Blog

  • AI-Generated UX Theatre: How AI can mimic user-centered design

    Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to revolutionize how we work. And as with all new technologies, there are two sides to the story. Applying AI to user experience design presents the risk of UX Theatre. What is UX Theatre? I originally wrote about UX Theatre in 2018, where I defined it as: ‘the application of any…

  • Designing the team experience: Building an open and supportive team culture through design

    Source Back in 2018, I wrote a talk called “Designing the team experience: Building culture through onboarding“. The focus was using onboarding to build and foster a strong team culture. One of the key tenets I hold about design leadership — or really any leadership — is: “Your team is an element of your project…

  • It’s ok to set boundaries at work

    Source It’s possible to be high performing and set clear boundaries about your role and accountability in the workplace.  Anyone who has worked as a unicorn or generalist at some point in their career might be used to doing it all, working on all the problems, and applying their skills to a wide range of…

  • My most successful UX project (that no one knows about)

    Let me tell you about my favourite project. A decade ago, I was part of a small group of women who made something happen that was small and huge at the same time. We were incredibly successful and nearly no one knows the story. It’s a lovely little secret that we all share. I led…

  • spydergrrl talks UX Theatre on Good Morning UX

    I had the pleasure of talking about (what else?) UX Theatre with some new friends over at Design Team as part of their Good Morning UX podcast series. Good Morning UX is about “the universe of design inserted in practical contexts about working in teams, companies, what is expected, what is delivered, what is done, management, composition,…

  • Designing human-centered performance reviews

    Why do I care so much about performance reviews? My worst performance review caused me to leave my job within weeks. I went from years of surpassing expectations to being told I was not meeting them. Had my performance actually changed? No. The Big Consulting firm I was working for deliberately chose not to bid…

  • Tackling UX theatre: What designers can do

    Illustration by Claire Murray via Flickr UX Theatre is the application of any sort of design methodology without including a single user in the process, or including users but merely for show. You’ve heard about it. In fact, you’re living it. And you wonder: what can I do about it? Let’s start with the two…

  • UX design has a dirty secret (My Fast Company CO.Design article)

    Source Photos: cosmin4000/iStock, u.u./iStock I am excited to announce that I have written an article for Fast Company Co.Design which digs into UX Theatre. In it, I cover: What is UX Theatre? How two fundamental issues in the user experience design industry have caused UX Theatre to emerge What we can do to prevent it,…

  • Finding joy in the work of design (even when projects don’t launch)

    After being a user experience (UX) designer for almost 25 years, I’ve worked on a lot of projects and designs that have never launched or that changed significantly prior to launch. I truly believe that what has kept me sane and happy is focusing on designing, not launching. When I get frustrated that things I…

  • UX Theatre on UX Podcast (Episode #267)

    UX Theatre has been getting some press in the first half of 2021. Just this Spring: Jesse James Garrett wrote about it in Fast Company (see I helped pioneer UX design. What I see today disturbs me) Tricia Wang also wrote about it in Fast Company (see The most popular design thinking strategy is BS) Scott Berkun…

  • Short talk: The Unstuck Meeting

    A brief overview of The Unstuck Meeting, a tool my team uses to collaborate when one of us is stuck on a project. Related article: The Unstuck Meeting: A safe failure space Interested in this talk? Reach me on Twitter @spydergrrl or by email.

  • Swimming in the UX data lake: Using machine learning to give new life to government UX research data

    Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay Back in 2009, the now-defunct User Experience Working Group was a foundling in the Government of Canada (GC). We were a bunch of practitioners who self-organized into a team that worked on making user experience design a common practice in the GC. We met to work on UX projects, learn methods,…

  • A Quick Guide to Designing Collaboration

    Image source: nugroho dwi hartawan on Pixabay  First of all, let’s agree on one principle: Collaboration doesn’t just happen. You can’t just schedule a meeting and expect that the people who will be in attendance will collaborate. Collaboration is “the action of working with someone to produce or create something.” (Oxford) Collaboration is not getting…

