In this interview, internet speaker and Yahoo! News correspondent Virginia Heffernan argues that companies need to take their social media and online content management seriously—and that means hiring someone based on their merit and experience in the field, rather than simply handing off the task to the newest or youngest team member.

Virginia Heffernan, on the late, great Nora Ephron, at Yahoo! News.

Virginia Heffernan, on the hazards of banning so-called ‘thinspiration’ photos.

Virginia Heffernan reads deeper into that slick “Real Mitt Romney”/Eminem mash-up that’s gone viral on YouTube. From her new Yahoo column:

Instead of packing an emotional punch, “The Real Mitt Romney” aims for that gentle “neato” effect refined by online videographers who are long on Final Cut Pro skills and short on conviction. The recut, which mashes up archival images of Obama and Romney and others, is not meant to lock in a victory for its title character, or to deal him a fatal blow. As a piece of rhetoric, it’s nothing more or less than a precise act of noticing. Formally impeccable, it’s careless with content. The most it can be said to do, philosophically, is call attention to droll repetitions and cultural ironies, in the mild and yet surefire way that Jerry Seinfeld used to do. It’s Gen-X noodling using Millennials technology.

Lavin speaker Virginia Heffernan says culture is fascinating because it doesn’t move in a straight line. No moment is ever entirely of itself—we are constantly imagining a new future while recapitulating and rediscovering elements of the past. This is also a good explanation of why, for instance, our culture is currently obsessed with mid-Century Mad Men “stuff.” Filmed at The Lavin Agency offices in New York City, Fall 2011.

Virginia Heffernan, author of Magic and Loss: The Pleasures of the Internet, moderates the “Is This Thing On?” panel at Sundance 2012. From the program: “Today’s always-on culture makes our definition of authentic quite elastic, like light being warped near a black hole. Where does privacy end and performance begin in a post-cinéma-vérité, perpetually plugged-in world?”

Channeling her inner McLuhan, Virginia Heffernan tells us that, for companies, user-generated content is hard work—you have to “scaffold the experience for the user so intensely.”

Internet speaker Virginia Heffernan talks about changing the way we view “accomplishment” in the classroom. Just because today’s students don’t want to read a dated, trivial, non-canonical novel from Kurt Vonnegut, doesn’t mean they have A.D.D. Their talents may lie elsewhere—and educators have to know where to look. Filmed at The Lavin Agency Speakers Bureau offices in New York City.

Virginia Heffernan, author of Magic and Loss: The Pleasures of the Internet, visited Lavin NYC this week.

New York Times Op-ed Contributor Virginia Heffernan on why education desperately needs a digital upgrade.