Ben Werdmuller helps leaders at newsrooms, non-profits, and mission-driven organizations to navigate their biggest technology challenges.
I'm experimenting with adding live discussion to every post. Comments are powered by Cactus, which in turn is powered by the decentralized Matrix project: they're not monetized or tracked, and you can choose to take part using the Matrix client of your choice instead of on
Fiction
Daniel found the door to another world the day his father died. It sat behind the ugly painting of a hillside in France that his dad bought at a second hand shop a few years ago; he hung it proudly in his bedroom, despite Daniel’s mother’s protests. It
I have a persistent, infuriating problem with typing. The only laptop I own with a functional keyboard is my iPad Pro - the one device in this form factor that doesn’t actually ship with a keyboard. Even my work laptop suffers from the notorious broken butterfly keyboard problem. Keys stick.
1: I get my first vaccine jab tomorrow. Pfizer. I’m excited: by my reckoning that makes me about five weeks out from being immune. I’m privileged in that the pandemic has been inconvenient at most, but I miss hanging out with my friends and extended family. I can
This is my monthly roundup of the media I consumed and found interesting. Here's my list for March, 2021: a month where, at least in the United States, mass vaccination started to present the light at the end of the tunnel for the pandemic. Books The Death of
Today Richard Stallman announced that he has been reinstated as a board member of the Free Software Foundation with the antagonistic comment: “Some of you will be happy about this and some of you will be disappointed. … In any case, that's how it is and I'm
It’s far easier to think of problems than solutions. When I was founding my first startup - accidentally - in Scotland almost twenty years ago, the reaction I got more than anything else was “it’ll never work”. So many people told me to go get a real job that I
tech
Incredibly, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Here in the US, everyone will be eligible for a vaccine from May, and projections suggest that a large portion of the population will be immune by the autumn. This is obviously great news for all of us.
life
You probably know this David Foster Wallace joke: There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit,
Startups
When IndieVC arrived six years ago, it represented an exciting alternative to traditional venture investments. While revenue-based investing wasn't new, Indie made it mainstream, and started an important conversation: VC isn't appropriate for every business, so what's available for revenue-first, independent businesses
Fiction
I can see twelve sailing dinghies out on the bay, tacking and jibing while the twin, hot suns reflect sparkles in the water. For a moment, I have to squint through the glare to see them from the bluff, but my lens corrects for the ambient light quickly. I save
NotableLinks
This is my monthly roundup of the media I consumed and found interesting. Here's my list for February, 2021. Books We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice, by adrienne maree brown. The centerpiece of this short book is an argument for compassionate transformative justice