  • Short talk: Service Design in a Rush

    This video presents a short case study demonstrating the application of service design methodology in an accelerated fashion to evaluate the design of a government program. Topics covered include: rapid initiation (getting started right away), examining all facets of the service for blueprinting, participatory design with the people who deliver the service, remote service design…

  • How to: Connect with the Government UX Community

      Every week or so, I get a connection request on LinkedIn, a cold intro (BTW those are so uncool), or an email from someone asking some form of the following:  I would love to have a coffee chat and find out more about doing UX in government.  Can you answer my/their questions about getting…

  • Short talk: Designing a culture of design

    This video presents a short case study demonstrating how applying design methods and tools to internal design work helped to instill a culture of design across a national government program. Topics covered include: adopting co-design as the main method of work with remote program teams, designing co-working sessions instead of planning meetings, a 1-hour workshop…

  • How to: Get Started in UX in Government

    Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Every month, I get requests from people in my network and complete strangers to “explain over coffee” any of the following: The state of UX in government How to build UX into a government organization/ How to structure a UX team How to create a user-centered or design-driven culture…

  • “Why don’t you just”: Why gov doesn’t need tech saviourism (but we do need you)

    In a conversation about civic tech, I commented: “Truth is, we don’t need a tech panacea; government needs more service design. Honest-to-goodness end-to-end omni-channel ‘big D’ Design, aimed at serving citizens.” After 15 years working inside government (plus another 7 working in the private sector), one of the things that brings me no end of…

  • Designing for Team Spirit in a Remote World

    It’s been an adjustment, working from home. Since the pandemic started, my staff has experienced isolation, ill family members, death of loved ones, demands of homeschooling, health scares, spousal job loss, and whole host of other concerns which would be difficult to handle under normal circumstances. But compounded by the fear and uncertainty of the…

  • It’s a Great Time To Be A UX Designer – Algonquin HCD Program 2020 Keynote

    Source My friend, Sage, and I were invited to give a keynote address at Algonquin College’s Human-Centred Design post-grad certificate program for graduation yesterday. We were asked to speak about the importance of the UX community and any other topics that would be helpful for these newly minted UXers launching off into their careers. Below…

  • UX Theatre: The Poster

    In January 2018, I wrote a Twitter thread about how some user experience projects tend to pay lip service to user-centered design rather than being actual user-centered design. I used the term “UX Theatre” to describe the phenomenon. Based on the reaction online, it seems that this is a common occurrence across the industry. People responded…

  • UX Theatre talk pitch

    An overview of my talk on UX Theatre, which can be delivered as a full talk or a poster presentation. UX Theatre is a term I coined to describe those projects that pay lip service to user-centered design. In my talk, I explore the theme of UX Theatre: its causes, its symptoms and what we…

  • The Unstuck Meeting: A safe failure space

    GIF of a teammate turning the water bottle of another teammate so they can drink out of the right endvia GIPHY I tweeted about my team’s Unstuck Meetings earlier this year: On my team, we have “unstuck” meetings. When anyone gets stuck on a task, rather than fester they book the rest of us for…

  • CLUE Symposium: 2018 Canadian State of UX Report

    A detailed presentation of the findings from the CanUX 2018 State of UX Report, focusing on 4 areas: demographics, maturity, tools and salaries. This presentation was delivered to Carleton University Collaborative Learning of Usability Experiences (CLUE) Symposium, in May 2019. This report was originally delivered at CanUX 2018.

  • Design Twitter, Negativity, and Hurting the Cause

    If you want to have fun, just log on to Twitter and ask, “Ok, what are we fighting over today, Design Twitter?” It could be anything from whether designers need to learn to code, to whether UX/UI is a single job, to the ethics of design, to does UX have/need a seat at the table,…

  • CanUX 2018: State of UX Report

    A detailed presentation of the findings from the CanUX 2018 State of UX Report, focusing on 4 areas: demographics, maturity, tools and salaries. Read the full report. Related talks: CLUE Symposium: 2018 Canadian State of UX Report (May 2019)

  • Designing the team experience: Building culture through onboarding (Slides)

    Below are the key points and a link to the presentation slides for my presentation on team culture, Designing the team experience: Building culture through onboarding. Title slide from presentation. Click to view slides My presentation is a case study of an enterprise project where onboarding was not a priority and the project was a…

  • UX Theatre: Are You Just Acting Like You’re Doing User-Centered Design?

