A few months ago (three, to be precise), I quietly announced that I’d be leaving Gotham Gazette for parts unknown. I wasn’t making that up about “parts unknown,” but my announcement did get a few conversations started. The most interesting one turned out to be with Eric, Aron and Scott, who persuaded me to join DocumentCloud as their program director.
I’m pretty thrilled to be joining them: I care a lot about software freedom, improving access to information, and making great software accessible to small organizations. DocumentCloud gives me a great opportunity to approach access to information from a different angle, and to have a hand in developing undeniably excellent tools that will be (some already are) accessible to large and small news organizations alike.
I just started this week, but you’ll be hearing more from me as we proceed, about both our challenges and successes. The first challenge was realizing that it was time to bring someone on board to work with our document partners and help Jeremy Ashkenas, our lead developer, find beta testers to help keep him moving forward. I like to think we handled that one well, and I’m looking forwarded to more challenges to come.