Stop Apologizing for Your Online Life

IRL: In Real Life. It's used as shorthand all over the Internet, to distinguish what happens online from what happens offline. But 21st reality is both online and offline. The sooner we embrace our online lives as part of our real lives, the sooner we can make our individual lives online -- and the Internet as a whole -- as meaningful and satisfying as they can and should be.

In this session we'll debunk the false distinction between life online and IRL, and map out the ways we can stop apologizing for our lives online and start living them. We'll walk through the 10 reasons to stop apologizing for your online life, then take it down to an actionable level with practical tips on how to live your online life with intention and integrity. From making your online connections into sincere human relationships, to finding a way to be mindful and present in your online interactions, you'll discover how you can create real value in your real life online.

Bio

Alexandra Samuel is the Director of the Social + Interactive Media Centre at Emily Carr University, which helps BC tech companies leverage the creative thinking, technical and design talents of Emily Carr faculty and students. As the founder and principal of Social Signal she has guided some of the web’s most ambitious social media projects and online communities, including BC Hydro’s Facebook Green Gifts, Vancity’s Change Everything and CompuMentor’s NetSquared. Alex holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University, and blogs about social media for the Harvard Business Review, Oprah.com and on her own site at alexandrasamuel.com.