- Nothing To Hide: A Short Story
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, August 16, 2013
Pino yawned, removed his Samsung Visions S3, and rubbed his eyes. It was well past midnight and his code was starting to blur. "Time to go home," he said. Fr ...
- Alan Cooper's Checklist For Being A Visionary
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, August 9, 2013
"If we want users to like our software, we should design it to behave like a likeable person." So said Alan Cooper, the father of Visual Basic, back in 199 ...
- User Interface Is More Important Than You Ever Thought It Was
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, July 26, 2013
Two aspiring young entrepreneurs sat across from us. College students, fresh-faced and wide-smiled. They told us about their product, their market research, their monetization strategy, their global ambitions. And th ...
- Can The Tech World Beget A Less Bad Form Of Government?
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, July 19, 2013
"Two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner." "The terrible tyranny of the majority." "The worst form of government, except for all the others." A l ...
- The Irony Of Employability
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, July 12, 2013
During an interview by the undergraduate admissions office at the Cornell Hotel School in 1991, I happened to mention that I speak a few languages. "Ohh..." breathed the Dean. "That ...
- Cause And Effect On Social Media
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, July 5, 2013
Studies are wonderful things. Take, for example, studies that show children whose homes have more books do better at school than children who don't have books at home. In particula ...
- A Minor Rant On Substance And Distractions
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, June 28, 2013
It's hard work to stand up for what you think is right. The darkly satirical UK miniseries "Black Mirror" has an episode called "15 Million Merits," set in a not-so-futurist ...
- Google's Project Loon: Internet For Everyone
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Thursday, June 20, 2013
Last week, in Christchurch, New Zealand, Google launched a world-changing initiative: Project Loon, balloon-powered Internet for everyone. "Sometimes," the cute kid narrating the launch video said, "everyone doesn't mean everyone ...
- Your Data Was Never Yours
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, June 14, 2013
Did you really think it was? Did you really think the government could access none of it, that the miracle of an effectively free Internet was just a gift fr ...
- A Website's Work Is Never Done
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, June 7, 2013
It's a lucky thing that websites are not babies. Either that, or it's a lucky thing I'm not a mother. By the time my websites are born, I hate t ...
- Is It Possible For Web Companies To Be Built To Last?
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, May 31, 2013
I used to be obsessed with Bejeweled. I played when I woke up. I played at work. I played at night, staying up until the wee hours of the mornin ...
- The Most Impactful Mobile Revolution Begins Now
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, May 24, 2013
Sometimes I do not know how to live. I recycle -- and drive to work. I buy the cardboard milk carton instead of the plastic one -- and emit to ...
- The Perils Of Google Glass
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, May 17, 2013
Most of us have been there: you're sitting with a friend, maybe enjoying a nice meal or a glass of wine, and you get the urge to check your phon ...
- The Most Important Thing In The Digital Age
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, May 10, 2013
"What is the most important thing in the world? It is people! It is people! It is people!" - Maori proverb. In other news you already knew, pretty much everythi ...
- Five Lessons On The New Science Of News
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, May 3, 2013
From this column and hundreds like it, you would be forgiven for having ingested the mantra that journalism as we know it is over and print is dead. Social dominate ...
- New-Media Business Model Just As Limiting As The Old One
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Sunday, April 28, 2013
In corner offices around the world, in marbled boardrooms and in whisky bars, they gather: movie executives, trying to figure out how to keep people coming to the movies. Mus ...
- For Gay Marriage Debate, Old-Fangled TV Trumps New-Fangled Interwebs
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, April 19, 2013
Two days ago, New Zealand became the thirteenth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. The amendment to the definition of marriage passed through Parliament with 77 "ayes" a ...
- Co-location: A (Not-So) Secret To Serendipity
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, April 12, 2013
When 500 Startups founder Dave McClure visited us a few months ago, he was sporting a t-shirt that said, "GET OUT OF THE BUILDING," in big, Frankie-Goes-To-Hollywood letters. A referen ...
- Data Is The Way To Go -- Except When It's Not
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, April 5, 2013
In last week's column, I discussed what I called the disturbing dogma of social media. The idea provoked some strong responses (thank you! I'm always grateful for feedback). Traci Brow ...
- The Disturbing Dogma of Social Media Marketing
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, March 29, 2013
The sun revolves around the earth. The world is flat. Cigarettes aren't bad for you. And we all need to be spending more on social media marketing. ...
- Three Essential Rules Of Human Behavior
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, March 22, 2013
I screwed up this week. I sent an email that started like this: "So, I was a little bored on the plane..." and then went on to request comments ...
- One Social Media Rule To Rule Them All
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, March 15, 2013
The other day I was out with my friend Sam. Sam is a very busy guy. He is, shall we say, "in demand." People tend to want a piece ...
- The Impossible Life Of The Community Manager
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, March 8, 2013
I sit across from a man with that most optimistic and daunting of titles: Community Manager. He looks haunted. Dark circles under his eyes speak of late nights pinning a ...
- How Curiosity And Self-Direction Can Revolutionize Learning
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, March 1, 2013
Two years ago, Sugata Mitra shared an amazing story at the TED conference. Back in 1999, wanting to see how kids who had never been exposed to computers would respo ...
- Insider Facebook Marketing Secrets
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, February 22, 2013
I love my job. Today I'm filing my column from 38,000 feet, on my way to San Francisco from New York. As usual, I chat with the folks next ...
- Understanding Your True Business Model
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, February 15, 2013
Your business model is not always your business model. McDonald's, for example, is not in the restaurant business; it is in the real estate business. The company buys locations a ...
- Gangnam's Billion Earns Peanuts By Analog Standards
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, February 8, 2013
Late last year, Psy's disturbingly catchy tune "Gangnam Style" hit one billion views, the first YouTube video to do so. You probably heard about it. You've probably seen the vide ...
- The Aikido Of Entrepreneurship
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, February 1, 2013
I have ideas coming out of my ears. They arise in meetings and casual conversations. They crawl around in my head when I am on the verge of sleep, wh ...
- Big Data Could Produce McCity Dystopia
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, January 25, 2013
Have you gotten excited about Big Data yet? Retailers have. Business Insider says "Big Data Can Mean Big Returns In Retail." In the run-up to the holidays, Forbes explained "W ...
- Ten Internet Haikus
Online Spin, Kaila Colbin - Friday, January 18, 2013
The Spin in which Kaila doesn't rhyme, but chimes in with some sharp observations about the online world. ...