About
Mission Statement
Staff
Contact Us
Digital Society is a digital think tank that believes culture and commerce are inseparable, that the digital economy flourishes when people are free and rights are secure, and that free markets free people.
Digital Society is an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization, funded by donations from Jon Henke and from Arts+Labs. We advocate for a pro-culture, pro-commerce digital society through research, analysis and debate on emerging technology issues.
Jon Henke – Executive Director
Jon Henke is a political and policy consultant. He has worked in the US Senate and has been a blogger since 2003. In addition to Digital Society, he also works with the Arts+Labs coalition.
CONTACT: jonhenke@gmail.com
Michael Turk – Director
Michael Turk is a political and communications consultant living in McLean, VA. In his professional career, Turk has lived at the intersection of politics, public policy and technology — crossing from the political, to the commercial and into government. He has managed Internet operations for three presidential campaigns and the Republican National Committee; managed e-government projects at the White House Office of Management and Budget and Energy Department; and worked with Grassroots Enterprise, an Internet focused public affairs firm, as a technology and activism consultant.
Most recently, Turk served as vice president of industry grassroots for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association before returning to private practice. Turk is passionate about and writes frequently about telecom policy and technology developments. Michael Turk is a partner in Craft |Media/Digital, a communications consulting firm in Washington, DC.
CONTACT: michael@wadestrategic.com
George Ou – Policy Director
George Ou was a Senior Analyst at ITIF.org before joining Digital Society. Before that, he was Technical Director and Editor at Large at ZDNet.com and wrote one of their most popular blogs “Real World IT“.
Before journalism, Mr. Ou was a network engineer. He built and designed wired network, wireless network, Internet, storage, security, and server infrastructure for various fortune 100 companies. George Ou is also a Certified Informations Systems Security Professional.
CISSP #109250.
Nick R. Brown – Research Associate/Content Manager
Nick R. Brown comes to Digital Society from a background in newspaper journalism and public administration. He has served at several non-profits of various focus across the South as well as Washington, D.C. and Australia as a research associate. In addition to Digital Society, he is the founder and proprietor of several politically themed websites.
CONTACT: nick.brown@digitalsociety.org
Bret Swanson – Visiting Fellow
Bret Swanson, a visiting fellow at Digital Society, is president of Entropy Economics LLC, a strategic insight firm specializing in technology, innovation, and the global economy. He was previously a senior fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, where he directed the Center for Global Innovation, and before that advised technology investors for eight years as executive editor of the Gilder Technology Report. Swanson, who advises technology companies, non-profits, and governments, presents his research on the growth of the Internet around the globe and often writes for the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and Forbes.com on topics ranging from communications bandwidth to globalization to monetary policy. He blogs at Maximum Entropy (bretswanson.com).
James V. DeLong – Visiting Fellow
James V. DeLong has worked on issues of intellectual property and tech generally for the Convergence Law Institute, the Progress & Freedom Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the National Legal Center for the Public Interest. He also had a long tenure as an independent lawyer and consultant, working primarily on energy and the environment, and his government service included tours as Research Director of the Administrative Conference of the United States; Assistant Director for Special Projects in the Bureau of Consumer Protection of the FTC; and Senior Analyst in the Office of Program Evaluation at the United States Bureau of the Budget. He started his career as a litigation lawyer with the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers.
Mr. DeLong is a magna cum laude graduate of the Harvard Law School, where he was Book Review Editor of the Harvard Law Review, and a cum laude graduate of Harvard College, where he majored in U.S. History. He is the author of many scholarly and popular books, articles, commentaries, legal briefs, speeches, and blogs, and has appeared often before congressional committees.
His complete resume and list of publications is here.
