# MarkFarmer.net > Essential digital ## Posts - [A Bridge Across the Humber](https://markfarmer.net/2025/01/a-bridge-across-the-humber/): Another one for you transit / construction fans out there, by yours truly: the bridge Metrolinx will be building across the Humber River in Toronto - [Elevating transit: A guideway across the Humber](https://markfarmer.net/2025/01/crosstown-guideway/): A piece I wrote for the “Discover” section of the Metrolinx website about the upcoming elevated guideway across the Humber River, part of the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension. - [Nothing Wrong With Me](https://markfarmer.net/2024/07/nothing-wrong/): I don’t wish I weren’t on the autism spectrum. It’s as much a part of me as my toes or sense of humour, not some unfortunate bug in the system. - [AI Means Exams are the Future of Higher Ed](https://markfarmer.net/2023/09/future-higher-ed/): Higher education is going to change more in the next 20 years than it has in the last 1,000. - [AI needs to disrupt our lives faster](https://markfarmer.net/2023/02/ai-faster/): Last week I talked about the disruption Artificial Intelligence (AI) is causing. That’s old news (at least in the 21st-century sense of “old” news). A lot of us are fearful, especially of being replaced by AI: nobody wants to lose their livelihood. Short of taking sledgehammers to the server farms AI relies on (please don’t do that – you’ll get arrested and won’t slow AI adoption one bit), there’s no real way to forestall the inevitable. Here’s the twist: we shouldn’t want to slow down the inevitable, even though it will be painful. We should hope it comes faster. AI’s going... - [Welcome to the Hockey Stick](https://markfarmer.net/2023/02/hockey-stick/): OpenAI is hiring hundreds of junior developers to train the company’s software on how to code software. Once artificial intelligence platforms learn how to code, it could make millions of junior developers obsolete. More importantly, by learning how to code, AI is essentially learning how to build itself, in a feedback loop that promises exponential growth. You might know this exponential growth by its Canucky name: the hockey stick curve. Learning to code is only the latest way artificial intelligence (AI) is turning our world upside down. It’s already overturning whole industries, from stock photography to music composition, copywriting and a... - [In Praise of the Plain Resume](https://markfarmer.net/2022/04/plain-resume/): I dusted off my resume the other day. Seeing it again for the first time in years, I realized anyone looking at it might wonder why someone claiming design expertise had such a plain CV. There’s no colour, no exotic fonts, and the only decorations are horizontal rules and bullet points (if those count as decorations). From a design point of view, it’s as thrilling as burnt toast. Why would anyone create such a simple resume? The answer is, because a resume’s three most important jobs have nothing to do with form and everything to do with function. What your resume... - [Defensive Management](https://markfarmer.net/2022/01/defensive-management/): Remember learning to drive? Oh, the joy… Steely resolve as you nervously clutched the wheel, the front of the car peeking hesitantly out of the driveway. Hypervigilance on full display as you scanned busy streets for other cars, pedestrians, small dogs or other animals. Rabbit starts, riding the brake, forgetting to signal and all the drama that goes with not fully understanding what you’re doing, but making your best effort anyway. We’ve all been there, and we all remember the classroom sessions where we had to memorize traffic signs, the elements of a dashboard and other things that became muscle memory... - [The Deadliest Leadership Sin: Pride](https://markfarmer.net/2022/01/leadership-sins/): The seven deadly sins were originally articulated in Christianity, but represent universal hazards. One is particularly dangerous for leaders: pride. In the right amount, it breathes wind into our sails. In excess, it feeds our egos and erodes trust and respect. Excess pride is so dangerous because it produces blindness. It makes us lose sight of our limitations, which makes for poor decisions and causes more grief than any other shortcoming: We stop listening to the people around us We assume we’re right when we’re not We close ourselves off to contrary opinions and alternate points of view We limit the... - [The Brake Institute of America](https://markfarmer.net/2021/12/brake-institute-of-america/): In 1959, Gunemdtha Pids was facing a conundrum: having fled revolution in his Hungarian homeland barely three years earlier, he founded a successful business in Flint, Michigan, manufacturing the brake assemblies essential for automobile production. Business was good for the first two years, until a curious phenomenon began: manufacturers started buying cheaper brakes from the competition. Pids was shocked, because brakes were essential to safety. They were the only thing separating a happy motorist from disaster. The only worse thing that could happen in a car was for the gas tank to explode! Pids thought carefully about how he could make... - [Face it: Facebook's a Publisher](https://markfarmer.net/2021/10/facebook-is-a-publisher/): A long time ago in a walled garden far, far away, Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act came to life. It was designed to nurture the seedlings of young internet companies that were just taking root, allowing them to grow and prosper without the constant threat of lawsuits over the content other people posted on and through them. It’s been credited in no small part with creating the Internet, by giving ISPs and start-ups the protection they needed to put down shoots and (eventually) grow into the world-spanning behemoths we know and love today. It’s pretty hard to argue... - [The Paperback MBA: "Getting to Yes"](https://markfarmer.net/2021/07/paperback-mba-getting-to-yes/): Welcome to a series I’m calling “The Paperback MBA,” where I review the world’s top business books, to give you ideas for which to pick up and which to leave behind. The first book I’m going to look at is an acclaimed work on negotiation called Getting to Yes by William Ury and Roger Fisher, the follow-up to their hugely popular book, Struggling towards Maybe. (jk: they