(cross-posted on the MIT Center for Civic Media blog, the PBS IdeaLab blog, and the Harvard Data-Smart City Solutions blog) A few years ago when I was working on the Civic Commons project with Code for America and OpenPlans, I did a presentation at Living Cities called “Cities that Work Like the Web...

There are at least two startups that I know of (Pave and Upstart) that facilitate VC-style equity investment in individuals.  Upstart describes this as “the startup is you”. In both cases, the idea is as follows: raise money from backers in exchange for a percentage of your future earnings.  The ide...

For some reason I have always liked talking to taxi drivers about their business.  Maybe it’s because my dad was a NYC taxi driver back in the 70s, or maybe it’s because driving a taxi is such a classic immigrant path to building a life here.  And it’s certainly because of the amount of tech… Contin...

For the past few weeks, I’ve been enjoying starting to use my new Chromecast.  For those who don’t know, Chromecast is Google’s new internet-video-to-tv device — plug it in, then stream web content from any device to your TV. The Chromecast experience has been eye opening, and it perfectly illustrat...

I spent the day yesterday at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in DC, at an event discussing mobile payments and related innovations and regulatory issues. Naturally, this is a big issue, with the huge rush to mobile everything, the continued expansion of software-powered web businesses, and ...

I’m writing this from the DC metro, which I love.  Getting from the airport to downtown dc is one of the great joys of traveling.  I can’t think of a single airport that is as conveniently connected to a major city by mass transit. But the point of this post is not to talk about… Continue reading

(I’m writing this on the amtrak to NY as my computer quickly runs out of battery, and I have no charger, so this’ll be short…) Somehow, earlier this week, I came across Zenep Tufekci’s piece from last spring in the Atlantic on Social Media’s Small, Positive Role in Human Relationships.  I liked it, ...

I can’t claim to be the most disciplined or organized person, but I’m working on both. I have, however, done a lot to smooth out my moment-to-moment work process, to help me do things more quickly & easily, and to help me avoid distractions where I can.  I can only hope that I win more… Continue rea...

When we got home from vacation last night, my new Chromecast was sitting waiting for me.  I’ve been really psyched to try it out. The out-of-the-box experience was clear and simple.  My favorite thing about Chromecast is how small it is — it’s barely there; just a tiny little add-on to web-enable yo...

Yesterday I gave a talk at this year’s Personal Democracy Forum.  For those who don’t know it, PDF is a great event, and is now in its 10th year of bringing together the community of folks working at the intersection of tech, politics, and civics.  You can see all the talks from yesterday (and today...

I am working on my presentation for this week’s Personal Democracy Forum, which is looking to be a great event. My talk is entitled: “Powered by Us: Architecting Policy for a Connected World”, and I’m going to be talking about the policy implications of peer networks on the web.  We can think of “th...

Open data is a huge driver of innovation.  Traveling around NYC is better because the MTA opens up route, schedule and real-time data for people to build apps with.  Responding to natural disasters is easier when data is open and interoperable.  As we continue to collect more data about ourselves an...

At Albert’s suggestion, I’ve started reading Nicholas Taleb’s Antifragile.   It really is a powerful idea to think of things that get better with stress, not worse.  And it’s really interesting to think about how to build antifragility into your life in various ways. Here’s one (tiny) example: email...

I’ve been working on an internal web app for the past few weeks. I’m not a “real” programmer, so as usual I just figure things out as I go along and make lots of mistakes, but I always learn new stuff.  This is how I learned programming in the first place, got my first gigs… Continue reading

Today I’ve got a post up on the USV blog about Senator Chuck Schumer’s Patent Quality Improvement Act, and the problem of software patents and patent trolls in general. The PQIA would make it easier and cheaper to defend against frivolous patent infringement suits.  This isn’t everything we need to ...

The week before last, I attended the Mesh Conference in SF, which brought together a big group of folks working at the intersection of the web and the “new economy”: i.e., the “sharing economy”, “peer economy”, “connection economy”, “collaborative consumption”, “the mesh”, etc.  As you might imagine...

I am writing this post from the balcony of my Airbnb apartment in nob hill in sf. Its by far the nicest place I’ve ever stayed in sf. Beautiful duplex penthouse, with an amazing view of downtown, for less than the price of a hotel room. To get here, I hopped a ride via Lyft,… Continue reading

Matthew Yglesias has a good piece up this morning on the immigration debate in the wake of the Boston bombings.  He points out that historically, as we’ve tightened our border lockdown, we’ve not decreased illegal immigration, we’ve just made the coyote industry more lucrative.   In my favorite line...

What happened yesterday in Boston so sad and awful.  And it’s deeply scary.  All of the communities I’m part of — family, work, school, city — have been shaken by this. But the most important thing we can do coming away from this is not get scared in our core.  If that happens, they win… Continue re...

Over the weekend, Christina pointed me to Uber’s new policy white paper on ridesharing.  In a nutshell, Uber has decided to compete (with Lyft, Sidecar and others) in the ridesharing space, and will use a framework for deciding how and where to do that, based on the perceived regulatory friendliness...