Brad Rourke

Brad Rourke’s Blog

On Serendipity

As they always do, new Facebook changes have brought with them a load of complaints along with some praise. One big complaint is that this new “Ticker” (a realtime stream of all activity by friends, including their interactions with other friends) has a lot of noise in it. “I don’t care what my friends do…

September 26, 2011
Shopping Sunday: A Great Yoga Rug

As many friends know, I often do yoga, four or more times each week. The style I practice involves a very hot room and a lot of motion — not as hot as Bikram yoga but much more energetic. Result: buckets of sweat (if you are me). I have been on a quest to find…

September 25, 2011
Five Rules To Live In Public

For some reason (an intersection between tech-geek tendencies and narcissism, no doubt), I have been an early adopter when it comes to the self-publishing elements enabled by the Web. I started blogging before the word had been coined, was an early adopter of Twitter (March 2007), Facebook, and more. The advent of the Social Web has…

September 23, 2011
Shopping Sunday: Two Bluetooth Accessories

Welcome to my new series, Shopping Sunday, where I review things I own (mostly) and recommend. These are all available in my Amazon Store. Today I have two great little Bluetooth accessories to share with you. They each have made my life easier in their own little ways. * * * * * Miccus BluBridge…

September 17, 2011
Report: Civic Engagement Helps Communities Weather Economy

A report released today by the National Conference on Citizenship, CICLE (the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement), Civic Enterprises, Saguaro Seminar, and the National Constitution Center suggests that “levels of civic engagement in 2006 and 2008 strongly predicted how well states and large metro areas would weather the unemployment crisis…

September 16, 2011
How To Use Facebook's New 'Subscribe' Feature

Facebook has just unveiled a new feature they call “Subscribe.” Essentially, you can now follow people without friending them. I created this quick screencast to show how it works. It’s totally simple:

September 14, 2011
Poverty Up, Income Down

The Great Recession officially began December 2007. Here is the impact of the last few years, as released by the Census Bureau today: Real median household income in the United States in 2010 was $49,445, a 2.3 percent decline from the 2009 median. The nation’s official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent, up from…

September 13, 2011
How-To: Framing Issues For Public Deliberation

I created a Prezi that goes through the process I use to frame issues for public deliberation, and filmed a video that walks through it. I thought this might be helpful in talking to colleagues about how I go about doing my work — it is not the only method to frame issues, but it…

September 12, 2011
A New Issue Guide: A Nation In Debt. How Do We Pay The Bills?

I am delighted to announce a new issue book developed by the Kettering Foundation for the National Issues Forums titled: A Nation In Debt: How Do We Pay The Bills? This issue guide, authored by my good friends and colleagues Tony Wharton and Noelle McAfee, is the latest in the issue book library of which I am…

September 9, 2011