Ben Werdmuller helps leaders at newsrooms, non-profits, and mission-driven organizations to navigate their biggest technology challenges.
I was privileged to be interviewed for this week’s People and Blogs: Hi! I’m Ben Werdmuller. I was born in the Netherlands, grew up and spent my twenties in the UK, and spent twelve years in the San Francisco Bay Area. Now I live in Greater Philadelphia in
Notable links
[Lizzie Presser, Andrea Suozzo, Sophie Chou and Kavitha Surana at ProPublica] My colleagues at ProPublica conducted a first-of-its-kind data analysis on health outcomes after Texas banned abortion in 2021. Here's what it found: "The rate of sepsis shot up more than 50% for women
Indieweb
[Matt Webb] I love this: "Slowly, slowly, the web was taken over by platforms. Your feeling of success is based on your platform’s algorithm, which may not have your interests at heart. Feeding your words to a platform is a vote for its values, whether you like it
Media
[Alissa Quart in Columbia Journalism Review] This article cuts right to the core of why media is failing to connect with mass audiences in America. It doesn't report from a perspective that they can identify with - largely because it doesn't hire people like them. What would
Technology
[Allison Hantschel in DAME] Hand-wringing over people leaving overtly unsafe spaces like X to find communities that are actually enjoyable to hang out in (like Mastodon and BlueSky) is absolute nonsense. "With that user growth, mostly from liberals disgusted with Musk’s nonstop promotion of conservative disinformation, came
Indieweb
[PJ Onori] I can't disagree with anything here: "Web 2.0 seemed like such a great idea in a more innocent time. We’re at a point where it’s only prudent to view third-parties as guilty until proven innocent. Not as some abstract, principled stance,
askacto
Ask a CTO is an irregular column where I answer anonymous questions from a technical leadership perspective. You can ask questions using this form. I have two answers to two questions this time around: Security vs. productivity Where do you draw the line between security and productivity? What are the
Technology
[Matt Binder at disruptionist] Just in case you thought he was still all about free speech: "Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, is currently banning links to “Signal.me,” a URL used by the encrypted messaging service Signal. The “Signal.me” domain is specifically used by the service
Fediverse
[Mastodon] Mastodon doesn't have quote posts, but is finally adding them after years of pressure. It's a harder decision than you might think - which is made clear by this excellent post by the team. In order to help mitigate potential abuse, the team has imposed three
Technology
[Joe Wilkins in Futurism] The job market in the tech industry has been brutal for a little while now, and doesn't show signs of getting easier. "Of all the workers devastated by the carnage, former tech workers in Silicon Valley are having a particularly rough go of
Inspired by Gina Trapani, Buster Benson, and others, I started to build my own Life in Weeks page from scratch. It looks pretty cool, and it’s interesting to see my life milestones presented on this scale. But I’m not going to share it with you. As I was
Last month I asked to hear from trans-friendly employers who sponsor visas, and provided a simple form for interested employers to reach out. In the process, I heard from many individuals: people who were hoping to find new employment in another country, and people who worked for companies that