I can't believe this! I'm so excited it's ridiculous — an article I wrote has been published in my favourite tech blog, Techdirt. This is what happened...
About two weeks ago, tech journalist Glyn Moody, whom I assosiate with on Google Plus, invited me to write the Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week, which was published on the following Sunday. Being me, I got a bit cheeky and told Mike Masnick in email correspondence about CETA, the Canada-EU Trade Agreement that the Internet Freedom Movement is helping to fight. He already knows about the treaty, but in the course of my investigations into it (and correspondence on G+ with Mr. Moody) I'd discovered a website, Council of Canadians, discussing Canadian cities and municipal authorities wanting to opt out of CETA. I thought there was a story in it so I contacted them and Canada's National Farmer's Union to see if they had a recent copy of the Agreement. It was the Council that provided me with a copy of the Draft Consolidated Text. Then I wrote it up and got back to Mike.
The story has been through several rewrites (the first one was a bit of a novel!) and after a while I became impatient and published it myself because I had wrongly assumed that Mike had lost interest. He hadn't, he was editing the thing to make it Techdirt-worthy. I feel really humbled by this and can't stop grinning. And that's not all...
People aren't obliged to follow me just because I follow them, and when they're particularly prominent, it's unreasonable to expect it. Yesterday I was chatting to Glyn on his net neutrality post and the subject of Libertarianism came up. To cut a long story short, an actual Libertarian came on and since I've had a lot of dealings with Libertarians I know something about it. Glyn circled me, and I'm convinced it's because of the understanding of the subject I demonstrated in that conversation. I hope I can continue to be interesting — and useful. It's not about being circled, it's about the breadth of influence I hope to gain. And when prominent people circle me, the reach they give me gives me the opportunity to influence more people, particularly when I'm involved in a campaign.
If you, reader, are on Google Plus, Facebook, or Twitter, and you're interested in digital rights, environmental issues, and internet news, follow, friend and/or circle me.
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