Category: Weblogs

  • Migrating from Typepad to WordPress

    I just finished migrating over 500 blog posts from gumption.typepad.com to a new WordPress blog hosted here on interrelativity.com. I found the instructions at First Site Guide very helpful, but had to make a few adjustments that I wanted to share here – including a Python script I used to process the downloaded Typepad content…

  • Irritation Based Innovation

    If necessity is the mother of invention, irritation is the father. People can be motivated to make changes based on so-called positive emotions, but I would argue that anger is more often the spark for fueling innovation. Some people live by the credo Don't get mad, get even. But as Mohandas Gandhi so adroitly observed,…

  • All models, studies and Wikipedia entries are wrong, some are useful

    A sequence of encounters with various models, studies and other representations of knowledge lately prompted me to reflect on both the inherent limitations and the potential uses of these knowledge representations … and the problems that ensue when people don't fully appreciate either their limitations or applications … or the inherent value of being wrong.…

  • Preemptive Self-Disclosure: Still Unpacking Privacy for a Networked World

    I have long attributed the idea of preemptive self-disclosure – sharing information about oneself in order to forestall negative consequences from not sharing – to Paul Dourish, but over the years, I'd forgotten exactly why. A couple of recent articles I've read about disclosing what many might consider private information – coupled with the 19th…

  • Notes from @BigBlog meetup at Soulfood in Redmond

    I enjoyed attending my first SeattlePI.com BigBlog meetup last night at Soulfood Books, Music and Organic Coffee House in Redmond. Monica Guzman (@moniguzman) organized the event, and Nick Eaton (@njeaton), who writes the SeattlePI.com Microsoft blog, was the special guest. According to a tweet posted by Monica at the outset, other bloggers / tweeters /…

  • Co-promotion Reconsidered: The Recursive Attraction of Attention

    Amybeth Hale, a Talent Attraction Manager with AT&T’s Interactive Staffing team, wrote a great primer on 4 Essential Traits for Social Media Success in your Career, which was recently posted on Mashable. The four traits are: Develop authentic relationships Be a digital trendsetter Take risks Give back (and/or pay it forward) I think there is…

  • The Dark Side of Digital Backchannels in Shared Physical Spaces

    Recently, I've been disturbed to read about some significant frontchannel disturbances arising through the use of Twitter backchannels to heckle speakers at conferences. Having finished off my last blog with an example of the beneficial ways that Twitter helps us connect with consequential strangers, I want to revisit some issues that initially arose [for me]…

  • Satirization or Assassination?

    The New Yorker published its July 21 edition this week, with a cartoon on the cover depicting U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, in a way that reflects some of the worst fears of what I suspect is a nontrivial percentage of the electorate. On the cover, shown on the…

  • Do YouJustGetMe? Do I Even Get Myself?

    David Evans presented a paper at the International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM 2008) this week on the science of interpersonal perception, or more specifically: how well people are able to understand (or “get”) others based on others’ online profiles, and what elements of those profiles are most important to that understanding. The…

  • Commenting on Validation / Validating Comments

    Ever since my last post, which started out about locked-in syndrome (inspired by The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), but which developed into a revisitation of a frequently discussed topic [on this blog] – "the need for approval … for validation … for appreciation … for mattering" – I’ve been attuned to validation in a…