Ben Balter writes about technology leadership, open source, and modern collaboration at scale. His essays blend engineering mindset with management, community building, remote work, and transparent communication—shaped by years of experience at GitHub and in public-sector tech.
175 articles from this blog
A report on enterprise open source usage trends, highlighting increased adoption, contributions, and challenges with formal policies and license management.
The CFPB accepted a typo fix from an open-source developer on GitHub, marking the first direct public collaboration on federal government code.
Analysis of the CFPB's new open-source policy, praising its mandate while highlighting missing community engagement guidelines.
Analyzes why WordPress has low adoption in government despite its market dominance, focusing on perception issues vs. technical capabilities.
Debunks the myth that PHP is inherently insecure, attributing its reputation to FUD, its ubiquity, and its forgiving nature for beginners.
Explores how a GitHub-like 'fork and merge' feature in WordPress could revolutionize collaborative editing and version control for newsrooms.
A collaborative list of open-source alternatives to proprietary enterprise software, hosted on GitHub for community contributions.
Analyzes the outdated U.S. federal IT procurement model, advocating for regulatory reform and agile development practices to improve efficiency.
A 2011 presentation on using WordPress plugins to integrate social media, encourage sharing, and boost visitor engagement.
Argues for adopting Agile development in federal IT to replace outdated waterfall methods, improve efficiency, and adapt to changing tech needs.
Analysis of why tech companies struggle to attract digital talent, citing bureaucracy, lack of challenge, and poor work environments.
WP Document Revisions plugin now integrates with Edit Flow, adding advanced workflow features like email notifications, custom metadata, and team chat.
Analysis of technical capabilities of U.S. federal .gov domains, covering server status, IPv6, CDN usage, CMS popularity, and cloud hosting.
An overview of WordPress as a powerful, user-friendly, and community-supported content management system (CMS) for publishing.
Explores resistance to disruptive tech like open source and cloud computing, analyzing why businesses often stick with legacy systems despite clear advantages.
Introduces WP Document Revisions, a WordPress plugin for document management, version control, and team collaboration on files.
A technical guide on integrating Google Analytics social engagement tracking with WordPress Jetpack's Sharedaddy plugin using jQuery.
Analysis of why daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial are unsustainable, highlighting their negative impact on small businesses and legal complexities.
Discusses web hosting company Bluehost's legal compliance and trust issues after revealing a customer's identity for a satirical site.
Discusses the ethics and legal guidelines of excerpting content online, focusing on adding value over just avoiding copyright issues.
