Ben Werdmuller helps leaders at newsrooms, non-profits, and mission-driven organizations to navigate their biggest technology challenges.
I’m posting Fairness Fridays: a new community social justice organization each week. I donate to each featured organization. If you feel so inclined, please join me. This week I'm donating to La Casa de las Madres. Based in San Francisco, La Casa de las Madres provides a
"The Fish and Wildlife Service announced Wednesday that 22 animals and one plant native to the United States are now extinct and should be removed from the endangered species list after exhausting efforts to find evidence that they are still alive." [Link]
"The Chicago Sun-Times and the parent company of public radio station WBEZ will explore a potentially historic partnership under a non-binding letter of intent that could create one of the largest local nonprofit news organizations in the country." This makes a ton of sense - and doesn&
"According to new motions to dismiss filed by the Civil Liberties Defense Center (CLDC), a legal nonprofit, BOP prison staff attacked King after leading him into a small, off-camera storage closet, then deleted video evidence, and may have misrepresented facts about the incident to the FBI. King’s
"The Kidney Project’s artificial kidney will not only replicate the high quality of life seen in kidney transplant recipients—the “gold standard” of kidney disease treatment, according to Roy—but also spare them from needing to take immunosuppressants." This is a game-changer. Artificial organs could improve
I’m writing from around 33,000 feet above Wyoming on a flight from San Francisco to Boston. I feel guilty flying: it’s not something I’m particularly pleased to do, and not only because I don’t enjoy the experience. We’re destroying our planet, and by taking
A short flash fiction piece about blockchain: There was someone like this every few months, it seemed. They couldn’t just get on with it. They had to break the pattern somehow; fight the algorithm, as if we weren’t all working for ourselves now. They didn’t seem to
A really clear, well-written guide to running meetings well from the Co-op. [Link]
"The infrastructure bill, if passed as is, will require new broadband projects to provide 100 Mbps of download speed and 20 Mbps of upload speed. But the infrastructure bill falls short of providing what some advocates say is necessary: “symmetrical” upload and download speeds." [Link]
Thoughts 1. The web is no longer the platform. If anything, it’s become a sort of connective middleware: a place to be shared through. The actual work is happening in apps, devices, and other levels of the stack, and I think, to some extent at least, that’s where
“I’m sorry to bother you,” the person on the end of the landline call - obviously a scammer - said to me in a clipped Indian accent. “I’m calling from Medicare health insurance. I’m hoping to speak with Deborah?” “I’m afraid she’s passed away,” I told him.
“Management is problematic because it is frequently used as a reward - a chance to make more money, but also exert power and control over people. Becoming a manager is a means of escaping the doldrums of the worker and allows you to start being the pusher rather than the pushed.