I came to San Diego to give a speech at the retirement party for my mentor, friend, and dissertation chair, Richard Madsen, a world renowned bridge builder who is known for his work in sociology of religion and culture, established the field of sociology in China, founded the UC Fudan Center, and who is now retiring.
Read MoreHello friends, I've moved to Shanghai to join IDEO as an Expert-In-Residence for a few months! For both of IDEO and I, Design Thinking is a fundamental approach to solving business problems. In particular, the IDEO Shanghai studio and I think that understanding Chinese companies is a window to the world. And most importantly, we both care deeply about putting humans at the center of systems.
Read MoreAnd after seven years of research, I present to you my PhD dissertation.
Read MoreFree Lunch is a non-profit in China that uses a crowd-sourced reporting and monitoring system to gain donor's trust. The system is filled with inefficiencies and redundancies, but it's very good at getting people to donate and participate.
Read MoreEvery ethnographer needs a break from their fieldsite. When I came back to the US in July, I didn't want to think about China. I just wanted to sleep, play with my doggy, and eat fresh food. But when Fast Company reached out to do a profile on me for their Generation Flux series, I couldn't say no!
Read MoreWhen I moved to China to do a year of continuous fieldwork, I didn't want to leave the country to give any talks. But when I got an invite from Lift Conference to speak, I didn't want to turn it down. I have been a fan of Lift Conferences for a long time and it was an honor to be invited. So I skipped out to Geneva for a week to speak at LIFT12.
Read MoreI wrote a piece for That's Shanghai in 2012 about my fieldwork with migrant workers in Beijing.
Read MoreAfter speaking at LIFT 2012 in Geneva, Switzerland, I got to spend some time with co-speaker, David Rowan, who is the editor of Wired UK. David has spent a lot of time researching how the internet is changing Africa. He gave a talk about at LIFT 2012 and wrote an article about it.
Read MoreAs researchers of the Chinese inter-webs, An Xiao Mina and I always get lots of questions about what happens on Weibo. People think that the only thing that happens on Weibo is censorship or resistance. In reality, it's somewhere in the middle. So we wanted to write an article that would capture what really is happening on Weibo. It's in English and Chinese below. Enjoy!
Read MoreI had a lovely time chatting with Abby McBride from Agenda Magazine.
Read MoreAlexis Madrigal, senior editor of The Atlantic, wrote about how Weibo users are using it as a dating site based off of my research on Weibos' Instant Photo Singles Rescue Phenomenon.
Read MoreDesign strategist, new media artist, and digital community builder Anxiao Mina interviewed me for her latest article in Huffington Post on internet cafes in China, The 21st Century Saloon: A Peek Inside China's Wangba, or Internet Cafes.
Read MoreI’ve just moved to China to fieldwork on how non-elite users, youth, and migrants are using cellphones and the internet. I’ve decided to keep a separate blog of all my ethnographic observations so that it doesn’t get mixed in with my general observations about culture and technology on Cultural Bytes.
Read MoreI love the way my interview turned out on Benjamen Walker's Too Much Information. We met in Austin, Texas at SXSW and he ended up super fun to work with.
Read MoreGood day world! it’s finally happening! I’m moving to China to do my research! wooohoo!
So I’m moving to China to do my research, and then coming back to write something that I hope to buddha doesn’t kill my soul to write creative non-fiction. (here’s some more details about my research). I have a post on my personal blog about all the things and people that I will miss so dearly.
Read MoreI was a guest speaker at the wonderful Kristen Taylor’s seminar, Creating Community Environments, at New York University’s ITP program.
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