never wrote that) This might be the book on negotiation, and is recommended reading in negotiation courses everywhere, including two I recently finished at the University of Toronto. Why is it so important? Because... - [Consensual Leadership](https://markfarmer.net/2021/07/consensual-leadership/): Consensual authority is an age-old idea: if authority is wielded arbitrarily, eventually it fails. People need to consent to authority for it to be legitimate and effective. Otherwise, you end up with autocracy. Consensual leadership flows naturally from consensual authority: if people don’t consent to your authority, they’ll never consent to be led. Sure, they’ll get things done, but in a limited fashion, not with the ownership and commitment that leads to great results. As my team leader once told me, “You have to bring people along for the ride.” If people undertand why they need to do something, and why... - [Justadditis](https://markfarmer.net/2021/02/justadditis/): It’s insidious. It lurks in the shadows, waiting for a chance to strike. It knows no remorse. It has no feelings. Its only desire is to inflate your website. It is… Justadditis. All websites start out with good intentions. Everyone wants theirs to be a beacon of light in the darkness of disinformation. So you carefully plan out the architecture, crafting navigation, categories and subcategories of pages and so on. If you’re really well-intentioned, you user-test your site before bringing it to life with an elegant but stylish interface worthy of your brand. It’s your baby, after all: you want to... - [Everything I’ve learned in 10 years of managing social media, in 10 points: Part II](https://markfarmer.net/2021/01/social-media-10-points-ii/): Points #6-10, as promised. See last week’s post for points #1-5. Listen. If you’re serious about social media, you should be serious about listening to what’s being said about you on social media. Nobody wants a surprise call from the boss, asking “Have you seen what’s happening on Twitter?!” If you’re serious about listening, you should pony up for social media monitoring software, Hootsuite or something like it at a minimum, and commercial software such as Meltwater, Social Studio or something like them for larger outfits. Converse. Nobody wants to chat with a megaphone. In spite of this, too many corporate... - [Everything I've learned in 10 years of managing social media, in 10 points](https://markfarmer.net/2021/01/social-media-10-seconds/): All right, more like 8.6 years, but “10 in 10” sounds catchier. Here are #1-5. Check in next week for #6-10. Always assume the mic is hot. The best way to inadvertently post that hilarious/trenchant personal update to one of your employer’s corporate accounts, is to stay logged into them. That may be unavoidable, since some networks require you to log in as yourself if you want to manage corporate accounts. Luckily, you can publish updates through dashboards such as Sprout Social, removing the need to log in directly anywhere. You’ll still need to log in when dealing with crises, but... - [Why You're Going to Wish More Jobs were Automated](https://markfarmer.net/2020/03/automated-jobs/): For years we’ve been warned about the negative impact of automation: people losing their jobs to robots and A.I, the potential for cyber-attacks to shut down our increasingly digital supply chains, and more. But what happens when there’s not enough automation? Speaking of supply chains, what happens when they start wobbling in a pandemic because human operators start dropping like flies? If that happens we’re going to wish things were more automated, not less. Don’t panic, but… The coronavirus has shut down Italy. Hubei has been quarantined for weeks. Globally over 125,000 people have been infected, and over 4,600 have died.... - [Randomly Problematic](https://markfarmer.net/2020/01/randomly-problematic/): How do you solve a problem like “problematic”? The word has become a universal shortcut for describing something as having a problem, without actually specifying the problem. It also makes you sound more erudite than you would if you simply said, “There’s a problem with <insert word here>.” We all want to sound more erudite, don’t we? Where to go to get all erudite and stuff I have two theories for why the word has become so popular: If you say “There’s a problem with <insert word here>,” you’ll immediately be asked, “What’s the problem?” This requires thought. That requires effort,... - [What Do Accessibility and Car Keys Have in Common?](https://markfarmer.net/2020/01/accessibility-car-keys/): Accessibility makes everything on the web much more awesome, because (much like its cousin, usability) it prioritizes function over form. Why is that awesome? Because websites do the opposite far too often, prioritizing form over function, even though users care a lot less about how a site looks vs. how easy it is to use. Websites aren’t coffee table books: no one visits them to marvel at their graceful design. People visit them to find information and solve problems. The easier they can do that, the happier they are, and happy users are a good thing. It’s easy to understand why... - [Manage Like You're Shipwrecked](https://markfarmer.net/2019/10/manage-like-youre-shipwrecked/): There was a time in my career when I’d gnash my teeth and wail silently inside at the injustice of the talent I was given to work with. How come I didn’t have only “A” players? Why didn’t I get a team full of all-stars? Who were these people I got to work with!? Never mind that the people I worked with were doubtlessly thinking the same about me, my outsized ego and misbegotten sense of injustice. A few years ago, all that changed with a simple shift in thinking…. Manage your team like you’re shipwrecked with them. It’s that simple. Once you... - [The Cavalry's not Coming to Save Social](https://markfarmer.net/2019/09/the-cavalry/): Business leaders often don’t “get” social media. It’s frequently treated as just another marketing channel, a way to push promotions and messages. This is often chalked up to a lack of understanding of the medium itself, based on some kind of generation gap between Baby Boomers and Generation X on one hand, and Millennials and Generation Z on the other.  