New

I love new years.  It is my favorite holiday, by far.  Nothing like an agreed upon fresh start — an opportunity to tidy up the office, the inbox (I am proud to say I am at Inbox zero — personal email not work, so not that big an accomplishment — right now), and the mind.  

Ok, now that I’ve written that, I see that I started my 2011 new years post with almost the exact same line.  But it’s true: there is something really powerful about milestones — and I’ve written about this before — that helps make life more manageable and gives things more meaning.  It’s the reason I prefer living in the East and not the west (seasons).  It’s part of what makes the Code for America fellowship program (as well as schools and other fellowship-type programs) hum.  Milestones create a rhythm.  I wish there were more — maybe I’ll try and create some new ones, or start celebrating the quarters more deliberately.

Anyway, for 2012, I’m going to keep the resolutions short and simple.

* Think out loud (i.e., write more in public).  This is a constant refrain for me, and was on my 2011 list.  I did OK in 2011, with some pickup towards the end of the year.  Watch this blog, plus my more tumblr-ish tumblelog, The Slow Hunch.

* Be prepared.  I’m somewhat of an Urgency Addict — I don’t expect to change completely, but I think there are a handful of things I can do to improve.  Likely to do with a tenacious focus on doing the most important thing, perhaps w/ a dash of building a more regular rhythm to things.  This is also not a new resolution, more of an ongoing personal project.

Oh, and I’m going to brush up my coding skills at CodeYear.  That is sweet.

So, see you later 2011.  You were pretty cool.  Howdy 2012, let’s get friendly.

Joining MIT

My paperwork went through today, so I can finally say it in public without fear of jinxing myself…

I am proud and very excited to say that I’m officially joining the MIT Media Lab as a visiting scholar, through the Center for Civic Media.  I’ve been coming here for the weekly lunches and research meetings for a while now, and have been a member of the center’s email list for quite some time, but today I got my ID card so I guess it’s official.

I am really overcome with geeky joy every moment of every day that I’m here - it’s like I died and went to geek heaven.  From big things like the ridiculously inspiring building that is the Media Lab, to little things like people making robots in the hallway, to all of the historic elements and artifacts you walk by as you roam the halls.  Maybe it’s just me, but the whole place seems to be sprinkled with happy geek dust, and I just can’t get enough of it (I hope this feeling doesn’t wear off).

More specifically, it’s a super exciting time at the Media Lab and at Center for Civic Media.  It’s an honor to be working with Joi Ito, the new head of the Lab, and Ethan Zuckerman, the new director of the center.  I’ve been followers and fans of both for a long time.  And there is an incredible group of people in and around the Center that I’m looking forward to getting to know.  

If you haven’t already seen it, go over and read Joi’s article in this Tuesday’s Times on the Internet as a “belief system”, “Open Innovation”, and what it all means for the future of learning.  This is the kind of stuff that I can’t stop thinking about, and I could not be more thrilled to be among a community of people who are doing the same.

Next Up at Civic Commons

We just posted this morning on the Civic Commons blog that our founding Executive Director Andrew McLaughlin is now moving on to take a totally awesome job at Tumblr, and that I’ll be moving into the ED role at CC as of today.

It has been great working with Andrew since Civic Commons launched in May (and by “launched”, we mean, “launched with funding”, as we’ve been developing the idea for much longer than that).  It’s been a real honor to work with him, and I’ve learned a lot about how to approach the vision, strategy and management of an organization with ambitions of high impact.  Andrew has a ridiculous background, with extended stints at ICANN, Google, and the White House, and frankly, I’m proud that we were able to squeeze Civic Commons in there between the WH and now Tumblr :)

But in all seriousness, I couldn’t be more excited for Andrew’s next move — Tumblr is one of my favorite web platforms.  Not only did it singlehandedly ignite my personal ability to blog, it has also helped to demonstrate that social web platforms can be mobilized for incredible civic purposes.  I’m a firm believer that the future of the Civic Web is as much about making our social apps more civic as it is about making more civic apps.  And it’s clear that Tumblr has the ability to lead the way here.

As for what’s next here at Civic Commons: we’ve accomplished a lot in our first seven months — from working with many government entities to open-source internal applications, to growing the Open311 project — an open web standard that facilitates citizen<->government communications, to working to open up the civic technology marketplace.  Perhaps more importantly, we’ve learned a lot about what’s hard and where we think our real opportunity is, and are refocusing our efforts to best reflect that. More on that in the coming days and weeks.

So, to Andrew: thank you, and here’s to an amazing new frontier.  To our team, partners and collaborators at Civic Commons, let’s get busy taking it to the next level.