Hey you, you with the iPhone and all the latest location-based apps. Yea you, guy who already thinks foursquare is obsolete. Guy who fills his blog with reviews of gadgets and services that aren’t even available yet, ready for the next big thing.
Just stop it, will you? Read more
It was a rough start to the morning. Nowhere near enough sleep, comedy of errors resulting in no chance to eat breakfast, then the painful sound of the bus roaring away as I’m pulling on my shoes. My commute is pretty evenly split between bus days and car days these days but today is most certainly a bus day.
A few quiet curses so as not to wake anyone and I’m out the door to wait for the next bus. Trying desperately to untangle my earbuds so I can listen to some suitably angry music, my seething anger is interrupted by a friendly hello. Read more
Photo credit at bottom of post
The arrival of a new year and a new decade has prompted many “where was I ten years ago?” posts from people far smarter and more talented than this humble scribe. For me, though, this retrospective meandering was nothing new. I find myself gazing back to the turn of the millennium every time I hear about another newspaper axing staff or closing up shop altogether.
Back in 2000 I was a cocky kid slogging my way through journalism school. I had all the arrogance that comes with someone meeting with success at one of the best j-skools in the country (or so it sells itself – that’s a debate for another post, however). Yet despite being pretty good at journalism – at the student level at least – I was also coming quickly to the realization that I wasn’t meant to be a journalist. Read more
Note: There’s a video at the end of this post.It’s pretty disturbing. I’ve placed it at the end so you can decide whether or not you want to watch it once you’ve read the post. It’s not graphic or anything but watching it upset me a fair bit so I want to give you the opportunity to opt out of it. For what it’s worth, early reports are that Vokoun has some lacerations around the ear but he’s alert in hospital.
Yea, I know, this is primarily a blog about communications. And now that I’m a social media consultant, I should probably find a way to link everything to social media somehow – that’s what the gurus do. But hey, it’s my name in the address bar up there. So I get to call the shots (pun at least partially intended).
As many of you know, one of the best experiences of my life has been volunteering to coach kids’ hockey. I’m taking this year off since my wife and I are expecting our first child in a few weeks but for five of the past six years I’ve spent most of my winter weekends in various frozen rinks around the city. Read more
One interesting by-product of the proliferation of social tools has been the boon in one-click activism. One need only look at the staggering number of Facebook groups dedicated to every thinkable cause to start to see how widely this has spread. Want to save the people of Darfur? How about ending breast cancer? If you can dream of doing it, there’s probably a Facebook Group.
This isn’t to say Facebook Groups can’t do good things. I’m sure there are examples up the wazoo of a Facebook Group or online petition leading to concrete action. But asking people to click on a “Join Group” button is a lot easier, and thus a lot more appealing, than asking people to get off of their couch and actually do something. Read more
