Back when I was in college I had a professor tell me I had a rare gift for “concept coding” and I confess that I do just love it when ideas bump into one another. It’s like gymnastics for the brain, the endorphins kick in and it just feels so darn exhilarating. So last week when…
The world had barely stopped chattering about photographs that showed the Duchess of Cambridge appearing topless while on vacation, when some mindless idiot posted a video film called Innocence of Muslims that vilified the Prophet Muhammad. The Middle East exploded with incendiary violence and an enlightened American diplomat was killed. Had the films producers never heard of Salman…
I will never forget the first time I browsed the web. I stayed up through the midnight hours, surfing the great cosmic sea in trance-like awe. Unlike the current crop of university graduates, my generation stands astride the digital divide. We remember the time before. And as liberating as the Internet has been, we have moments…
There was a compelling story in the Toronto Star on Sunday about a Toronto area teen who helped save the life of a teenager in the UK. The despondent UK teenager had posted on Tumblr that he was attempting suicide by swallowing pills. Shockingly, a number of people responded online by taunting him to go ahead…
The National Post reported last week that if Neanderthals were around today, they would use Facebook. Very little separates us from the socializing patterns of prehistoric man. I have been thinking about that a lot lately. I am at home levelled by some extraordinary pestilence that has robbed my speech. I have always thought that sight is…
I just read the New York Times review of Douglas Coupland’s new book on Marshall McLuhan. In summary, McLuhan revealed the workings of an emerging global village in which the medium or means of conversation defined it and really set the framework for understanding. Reviewer David Carr begins with the following: “Oh boy, yet another…
So I have been reading the lastest fiascos about men undone by their emails. What were they thinking? I learned the PR business from one of the great characters, David Scott-Atkinson. He was really a Canadian pioneer for the profession. David’s mantra was “If you don’t want to see it in print – don’t say…