Latest
Catch up on Alex’s latest publications and appearances here.
Get the latest blog posts delivered!
Find out when Alex is in the news
4 ways to protect your privacy and reputation on Facebook Timeline
Sep 29, 2011 | Top Posts of 2011: How to, Career, The Harvard Business Review
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 print the damn thing already. (And I'm guessing it won't be long...
How to add yourself to your own Twitter list using HootSuite
Sep 28, 2011 | Toolbox, Productivity
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, wasn't showing tweets from the SIM Centre itself. I realized that was because our sidebar...
6 solutions to the sadness of social media
Sep 27, 2011 | Top Posts of 2011: Personal, Relationships, Top Information Overload Posts, Top Relationship Posts, Slider features
Is social media making us sad? 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: I’ve stopped sharing as much, full stop....I’m not suggesting...
Why I like to check my email
Sep 26, 2011 | Relationships, Internet tunes
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: the eight seconds in which the grocery clerk is running a price check, the twenty seconds it takes to walk to the bathroom, the...
The 10 best tips on how to write an online dating profile
Sep 22, 2011 | Top Posts of 2011: Personal, Relationships, Top Relationship Posts
It was inevitable that one of my single friends would get the hint. I go on and on about my fascination with online dating, and how tragic it is that I missed out by getting married before it was really a thing, and how much I would like to learn more about how it all...
Jobs of the future
Sep 21, 2011 | Career
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. While that may be terrifying for those of us in the parenting or education game (how do you prep kids for a future you can't see?),...
6 questions about the impact of social media on think tanks
Sep 20, 2011 | Top Thought Posts, Community
Can think tanks make a difference? That is the question framing a one-day conference at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), where I was part of a social media panel chaired by CBC's Peter Mansbridge. My fellow panelists were Chad Gaffield of...
Make Peace with Always-On Access
Sep 20, 2011 | Community, The Harvard Business Review
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
Sep 19, 2011 | Relationships
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. Like the pill, online dating has enabled a revolution in romantic and sexual behaviour, one that those...
8 ways iPhones and iPads affect family discipline
Sep 15, 2011 | Family
There's nothing like the beginning of a school year to illuminate gaps in your family's, um....discipline. After a couple of rocky weeks inspired us to take a closer look at our family's rhythms and regimes, I found myself noting the central role that iPhones and...