Boomers and Gen X didn’t grow up with social media, and don’t understand how to use it properly, or so the story goes. Once they start retiring from positions of authority, and Gen Z and Millennials sweep in, marketing and communications... - [It's Time to Regulate Facebook](https://markfarmer.net/2019/06/regulate-facebook/): Calls for the breakup of Facebook are reaching a fever pitch. The social network has come under fire for its flagrant disregard for privacy and security, for allowing everyone from anti-vaxxers to Russian hackers to spread lies and hate across the platform, and – quite plausibly – for being a monopoly. Of its various sins, accusations of monopolism have been capturing the most attention lately, and are becoming the focus of conversation about whether Facebook can ever be reined in. Some critics argue that Facebook has a monopoly neither on information, nor on social media. According to the dictionary definition of... - [Unpacking Canada's New Digital Charter](https://markfarmer.net/2019/06/unpacking-canadas-digital-charter/): On May 16, Canada unveiled its digital charter, which appears to be (perhaps unsurprisingly) more policy paper than charter. In fact, it reads more like a shopping list of programs already funded and “coming soon.” Nominally, the charter includes ten principles: Universal access Safety and security Control and consent Transparency, portability and interoperability Open and modern digital government A level playing field Data and digital for good Strong democracy Freedom from hate and violent extremism Strong enforcement and real accountability What the charter doesn’t include is a cohesive strategy for Canada’s digital future. The Challenge Canada trails a number of other... - [Why You Will Continue to Fork Over $1,000+ for a New Phone](https://markfarmer.net/2019/03/1000-phone/): Why have a home computer if your phone will do the trick? It’s 2019. Samsung has just announced a foldable phone that transforms into a tablet, with an eight-core processor. Eight cores were the cutting edge of computing four years ago and cost $1000. Today they fit in your pocket and cost less. Huawei’s Mate 20 used the artificial intelligence in its two neural processing units to finish Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. The graphics processor in a good phone will outperform even a mid-level laptop, meaning you can game better on your phone than your computer. Your phone is becoming much more... - [Becoming Bored](https://markfarmer.net/2018/11/becoming-bored/): “75% of your shared data data has been used.” Thank goodness for automatic alerts, I thought, so that I don’t go over my cellphone’s data limit and incur stratospheric overage costs. Plenty of time to pare consumption back, I told myself smugly. “90% of your shared data data has been used.” “Drat! How did that happen?” I thought. I gritted my teeth and tried again to reduce usage, feverishly flipping through data records to identify the culprit apps. Surely I could make it through the second half of the month on just 10% of my data, provided I acted conscientiously and... - [Can We Have Social Media Back?](https://markfarmer.net/2018/08/social-media-back/): I met Brian at a Toronto tech meetup in 2011. I was hanging around the back of the room when he introduced himself, and we connected over a mutual fascination with all things social media. Brian shared his plan to import a concept from Britain, the social media café, an informal gathering over beverages to learn about these new media. Five months later, Social Media Cafe Toronto was born. Fast forward to 2018: Social Media Cafe Toronto has been put to bed. What was exciting and cutting-edge in 2011 became a commodity by 2014. By 2018 it had become a threat... - [The Death of the Worker](https://markfarmer.net/2018/04/the-death-of-the-worker/): Organized labour has been shrinking as a percentage of the workforce in America and Canada for decades, which should come as a surprise to no one: authors have been predicting the death of work since at least 1967. However, we’re not actually seeing the death of work: we’re seeing the death of the concept of the “worker.” In 2018 the gig economy continues to pick up steam. Stable, permanent, well-paying full-time jobs are few and far between. Entrepreneurship – including everything from Uber Eats to IT – is the new normal. Underlying all this is the death of a unit the world has come... - [Elements of Strategy, Part 7: The Icing on the Cake (Meta Strategy)](https://markfarmer.net/2018/04/meta-strategy/): This is our final installment in the Elements of Strategy series. Hope you enjoyed it. The toughest part of creating a strategy lies in what isn’t communicated: the meta strategy. This is the plan for getting your strategy through the hoops and loops it needs to pass, in order to stand a chance of being adopted. Every strategy is an exercise in internal communications and guerilla marketing: can you “sell” the strategy and the need for it? Here’s a checklist of things to consider on the way to drafting your meta strategy: Building awareness Why are we doing this? Why are... - [Elements of Strategy, Part 6: Do More by Doing Less](https://markfarmer.net/2018/03/elements-of-strategy-part-6/): As humans, we get very attached to things: other people, TV shows, furniture… you name it. The more time we spend around these things, the more we think we need them. The same thing happens at work: we become very attached to the things we do, and assume we need to keep doing them. Unfortunately, that makes for bad strategy. Sometimes you have to let go of the status quo, and do less to do more. Breaking up is hard to do. Strategy is the art of doing things differently. Unfortunately, unless you have infinite capacity (if your workplace does in... - [Elements of Strategy, Part 5: The Walking Dead](https://markfarmer.net/2018/03/the-walking-dead/): Part five of a series, “Elements of Strategy.” Check back each week for more insights. I remember seeing a contract posting for a digital strategist, which was pretty formulaic, except for one line: “Once the strategy is finished, you will….” I forget the rest, but I remember thinking, “What the hell does that mean: ‘once the strategy is finished’?” I didn’t apply, because of that one line. Because a strategy is never “finished.” Of course, if you’re getting paid to create one, you’re going to deliver one. That’s reasonable. It’s