This Friday, August 26, starting at 10am PST, I will be speaking at an online interactive event on "Giving Great Presentations," as part of TechSoup's "Nonprofits Live" series. Other speakers are : Kivi Leroux Miller, speaker, writer, and the president of the Nonprofit Marketing Guide Nat Robinson, vice president of SlideRocket, who provides insight into…
Category: Information Society
Quaker Meeting, Instant Gratification, and the Value of Boredom
Here’s the gist of my message in Quaker Meeting today: I recently read an article on how the state of boredom is no longer a part of our daily experience. We have in our pockets small devices that allow us to entertain, amuse or at least stimulate us whenever we want, whether it is riding…
The Disconnected Life Sucks
I currently have no phone and no car in California. It's like I don't exist as a person. Okay, it isn't quite that bad, but sometimes it feels that way. Through a series of accidents, I find myself both without personal transportation and more importantly without a smart phone. Learning how to navigate myself in…
Improv Everywhere Glees Up a Geek-meet : Gotta Share! (video)
I'm a huge fan of Improv Everywhere and I work in social media, so when the two meet up, it's like rainbows and nutella. Here's what happens when those merry pranksters invade the GEL social media conference in NYC. Gotta share! More on the Improv Everywhere site.
Using Augmented Reality to Find Swing Dancing in San Francisco
I have been playing around with some augmented reality apps recently, including the Layar AR system, one of the most popular ones out there today. Layar provides a common platform for developers to share their augmented reality data using common standards, and then share them with a global community of users. There are currently more…
Virtual Worlds, Transgender Photos, and My Life as a Dancing Cyborg
Last Saturday I was involved in a really interesting conversation on the subject of "The Customizable Body: The Present / Future of Identity" at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The featured speakers were Second Life founder Philip Rosedale and photographer Amos Mac, documents trans male lifestyles in his zine Original Plumbing. I love…
Social Media Stats and Ego Stroking
Noise to Signal Cartoon Rob Cottingham hits it on the head for me with this cartoon. I must admit that I'm addicted to my blog, Twitter, and even my Flickr stats. It's like a never ending search for validation that I'm an interesting, cool, insightful person. Somehow this is going to make up for all…
Review of SocialCam for iPhone4: Can’t Save Video Files Locally?
Here's a quick mini-review of SocialCam, the new video sharing mobile app from the makers of Justin.tv, that came out a week or so ago. Generally it's great, and does what it says it will do with no fuss or difficulty. My main quibble with the otherwise excellent service is that you don't have the…
SMALLLab at MacArthur DML Conference: Games that Teach STEM Skills to Kids
One of the neatest exhibits I saw at the MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Conference this past week in Long Beach was a series of interactive learning games created by the SMALLLab group at Parsons. They have a bunch of neat simulations and games they created to teach various science, math and engineering principals…
Connecting Digital Learning Theory and Practice at MacArthur DML Conference
I'm currently in Long Beach, California for the MacArthur Foundation-sponsored Digital Media and Learning Conference. The DML is a three day gathering of about 500 academics, educators, nonprofits, techies, and funders focused on "fostering interdisciplinary and participatory dialog and linking theory, empirical study, policy, and practice." I.e. the event is intended to get folks who…