Note: I serve on a school board, but this is a personal post (I am not speaking as a board member or on behalf of the board). Cheltenham School District just released a letter to the community confirming that after months of internal and external discussions, surveys of stakeholders, and feedback from the board, this […]
Election Day in Cheltenham
Tuesday (November 7th) is election day. Please get out to the polls, we need your energy and involvement; convince someone you know to vote as well! This is a final request as you think about how to cast your ballot. I humbly ask that you vote for the candidates who will best represent you. Specifically: […]
The Technology Behind the World’s Worst DVR
Take a moment to go back in time with me, back to when life was simpler and the biggest threat to humanity was Y2k… It is 1999, you’re 13, and your mother just walked through the front door carrying a large, vibrantly colored blue and yellow bag. Based on the heft and the "Best Buy" […]
A Puntitled Framework for Evaluating the Quality of Puns
Let me set the tone by spitting a blunt truth. People who enjoy puns are better than people who don’t… and yet, like someone buying food at an airport, puns tend to get a bad rap (1-D, 1º, L1: lateral manipulation, slant reference). The reason puns are so misunderstood is because they lack the key […]
Moving the WebFWD
Last week was full of new experiences. I got on a Caltrain for the first time, I got off of a Caltrain for the first time, I got stuck on a Caltrain for the first time, and so the list goes on. I also met my WebFWD IV cohort! Web What What? WebFWD is a […]
OpenNews Applicants: Be Warned
Being a Knight-Mozilla Fellow ruined my life. My fellowship ended three months ago; I still don't have a job, my wife and I haven't spoken in days, and none of my friends take me seriously. There is only one piece of advice that I have for anybody considering applying: ignore all the obvious reasons why […]
How I got Twitter to count to 24
This short post is about counting to 24. If that doesn’t sound interesting to you, tu–oh who am I kidding, of course it sounds interesting! Twitter keeps asking me to give them money so that I can be popular. My brain tells me that this is an opportunity that they offer everyone — some kind […]
Introducing CivOmega: An Effort to Democratize Government Data
Over the past 24 hours I worked with an amazing team to start building a Siri for government. Well, Wolfram Alpha is more like it, but you probably have a better sense of what Siri is. The site is called CivOmega and it allows you to ask any question™ you want about civics. The system […]
Hey Media, I Thought we Stopped Whining About the Crowd in 2006
I woke up this morning to an email on the Center for Civic Media mailing list asking about our thoughts on an article. If you follow that link you will see Alexis Madrigal chastising a small Reddit sub-community for attempting to collaboratively analyze photographs of the Boston bombing for clues. His post says, in so […]
Why Journalism Tools Gather Dust
This post is about my quest to answer the question “why are we building this from scratch?” It’s about observed realities regarding cross-newsroom collaboration, insights from upper management of The New York Times, and some major hurdles for open source in legacy media organizations. Prepare to explore the deep, dark, and relatively unspoken depths of […]