I’m a software architect in Boston, Massachusetts. My day job is working for a Cambridge company that makes business process management software. A hobby of mine is doing research into media structures, the output of which you see here. What is “media structures”? In short, it’s more than just “interactive” or “new” media– it’s about the structures which underly such media, and how they affect how people communicate. I use my programming skills in PHP, Java, XML to build software and all of it goes into Civilities. I try very hard to pursue this research as an amateur . There’s been a lot of developments in this field over the last several years and it’s difficult to stay independent. It’s been suggested to me that I enter a graduate program to pursue this with more dedication; that’s always a possibility.
Published Work

• Can Media Get Beyond Reactive Response to Tragedy? PBS MediaShift, 4/20/2007
• The Tangled State of Archived News Footage Online, PBS MediaShift, 8/27/2007

Notable Mentions on the great Interweb

• University of California at Berkeley Journalism School, Course J298 Syllabus, Fall 2007
• How to rescue your reputation from the New York Times and Google, Jack Shafer, 9/6/2007
• “Jon, your post at Comment Management Responsibility: A Proposal is very detailed and thought provoking, as well as way more comprehensive than anything I’d thought so far.” from Tim O’Reilly, April 2007
• “Jon Garfunkel is doing some amazing writing…” from Boris Mann, April 2005
• “this amazing site which is considering many of the things we consider but is way ahead of us on a lot of stuff” — reflection by Colin McEnroe, Hartford journalist and teacher of a new media class at Trinity College, November 2005
• “Now, there’s one man in the blogosphere who has thought a lot lately about diversity, particular gender diversity in our online community. Jon Garfunkel has done quite a bit of research…” from Elisa Camahort, March 2005.

Professional Memberships

• Online News Association, associate member
• Content Management Professionals (and Massachusetts chapter member)
• Association of Internet Researchers

Conferences

• attended Voting, Bits, & Bytes, Berkman Center for Internet Studies, December 2004
• guest attendee at Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility, Berkman Center, January 2005
• led breakout session at Massachusetts BlogLeft, Worcester, December 2005. “Where the technology will lead us”
• attended Gilbane Content Management Seminar SF 2006
• presented on panel at MediaGiraffe Project Conference, UMass-Amherst, June 2006: “The Internet As An Advocacy Tool — Case Studies”

Reading File

• What I read via RSS feeds, more or less
• What I read directly, more or less
• What I bookmark

Fun facts

• Birthday: April 1. Hence my Fool Disclosure.
• Grew up in: White Plains, NY.
• Higher Education: B.S.E., Electrical Engineering, Princeton University 1998.
• Ways to misspell my name: John Garfunkle, Garfinkle, Garfinkel, JonSequitor.
• Not regularly confused for: Jonathan Garfunkel, Founder and Director of Tibet Education Network
• Named after: my father’s grandfather, John Kivo. Thus, Hebrew name is Yohanan.
• Middle named-after: 32nd President (Franklin)
• Vehicles: 1998 Honda Civic, 1998 Trek 930.
• Electric bill for January 2006: $95, running Civilities server and electric heat.