    Back in January 2018, I wrote a Twitter thread about projects that pay lip service to user-centered design (UCD) and what we can do about it as designers. Here’s an expanded write-up of the topic, for those of you who requested some additional context. (The original tweets are in italics.) In 2020, I also created…

  • Fostering Team Culture Through Better Onboarding: Lessons From My Failed Projects

    I’ve been lucky to work on dozens of projects throughout my career and there is one thing I’ve learned which has affected every single one of those projects: In most cases, not enough attention is paid to onboarding team members. Now I’m not talking about solution rollout or customer adoption of the project. No, I…

  • Rethinking Digital Government: What It Really Means to Put Users First

    Keep Calm and Hack the Government At its most fundamental, government does two things: governs (policies, rules, laws) and delivers services (passports, employment insurance, etc). Which is why, in this blogger’s opinion, digital government should consist of two things, and two things only: Digital data and information, and Digital service delivery. C’est tout. Point final.…

  • Stop Waiting for Permission and Start Failing

    One of the most overused and misunderstood phrases circulating around my organization right now is: fail fast. Everyone says it but no one can define it. Oh but they might try: “It’s, you know, skunkworks, pilots, hackathons. It means we have to be agile.” Pardon me while I roll my eyes audibly over here. If…

  • Hacking My Perspective Helped Me Find Work Satisfaction

    I was chatting with a close friend recently about our our work lives and she mentioned difficulty finding satisfaction with her work given her lack of control in her work situation. I had come to some realizations about my own sphere of influence and happiness within it, and put together a thread on Twitter. Here’s…

  • Tackling the Dirty Jobs of Data and IM with Artificial Intelligence

    This is the second in what will inevitably be a series of AI-related posts. See my first post, Artificial Intelligence, UX and the Future of Findability. Source: Pixabay Every organization has dirty jobs that it should be doing, but that no one wants to do. Work that is so big and daunting and tedious, that it…

  • Designing for Outcomes: Building Better Hackathons, Design Jams & Workshops

    Credit: spydergrrl Here’s a conversation I’ve had on multiple occasions: Them: “We’re going to run a hackathon.” Me: “Why?” Them: “What do you mean, why?” Me: “What are your goals? Who are you inviting? What kind of experience would you like them to have? What outcomes are you looking for? When you award a prize,…

  • Artificial Intelligence, UX & The Future of Findability

    Credit: Martin Grandjean [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons I’m completely obsessed with the idea of using artificial intelligence, search patterns and information architecture to improve the findability of content. OBSESSED. It seems like we’re on the cusp of doing amazing things with chatbots and data mining, which can augment manual information architecture work and…

  • How to Be a Bad Business Analyst

    Image by Intersection Consulting, CCBY2.0 I am a Business Analyst. I know, I know. We suck. Business Analysis is all about useless documentation and templates, right? BAs are sticklers for detail and overloading process onto projects. And did I mention all. the. documents? I mean, who has time to read those? Projects could be so much more…

  • Dear Extrovert: Tips for Chitchat With an Introvert

    So, you’re an extrovert. Congratulations. Go tell someone else all about it. Because I’m exhausted just thinking about it. All the people-ing. And worse, I’m afraid that you’re about to tell me all about how great extroversion is, and how you get all of your energy by interacting with people and isn’t that amazing and I want…

  • Designing Inclusive Interactions with Remote Workers

    Credit: Vanessa Miemis on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) I work with a bunch of tech-savvy nerds who can work from anywhere. And yet we suck at working remotely. Actually, we suck at working with people who are working remotely. When people go off-site, our team immediately stops communicating with them. Off-site workers either fall out…

  • “How are you getting away with that?!” Building UX into Everyday Work

    I’m on what I call a ‘luxurious” project. We are a budget initiative which means we have the funds we need to get our work done. We are a bunch of nerds in a policy shop which means no one tells us how to work because they don’t really understand what we do or how…

