Month: March 2008

Unplugged

squarehead.jpgMost of us were probably too busy monitoring our gadgets to notice, but Monday, March 10, was apparently a day to disconnect from all of our computerized tools and take a break.

“Rewire Your Life Day” was celebrated yesterday by at least one academic. She is Ellen Ernst Kossek, a professor of human-resource management and organizational behavior at Michigan State University. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education news report, the professor did not check email all day, kept her cellphone turned off, and even “went out to lunch with a colleague from another department who, until today, she’d known only via electronic correspondence.”

It’s not a bad idea to get off the grid every once in a while. We could all use a break from technology, don’t you think? Discuss. Or better yet. Don’t discuss. Step away from the computer, turn off your cell phone, and do something non-techie. Go for a walk. Read a book. Listen to music on something other than an iPod.

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Now playing: Various Artists – Stay That Way – The Plastic Constellations
via FoxyTunes

SXSW

A lot of the folks I follow on Twitter are at SXSW Interactive as I blog this, and they’ve been tweeting up a storm over the past 24 hours. All the social media superstars are there, I think, along with a gaggle of microblogging groupies (and I mean that in the nicest way, for that is what I would be were I present). The best part — the SXSW music event — hasn’t even gotten started yet. Anyway, if you’re among the masses who are not at SXSW but want to follow along, but don’t want to sort through the Twitter clutter, here are a few resources:

  • The BFG Communications blog is doing a nice job of wrapping up the early sessions. BFG posted a summary of Forrester guru Charlene Li‘s presentation, Social Strategies for Revolutionaries, and linked to her presentation on SlideShare.
  • SXSW in pictures. If you’d rather look at a picture than read, ClickZ points to the work of Sunni Brown and Marilyn Martin, who “graphically record the proceedings – quickly, compellingly and more succinctly than many of the journalists or bloggers in the vast session rooms.” Cool stuff.
  • Coverage of today’s big event, an interview with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, which apparently turned truly interactive. Jeff Jarvis (BuzzMachine) reports on the event, as does Mashable’s Kristen Nicole.
  • Perhaps some of the higher ed bloggers who went to the SXSW Higher Ed Web Meetup last Friday will also be posting. It would be nice to get a higher ed perspective on some of the discussion.

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Now playing: Various Artists – eMusic – Badlands – Day For Night
via FoxyTunes