I admit it, my car is smarter than I am. This is evidenced by my seeming ineptitude at installing the supposedly simple apps that enable the GPS system to function, and connect me to the calling, music, mapping, and messages functions in my iPhone. I know the more tech-savvy of you out there are probably rolling your eyes, but I’m no slouch either and it truly took several days to get [...]
Digital Life Skills for Youth is the newest book by Self-Counsel Press author Angela Crocker. While it may be fair to say that much has been written on this subject, and that parents and educators have been coming to terms with the digital risks and rewards for youth for much of the last decade or so, Crocker’s book offers an important new perspective. Her approach emphasizes the development [...]
I recently had the opportunity to attend a business networking event. Let me say right up front, that I am not really a fan of networking. I have a mature business, and a stable revenue stream. Going to events to drum up customers and pitch my services and products isn’t a primary motivator anymore. Even when my business was new, I found myself resistant to networking as a tool for growing [...]
I first met Christina Crook five years ago. I received a review copy of her book The Joy of Missing Out, Finding Balance in a Wired World. I read it cover-to-cover in practically one sitting. Upon closing the book, I thought to myself, “That is the book I wish I had written.” At the time, I was working on an early draft of my tiny book, Untrending, A Field Guide to Social Media That [...]
As a result of advances in sophisticated artificial intelligence and machine learning, automation and augmented reality, the Internet landscape is undergoing massive change.It’s no longer just about accessing information via electronic devices such as laptops, smartphones, and tablets. From toasters to transit systems, we are now in the age of the ‘Internet of Things,’ where interconnected [...]
Social media and digital technology have changed the way we live. They have also changed the way we die, or at least the way we grieve and memorialize. At the end of life, we need to make choices about what remains online, for ourselves or for our loved ones. What happens, for example, to our Facebook accounts? At the time of this writing, Facebook offers users essentially two options in the[...]
Spring is in the air, and the season is signaled by buds on the trees, birdsong in the morning, and the peeking of the daffodil and tulip bulbs from the cold ground. Weak sunshine cheers us and we look forward to more hours of daylight and more time outside. For those of us who play in the digital space, spring also means a return of Social Media Camp, Canada’s largest such conference. Held [...]
Most of us are familiar with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. These are apps that help us connect with friends and loved ones and share the details of our day-to-day lives. What about apps that support health and wellness? There are literally thousands of apps available in the consumer marketplace to support personal fitness, health, stress-reduction and diet goals. Public [...]
Facebook Groups are a great tool for building online community, offering value, and encouraging true social media engagement. However, life in Facebook-land means responding to ongoing changes to Facebook’s algorithms, including those that govern groups. As a simple explanation, the algorithm is a process that ranks all available posts that can display on a user’s newsfeed based on how [...]
As I write this, I’m putting the finishing touches on a book manuscript. It will be sent to the editor in the morning, and following about a month of substantive edits, it will go into the hands of a copy editor to take care of things like commas and periods. After that, it will be readied for print. The book will be released in March 2019. I’ve had the privilege of co-writing the [...]