  • Ignoring The Grind: The Stories We Tell About Each Other’s Work

    Low Hanging Fruit by Luis Fernando Franco JimĂ©nez on Flickr I walked into the meeting room and sat down at the conference table. I was invited as an attendee. There were 15 other people in the room. At the beginning of the session, the person who called the meeting handed me a couple of Sharpies…

  • Epic Fails and Small Wins: What I’ve Learned So Far From My Career in Tech

    By Publication of the original photo attributed to Levy & fils per [2] [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons In tech, the concept of agile development is a bit of a no brainer. Venture capitalists and start-up gurus encourage start-ups to “Fail fast.” It’s supposed to be a mantra that encourages innovation, learning…

  • Workshop Design: 3 Tips to Turn Facilitation Into Enablement

    It’s gonna get messy!(Credit: spydergrrl) As a business analyst, a good portion of my work is to facilitate working sessions with groups of people. They might be a team (even my team) or they might be a disjointed random group of subject matter experts from a whole bunch of different organizations. And my job is…

  • Storytelling: Building Compelling Stories for Any Audience (Presentation Materials)

    Source: Despicable Me Nothing irks me more than hearing someone say that they “have to build a deck” or “write a report” before they even mention the actual, you know, content of said deliverable. Especially since it’s pretty easy to craft messages that people can relate to, rather than putting together another boring PowerPoint slide.…

  • Thing I Want: Better (Any?) Voice Commands on All My Apps

    Podcast Addict app (Credit: spydergrrl) Yesterday, I went out for my first trail run of the season. As I ran, I listened to a CBC Spark podcast which, as usual, was full of random and interesting stories about how tech impacts culture and our everyday lives. There were a few items that I really wanted…

  • Cyber Security and the Opportunity for User-Centered Design

    Credit: Perspecsys on Flickr I am curious. I like to play: with toys, with ideas, with tech. And I used to be very scared of hardware until the cloud came along and I started using all of my tech as dumb-smart devices that simply access stuff stored elsewhere. Now, I’ll happily play around with my…

  • Innovation: IDTIMWYTIM

    By LPS.1 (own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons I’m going to join a new sports team: The Stanley Cups. Our mission will be to Stanley Cup. We’ll have a Stanley Cup hub, we’ll hire the best Stanley Cup leaders and the best Stanley Cuppers. We’re going focus on Stanley Cupping, using Stanley Cupping tools and…

  • Conversations With Normals: When No One Understands Your Job

    (Credit: Leovalente on PixaBay) Have you ever had a moment when your absolute immersion in something is presented to you on a silver platter as entirely not the norm? When you are suddenly the absolute nerdiest person in a room full of “normal people” who work in entirely non-technical industries? Yeah, that. Exhibit A: My…

  • Introvert Thoughts: My Love-Hate Relationship with Social Media

    By Doesn’t say [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons Confession: Sometimes I question why I’m on social media. This usually happens when I’m having particularly introverted moments. Which of late, seem to be pretty often. And in those moments I silently debate with myself: Should I stop tweeting? Is blogging worth it? Who’s even reading this stuff?…

  • Download This: IA Summit Visual Notes (PDF)

    A few weeks ago, I made the trek to Minneapolis for the IA Summit. It was my first time and I was pretty excited to have been able to make the trip. The speaker lineup was fantastic, the planned and unplanned events were chaotic, and overall it was a great experience. Basically, it was a…

  • How To Hack Meetings: Using UX and Collaborative Techniques to Make Meetings More Productive

    Slide at Shopify (Credit: spydergrrl) I work on an enterprise project with a large constantly-changing project team. People come in and out of the team regularly, which means that we are very reliant on our ability to adapt and work together to get things done quickly. Some times it can feel like meeting hell though,…

  • Hacking Old Tech: Breathing New Life Into Obsolete Devices

    By perfectska04,  GNOME icon artists  via Wikimedia Commons One part of our basement used to be a tech graveyard. If you rummaged around, you might stumble upon some of my favourite pieces: My old 1994 Asus laptop with 2MB (megabytes!!) of RAM and a built-in trackball mouse, running Windows 3.1. All my old PDAs: HandSpring…

