for suggested plugins. Here's my contribution: Here’s a thought. -
Tagsurf Found another tag-enabled site. Sooner or later I'll have to stop keeping track of the emergence of each tag-supporting web site, but for now, they are few enough to note as they appear. -
Delicious Linkbacks Delicious Linkbacks is a must-have for any del.icio.us user. Install Linkbacks into your toolbar (via drag 'n drop -- a five second job) and click to see how any web page you visit has been… -
NerdTests.com Fun Tests - Nerd Quiz I am heartbroken to discover that I only rate as semi-nerdy. I think the problem is that my nerdiness is restricted to tech nerdiness rather than general science nerdiness (on which front I score… -
ctrl-ault-del " Blog Archive " Salon and Technorati Salon now features Technorati trackers that tell you who is blogging in response to any given Salon story. This would be a great feature for lots of sites. -
ctrl-ault-del » Blog Archive » Salon and Technorati Salon now features Technorati trackers that tell you who is blogging in response to any given Salon story. -
Quick Online Tips: The Great Flickr Tools Collection The Great Flickr Tools Collection: From Quick Online Tips -- the people who brought the world the del.icio.us tools collection -- an equally fabulous collection of tools to make your all-Flickr… -
Canadian Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation (C2D2) The first-ever Canadian Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation is scheduled for October 27-30 in Ottawa. The web site is now online with lots of opportunity for further input into the conference agenda. -
Kitsilano with Character: Your Home in Vancouver It's official: we're now planning our move to Toronto, aiming for August 05. As a result our FABULOUS house is up for rent or exchange -- and our ideal situation is to find some charming soul in… - 15 things you can do with RSS (it was supposed to be 10, but I got carried away) - Tim Yang's Geek Blog Tim Yang's list of fifteen things to do with RSS is the blog meme of the week. Only fifteen! What does he do with all the hours left over?
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More kudos for Feedster Another great discovery: Feedster lets you create a feed based on a search that is limited to the feeds listed within a given OPML file. -
Cisco product placement? On 24 tonight, in the face of a fictional denial-of-service attack, the fictional cyberwhiz of the fictional intelligence agency notes that they're in good shape because "the Cisco network is… -
Tag-friendly Feedster Since Technorati does not yet provide RSS feeds on its tag pages, I've been looking for an alternate way of subscribing to RSS feeds for particular blog categories/tags (the way I subscribe to… -
Read/Write Web: How To Subscribe To Topic Or Tag RSS feeds A nice summary of different options for creating RSS feeds for searches you want to access on an ongoing basis. Includes pubsub and technorati, among others. -
Contentious » Furl and Del.icio.us: Almost Perfect Together This blog post outlines one workflow for using Furl and del.icio.us togther, treating Furl as a personal archive and del.icio.us as a way of sharing resources. - Garrick Van Buren .com » Technorati & Del.icio.us Tag Maker for MarsEdit This AppleScript lets you link any text selected on your computer to its corresponding Technorati or del.icio.us tag page.
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South African Blogs Africa is blogging, too. South Africa is leading the way, with more than 3 million unique users visiting South African blogs every month. -
The Moderator’s HomePage An extensive set of resources covering both the technologies and techniques of online faciliation and moderation. Many of these resources are quite dated, however. - A living experiment in online collaboration The blogiverse is having fun with Just Letters, a little flash game that is a great living experiment in online collaboration. All you need is your browser, so go check it out!
