One of my favorite things about the information economy is the extent to which a highly commoditized, social web lowers the barrier to entry for prospective entrepreneurs. While some of us elect to dive into owning our own business head-first with little or no safety net, that’s not the best way for some people. Many [ Read More ]
I’ve been feeling nostalgic this week. After so many years in ecommerce, supporting catalogers and retailers whose year entirely revolved around the Christmas season, I am almost at a loss for what to do if I’m not running around putting out fires from Thanksgiving weekend up until the week before Christmas. Strange as it seems [ Read More ]
Job hunting is rough for oh-so-many reasons. One of the things that is hardest about it, though, is managing your own attitude and spirits. If there is one thing that is liable to get you into trouble during a job hunt, it is unmanaged anxiety. I’ve written before about some of the things that I [ Read More ]
This week has been a bit of a melancholy week: my former team at Massive (acquired by Microsoft in 2006) has found themselves almost all the victims of radically changing economic conditions. As part of Microsoft’s plan to reduce several thousand jobs in 2009, their Massive division has been almost entirely cannibalized. Aside from the [ Read More ]
People who did not meet me until at or around my 25th birthday would never believe it, but in school, I was the Queen of Slackers. Truly. School was too easy, too routine and I spent too long doing it to be able to breath new life into the experience. I could dodge classes, do [ Read More ]
I had a couple of discussions this week that got me thinking back to the early days of my career. Aside from leaving me feeling older than I care to think about, it did spark a pleasant memory or two that I’ve been mulling over since. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about how early career choices [ Read More ]
Not working is easily ten times more stressful than working — unless, of course, money is not a concern in your life. Unemployment or underemployment is difficult to manage on multiple levels, because — just to name a few examples — it has such a huge impact across all spectrums of your life: Financial stability [ Read More ]
I’ve been very fortunate recently: in my role as Managing Editor of Social Computing Journal (formerly Social Computing Magazine), I’ve been able to attend a number of conferences that I would not have previously been able to find the time or money to attend. In quick succession, I have attended PubCon South, SXSWi and Web [ Read More ]
I try to avoid ranting on my blog (which sort of puts me in the minority), but I’m going to deviate from my self-imposed rule for a moment, and I hope you’ll indulge me while I stomp my feet and jump up and down a bit, but this is something that is really sticking in [ Read More ]
There is a strange phenomenon that Californians, New Yorkers and Texans have in common with each other that they rarely have in common with people from most other parts of the country: a sort of territorial, geo-centric affiliation. New Yorkers are routinely criticized by everyone else as being arrogant and thinking that New York is [ Read More ]
The hardest thing about leaving JetBlue last year was giving up the travel benefits that helped ease the difficulty of living 3,000 miles away from my family and so many of my friends. One of the things I’ve realized lately is that, even though I am really loving being in Austin, I have been horrendously [ Read More ]
Highlights and lessons from my first time at SXSW Interactive.