My current professional world starts with Qworky, a nascent startup focused on revolutionizing how people work together. Qworky is currently in the development phase for our first product, Qworky Meetings — v 0.01 is available on the web here. I’m also co-chairing the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy 2010 conference in San Jose this June. Other projects incude Tales from the Net, a book on social networks co-authored with Deborah Pierce and my brother Greg; and online activism, including the #p2 Twitter hashtag and Get FISA Right.
Previous work includes leading the Ad Astra (Analysis and Development of Awesome STRAtegies) project as General Manger for Strategy Development in Microsoft’s Online Services Group; creating the static analysis tools PREfix and PREfast at my startup Intrinsa and then at Microsoft Research; security planning with the Windows Security Push and XPSP2 task forces; the EPIC Technology and Democracy 2.0 report on e-Deceptive Campaign Practices; and the National Academies/CSTB software dependability panel Sufficient Evidence?
My primary current research interests include the interactions between social networks, communication, and diversity theory, trolls, and recasting the field of computer science as a social science. Some of the social science approaches embodied in Qworky and my earlier work include asset-based thinking, narratology, cognitive diversity, intersectionality, standpoint theories and situated knowledges, oppression theory, action research, and hot pink beanbag chairs. My recent writing on activism applies many of these concepts to civil liberties and other areas. Cognitive evolution and revolution, Guys talking to guys who talk about guys, and Make desire more important than fear provide some theoretical underpinnings for Qworky.
I currently blog about all of these topics as well as voting rights, political activism, poetry, and whatever else crosses my mind at Liminal States and occasionally elsewhere. You can contact me via Twitter, LinkedIn, free-association, Facebook, or MySpace. or jon {at} qworky {dot} net via email.