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Justice in a nutshell My past research on hacktivism took me far enough into the hacker world to appreciate the difference between hackers and script kiddies. -
Stakeholder communications go online Thanks to Kristan Boudreau of BC Hydro for pointing me to a paper by Carol Adams and Geoffrey Frost on “Stakeholder Engagement Strategies… -
One Damn Thing After Another Rob Cottingham's blog, a terrific and wry source of info and analysis on Canadian politics. Full disclosure: he's not only a brilliant speechwriter and political commentator, he's also my husband. -
Gnomedex 5.0 The next mega-gathering of West Coast bloggers, coming up June 23-25 in Seattle. Looks to be a great way to connect with the latest thinking on blogging, tagging… -
BlogherCon 2005 The first BlogherCon -- a blogging conference for women -- is planned for July 30, 2005 in Santa Clara California. The schedule of events will be announced May 1. -
Rad Geek’s Projects » FeedWordPress I've been exploring the wonderful world of RSS aggregation for the past few months. (RSS newbies, check out the Wikipedia introduction.) -
Online engagement: strength in numbers The Canadian Policy Research Network has released a new paper called “Democracy — Updating the Owner’s Manual” by Mary Pat MacKinnon, the Director of CPRN’s Public Involvement Network. -
Participants - Toolkit Citizen Participation a growing group of civil society (NGO) and local government organisations from all over the world, working together to promote participatory local governance. -
Blogging for Social Capital Elizabeth Albrycht’s latest article at Blogging Planet, Collaboration Requires Contribution, provides a nice exploration of how blogging might enhance social capital. -
Digital era records management I recently heard from Sarah Demb, a fellow Canadian now working with the International Records Management Trust in London. The IRMT fills an interesting niche in the governance world… - Pew Internet & American Life Project Michael Cornfield of the Pew Internet & American Life Project notes an important new consultation on Internet campaigning…
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Italy gets 57 new e-democracy projects Information Policy reports that the Italian government is boosting its support for e-democracy: The government will contribute a total of EUR 9.5 million to selected e-democracy initiatives at regional and local levels. - Tag my desktop — please And the tagging obsession continues. Thanks to Travis Smith for pointing me towards Larry Borsato’s comments on why we don’t tag our desktop.
- Tag my desktop -- please And the tagging obsession continues. Thanks to Travis Smith for pointing me towards Larry Borsato's comments on why we don't tag our desktop.
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The Blog Therapist is in How can I integrate my new blog with this one? Can I run a WordPress blog on a Drupal site? What should I do when my husband's blog outranks mine on Technorati? -
Attention, listeners! The folks over at Technorati have come up with a proposed XML standard, dubbed Attention.xml, aimed at ranking RSS feeds (like those generated by blogs) so that all us poor overwhelmed blog readers… - E-democracy and egovernment tags - DoWire.Org Steve Clift has set up a wiki page for e-democracy and e-government tags, following up on my call for a common tag taxonomy.
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Tagging e-democracy This week’s challenge: coming up with a common set of e-democracy tags for all of the e-democracy bloggers and bookmark collectors out there. -
Drupal and Civic Space I’ve been checking out Drupal, a web-based content management system that could provide an interesting platform for online engagement projects (especially those with a limited budget… -
Academic IP rights Lawrence Lessig has drawn a line in the sands of intellectual property. He declares today that… -
Today's bookmarks I'm trying a new tool that automatically adds my latest bookmarks to this blog via del.icio.us. (I'm user Alexandra Samuel.) -
Pew Report on 2004 Campaign Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user Alexandra Samuel on 2005-03-08 - New Communications Forum 2005: Blog University Whether it's the latest news leak, a new outlet for more traditional media, or a discussion about politics, technology, business trends, or a global occurrence…
- Visualizing change Friends Ben Banky and Linda Rae pointed me to a web site with amazing panoramas of Vancouver's changing urban landscape, 1978 to 2003.
- A quick view of e-consultation I just came across a very succinct take on the advantages of online consultation. It's from a 2003 paper Beyond Civil Society…
- Is podcasting the death of discourse? At the Northern Voice blogging conference, Tod Maffin offered his vision of podcasting, (in brief: audio blogging).
- Wiki-love ...but the joy of Wiki is that I got to fix the misleading instruction myself, right away.
- Down for maintenance Kudos to the team at Wordpress for their foolproof scheme for backing up Wordpress databases before upgrading. Did I say foolproof? Let me be the fool to take that back.
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Yak shaving etymology I've finally done something to earn true geek credentials. No, not writing my own applescript (not that hard, actually). - Conference on Online Deliberation: Stanford, May 2005 The 2nd Conference on Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practicewill be held May 20-2005 at Stanford University. (Full disclosure: I'm on the organizing committee).
- Technological leapfrogging I have a story in today's Toronto Star on Leapfrogging the Technology Gap. The story looks at
- From diatribe to dialogue It's been an exciting 48 hours here on alexandrasamuel.com. It's been swell hearing from all the folks who were shocked, outraged or otherwise engaged by my digressions (in November…
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The technologies of citizenship I had lunch today with Sanjay Khanna, a fellow Vancouverite who shares my interest in the social and political impact of information technology. - Blogging initiation rites I guess I'm now a real blogger: I've had my first and second thrashings at the hands of fellow bloggers.
