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August 5, 2013 | 12:01 am

Old School Strategies for Connectivity (Hint: Batteries not required)

For years, I’ve been jotting down inverse relationships as they crop up in my professional and personal life. Here, for instance, is one from my previous career as a journalist:

The quality of reporting at any event is inversely proportional to the number of reporters covering it. Think Super Bowls, political conventions and the birth of a royal baby.

And here’s one closer to home for those of us making our livings in community planning and development: The chances for achieving meaningful results for a controversial project are inversely proportional to the degree to which the client expects help from web-enabled social networking.

Category Community Development, Planning and Design, Public Engagement, Public Policy, Technology1 CommentTags Ben Brown, communications, connectivity, Social Media, trust, Twitter

May 20, 2011 | 11:15 am

Get Real or Get Rich: Lessons for an era of limited trust

It’s a great time to be really rich or really smart.

It’s never hurt, of course, to be able to tap into big bucks or big brains. It’s just that penalties for having access to neither are rising dramatically.

What got me to thinking in this direction was an exhaustive investigative report in last Sunday’s Washington Post. The headline: “Million-Dollar Wasteland: An ongoing investigation of how HUD has failed affordable housing.” In the Front Page days of journalism, this would fall under the category of “exposé.”