going to be a document, people are going to look at... - [Elements of Strategy, Part 4: Data-Driven Decisions & Effective Communications](https://markfarmer.net/2018/03/data-and-effective-communications/): Part four of a series, “Elements of Strategy.” Check back each week for more insights. Decisions get made in many different ways in organizations. When profit’s driving the bus, there’s one overriding measure of success: But what happens if your organization is non-profit? What happens if your unit isn’t part of the sales funnel, or if you work for government? That makes things difficult, because measurement often becomes “softer” when money’s not on the table. Committing to measurement, and – more importantly – committing to measure the right things is challenging in these situations, but far from impossible. Ready, aim… Let’s say you’re... - [Elements of Strategy, Part 3: What Gets Measured Gets Done](https://markfarmer.net/2018/03/what-gets-measured/): Part three of a series, “Elements of Strategy.” Check back each week for more insights. No one is sure who said it first: Peter Drucker? Edwards Deming? Lord Kelvin? It doesn’t really matter, because it’s one of the truest things to ever have been uttered about strategy or management: “What gets measured gets done.” Organizations love mission statements, and they love acting like those statements drive decisions. (they don’t: more on that later) What you’re accountable for drives decisions, whether you’re an admin assistant or the CEO. What you’re accountable for always gets measured. Some measures are obvious: are sales up?... - [Elements of Strategy, Part 2: The Digital Divide](https://markfarmer.net/2018/02/digital-divide/): Part two of a series, “Elements of Strategy.” Check back each Monday for more insights. Digital communications have flipped the relationship between audience and messenger: audiences are in control of how they’re communicated to, and have been for years. More than ever, it’s inadequate to simply “message:” real success lies in breaking through the barriers of indifference and over-saturation that define modern media consumption. This means a renewed emphasis on innovative, engaging digital content, and an embrace of new channels and approaches. For most organizations, that usually means the dreaded “C” word: change. Unfortunately, change is non-optional. To quote former G.E.... - [Elements of Strategy, Part 1: The Essence of Strategy](https://markfarmer.net/2018/02/elements-strategy-part-1/): Part one of a series, “Elements of Strategy.” Check back each Monday for more insights. Strategy is as much about inspiration and vision, as it is about analyzing an organization and its challenges. Strategy relies on competitive scans, timelines, tactics, etc., but it needs to focus on one thing above all else… Culture. An organization’s culture is the biggest factor in any strategy’s success. To quote management guru Peter Drucker, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Successful strategies incorporate and reflect an organization’s culture, the limitations it imposes and the opportunities it affords. Culture is in no small way a reflection of leadership.... - [Why Facebook Isn't Going Anywhere](https://markfarmer.net/2018/02/facebook-not-going-anywhere/): Collective rage against Facebook has become deafening over the last six months. It stands accused of killing everything from our attention span to journalism, to democracy itself. It’s been blamed for helping Russia subvert the U.S. electoral process, dodging responsibility for publishing fake news by denying it’s become one of the world’s biggest media companies. The situation has become so dire that Facebook’s ex-employees are banding together to sound the alarm, trying to limit further damage to society. One upshot of this fury is renewed predictions of Facebook’s imminent demise. The idea is that Facebook’s Achilles heel is its lack of accountability, which... - [Top 10 Strategy Secrets](https://markfarmer.net/2018/01/strategy-secrets/): Creating a great strategy isn’t rocket science, but it has its secrets…. Strategy is never about technology, mission statements or org charts: it’s about people and culture. Peter Drucker said “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” It’s true: an organization’s culture determines its success more than any strategy ever will. Culture – not strategy – drives organizations and organizational change. Smart strategies recognize this, articulate it and incorporate it. Strategy is the art of figuring out what to do differently. A strategy that doesn’t articulate what to change is just a plan in disguise. No champion, no change. Change is difficult, and... - [Showering with Siri](https://markfarmer.net/2018/01/showering-with-siri/): Why do the best ideas always pop into our heads when we’re in the shower with a face full of soap? Why do the lightning bolts always strike when we’re unable to write them down? Because that’s precisely when we’re not trying to come up with good ideas. When we try to solve a problem, our mental field of vision narrows. We focus on finding a solution, applying all our critical faculties to the task. This is useful for answering straightforward questions such as “How am I going to get all this work done?” or “How am I going to get... - [The Secret to a Great Strategy](https://markfarmer.net/2018/01/secret-to-strategy/): A great strategy does several things which aren’t obvious to a junior strategist: It takes account of an organization’s power structures, the ones that set direction, make the big decisions, and which need to be engaged for any significant change to happen. It understands what motivates senior decision-makers. Sometimes these motivations are explicit and obvious, such as strategic and unit goals. Sometimes they’re not so obvious, but much more human, such as the need for recognition, security and power. It leverages these motivations, by incorporating them in the strategy, either overtly or more subtly. This is where a junior strategist will... - [Little Data: Bringing Sexy Back](https://markfarmer.net/2018/01/little-data-bringing-sexy-back/): Forget about big data for a moment: it can seem like a mountain peak viewed from afar, a daunting, mist-shrouded goliath in the distance. Like a mountaineer contemplating a climb, tech-heads like you and I think sometimes about tackling big data.  