I've aspired to zero inbox for years, but it took a new member of the Social Signal team to help bring that aspiration into focus -- a team member who has utterly transformed my personal productivity. As our operations manager and my executive assistant, Morgan Brayton has reorganized our financial ...

See if you recognize yourself here: Instead of locking antlers with the other young bucks or preparing for the fall migration, you were off trying to operate a Flip video camera with your hooves, type on a netbook without stomping it to pieces, and hold down a decent WiFi signal in the middle of the...

Video genius Bruce Sharpe has just posted the video of my keynote from Feb. 21 at the Northern Voice blogging conference in Vancouver. It's my look at what makes the world of social media so damn funny. You'll laugh, you'll cry... and maybe you'll comment and let me know what you think. <!--break...

TripItGate has me thinking about how to make social network invitations more useful, less spammy, and less of a hassle. Invitations are a standard part of social network signups and usage. When you join a social network, you're typically asked to connect with friends who are already using the same s...

A few months ago, I left a conference thinking how great it would be if I could have checked up on the speakers beforehand: not just their bios, but their reputations for delivering engaging, useful and, yes, entertaining talks. From that spun out the idea for a site where anyone could rate speakers...

I knew it was only so long before I'd succumb to the insidious, criminal forces that lurk everywhere online. Kleptomaniacal hacker, intrusive snoop, indy pornographer....I could take my pick of evils. And tonight, I chose to become a spammer. Or more precisely, TripIt chose for me. TripIt is a trave...

If you've ever wondered whether social media is funny, check out the reaction to Rob's Teh Funny Northern Voice keynote. The Twitter backchannel is reprinted in text below. These tweets are in chronological order, so you can follow the thread of the conversation. In related news, we'd love to hear o...

It's hard to say which is the more interesting finding in the latest Pew report on what Americans are up to online: the fact that one in 10 online Americans say they use Twitter, Yammer or a similar status-update application... or the fact that adoption declines so sharply with age: Twitter and simi...

So far in this 10-part series, we've seen how blogs can give your organization a human voice, and provide valuable feedback from your customers. Now we're going to look at how they can open up a new communications channel to the world: one where you can tell stories that might not make front page ne...

I recently had an email exchange with a few colleagues, sparked by a news columnist's disdain for how two local public figures are using Twitter. And Darren Barefoot, after offering some solid advice, weighed in with this: I get frustrated by all of the prescriptive behaviour around new technology. ...