By now, you’ve probably seen Obama’s new policy website Change.gov. The media and blogosphere have reported on how ground-breaking and historic this "open government" website is, allowing the public to be involved in the public policy-making process in ways impossible to imagine before. What has received less attention is the intensive web development process that…
Category: Information Society
Geekcrush #37: DJ Bubblyfish
Last night at the Machinima Festival after-party at Eyebeam labs we were treated to the unique 8-bit DJ stylings of Ms. Haeyoung Kim, better known as Bubblyfish. I’ve seen Bubblyfish a couple of times before and have been blown away by her retro gaming-influenced electronica. Bubblyfish’s performances combine wonderfully retro imagery from old 8-bit games…
Adriana peeps out the G1 Google Android Phone
I just got a link to my friend Adriana’s first post as Gadget Editor on the cell phone blog PhoneDog.com. She covers the recent launch party for the T-mobile G1 Google Android phone, giving some nice flavor of what the geekarati event what like as well as fondling the phone herself. Adriana also posted recently…
Useless App of the Day: Poladroid for the Mac!
This what computers are good for — creating useless but entertaining programs that replicate stuff that worked just fine in the real world. DK of Mediasnackers tweeted a link to this awesomely useless and free Mac application called "Poladroid." Poladroid puts a cute Polaroid on your desktop that you can drop any image file on. …
Five Digital Media & Telecom policy challenges for the next US President
In just a few short weeks, Americans are going to the polls to select the next President of the United States. At Global Kids we’re pretty obsessed with following the elections, staff members shouting out news, debating, joking, and sharing links all during the work day. It’s to be expected from an organization that is…
Barack FTW 11/4! — Why Gamers Should Back Obama
I think it’s high time that people get past this notion of gamers as passive couch potatoes divorced from the world around them. I’ve seen gamers raise thousands of dollars for worthwhile causes like Penny Arcade’s "Child’s Play" charity and games for US troops overseas. Gamers can be ardent defenders of Net Freedom or even…
Open-sourcing the grantmaking system
My buddy Creech (Matthew Saunders) is working on a really neat proposal to the Knight Drupal Initiative to develop an open-source grant-making system using the Drupal CMS. I agree with him that there is a clear need for a more transparent, efficient and fair system for non-profits to apply for grant funding from grantmaking agencies. …
Barry Joseph’s career path: from tech geek to social reformer
Barry Joseph, the director of the Online Leadership Program at Global Kids, posted to the Huffington Post yesterday about how he got involved in youth-oriented digital media. It’s a very interesting read about how one person evolved in his career as a techie with a social conscience.
My first Spore creature: meet the Ferengi
I know, not very original name. For my first creature in the game "Spore," I wanted to create a small, mean, carnivorous race of creatures. So the name "Ferengi" just seemed to fit. I have just formed alliances with two other lesser races, and now I’m on the trail of other Ferengi who have flown…
Face-to-Face vs. Videoconferencing and Virtual Meetings: increasing the emotional bandwidth
Seeing some of the enterprise-level distance meeting and videoconferencing technologies at the Web2.0 Expo recently, I’ve been thinking about what sorts of lessons should be taken away for running effective and emotionally engaging meetings in virtual environments. Here’s some of my thinking on the matter…