  • Flashback: That Time I Was an Online News Anchor (Way Before YouTube)

    Warning: Flashback moment ahead I used to produce (and read!) online news when I worked for a tiny little consulting firm in 1998-1999. We were a video conferencing consulting firm, which means I spent most of my time learning video conferencing systems, then developing and delivering training to government departments. I learned a ton about…

  • The Google Glass “Failure”: Why Words Are Important in Innovation

    By Danlev (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], Wikimedia Commons By now, you’ve probably heard that Google has shut down the Google Glass Explorer program. And chances are, you’re hearing people describe it as a failure. This is why we can’t have nice things. When bold ideas such a Glass get branded as failures, it sucks…

  • Beyond “Pages”: Is It Time To Rethink Our Mental Model of the Web?

    One guarantee of working on the web is that you will inevitably be in a conversation about a web site and people will talk about “web pages.” Which makes sense: the Web has been around for a couple of decades and, since the beginning, we’ve always referred to rendered HTML files as “pages”. The whole…

  • Accessibility In Social Media: 15 + 4 Things You Can Do (Full Presentation Notes)

    Credit: The people from the Tango! project, via Wikimedia Commons Last week, I presented at Public Sector Social Media, a conference directed to Government employees and consultants whose work touches on the social media-sphere. I gave a talk on Social Media Accessibility issues entitled, “15 + 4 Things You Can Do to Improve the Accessibility of…

  • How To: Run a Personas Workshop

    Personas Workshop Workshop visual notes handout (click to enlarge)

  • The 4 Things I Learned About Technology Adoption by Being an Early Blogger

    Spydergrrl on the Web turned 6 last week. This hasn’t been my only blog, but it is the one with the most staying power. As I was approaching this anniversary, I did a bit of reflection and realized that the process of researching and writing about technology and culture has taught me a lot about…

  • The ONLY Way To Get Girls into STEM (Boys Too!)

    Three times in one weekend, I was asked if I was involved in female-oriented and girl-specific tech programs. And it bugged the hell out of me. I love any initiative that has the potential to interest people in science, technology, engineering and math (aka STEM) but I loathe initiatives that focus on gender and quotas.…

  • What the %$*& is UX? (video)

    I’ve got UX (user experience) on the brain for a whole lot of reasons: first of all, I’m doing a whole lot of it at work (in fact, I’m pretty sure that I might get banned from saying “personas” any more if I keep it up 🙂 secondly, last week I mentored on UX at…

  • Dispelling The Myth of “Fake Geek Girls”

    Each and every one of us has at some time felt impostor syndrome (i.e. that feeling that you don’t belong and someone will find you out eventually). Being a nerd, it’s been a recurring theme throughout my life, but no more so than when surrounded by other geeks. Though I’m pretty knowledgeable on my geek…

  • How To Live-Tweet an Event: Part 5 – Outcomes and Measurement

    This is part 5 in an ongoing series on Live-Tweeting Events. Check out Part 4 – Showtime!. Or see the bottom of this post for the full 5-part series. Your event is over. First of all, CONGRATULATIONS! You did it! As a frequent event organizer, myself, I know what you just went through and you should…

  • How To Live-Tweet an Event: Part 4 – Showtime!

    This is part 4 in an ongoing series on Live-Tweeting Events. Check out Part 3 – Editorial Calendar & Cheat Sheet. Or see the bottom of this post for the full 5-part series. It’s your big day, so let’s jump right in. Equipment setup First of all, you’ll need a laptop or tablet/keyboard combination. Given…

  • How To Live-Tweet an Event: Part 3 – Editorial Calendar & Cheat Sheet

    This is part 3 in an ongoing series on Live-Tweeting Events. Check out Part 2 – Developing a content plan. Or see the bottom of this post for the full 5-part series. So now that you have figured out why you’re live tweeting and created a content plan, it’s time to get busy doing the…

  • Hacking Our Way To An Agile Organization: The Video

    (Credit: Microsoft Clip Art Gallery) I recently gave my presentation “Hacking Our Way to an Agile Organization” for a government audience. The event was hosted by the Government of Canada Federal Youth Network (FYN) and open to all public servants. We had a great turnout for the event which was both in person and webcast.…

