We're obsessesed with the truth, but we've come to accept we'll never know it. Richard Clarke says the Bush team was warned about an al Qaeda threat, ignored it, and pushed for a 9/11-Iraq connection later, even when there didn't seem to be one to be found. Condoleezza Rice says "there was no silver bullet" available to knock out al Qaeda and prevent 9/11, even if they had known it was coming, which she insists they didn't, even though she admits they knew "something very, very big was going to happen." If you ask me, she flirted with double-speak when she claimed an August 6, 2001 memo apparently titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States" was "not a warning." Of course we'd know more if the White House released the text of the memo. Where's the truth? We don't know. Worst of all, we seem content to…

I didn't know when I got laid off in 2001 and landed at a non-profit that a community manager's learning curve would lead so logically to online advocacy. I thought that I was just lucky to find a gig where I could use my relatively arcane knowledge. But, as it turns out, if you're trying to build online community, you're already a grassroots organizer (and a marketing consultant and a copy editor). This week I got the chance to come to the NTEN Non-Profit Technology Conference in Philadelphia, and rub ideas with about 600 people who spend their time helping change the world through technology, or through tech and strategic support to change-making organizations. Danielle Hickie asked me, where do I think this work will be in a year, and I rattled off three things. I know that a year from now there will be wider-spread popular understanding that people…