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I started my “perfessional” blog sometime last year, and decided to go with a hosted Wordpress site (i.e., something hosted on wordpress.com’s domain, no software install necessary). It worked at the time, and the barrier to entry was low. Sign up, pick a theme, tweak the CSS for an hour or so, done. It was easy and it got me going. After using it for awhile, I realized that it didn’t give me the freedom I needed. So, after a bit of teeth-gnashing, I decided to take the plunge and switch to self-hosted Wordpress (i.e., on my own domain, software installed and maintained by yours truly).

It’s do-able, but involves a little DNS tomfoolery…Read More →

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The Wisdom 2.0 conference was an energizing event (see my synopses here and here). Not only did it remind me that I had allowed the digital world to hijack my deeper connections with the real world, but it allowed me to meet and reconnect with many inspiring and amazing people (@CDEgger, @alizasherman, @kanter, @sh0wn and @SorenG to name a few). It revealed a hunger for something deeper than bits and bytes in the world, while recognizing that our digital attachments enrich us, and present us with previously unimagined opportunities.Read More →

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Cloud Doorway by Lisa Cuscuna

The sign of a good conference is one where, when you reach the end, you feel hunger for more, rather than hunger for home. While this sentiment may be profoundly against the Zen tenet that desire is the root of suffering, it’s certainly what I felt coming out of Soren Gordhamer’s Wisdom 2.0.

Saturday marked Day Two of the conference, and it proved no less fulfilling than Day One. Sunday was an unconference held at the Google campus, but I was (sadly) unable to attend. In keeping with my previous post on Day One, here are a few thoughts based on discussions during the second day, as well as a few closing thoughts.Read More →

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flickr :: jishnu_nandy

Wisdom 2.0 is three-day event aimed at addressing an important and timely issue:

"The question for most of us is not if we will use the technologies of our age, from cell phones to social media, the question is how can we do so with mindfulness, meaning, and wisdom?"

It is an ambitious undertaking, to say the least, but the first day showed that Soren Gordhamer (author of Wisdom 2.0) has put together something unparalleled. The afternoon included thought-provoking discussions and insights from technologists, venture capitalists, Zen abbots, publishers and neuroscientists. I’ve never seen such a diverse array of thinkers gathered for an event focused on unifying seemingly disparate ideas (i.e., technology and mindful compassion).Read More →

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Apple's most anticipated device since its last anticipated device

The amount of buzz surrounding Apple’s impending iPad release is reaching a crescendo. Anticipation is high and speculation is rampant, with pundits spewing predictions about the impact it will have on personal and mobile computing. We’ve got at least two coming to our studio, and people are excited. For gadget geeks, experience designers, and people who just love Apple products, Christmas is coming early this year.Read More →

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The term “social media” continues to rise in usage and popularity, but what do people mean when they say it? Is it misleading? And who needs a label, anyway?

Both Aliza Sherman and Olivier Blanchard have taken on this topic recently, each with similar conclusions (i.e., “social media” is not the best term, it’s hard to come up with a better one, but we should probably try). They suggest “social web” and “social communications” as possible alternatives, each of which has its appeal. At the same time, neither term seems to get its arms all the way around the paradigm shift that’s taking place.Read More →

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Things are getting a lot tougher for the jerks of the world. Do something to irritate an articulate blogger with a modest Twitter following, and you could find yourself ridiculed in a post whose flames are fanned by a hurricane of tweets. Pretty fun for everyone to watch; not so fun for the jerk. But they had it coming, right? Or did they?Read More →

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I had lunch recently with @SarahKennon, aka Sarah in real life (IRL). Twitter facilitated our introduction by opening doors that may not have been cracked otherwise. We saw some shared professional interests (social media, user-experience design) and found some overlap with other things (e.g., sustainability and green). So, lunch seemed like a good idea and we met. It wound up being a fun mind-meld at Umi in Potrero Hill, a long chat about our professional trajectories, where we want to go and the kinds of strategic and design problems we like solving. While this digitally inspired crossover is pretty cool, it’s also becoming commonplace (andRead More →