Hey asshole, what if I want to reply? It astounds me that in 2011, startups and companies are sending out automated emails with noreply email addresses. It basically says to the recipient:

“I’m not interested in hearing from you by email, regardless of whether email is better or easier for you. I just don’t respect you enough to take the risk that a dozen people might reply and insult me.”

The sneakiest way to use a hashtag is to set apart a word or phrase or name in your tweet and make it look like you very accidentally blurted it out, which is an extension of the muttered-into-a-handkerchief usage, but with a slight Freudian twist. Here, the hashtag is like a bit of chicken wire between what you are consciously and deliberately saying, and what just happened to slip out, especially useful when you are making a comment and pretending that you absolutely, positively will not name names, and then, whoops, it just came tumbling out. A hashtag is not a secure perimeter, after all! Just look at how holey a hashtag is—it’s only chicken wire, and sometimes things—bad things, names and particulars, details, information, those sorts of things—do manage to make it through. To wit:

“I just made out with your husband! #kidding #hewishes #likeIwouldadmititanyway #ToddPalin”

Amazing how rich and complex 140 characters with a few symbols thrown in can be.

When you have transactions, content and conversation passing through the network of connections at the volume and speed we see today, what we're really talking about is culture. Digital is not a line in the media budget. It's not a "microsite". It's not an iPhone app. It's not a channel. Digital is culture.

50 scientifically proven ways constitute 50 chapters of the book, longest of which take 7 pages. The authors take the position that persuasion is a science, not art, hence with the right approach anybody can become the master in the skill of persuasion. So, what are the 50 ways?

How could bees of little brain come up with anything as complex as a dance language? The answer could lie not in biology but in six-dimensional math and the bizarre world of quantum mechanics.

The first phone book, published by the New Haven District Telephone Company in New Haven, Connecticut, appeared in February 1878. It contained 50 entries, a mix of individuals, government services, clubs, and most of all commercial enterprises. Phone numbers didn’t exist yet--at that point, if you had a phone, the operator at your local exchange knew who you were.

The key is transforming the 'no' from a flat refusal into an obstacle to be surmounted. If you can deal with the obstacle, the theory goes, your request is more likely to be granted.

Typography belongs to the people. Typography does not belong to graphic designers. Visual communication, like verbal communication belongs to all. Just as we are all free to speak, we should all be allowed to communicate graphically. Trained designers are not the only ones who have earned the right to do so. Designers who stand in opposition to such “untrained” communication stand in the way of democracy and the right to speak our minds.

Some companies want you to have a good experience and others couldn't care less, but either way you're bound to have a bad experience now and again. Here's how to approach the problem calmly and write an effective complaint.

“MY OWN PLAN FOR THE COMING FOURTEEN MONTHS IS TO KNOCK ON DOORS AND STUFF ENVELOPES. MAYBE EVEN TO WEAR A BUTTON. TO TRY TO ACCRETE WITH OTHERS INTO A DEMOGRAPHICALLY SIGNIFICANT MASS. TO TRY EXTRA HARD TO EXERCISE PATIENCE, POLITENESS, AND IMAGINATION ON THOSE WITH WHOM I DISAGREE. ALSO TO FLOSS MORE.”

In today’s era of high-speed communications and global connectivity it’s difficult to imagine a time when news traveled no faster than it could be delivered in person. After all, a message can now be sent around the world in less time than it takes to read this sentence. But as late as the 1860s the only way to transmit information across oceans was by ship, which meant weeks of lag time between sender and receiver. Naturally, the completion of the first sustainable transatlantic telegraph line (1866) redefined international communications—literally overnight. But like many so-called overnight sensations, the transatlantic cable was years in the making—twelve years to be exact. It took five attempts, the largest ship in the world and millions of dollars of capital to overcome the long list of catastrophes and human errors that plagued the project.

What terrible business jargon do you need unsucked?

A few years back, my friend Steve Gillmor, the long-time technology writer and blogger, went on a crusade against the hyperlink. He stopped putting links into his posts and other online writings. I could never quite understand his motivation, and the whole effort struck me as quixotic and silly. I mean, wasn't the hyperlink the formative technology of the entire World Wide Web? Wasn't the Web a hypermedia system, for crying out loud?

A punctuation purist would claim that emoticons are debased ways to signal tone and voice, something a good writer should be able to indicate with words. But the contrary is true: The history of punctuation is precisely the history of using symbols to denote tone and voice. Seen in this way, emoticons are simply the latest comma or quotation mark. And despite the oft-repeated story that Carnegie Mellon professor Scott Fahlman invented the smiley and the frown face all the way back in 1982, the history of emoticons goes back much further.

This did the rounds a month or so ago - a few interesting ideas about Twitter best practices.