Latest publications
Read my latest stories for The Wall Street Journal, Passcode, The Harvard Business Review, JSTOR Daily and more.
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. Jon's talk reminded me of the terrific presentation I heard at AOIR from Tim Laquintano, a writing professor at Lafayette College who spoke about the...
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 anniversary celebrations. I shared some of my thinking in a blog post...
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. People who have made social media a valuable, joyful part of their professional and personal lives are people who have made a number of...
10 funny things to read or do online from a hotel room
Welcome to Social Media for Bored Travellers
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. That's how I felt about the Association of Internet Researchers (AOIR) conference last week: from the...
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. One of our kids was having a tough time in class, and I had already made several visits to the teacher, the classroom and the principal's office. Not only was I worried...
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. This doesn't mean I try to take down my fellow panellists: it's not like wrestling or ice hockey, where you've...
10 myths about ethnography, from Tom Boellstorff
This post originally appeared on the SIM Centre website. There was a lot to love about anthropologist Tom Boellstorff's dynamic, thought-provoking keynote to the Association of Internet Researchers. But I figured that my design colleagues, many of whom use...
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! I'm part of a session on Books and Publishing, where I will be talking about the e-book research I am now...