What a handsome bunch of social media users All in the Social Family The end-of-year holidays offer a perennial reminder that no matter how hard you try, you can never escape your family. My own family often inspires columns here, sometimes directly as in 2005's "Google vs. Grandmom," and sometimes through more convoluted paths. They […]
Category: Personal
South America: The Travel Journals – Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile
One more personal post to close out the year – following up on my book recommendations for South America, I’ve also publicly shared my travel journal, embedded below and freely downloadable if you’re at all interested in more than just the photo or book highlights. If you do check it out, let me know what […]
20+ Reading Recommendations for South America – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru
When I travel internationally, I try to read a fair amount of non-fiction and literature about the country, including works by many indigenous authors. Last year, for instance, I published areading list for Egypt. This year, I wound up taking two trips to South America, covering sixcountries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Uruguay. My […]
Nine Days of Social Silence
In Buenos Aires, I made some new friends, but not through social media Nine days of Social Silenceoriginally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider For nine days, I was silent. The world heard not a tweet, not a Facebook post, not an email from me. This is the story of one man who went to […]
A Reason to Care about Social Media
Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider "Her surgery is tomorrow morning and she's not at all nervous! Please say a prayer for her and think of her tomorrow at 7:30 when surgery begins." — Sept. 1, 11:15 a.m. This was the first entry posted on the site "Heal Fast Billie" hosted on CarePages through […]
Connecting Roots and Branches
Originally published in MediaPostAbove: My grandfather's emigration card from Germany in 1951, found on Ancestry.com. Born in Poland, he escaped the Holocaust with his family through Siberia and Kazakhstan, settling in Germany after the war before coming to the United States. Connecting Roots and Branches Some people compete around badges and mayorships (Foursquare), connections and […]
What A Camp Counselor Can Teach You about Social Media
Today's column channels some fun camp memories. I was walking through Madison Square Park on the way to work and saw a woman with two kids in matching blue t-shirts, and suddenly I was back – metaphorically – at Beth El. One personally gratifying experience in writing this was realizing how many of those memories […]
Vote
Image by RodBegbie via FlickrThat’s it. Really. Just reminding you. No endorsements here or anything. Rather, the picture included here serves to let you know that even Storm Troopers are taking part in the political process, and just think how hard it was to get an absentee ballot on the Death Star. You should have […]
Birthday Greetings by Channel: Facebook Surges Ahead in 2008
Image via Wikipedia Last year, I took an analytical approach to my birthday – hardly surprising to those who know me. When I learned in first grade how to take surveys and make tally marks, I did a poll around school of preferences for Doritos, Fritos, or Cheetos (Doritos won handily). This year, two birthday […]
Vacation Recap: Most Useful Technologies
I took a week off last week, driving with my wife upstate from New York City to the Finger Lakes for some sightseeing and winery touring (with stops along the way in White Plains, Binghamton, and Corning), and then to Hyde Park (via Ithaca and Woodstock) for the FDR Library and Culinary Institute of America, […]