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. But if we’re going to have the reactions we need to survive this...

Bumper sticker conversation guide: 2×2 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 2×2. But as with any 2×2, the structure of the table should be...

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. Tim Uppal, the junior minister for democratic reform, tweeted today to share the news. That’s right: next election...

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...

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, when one of the most tireless presences in the committee room was that of Dan’s young...

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. Reflecting on the widespread enthusiasm for using social media to track down criminals, I wrote: I don’t think we want to live in a society...

What you choose when you choose a network

This entry is part [part not set] of 39 in the series 40 years online

When I went to work for the Rae government, I thought the choice of which computer to use was a choice of Mac vs PC. But what I was really choosing was a connection to a group of people who would change my life, and the future of our country.