Then we remember the “daunting” part and back down, intimidated by the scale of the exercise, and the time and effort required. That’s ok, because in the rush to embrace the shiny allure of big data, we often overlook what’s at our fingertips: little data, the un-sexy, unglamorous and underrated – but incredibly accessible, useful and ubiquitous – granddaddy to B.D. Little... - [It's Time to Regulate Facebook](https://markfarmer.net/2017/10/time-to-regulate-facebook/): Facebook has become an essential utility, and a dangerous one at that. Western democracies can’t afford to let it run unchecked any longer: it’s time to regulate it, like we do with any other utility. I first became aware of Facebook’s Goliath status a few years ago when I was teaching Facebook marketing at George Brown College in Toronto. At the time it was fashionable to express contempt for the network’s meteoric rise by pointing out that it was falling out of favour with teenagers and twenty-somethings. According to this narrative, all the “cool kids” were migrating to Snapchat and other... - [Why the TTC can't wish the trolls away](https://markfarmer.net/2016/07/ttc-trolls/): A Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) union recently tried to shut down the @TTCHelps customer service Twitter account. The union is upset over “the barrage of hateful tweets directed at particular employees” on Twitter, including “photos of TTC workers taken by disgruntled riders,” alleging the TTC is not doing enough to protect workers from online harassment. I have no idea what’s in these pictures or what constitutes “hateful tweets directed at particular employees.” Outrage over TTC employees allegedly sleeping on the job, recent fraud investigations and TTC security staff issuing bogus tickets has been front-page news over the years, and (surprise) relies on social media as... - [Social media behaves like a two-year-old](https://markfarmer.net/2016/06/social-media-like-two-year-old/): Social media vs. child-rearing I don’t have kids, but I’ve observed them intently over the course of my 40-odd years (watching six nieces and nephews grow up gives a bachelor about as much insight into child-rearing as can reasonably be expected). In addition to being childless, I’m also a social media nerd. One thing that’s occurred to me over the course of my career is how much social media behaves like a child, specifically like a two-year-old. Like a child, social media does what it wants, not what you tell it to do. This is nowhere more apparent than with institutional... - [Bots will disrupt recruiting in four to seven years](https://markfarmer.net/2016/04/bots-will-replace-recruiters/): Social media, bots and why you’d better start coming up with content right now. Facebook announced a new strategic priority last week: bots. It’s doubling down on the technology, predicting that bots will start replacing apps and a lot of other things you currently do yourself. Take pizza. Say you’re chatting with a friend on Facebook messenger and you ask if they want to get a pizza. The bot monitoring your Facebook conversations 24/7 will recognize this as a trigger, look at your past pizza order history and preferences, find pizza places in close proximity, look at what specials are advertised, and maybe even... - [Will you lose your marketing job to a machine?](https://markfarmer.net/2016/04/marketing-machines/): Marketing Automation: the Death of Your Gig? Every day, machines are discovering exciting new ways to eliminate jobs through the wonders of automation. The latest robots are able to ship boxes, drive 18-wheelers and kill you from the skies. Software is replacing financial analysts, administrative assistants and even writers (rest assured: this column is written by a real-life hack, not a machine). Luckily, marketing is immune to this trend. The ability to identify and captivate an audience with carefully refined campaigns and ad copy has proven remarkably resilient; your job is secure for the foreseeable future. Just kidding: you should be concerned. Marketing... - [The Death of Flash: Lessons in Community & Democracy](https://markfarmer.net/2016/03/death-of-flash/): The Death of Flash What an obsolescent programming interface can teach you about democracy and community. I started programming in earnest in 2001, using (among other things) a now largely defunct technology called “Flash.” It was a lightweight framework originally designed to do one thing: vector animation on webpages. It did that really well, so well in fact that it began to be used for other things, such as creating website interfaces. Pretty soon, it looked like Flash might take over the web, since it gave web designers so many possibilities and so much control. Then a certain CEO-on-the-rebound named Steve... - [Pooh-Pooh Culture](https://markfarmer.net/2016/03/pooh-pooh-culture/): It’s insidious. It undermines trust, saps initiative and likely already infects your workplace: welcome to pooh-pooh culture. Wikipedia defines “pooh-poohing” as “a fallacy in informal logic that consists of dismissing an argument as being unworthy of serious consideration.” The business definition is simpler: shooting something down before it’s had a chance for serious consideration. It’s easy to put something down, because doing so transfers status. We get socialized to this at a young age. Cast your mind back to your first experience in your elementary school’s playground. Remember the relationships? As with almost every other such dynamic, status was central, and this manifested itself in a very simple way:... - [You're a sucker for a good webinar](https://markfarmer.net/2016/03/webinar-sucker/): The invite appears in your inbox. “Join us for a free webinar on <insert tantalizing business trend / skill / software / here>.” You open. You read. You ponder (maybe). You click. Days later your attend, and realize the webinar that sounded so alluring and insightful and tantalizing is actually a product pitch wrapped in a tiny bit of business intelligence you may already know. Think of it like a bacon-wrapped scallop, where the scallop is somebody’s cloud software, and the bacon is a very thin slice of useful information. Very thin. Think “prosciutto would call it fat and make fun of it” thin. So why is... - [The Curse