In late March, I presented to about 150 attendees of the HighEdWeb New England conference at Mt. Holyoke College. My topic: how to plan and run an effective livestream fundraising event. This is something we’ve had a chance to do at Bates for the last two years, and it’s been very successful for us. It […]
Reply All is my favorite podcast. It bills itself as “a show about the internet.” The latest episode is about diversity in Silicon Valley, approached through the lens of a black engineer who recently quit his job at Twitter. It is fascinating and absolutely worth a listen. One of my favorite parts is an example […]
A couple weeks ago, Bates College was on The Simpsons. I found out on a Sunday evening via Facebook, where a friend mentioned he had just seen the show poking fun at Bates. Next, I checked Yik Yak, where some of our students were talking about seeing it as well. Because Simpsons episodes and clips […]
The weather for this year’s Bowdoinham Polar Bear Dip was quite a departure from last year. No ice to break up, no snow on the ground. It was nearly 50 degrees and sunny out. The upshot of all this was that I walked out onto the dock feeling waaay too cocky. The water was so, […]
My daughter is two and a half years old. Whenever she passes gas, she absolutely busts up laughing. Despite occasional sidelong glances from family and strangers alike, she just thinks farts are the funniest things that have ever happened. And you know what? She’s right. Flatulence is objectively hilarious. It is also an important indicator […]
So good to be back in Maine. Rose loves it too. Here she is pointing to the dog — who perhaps loves it most of all.
What makes a particular design successful can be hard to define. Elegance and intuition can take a variety of forms, and all kinds of different interfaces can get the job done well. Plus, what works for one person may be totally inaccessible to another, which is why the process of iterative design and testing is […]
This is the only known video footage of Mark Twain, filmed by Thomas Edison in 1909 one year before Twain’s death. In it, he walks around his house, puffs a cigar, and has tea with his daughters. Living the dream, basically.
Rose’s teachers at day care shared this little gem — video of her dancing during “circle time” yesterday. Relieved she seems to have gotten her dad’s sense of rhythm.
Great post in the New York Times Opinionator. “The ‘Busy’ Trap” looks at what we’re really doing when we overbook and overlook the most important interactions in our lives. A key graf: Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they aren’t either working or doing something to promote their work. […]