  • How To Live-Tweet An Event: Part 2 – Developing a Content Plan

    This is part 2 in an ongoing series on Live-Tweeting Events. Check out Part 1 – Defining Success. Or see the bottom of this post for links to the full 5-part series. In part 1 of this series, I listed out dozens of questions which would help you consider your goals for live-tweeting your event:…

  • How To Live-Tweet An Event: Part 1 – Defining Success

    A couple of years ago, I wrote a 3-part series on Twitter chats: finding them, managing your way through them and running a good one. Since then, I’ve been asked more times than I can count about doing the same for live-tweeting events. I finally had the time to dedicate to putting it together and…

  • Designing for Consumption: When Content Is The Goal

    Spritz app (Credit: Spritz) Hubby bounced out of his chair yesterday to show me an app he came across and knew that I would absolutely love. (Gotta love a guy who knows what makes a girl happy, right? 😉 Spritz: For Speed-Reading (or is it?) And he was right: Spritz is a speed-reading app that…

  • 5 Ways to Hack (and Future-Proof!) Our Libraries

    Computerpool in the Public Library Dresden (Credit: Conrad Nutschan, CC-BY-SA-2.0 Wikimedia Commons) I love libraries. But I will openly admit that I don’t hang out at our local library that often because it’s small, has limited comfortable seating and really is more of a checkout location than an inviting community space. Yet there are so…

  • Thoughts On Facilitating Tech Adoption In The Workplace

    (Credit: Microsoft Clip Art Gallery) Organizations tend to throw tech at problems and assume that, because the staff have been asking for better machines, the presence of the hardware alone will lead to widespread adoption. This is flawed thinking; introducing tech that changes how people work needs to be treated as a cultural change in…

  • Civic Hacking: Spydergrrl on the LSE Impact Blog

    Logo of London School of Economics and Political Science This week, I was asked by the London School of Economics and Political Science if they could publish my “Hacking is a Mindset, Not A Skillset” essay on their blog, “LSE Impact of Social Sciences“. In its entirety. (All 4,500 words of it!) Here’s a bit…

  • Startup Weekend Ottawa Redux: A Mentor’s Perspective

    Startup Weekend Ottawa I spent this weekend hanging out in the funky Shopify offices providing advice and support to the teams participating in Startup Weekend Ottawa (SWO). And I had a fantastic time. I’ve been asked why I don’t go back to the startup world since I loved it so much. And my response of…

  • Ada Lovelace Day: Do Women in STEM Need A Strong Supportive Female Career Mentor?

    (Credit: FindingAda.com) So, here’s a conundrum. Today is Ada Lovelace Day, and bloggers around the world are requested to write about a female geek, their personal geek girl hero. And so I sat down to start writing and tried to think of a defining female geek in my life. It reminded me of a conversation…

  • Hacking Your Way to an Agile Organization (Speaking Notes)

    (Credit: Microsoft Clip Art Gallery) On Monday, I gave a presentation to a room full of executives and up-and-comers about becoming more agile. Now before you roll your eyes, don’t worry: it was riffing off my “Hacking is a Mindset, not a Skillset” talks from earlier this year. My point was that the concept of…

  • The Six Million Dollar Question: How Will The Future of Prosthetics Affect Human Performance and Self Esteem?

    Cyborg Sprinter (Credit: 3oneseven Agency) (This is a post that I have had milling around in my brain for quite some time but knew that I needed a few hours to really get it down properly. Here’s hoping I was able to do it justice.) Earlier this summer as I was out for a training…

  • Girls Learning Code Workshops: Is Gender-Segregated Tech Learning Necessary?