of the Gourmet Mustard](https://markfarmer.net/2016/02/gourmet-mustard-curse/): Mustard and the Marginal Economy I have the good fortune of living next to the top food market in the world: Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market. Every Saturday I troll the market for free samples. It’s possible to skip lunch if you fill yourself up with the cornucopia of free samples available, and among the tastiest of the lot is Kozlik’s mustard. They make over 36 kinds, and you can sample as many as you like. Kozlik’s is to mustard in Toronto what Schwartz’s is to smoked meat in Montreal or the Anchor Bar is to wings in Buffalo: the reigning king of the category. Knowing this made... - [Justin Trudeau vs. The Culture of Change](https://markfarmer.net/2016/02/justin-trudeau-culture-change/): Corporate Culture doesn’t shift; it rolls over with a thud During his election campaign, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to bring openness and transparency to Canadian government. Only now are his lieutenants coming to terms with what exactly that entails. Treasury Board President Scott Brison learned just how difficult reversing ten years of paranoid secrecy inculcated by the Harper government will be. Documents prepared for Brison claim nothing less than a wholesale “cultural change” will be required to pry open the welded-shut blast doors of Canada’s bureaucracy. This call to arms for cultural change is both stirring and commendable, except for one thing: culture doesn’t change by edict. Corporate history... - [An Open Letter to Every Young Salesperson](https://markfarmer.net/2016/02/open-letter-to-young-salespeople/): Sales: it’s about what you can do for me. I get a lot of sales calls. A lot. I don’t know how the rumour started that I’m made of cash, but apparently that happened. Sometimes I find an experienced salesperson on the other end of the line, someone who understands prospective clients, what motivates them, and their needs. 80% of the time I find someone relatively new to the business of selling, someone with much to learn. Here are ten pieces of advice for just such whippersnappers, collected from my years of being on the other end of the line: I don’t want to hear about... - [Building your career with social media](https://markfarmer.net/2016/01/buildingbrand/): Building your career with social media. Social media is one of the most powerful tools for building your career through the power of your own brand. But where to begin? Here are some tips and pointers for you to consider. The power of brand: Social media can do a lot to help your career. One of the things it does really well is help build brand. Cliché alert: “building brand” actually means something outside of marketing circles. Building brand – your personal brand in this case – is how you become a trusted resource that people notice and pay attention to... - [ACT up for better communication](https://markfarmer.net/2015/04/actup/): It stands for Authenticity, Consistency and Transparency. It’s the cornerstone of real, effective online communication.Too many organizations fall into traps on the way to ACTing up: “We need to sound official.” Trust me: you don’t need to sound as official as you think you do. There’s a time and place to sound official (when announcing financial results, during crises, etc.) and there’s atime and place for real, authentic communications (100% of the rest of the time.) Just because you’re an “official” Twitter account, Facebook page or LinkedIn page doesn’t mean your communications can become formulaic or unresponsive. Your audience doesn’t think of... - [The top 10 things to know about Twitter](https://markfarmer.net/2015/03/twitter-top-10/): This week is a guest post by Karim Kanji, friend, all-around social media nerd and co-faculty member at George Brown College. Here’s Twitter in 10 points: Twitter is an open and accessible public network. Users can search for content that is meaningful to them and follow users that provide this content. At any time on almost any connected device. People follow three distinct types of people: those that they know, people they want to know, and people that are in the know. People want to accomplish four specific things on Twitter: they want to tell their own story, they want to... - [90% of your content is crap](https://markfarmer.net/2015/03/crap-content/): Puppy mills still exist. They’re horrible places where female dogs are kept in inhumane, cramped quarters for the sole purpose of churning out a constant stream of puppies to be shipped to pet stores. There (it’s hoped) someone will find them adorable and buy one or two. This is the same philosophy behind way too much of your content strategy. Most businesses treat content as a commodity like wheat or potash. It’s a uniform, anonymous, utilitarian thing produced to serve a single purpose: get attention. The quality is irrelevant; it’s the quantity that counts. What gets results gets produced, whether it’s... - [Zombie words want your brains](https://markfarmer.net/2015/03/zombie-words/): You pass them every day, and they slide right off your consciousness. “Post no bills.” “No negotiables kept on premises after hours.” “No standing.” They’re zombie communications, the relics of a bygone era that continue to stumble through our world somehow, seeking brains. What the hell is a “bill?” Does that mean you’ll get hauled into court if you start posting $50s to the clapboard around a construction site? If no “negotiables” are kept on the premises, does that mean stuff you can negotiate (your annual bonus, NHL contracts, etc.) are kept on hand? If there’s no standing, what happens if I wander... - [The top ten tips for avoiding getting your ass kicked during a crisis](https://markfarmer.net/2015/02/crisis/): (from PodCamp Toronto 2015): 1. Beforehand: know who’s in charge. Do you know what the chain of command is at your institution? Do you know who’s responsible for monitoring online conversation? Make sure you know who those people are and make sure everyone else knows too, so no one starts talking out of line. It’s important to know who’s available and on tap for emergency situations. You can’t take time off in a crisis, but you can delegate if you have the capacity and infrastructure set up in advance. It’s critical to know who speaks for the institution