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Impasse as opportunity: upcoming Vancouver workshop The Wosk Centre for Dialogue in Vancouver is hosting a February workshop on "Impasse as Opportunity". The workshop addresses… -
Discount dialogue It's amazing what you can get online these days. Look what popped up when I googled "dialogue"… - How we work My find of the day is web log that keeps track of comments and quotations by artists, writers, and other accomplished folk on their work habits and style. Makes for interesting reading.
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Holiday drink recipe: the Consultini Q: What's in a consultini? A: What do you think should be in a consultini? - 43 Things My new favourite web site is something called 43 Things, which I discovered through Nancy White's blog.
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Scottish Parliament site hacked In the course of my online travels tonight, I discovered that part of the Scottish Parliament's web site had been hacked: HACKED BY DR_TROX BU SITE CEZA'YA MAHKUMDUR... -
E-consultation gets official nod New DO-Consult subscriber Katherine Beavis points out that e-consultation has now been enshrined in the Canadian government's official communications guidelines. - The art and science of bookmarks Like anyone whose work not only uses the Internet, but actually concerns the Internet itself, I am really dependent on bookmark management to keep track of my work and resources.
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A summary of online consultation approaches AmericaSpeaks has produced a very handy chart summarizing different approaches to online engagement around the world. -
Geeks for world peace Here's a great use for your favourite young techie… -
H20's rotisserie discussion tool I did some treasure hunting today on H20, an innovative online exchange sponsored by the Berkman Center for the Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. -
Business gift story in today's Toronto Star Today's Toronto Star has my story on the best business technology gifts for this holiday season. - E-commerce comes to Canada After years of being marginalized by the online marketplace, Canada is finally getting access to a wide range of online retailers -- thanks to Borderfree, a service owned by Canada Post.
- Evaluating civic engagement projects A recent discussion on DO-Consult turned to the question of how we can evaluate the success of electronic citizen engagement projects.
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Online training course for eModerators The UK's Hansard Society is offering a training course for eModerators. The course begins on January 17, 2005, and will take place entirely online. -
Government RSS, push and pull Wired has a story on how the US government is using RSS as a tool for communicating with the public. -
Headlines that prove the world is ending soon 'The Official Halo 2 Strategy Guide' Has Biggest Random House, Inc. First-Day Sale Since Clinton's 'My Life' -
Beyond the electronic whiteboard As seen on Cairns: Nothing too new about electronic whiteboards as a collaborative tool (see, for example, this experiment from Colorado). But the InterWrite MeetingPad creates a new range of options. - Another setback for political science Yesterday I finally received my doctorate. The actual piece of Latin-inscribed paper showed up at my door care of Fedex (classy move, Harvard!)…
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North American Summit on Citizen Engagement: Day 3 Our last day began with a panel of elected politicians discussing the role of civic engagement in their work. -
The 49th Parallel looms large at the North American Summit on Citizen Engagement As seen on Cairns: I spent the bus ride up to Whistler doing a Q&A session on the Canadian legislative process for an American visitor. -
The North American Summit on Citizen Engagement: Day 1 As posted to Cairns: Today was the first day of the North American Summit on Citizen Engagement, sponsored by The Whistler Forum for Dialogue. -
Better than Blogging? As seen on Cairns: In the course of writing a recent story on e-campaigning, I had an interesting conversation with Michael Cornfield about the blogging phenomenon. -
A download button that works Mozilla released the new, non-beta version of its much-discussed Firefox browser today. -
Bad sharers Looking for a snapshot of how the war against terrorism is hurting the Internet? Check out the letter that ran in the Circuits section of today's New York Times. - Social capital for beginners The Encyclopedia of Informal Information has a very nice overview of social capital. For anyone who wants a quick intellectual history of social capital as an idea…
- The morning after the night before Less than twelve hours since victory seemed uncertain, and the Bush camp is already spinning the heck out of its big victory.
- Blogging as an engagement tool As posted to Cairns: The UK's Hansard Society has produced terrific research on e-democracy under the leadership of Prof. Stephen Coleman (also of the Oxford Internet Institute).
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