    One of my contacts at Code For Kids and Ladies Learning Code sent me a note about an upcoming workshop on August 24th, called Girls Learning Code. In similar fashion to Code For Kids, the workshop aims to teach kids basic coding skills, design thinking and building things with computers. There are two key differences…

  • I Am An RSS Feed Redux: One Step Closer to Owning Your Entire Web Presence

    Back in 2011, I wrote a rant explaining that I want to be an RSS feed. It was a response to the launch for Google+, a reaction to the creation of yet. another. social. networking. platform. Another place among the dozens I already publish content, another account to further fragment my online presence. And I…

  • Designing Microinteractions: Notes from Dan Saffer’s Presentation at IxDA Ottawa

    Cover of Microinteractions by Dan Saffer Last night I went to a lecture hosted by the Ottawa Interaction Design Association to see Dan Saffer speak about Microinteractions. The event is part of a book tour Dan is doing for his new O’Reilly book by the same name and a quick glance at his site will tell you that…

  • Social Capital Conference 2013: Wrap-Up and Conference Notes

    Social Capital Conference Were you able to make it to Social Capital Conference last weekend? If so, how did you find it? I was pleasantly surprised by the calibre of the presentations in this year’s lineup. I have to (sheepishly) admit that based on the sessions I attended at last year’s conference, I wrote off…

  • Journalism, Social Media & Ethics: Is It OK To Cite An Observed Tweet As A Direct Quote?

    Credit: Microsoft Online ClipArt Here’s a question I’ve been mulling over for some time: Are random tweets fair game for journos? Can they quote you as if you were interviewed, without ever contacting you? That is, should journalists mine other people’s Twitter conversations for use as quotes in an article, if they were never part…

  • The Biggest Barrier To The Modern Workplace is Us

    Credit: Microsoft ClipArt Gallery My career has so far spanned 15 years. In that time, I’ve worked at 12 companies and held a total of 15 different jobs. And you know what? Although tech has been getting faster, smaller and more refined, at its core today’s workplace is very similar to how it was back…

  • Finding Each Other: 75 TED Talks Featuring Geek Girls

    Credit: Microsoft Online Clipart Gallery Last week, I gave a presentation and one of the participants asked about how to find like-minded people in our own community. It’s a comment that I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last few days. Between public social media and collaborative networks in my workplace, I’ve been able…

  • Hacking is a Mindset, Not a Skillset (CLA Ottawa version of Script and Slides)

    Back in January, I gave a talk at Girl Geek Dinner on Hacking is a Mindset, Not a Skillset. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to evolve the presentation and share it at 2 subsequent events: Agile Ottawa and, most recently, for the Ottawa Chapter of the Canadian Library Association. That presentation, which took place…

  • 5 Lessons in Collaboration From Phineas and Ferb

    Credit: Phineas and Ferb wiki Since we discovered that the full complement of Phineas and Ferb episodes are on Netflix, the Dude has been on a mission to watch them all. And he knows that I am a fan, so when there are no new shows on the Boxee, his go-to is always to ask if…

  • Libraries as Seed Banks: An Open Data Opportunity

    Source: Neil Palmer via Wikimedia Commons My friend @macjudith posted an article the other day that completely piqued my interest: “How To Save A Public Library: Make It A Seed Bank. Wow. It turns out that Basalt, Colorado has a public library that has started a seed bank. Not just to catalogue and store the…

  • Hacking is a Mindset, Not a Skillset (Girl Geek Dinner Presentation Script and Slides)

    As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I was the guest speaker for Girl Geek Dinners this month. Despite my nerves and the stress of developing an entirely new presentation for the event, the Girl Geeks did not disappoint in making me feel welcomed and supported in testing out my new material. There were about 50…

  • PSA: A Note To People Working on The Bleeding Edge of Social Media (or Any Industry)

    I spent the last week and half in a virtual vigil, keeping watch via Facebook as my extended family members posted updates about another family member’s declining condition and ultimate passing. When I called my Dad and my brother, I was the only one who knew. And it struck us all: how I could be…

  • The Science of Productivity and The Stigma Against Gamification

    Credit: Microsoft Online Clipart Gallery Three days back from your Christmas holiday and your motivation is lacking? No worries, ASAPScience is on the case with a great little video about the Science of Productivity that can help get you motivated once more to attack your monster inbox or the pile of projects accumulating on your…

  • Rant: 2 Essential Skills Students Probably Won't Learn at School (But CAN Learn Online)

