I've always been a writer. But what does that mean in a world with 70 million blogs and counting?

I don't think anybody knows yet - which is the exciting part.

My blog is called Deb's SM Survey: Painless Pointers on Social Media. I hope to keep it accessible and interesting as I document my thoughts and interesting events in the burgeoning arena we call "new media." You can also find me on the micro-blogging site Twitter, and are welcome to follow me there. The local Twitter crowd is a great bunch of fellow social media enthusiasts and online community guys and gals. Come on in -- the virtual water is nice and warm!

During the spring of 2007 I was an occasional blogger for the Center for Citizen Media Center for Citizen Media, run by the talented Dan Gillmor. The possibilities for citizens to become the media are literally limitless. We'll see some amazing experiments over the next few years, and I'll continue to keep on eye on Dan's endeavors.

Some of my academic papers include a short report on the "Long Tail"  phenonemon and its implications for online marketplaces and a paper looking at the success and difficulties of the Creative Commons movement.

I'm a frequent contributor to a quarterly newsletter put out by a local women's group. I write book reviews, fiction, and personal essays.

I had a story published in a fiction anthology in the United Kingdom in 2000. I'm currently on sabbatical from SpaceCrafts, a science fiction and fantasy writing group.