Speak Softly and Carry a Long Roadmap
A new mantra for the US govtech community.
Matthew Burton
What is a NOTAM, and why should you care
Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration suffered an outage to a system called NOTAM. It's not the only critical infrastructure system that's in danger of failing.
New Yorkers: Vote for the climate bond ballot initiative
It's been a while since I last wrote. That's mostly because I haven't had much to say that comes close to the import of the 2020 election.
But now I do! Winning elections is not a goal, but a means to doing good things,
So you want to be an intelligence analyst?
A completely subjective and one-sided explainer for how to get started in this field.
A Peace Corps for Programmers
The below was originally published as the opening chapter to O'Reilly's  Open Government, a collection of new essays on how technology can make DC more transparent and efficient. In 2013, several of the authors open sourced their contributions in honor of Aaron Swartz.
The federal government
The Value of Open Source Information: Two Military Intelligence Coups by the Web
I attend a conference about consuming Web content without accessing the Web. I tell them this is a bad idea.
Why I Help "The Man", and Why You Should Too
In 2008, I wrote the below piece on my old web site. The response was huge--multiple people from the tech sector told me they switched careers after reading it--and it affirmed my view that service is critical to a functioning government. I'm republishing it, along with other old