Latest

Catch up on Alex’s latest publications and appearances here.

Popular Topics

The return of “I don’t know”

May 14, 2010 | ,

Fifteen years ago, "I don't know" was a regular part of our vocabulary. And then it all changed. I remember the night, shortly after I got my first high-speed connection, when a group of my friends were over and got into a conversation about Clifford the Big Red Dog....

Missing out on Twitter

May 12, 2010 | ,

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. But the one that was met with the most surprise -- and in a couple of cases, horror -- was the revelation that I no longer...

Still social after all these years

May 9, 2010 |

Ron Burnett has an interesting blog post on whether Twitter (and other social media) are really social. Ron is the President of Emily Carr University, where I run the Social + Interactive Media Centre. The crux of his argument is that Twitter is not as conversational...

6 Ways to Get Wired and Inspired

May 7, 2010 | ,

We tend to think of setting goals and seeking inspiration as highly personal. But achieving our goals is not always a solitary pursuit: The encouragement and resources of a larger community can help us do something we couldn’t do alone. Your computer can support both sides of this equation.

Do social networks make birthdays better?

May 5, 2010 |

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. (Apparently it also means that a year from now I'll be forty, which all my forty something women friends tell me will be the...

Gist shows the future of social media profiling

May 3, 2010 | , ,

One of the best side effects of my recent contact management overhaul was the discovery of Gist. Gist is essentially the mutant offspring of CRM (customer relationship management) and RSS aggregation/social media monitoring. It's one of those tools you never thought...