I spent a few minutes at my alma mater this week. This is not newsworthy in and of itself; I’m on campus a few times a year for various reasons. But this time I was there at the invitation of the current editor-in-chief of the student paper there - a position I held in 2004-05 after spending m...

I know, it’s hardly unique to blog about the future of newspapers these days but hear me out! I was approached quite some time ago (last fall, I think) about contributing an essay to an upcoming issue of Canadian Notes and Queries, a literary/culture magazine. The issue is a special one - taki...

You don’t know who I am but I am among the hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) who know who you are. I can’t even hazard a guess as to what you were thinking when you decided to attack a linesman at a minor hockey game on Saturday. You were probably blinded by rage. Maybe you though...

Two people, actually. Namely, Cecille and Tom Boughner. Or as I call them, Mom and Dad. This post has been building in my head for a few weeks now but, really, it’s a lifetime in coming. While I spend my days being influenced by great thinkers in my field on Twitter or in my RSS reader, the si...

Around this time last year, my wife and I were planning to pull up stakes and head west. Things changed and we have since both replanted our feet firmly in Ottawa soil. While things were in flux, though, I interviewed for one of the most interesting (and potentially most rewarding) jobs I had ever h...

This post has been building in me for awhile now. There are, of course, no hard and fast rules for how people should comport themselves in the online world. Jackassitude is a purely subjective (and entirely made up ) measure. Nobody has asked me to be the arbiter of good conduct and I don’t pr...

Tell me and I’ll forget Show me and I may remember Involve me and I’ll understand Rather than recap the most recent Social Media Breakfast Ottawa from memory, I will just point you to Mel Gallant’s great post and stick instead with my take-away thoughts based on what was discussed. I t...

If you don’t read Bob LeDrew’s Flacklife, you should. He has a lot of great things to say about PR and communications but his off-topic musings tend to be especially great. Which brings me to this. Read Bob’s latest entry. It’s tangentially about marketing and communications ...

Way back in April, my good friend Ryan Anderson wrote a post called “today is good people day” and he was gracious enough to include me in the list. He was inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk, who suggested April 3 be dedicated to recognizing good people. In the spirit of late adoption, I’...

WARNING: Potty mouth ahead. I curse sometimes. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I am, admittedly, a cynical bastard. I don’t have a lot of use for big-letter political movements and I find the polarized nature of discourse in the US particularly loathsome. The fact that voters actually...