Yes! Yes! YES!
Tom is spot-on here: you shouldn’t be afraid of writing about yourself …especially not for fear of damaging some kind of “personal brand” or pissing off some potential future employer.
If your personal brand demands that you live your life in fear of disclosing important parts of your life or your experience, the answer is to reject the whole sodding concept of personal brands.
Do things I write about my personal life threaten my personal brand? Perhaps. Are there people who wouldn’t hire me based on things I write? Probably. Do I give even a whiff of a fuck? Absolutely not. I wouldn’t want to work for them anyway.
A good recap of the recent online/offline/does-it-really-matter discussion …although it does lend a bit too much credence to the pronouncements of that king of trolls, Nicholas Carr.
Vernor Vinge’s original 1993 motherlode of the singularity.
There is a there there after all.
The backlash against the backlash against connectivity.
I, for one, welcome our Manufactured Normalcy Field overlords.
Anger is an energy, especially when it’s coming from Tom …and for once, it’s not about the Semantic Web.
Seriously though, this is a great piece of writing. This is what blogs are for.
This is one of the best pieces of journalism I’ve read …and it just happens to be posted on a blog. Please read it, particularly if you are a voter in the UK.
A thoughtful piece from Matt on the changes in cultural transmission that we should be embracing instead of bemoaning.
Having just seen Anna Debenham’s superb but scary presentation at Update about the shocking state of UK schools, this is a timely piece of journalism.
Pitching Orwell against Huxley in an argument that is ironically shallow: it only holds up if you accept the premise that activities involving the web, television and video games are inherently “bad” and anti-social: a pathetically, narrow-minded and condescending worldview.
An attempt to turn psychohistory into reality using a “Knowledge Accelerator.”
This looks like being a thoroughly excellent event at The Royal Society, featuring Tim Berners-Lee and Albert-Laszlo Barabasi.
An entertaining missive from the future.
An examination of behavioural contagion in social networks.
Sue Schofield plugs Ada Lovelace Day while taking a long hard look at the sniggering sexism endemic to the IT industry.
The spread of happiness, obesity and smoking habits through social networks.
This is a brilliant and inspiring essay by Cory on the why the copyists—avid consumers who are branded as criminals—are not our enemy. Please read this; it is important for the survival of our culture.
The heartening story of a mother who allows her child some independence instead of living in fear of a Black Swan.
A piercing article by Brenda Brathwaite examining people's attitudes towards gaming. Substitute "videogames" for "social networking sites" for equal slices of moral panic.
I missed this last year but it looks like a good event. I must remember to leave some room in my calendar for this "informal, low cost one-day conference on technology, society and low-carbon living."
A great 1994 newsgroup posting by Iain M Banks that gives us a peek behind the scenes of the Culture: fascinating and fun.
A series of infographics comparing Chinese and German culture. Amusing and astute.
Tara talks about the damaging effect on women who believe that to protect themselves, they cannot be truly open online.
There's been a steady increase in talk around continuous partial attention (what with Twitter and all) so I here's the mother lode: Linda Stone waxing lyrical and expanding our vocabularies.
The Dunbar number gets bandied about a lot in conversations about social networks these days. Here's the original paper that shows the research behind the oft-misused term.
I think this could be a fun side-event to organise around @media: a guided tour of the Royal Society. What self-respecting geek wouldn't like that?
A fun debate featuring Tim O'Reilly, Esther Dyson, Malcom Gladwell, Clay Shirky and Moby.
Slides from Ben Hammersley's talk at Reboot 7 in Copenhagen. I can't wait for the MP3.