in a crisis.... - [Social media feeding frenzy](https://markfarmer.net/2015/02/feeding-frenzy/): Five years ago, social media seemed blessed with an infinite growth curve. By feasting on the festering yet still fresh corpse of old media, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and others grew dramatically each year – exponentially in many cases. There was room at the table for everyone, as attention spans and “hours spent” were siphoned off newspapers, TV, magazines and other old media, like Las Vegas sucking precious drinking water from the Colorado River. Unfortunately, all good feeding frenzies come to an end. As the easy pickings were gnawed off traditional media, social media growth curves started flattening. Facebook began adding... - [Stop screwing up your Facebook reach](https://markfarmer.net/2015/02/facebook-reach/): A friend recently posted the following link, “Facebook officially kills organic reach for brands,“ and asked somewhat sarcastically (I hope) when he could kill his company’s Facebook page as a result. However, a funny thing happened on the way to everyone killing their corporate Facebook accounts: it turns out Facebook drives more than 80% of all content shared on the web. Let that sink in: more than 80% of all content shared online comes from Facebook. That means if you want to get something shared online, you either use Facebook or you suck wind. Staggering. So before everyone starts raging against the fate of... - [Google Glass didn't fail](https://markfarmer.net/2015/01/glass-fail/): You may have heard the recent news that Google Glass is dead. In fact, depending upon which source you consulted, you may have heard that Glass suffered a fate worse than death: failure. This might be worth diving into if it weren’t for one minor detail: Glass didn’t fail. Google has never approached product development and deployment like any other tech company. It’s always been keen to develop prototypes and push them into market to see if they’ve got legs, to get broad-based real-world user testing, and to develop the prototype further based on what they find out. Contrast this with... - [Be a warthog](https://markfarmer.net/2015/01/warthogs/): I remember reading “Rogue Warrior,” the autobiography of Richard Marcinko, founder of SEAL Team Six, the elite unit that (among other achievements) killed Osama Bin Laden. Marcinko is about as tough as is humanly possible, and in the book talked about the difference between the recruits who make it through Hell Week, the gruelling apex of SEAL training designed to weed out all but the toughest candidates, and those who will flunk out. He called the two personality types “warthogs” and “gazelles.” Gazelles are the overachievers, the gifted few who have all the natural abilities necessary to breeze through obstacles and... - [The real reason why your company is never going to get social media](https://markfarmer.net/2014/12/altruism/): It’s not that they don’t understand how it works or its importance. It’s certainly not for lack of interest or trying. The biggest reason your company may never ‘get’ social media is that it doesn’t ‘get’ altruism. Much of what happens on social media is based on altruism, the idea that you’ll do something for someone without anticipation of reward. That might involve giving away information for free, sharing someone else’s message, answering a question, or otherwise helping someone out. Sure, we’ll do that stuff if we expect a sale to result from it, or something else that benefits us, but... - [When being an elephant isn't enough](https://markfarmer.net/2014/09/balancing-elephants/): When companies try to copy others’ successes by only adopting the surface trappings of that success, they end up like an elephant in a circus act. The elephant is still an elephant. Its desire to be nimble and agile doesn’t give it magical powers to change into a different species. It’s still the same old beast, but it’s trying hard to be something it’s not by doing the least amount of work it possibly can. We call that “imitation.” Unfortunately, imitation isn’t transformative. It only serves to highlight the vast and glaring gap between aspirations and reality. Without fundamental change, a... - [Content is the new advertising](https://markfarmer.net/2014/09/commodified-content/): Somewhere on the road to the New Economy®, content got commodified. For years we’ve been told that content rules and content is king, which basically means the only reason anyone will pay attention is if you give them interesting or compelling content. Unfortunately, content got co-opted when business tried to harness it to the profit motive. Most businesses see content as a means to an end: traditional advertising continues to shrivel up as social media supplants it for audience attention. That means business has had to use content production as a way to recapture the eyeballs it lost in the long, slow... - [The secret to management](https://markfarmer.net/2014/09/secret-to-management/): 30% of management is figuring out whether or not what you’re doing is helping the organization. 20% is figuring out how to stop doing the stuff that isn’t helping. 30% is executing the stuff that is helping. 15% is measuring and reporting the results of this stuff. 5% is coffee. - [The virtual museum](https://markfarmer.net/2014/08/virtual-museum/): While I was working at the Royal Ontario Museum a few years ago, Google introduced its Art Project, which became the Google Cultural Institute, a platform for showing the contents of the world’s great museums and art galleries online. A group of us at the ROM recognized the project’s value and advocated for it: here was a chance to create a virtual ROM where people could visit remotely and (hopefully) become excited enough to visit in person. We thought it was exactly what the museum needed to raise its profile, position itself as a tech-savvy cultural property, and generate buzz as an... - [The hazards of perfection](https://markfarmer.net/2014/08/perfectionism/): The business culture at academically-oriented institutions (museums, universities, etc.) carries a heavy burden: perfectionism. It’s a reflection of academia’s meritocracy: work is assessed and rewarded, and status earned based on how close to perfect that work is. This is because of the peer review process: work is