A love letter to Berkman

For the last two and half years, I've work at the Berkman Center.  It's a unique place, and it can be difficult to describe.  When asked what I do, I usually stammer "I work at a research center at Harvard... we study the Internet...  I do project management there... so, you know, grant proposals, research assistants, final reports, but also web development projects, ...oh, and graphs."  But it's really so much more than that.

Berkman is the kind of place where "Berk" becomes a modifier.  Interns become Berkterns.  Interviewees are evaluated on their Berkiness.  Employees celebrate their Berkiversaries.  It's a place where knowing your meme is part of your job, and most parties devolve into watching funny videos on youtube.  (If you've never seen the literal version Total Eclipse of the Heart, please do so now.  I'll wait.  Done?  Ok.  How great was that?!)  I guess what I'm saying is that Berkman is a family (in addition to being a fine academic institution) with all the quirks and privileges that come with that.

For a variety of personal and professional reasons, I've decided it's time to move on.  Next week, I'll start my new role at Akamai as a Program Manager working in Media Optimization (I'm not entirely sure what that means either).  The decision has not been an easy one.  I keep using words like "ambivalence" and "bittersweet" to describe the move, but neither of them quite capture what I'm feeling.

My coworkers here aren't making it easy to leave either.  In addition to kind words, congratulatory emails, delicious, celebratory meals and many hugs, I arrived on Tuesday to find this on our whiteboard:

Yes, that is a list of ways to persuade or coerce me to stay, and several of them do involve turning my own coach against me.

Today is my last day, and I'm filled with incredible gratitude toward this place.  For taking me on in the first place, for welcoming me to the family, for sharing your enthusiasm with me.  Although I won't be far away, I'm  leaving the Madame GrumpyPants tiara to the Belfry to remember me by.  Use it well.

Thank you, and I'll see you at Berryline.

Skewed incentives

One of the questions I've been asking myself in this new job is "How effective is Herdict at monitoring in real time filtering on the web?" This morning I walked into the office and one of the interns asked me if I had heard about Guatemala. I had not. At the risk of over simplifying a complex situation, it seems that the Guatemalan president has been implicated in a corrupt banking scheme in the country. Guatemala recently arrested a man for his twitter comment which undermined trust in the banking system.

Yesterday it seems that Guatemala blocked WordPress, a popular blogging platform. In the past month we have received no reports from Guatemala, then yesterday that jumped to nearly 40, almost all of which are pertaining to WordPress.

This was very exciting news for me, because it means that even in a small country, where we haven't seen much past activity, when filtering does occur, it's being reported. But then, should I really be excited when a country tries to stifle free speech on the internet? Feels like I have some skewed incentives.

An official post will be available here

What I'm working on

I've just started my new job: