http://www.jedmiller.com/ internet, media and other preoccupations en-us 2009-12-23T15:12:30-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000291.html A simple and potentially disruptive question from Andrea DiMaio on the Gartner blog: As governments embrace "bottom-up experimentation" online, is the traditional model of outside technology consulting viable? It's the next incarnation of the problem non-profits often have with vendors... JM 2009-12-23T15:12:30-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000290.html Cell phone users didn't need Verizon to tell us that AT&T's wireless service isn't as good as Verizon's. AT&T reinforced it themselves when all their ads boasted improved coverage after the merger with Cingular. But seeing AT&T get all whiny... JM 2009-11-22T14:22:46-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000288.html There's an article by me in the latest newsletter from the Citizen Services office of the General Service Administration. The issue is devoted questions of citizen participation in governance. I had the chance to interview some personal heroes of participatory... JM 2009-10-31T19:44:52-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000289.html Things I took away from the Balloon Boy debacle: The right story scales fast and now that people are channels it can scale really fast. Social networks scale a story best if it's a story that catches the imagination. It... JM 2009-10-20T21:59:23-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000287.html EurasiaNet reports a new $10M plan by the Pentagon to build foreign-language web sites in support of U.S. foreign policy. Let's count the ways that the plan, as described, is dopey: Ten million dollars?? Ten million dollars?? Do you know... JM 2009-09-29T23:44:39-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000286.html I am neither American royalty nor likely to ever be as accomplished as Ted Kennedy, but I felt unexpectedly connected to him yesterday when TV pundits were speculating about the crushing pressure he must have felt in 1962, when he... JM 2009-08-27T07:01:28-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000285.html Like a good parent, a project manager needs to keep you focused without pressuring you so hard that you rebel. He or she inspires you to think more clearly and produce on deadline, but also lightens your load by thinking... JM 2009-08-25T18:38:40-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000284.html Even if I wasn't a New Yorker, or Jewish - two legitimate legacies of willful anxiety - I'd still be prone to doubt and rumination about how It All is going to Go. To compensate for this tendency, I have... JM 2009-08-22T23:15:58-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000283.html Yesterday I heard about CorpWatch and Crocodyl.org from Tonya Hennessy and Lena Zuniga. The Crocdyl tool shows how the big teeth of corporations lead down to small spiny tails in subsidiaries all over the world. It also seems very usable,... JM 2009-08-21T16:19:33-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000282.html As the health care debate turns ugly at the local level, the anger and disorientation of Republican voters is a ready tool for corporate demagogues like Sean Hannity, who's calling for grassroots Obama opponents to "Become a part of the... JM 2009-08-08T10:22:21-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000281.html The military/federal chain of command may have botched the staged Air Force One NYC flyover earlier this year, but the crisis communications assessement the military did in the hours and days after is a nice demonstration of how 360 degrees... JM 2009-08-01T21:36:47-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000280.html As the tragedy on the DC Metro unfolds, one twitterer votes with his tweet on whether twitter is community or media: lenpilot Not to be disrespetful But there is a lot of METRO info coming through twitter now Please save... JM 2009-06-22T19:25:18-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000279.html Photo on twitpic from protests in Tehran's Enghelab Square from abbaspour: Follow Katrin, PersianWiki or Jim Sciutto on Twitter for more ...... JM 2009-06-15T10:39:06-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000278.html NYT TV critic Alessandra Stanley says that Stephen Colbert's shows from Iraq were more about the U.S. viewing audience than they were about the troops, unlike the famous USO trips by Bob Hope, who she says was "mindful" of the... JM 2009-06-13T10:23:14-05:00 http://www.jedmiller.com/grist/archives/000277.html If a whitewash is when you make something sound more harmless than it is (like, say, Gulf War Syndrome) and a greenwash is when you make something sound more eco-friendly than it is (like, say, the Clear Skies Initiative), then... JM 2009-06-01T07:02:42-05:00