Hocus Pocus

I’m feeling like a bit of a dork. At Flatstock 26 here in Chicago a couple weeks back, while I was buying a poster, its designer asked about a button I was wearing, having picked it up a few minutes earlier at another booth.

“Crosshair?” he asked — seeming not to recognize the name. “I’ve seen that name around, but who is that?” I didn’t really hear him, and when he went on, “I mean, is it a designer or a group?” I just didn’t follow the question.

Now I can’t help thinking I must have been being played as a pawn in some kind of poster-designers’ nerd-war, in which one printer tries to prove that noobs don’t recognize the other.

For how could any Flatstock artist not know Dan MacAdam? His gorgeous Chicago factory water tank poster hangs right here on my wall, and you could never forget it.

Because file-conversion is always exciting, and because I found this obscure little tip buried way down in a forum thread — but it’s golden — I figured it needs to be published more plainly: more »

If your app is going to make it onto one of the home screens of my iPhone, you’d better be good. Here’s what’s on my first screen — and why. more »

Additional resources for attendees of my 2010 Axelson Symposium seminar, “Must-Have Technologies for Nonprofits,” Wednesday, May 13, at 11:30 am in North Park University‘s Lecture Hall Auditorium. more »

Review of A Conservationist Manifesto, by Scott Russell Sanders (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009).

A version of this review first appeared in print in The Common Review 8, no. 3 (Winter 2010): 42-44. (TCR unfortunately does not make its content available online).

See below for a letter to the editor taking issue with this review, and my response. more »

That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements, feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I have ever met with. The big bow-wow I can do myself like any one going; but the exquisite touch which renders commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me. more »

Here’s the curent draft of a description for my upcoming session at the 2010 Axelson Symposium on Thursday, May 13, 2010, at North Park University: more »

On Monday evenings, from August 30 to October 18, 2010, I’ll be teaching a graduate elective on social media for business and nonprofits in the School of Business and Nonprofit Management (SBNM) at North Park University. Here’s the current, working draft of a course description. more »

It’s been reported that the New Yorker magazine’s mascot, the character “Eustace Tilley,” is based on an illustration from the Encyclopædia Britannica’s famous eleventh edition. But it hasn’t been easy to find a online view of that original illustration. Until now. more »

I recently led a seminar on the subject of “Mistakes You Can Avoid on Facebook and Twitter” for people in the nonprofit and ministry sector. I wish you all could have been there — but we’ll have to settle for sharing my one-page handout. more »