    Success in school comes from learning how to learn and understanding how to deliver within the context of the school structure. Learning how to learn isn’t easy to accomplish, since public schools often seem focused on the output (moving kids up and out). In fact, we’ve noticed that the standard classroom environment and teaching approaches just…

  • Social Media for Non-Profits: Doing It With Purpose (SoCapOtt presentation slides and script)

    [Aside: Hat tip to @thornley for suggesting that I name my presentation: “Doing It With Purpose” in his tweets from my presentation.] This past Saturday, I presented at Social Capital Ottawa (aka SoCapOtt) in the Non-profits stream. My presentation, entitled Social Media for Non-Profits was an end-to-end look at how a non-profit could create, manage…

  • World IA Day is coming and Ottawa has an Event!

    Unlike World Usability Day, when Ottawa didn’t have many formal events planned, I’m happy to announce that there is a meetup for World IA Day. Ok, so we had to plan it ourselves. But we have one none-the-less. Join us on the eve of the first ever World IA Day for a casual meetup with the Ottawa’s…

  • Rant: Are you using social media to co-operate or collaborate?

    On Wednesday, January 25th, I presented a short rant at a conference themed around collaborative management. My talk was about challenging some of the assumptions around collaboration: specifically, that using social media and collaborative tools doesn’t always result in collaboration. In some cases, the co-operative behaviours that result are mistakenly interpreted as collaborative actions. But…

  • My Mom, Honorary Geek Girl: An Ada Lovelace Day Tribute

    Oops! I almost forgot to tell you that Ada Lovelace day has changed dates! According to a Finding Ada blog post about the date change: The March date was always arbitrary, picked because I was too impatient to wait any longer! The October date has been picked because it’s far enough away that it gives…

  • Mistaking “Social” for “Personal”

    With the sudden passing of Trey Pennington this weekend, much of the social mediasphere took to Twitter. They grieved the passing of a prominent figure in their industry. They told stories of his kindness and passion for his work. They stressed the importance of dealing with depression. And – perhaps not surprisingly – they exclaimed,…

  • My Ideal Social Network: I want to be an RSS feed

    With the launch of Google+, I have come to realise (as I am sure you have too) that I am on too many social networks right now: I am member of Quora, BlogHer, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIN, Twitter, Technorati, Digg, Gov social networks (GovLoop, GCPedia, GC Forums, GC Connex) and countless more I’ve joined and have…

  • You just proved outdoor advertising works – Um, no. A lesson in analytics

    Everyone gets that feeling in the pit of their stomach. You know the one. You’re in your car at a stop light and your eye catches the sign on the side of the bus stop: “You just proved outdoor advertising works.” And you think: Dammit! I’m better than that! Why does that *always* get me?!…

  • 7 Tips to Surviving Twitter Chats

    In my first two posts about Twitter chats, I pointed you to a list of Every single Twitter chat and then, once you were overwhelmed, explained How to find the right chat for you. So, you’ve picked your chat. Now what? If your chat has hundreds (even thousands) of simultaneous participants, how on earth are…

  • What NOT to Buy a Geek Mom for Mother’s Day (or: Why I Hate Tech Targeted “To Women”)

    Here, I’m going to give you a little spoiler: don’t buy Mom any tech that’s targeted to Moms. Period. I came across an article on Ubergizmo for a rumored new HTC Bliss phone, which is being touted as an Android phone for women. Now, being a Droid lover I like to check out new Droid…

  • 6 Basic Rules for Social Media Campaigns

    Beyond my purely geeky jobs, I’ve worked in or collaborated closely with comms and marketing for a dozen years. When something happens in the news related to a company’s handling of design, marketing, comms or PR, I usually pay attention. So I was rapt recently when the Gap’s marketing machine momentarily imploded with the under-the-radar-yet-incredibly-noticed…

  • Women-only conferences: Progressive or traditionalist?

    I’ve been recently hearing more and more about women-only tech & blogging & business conferences. Frankly, the more I learn, the more I find myself torn. As a young woman in tech, I fought against a bunch of evils including reverse ageism and gender stereotypes. I’ve been ignored for being the youngest, for being the…

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leadership rant spydergrrl talk tech theatre ux