Cute. I'm on the waitlist to beta a new product, and have been offered the chance to move up in the list if I tweet about it. Not doing so.

Moments of crisis, like the shooting in Newtown, tend to produce brief spikes of popular interest in gun control. My research on media attention suggests these spikes are extremely short-lived, and that they may be decreasing in intensity.

If we need simple narratives so people can amplify and spread them, are we forced to engage only with the simplest of problems?

[According to Twitter] 24 percent of American Twitter users are African-American. That's about twice as high as African-Americans are represented in the population.

I'm not nearly as well organized as I would like. I am a creature of to-do lists and calendars - if something doesn't get onto my Google Calendar, I don't show up for it.

People want to be thought of as something other than a source of money. They want to be thought of as creative, thinking people.

People who know me well have learned to insist that I commit to obligations by opening my laptop and putting them onto the appropriate calendar or list - a verbal agreement and a promise to remember won't work.