subjected to adversarial review, and peers try to pick it apart, challenging every assumption, detail and scrap of evidence in an attempt to find flaws. This approach serves academia well. It’s laudable and necessary for establishing whether – for example – a new medical approach has been designed and tested thoroughly enough to merit... - [What gets measured, gets managed](https://markfarmer.net/2014/07/politics-and-metrics/): “What gets measured, gets managed.” Peter Drucker said that, and with good reason. Far too many business decisions hinge on what’s “good for us,” “core to our mission,” “innovative” or any one of a rainbow of other buzzwords. This is regrettable, because the only thing that matters in business – the only thing that should matter – is results. And the only worthwhile measure of results is numbers. If this seems heretical to you, please remember that this site is called “Web Heresies,” not “Web Platitudes.” Our goal is to slaughter sacred cows and serve them up to you. Thus, it’s... - [Risk vs. strategy](https://markfarmer.net/2014/07/risk-vs-strategy-organizations-say-they-want/): Organizations say they want strategies. I create strategies for the digital side of their businesses, whatever that business may be. Unfortunately, when you scratch the surface you find that a lot of organizations don’t actually want a strategy. Executing a strategy means doing things differently, embracing change and taking risks. Businesses aren’t very good at any of those things. Businesses are conservative. Businesses are risk-averse. They avoid risk because it’s unknown, and could lead to failure, however modest that failure might be. Most businesses and the component pieces that make them run (employees and managers) are rewarded for success and punished... - [Why Twitter will have to become more like Facebook to survive](https://markfarmer.net/2014/06/why-twitter-will-have-to-become-more-like-facebook/): It’s inevitable. The first steps have already been taken with the recent Twitter redesign, which uses a “best tweets” feature. This emphasizes tweets that earn the most interaction (retweets, favourites and replies) by making them physically bigger: Twitter bumps up their font size. It’s unlikely this content weighting will end with a simple bump in font size for a few tweets. Recall that Facebook was once like Twitter, wide open and unbiased, until the total amount of content users can possibly see started creeping up. That number is now over 1,500 per day. That’s why Facebook created the EdgeRank algorithm, now the... ## Pages - [Blog](https://markfarmer.net/blog-index/): [display-posts image_size=”thumbnail” include_excerpt=”true” wrapper=”div”] - [Speaking Engagements](https://markfarmer.net/speaking/): Speaking of digital… I’ve spoken at institutions of higher education around the Greater Toronto Area, and at conferences in Canada and the US. Higher education: The University of Guelph-Humber The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information. York University’s Schulich School of Business. York University’s Faculty of Graduate Studies. Ryerson University & the Ryerson University ADaPT program. Seneca College. Centennial College. Conferences & groups: Digital Analytics Association #a11yTO digital accessibility conference Canadian Network of Agencies for Regulation digital conference PodCamp Toronto technology conference, Toronto ON. PSEWEB conference for technology in higher education, Montreal PQ and Toronto ON. Social Media Week Toronto, Toronto ON. - [Portfolio](https://markfarmer.net/portfolio/): Samples from my work portfolio. Writing / blogging: The Globe and Mail: Why do we take our local wonders for granted? My autism makes me who I am Regrets with Dad Accidentally Torontonian A grandfather’s things My goodbye tour The Globe and Mail CBC Radio (starts at 39:50) Two-wheeled freedom Abide with Me The power of a loved animal Seeing the world through my father’s eyes Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market Talking about the weather The Door Prize I Wear My Earplugs at Night Metrolinx: Bridging communities with better transit Elevating transit: A guideway across the Humber The Royal Ontario Museum – Summerasaurs:... - [Resume](https://markfarmer.net/resume/): Mark Farmer Veteran digital communications strategist, leading teams that lead organizations Leading projects that deliver results on time and on budget. Building high-performing teams as a digital leader and change agent. Producing award-winning digital communications campaigns. Diving deep on analytics for strategic data-driven decision-making. Career Highlights Part of “Most Successful Digital Transformation” award-winning project at CXA Awards. Won gold at the CASE Circle of Excellence Awards and the CASE Accolades Awards. Reached 2.6 million Ontarians in the #Just1Word campaign for the Ontario College of Teachers. Achieved almost 400% growth in engagement and 1,400% growth in reach on Facebook over two years at... - [Contact](https://markfarmer.net/contact/): Contact Information. IMPORTANT: If you don’t hear from me, ping me on Mastodon; it means the contact form isn’t working correctly. - [Clients](https://markfarmer.net/clients/): A list of clients and organizations I’ve worked with, past and present. The Association of Canadian Advertisers The Canada-UK Chamber of Commerce Earth Day Canada IBM Intuit Metrolinx The Ontario College of Teachers TC Energy The Royal Ontario Museum York University To see some of the work I’ve done with these organizations, please visit my resume. - [About](https://markfarmer.net/about/): From programming to prognostication I’m a digital strategist based out of Toronto, Canada. I began life as a programmer, writing my first code at age eight. After graduating with degrees in English and journalism, I worked in public relations for a couple of years and then got back into programming as a web designer / developer. I returned to school later in life for certificates in web management, leadership and analytics after getting hooked by digital communications, which is where you’ll find me today. Two of my many passions are learning and leadership in the digital world, which you can see... ## Optional - [Agent (MCP protocol)](websites-agents.hostinger.com/markfarmer.net/mcp) [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)