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Are You Parenting/Babysitting Your Children Or Are You Letting Technology Do It?

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It’s not a long segment – about 5 to 10 minutes every week – about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly to SoundCloud, if you’re interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I’m really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

Happy 30th Anniversary to Terry DiMonte – a truly great broadcaster that I hold up there with Howard Stern and Charlie Rose.
Last week, we briefly spoke about the Alex From Target meme that was breaking out. It turns out that Alex from Target was a marketing hoax. Not by Target but by some new agency called, Breakr. This is really upsetting to a lot of people. As a marketer, I can see both sides of the debate.
I limit how much technology my children use. I’m not sure why I do this, considering what I know about the world and where it’s going. It turns out that Steve Jobs (and many other Silicon Valley luminaries) also led fairly sparse technology-enabled homes as well.
Are you parenting/babysitting your children or are you letting technology do it?
Terry often complains that his newsfeed on Facebook is a spammy mess and that’s why he avoids it/doesn’t like it. Well, Facebook (at least, on mobile for now) may be listening. Apparently, you can control and kick junk out of your feed…kinda.
It turns out that Mark Zuckerberg was right about the newsfeed (which most people hated when it came out) and the same will be said about Facebook Messenger.
App of the week: Microsoft Office apps are now free! Word, Excel, PowerPoint… go for it!