So, I gave an abbreviated version of my “How to Do Stuff and Be Happy” talk to the students in my Professional Communication Skills class at UT-Austin, and one of them recorded it for me. It’s dark and grainy and I’m cranking through it pretty fast, but maybe you can get the idea [runtime: 26:56].

How to Do Stuff and Be Happy from Roy Christopher on Vimeo.
[Special thanks to Marcus Johnston for running the camera.]

Hilton Head, South Carolina’s own Raise Small Business Marketing did a brief summary and write-up of my “How to Do Stuff and Be Happy” talk from Geekend 2010. Here’s the run-down:
I was excited for this session, mainly because doing stuff and being happy are two major challenges!  Roy Christopher gave a laid back presentation that basically went through some ideas on how to keep your focus and try and stay happy while actually getting things done.
Roy covers a lot of the information that was in his presentation …

I compiled my thoughts on a bunch of recent books about the internet, social concerns, and brain matters into a piece called “This is Your Brain Online: Recent Books on Cognition and Connection” for 21C Magazine, many of which have been hashed out right here on this site.

Here’s an excerpt:
Regarding public cell phone use, comedian Bill Maher once quipped that if he wanted to be so privy to one’s most intimate thoughts, he’d read his or her blog. Nancy Baym addresses this technologically enabled collusion of public and private, as …

I scarcely know where to start. Geekend is the beautifully geeky brainchild of Sloane Kelly, Jacob Hodesh, and Miriam Hodesh. 2010 marks the second annual meeting of what everyone familiar hopes will be many years of the interactive conference. It has just the right balance of size and intensity.
I didn’t get to Savannah until late on Day 2, so I roamed around downtown by myself Friday night. I stepped into a raucous karaoke session and had the biggest beer I’ve ever seen. No problem not finishing it because in Savannah, …

One of the key insights in Richard Florida’s latest book, The Great Reset (Harper, 2010) is that rapid transit increases the exchange of ideas and thereby spurs innovation. Where the car used to provide this mass connection, now it hinders it. Increasingly, our cognitive surplus is sitting traffic.
Ideas are networks, Steven Johnson argues in his new book, Where Good Ideas Come From (Riverhead, 2010). The book takes Florida’s tack, comparing cities to coral reefs in that their structure fosters innovation. Good ideas come from connected collectives, so connectivity is paramount.
Human …

For over two decades, Douglas Rushkoff has been dragging us all out near the horizon, trying to show us glimpses of our own future. Though he’s written books on everything from counterculture and video games to advertising and Judaism, he’s always maintained a media theorist’s bent: one part Marshall McLuhan, one part Neil Postman, and one part a mix of many significant others. Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age (OR Books, 2010) finds him back at the core of what he does. Simply put, this little …

As I reported previously, my review of Mediated Interpersonal Communication, edited by Elly A. Konijn, Sonja Utz, Martin Tanis, and Susan B. Barnes (Routledge, 2008), is out in the September, 2010 issue of the Journal of Communication. I know it’s just a book review, but it is my first publication in an academic journal, so I’m stoked.
Special thanks to Brian H. Spitzberg for passing this opportunity on to me.

Remember when people used to “surf the web”? Now it is said that typical daily browsing behavior consists of five websites. William Gibson’s age-old summary of web experience, “I went a lot of places, and I never went back” has become, “I go a few places, and I stay there all the time.” We don’t surf as much as we sit back and watch the waves. I started this post several months ago when I noticed that the lively conversations that used to happen on my website had all but …

Voting has begun for South by Southwest 2011. I have proposed two talks and one panel. I am hereby requesting your support. Click on the links below and vote for these ones:
INTERACTIVE: Disconnecting the Dots: How Our Devices are Divisive:
We drive cars to the gym to run miles on a treadmill. Inclement weather notwithstanding, why don’t we just run down the street? The activities are disconnected. We sit in close physical proximity with each other and text others far away. The activities are disconnected. Technological mediation …

In The Young & The Digital (Beacon, 2009), Craig Watkins points out an overlooked irony in our switch from television screens to computer screens: We gather together around the former to watch passively, while we individually engage with the latter to actively connect with each other. This insight forms the core of Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (Penguin, 2010). Shirky argues that the web has finally joined us in a prodigious version of McLuhan’s “global village” or Teilhard de Chardin’s “Noosphere,” …