When to quit working for a bully?
From Monday’s question pile an anonymous reader asked: After five years of consulting I accepted a full time job with a…
Latest Blog Posts
Should you self publish your first book?
From Monday’s question pile reader Gutenberg Neto, who has one of the best names ever for questions about publishing, asked: After releasing books…
Book Review: Designing Together
I was honored to write the forward for Dan Brown’s new book, Designing Together, because I thought it was excellent.…
How to Find Your Niche In Life
From my Monday question pile Jennifer asked: How do you find your niche in life? This seems like a simple question but…
My process for blogging
From my Monday question pile, my friend Angela asked: As an active blogger and communicator, I’m curious your setup. Obviously…
Q&A Monday: ask me your questions
Here’s an experiment: what question do you want me to answer? Something you want advice on? A topic you…
Changing your life is not a (mid-life) crisis
“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” –…
The Year Without Pants: early praise and reviews
It’s been an amazing journey writing a book about my year working for WordPress.com. Now in the last three…
How To Write a Second Draft
As I’ve been working on The Year Without Pants, I wrote recently about how to revise a first draft,…
Book Review: Good Prose – The Art of Non Fiction
I gave a talk at WordCamp Seattle recently about writing. One point I made was the limitations for improving…
How Pulp Fiction was written (and rejected)
From Cinephillia and Beyond, this comment from Roger Avary, who co-wrote Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction with Tarantino: We just took…
The Meaninglessness of Google Glass
“The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.” – J. B. Priestley [Update 1/16/15: Google…
Would you hire me? Resume from 1994
In going through old boxes I found this resume from 1994. And a wave of bad memories returned. I had…
When In Doubt, Make a List
The most helpful action when feeling overwhelmed is to make a list. Lists do many good things for our…
Are you important? (Emotions vs. Actions)
When people say “you know you are important to me” the best answer is “I don’t know.” Think about…
Blog Community Panel: Summary (WordCamp Seattle)
Thanks to everyone who attended our panel session at WordCamp Seattle, and to our panelists: Ariel M Stallings, from Offbeatempire.com,…
How to Meet Your Hero
Here’s a question from the mailbag: I’m going to a conference for the first time, in part to meet…
Book Review: Microinteractions
They say the devil is in the details, but the angels are in there too. That is, if you…
The Idiot Ratio
Every organization has a ratio of idiots to non-idiots. This is the idiot ratio. This is a harsh, shallow,…
Why Do Communities Thrive or Die? Questions wanted
[The panel is over: notes from it are here] Next This week I’m moderating a panel on building online communities…