Welcome to Untangled 🧵

👋 Hi, I'm Charley Johnson

I’m thrilled to welcome you to Untangled, an acclaimed newsletter and podcast about our sociotechnical world, and how to change it.

Why Untangled? Because there is no such thing as a ‘tech problem.’ All ‘tech problems’ are entangled in social systems structured by power and inequality. If we don’t untangle the two, we perpetuate the status quo in the name of innovation and progress. I help you untangle your system, and teach you the skills, tools, and strategies to change it through the following offerings:

🎤 Courses & Workshops:

Don’t let power imbalances hold you or your system back — learn how to change them. After taking my short, interactive, and (dare I say!) fun course, Systems Change for Tech & Society Leaders, you will be able to:

1. See your system clearly: power obscures problems in your sociotechnical system — learn to locate the problems! You can’t solve for what you can’t see.

2. Understand how your system is changing: and learn to leverage that change, rather than just letting it happen. Understand the capabilities and limitations of a technology, and anticipate how those shape your working relationships

3. Change your system as an individual: systems are unpredictable and do not abide by linear cause-and-effect rules — learn to intervene in complex systems by shifting the norms & behaviors of teams, organizations, and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

4. Change your system as a collective: you now have the tools you need for systems change, but are met with a world of differences within teams, cultural contexts, or organizations. Learn strategies to align a diverse group towards a common vision — and ultimately catalyze meaningful systems change.

You can learn more about course as well as what other participants — from organizations like the Siegel Family Endowment, New_Public, Stanford’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, and The Center for Tech & Civic Life —have said about it here.

Free - Section 1 of the Workbook

✍️  Deep-Dives & Podcast

I write deep-dive essays, host expert conversations, and help you make sense of the most important tech news. Sign up for the podcast (Apple & Spotify) and check out a few of my favorite deep dives, organized by technology:

Artificial Intelligence

• AI isn’t ‘hallucinating.’ We are. Why 'hallucination' is a problematic term (hint - it's not just because it anthropomorphizes the technology!) and what to do about it.

• ‘AI Alignment’ isn’t a problem — it’s a myth. Come with me on a journey through ordered and unordered systems

• Will ChatGPT replace search? How the limits of chatbots can point us toward a better search system.

Social Media

• Synthetic social media - Internet users, brace for the emergence of E-Swift.

• How can we govern speech fairly on anti-democratic platforms? Maybe citizen assemblies are a start!

• Bigger isn’t better; it’s harmful. Why ‘scale thinking’ is a big problem, and what to do about it.

Crypto

• In crypto, everything is a ponzi…until sometimes, it’s not.

• What connects crypto and ‘Love is Blind’? The sociology of speculation and how it is shaping crypto communities and modern life.

• Crypto is not decentralized. Because technical decentralization does not decentralize power — it only hides it.

⚒️ Guides

I develop practical tools and frameworks that you can use to align your actions with your values and the future you want to create. These include:

• Guide 1: How to critically analyze data

• Guide 2: How to critically analyze technology

• Guide 3: How to analyze the frames and metaphors that hide power in AI

• Guide 4: How to anticipate technology’s impact on different communities

• Guide 5: How to see your system clearly

• Guide 6: How to anticipate different community uses of technology

💫 Executive Coaching & Advising​

I help mission-driven leaders like you facilitate change -- in yourself, your organization, and the system you work within -- and live more impactful and freer lives. Don’t be a stranger.

💗 Untangled is an incredible community of 9K tech & society leaders from:

👉 This is a personal project, all thoughts and opinions are my own and don’t reflect the institutional positions of Data & Society.

👏 Praise for Untangled

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Who, me?

Oh hi, I’m Charley 👋

I get a kick out of untangling sociotechnical systems. I founded Untangled, a newsletter and podcast about our sociotechnical world, and how to change it. I co-founded The Facilitation Leadership Lab, which helps leaders facilitate organizational change. I coach and advise mission-driven CEOs, Executive Directors, and senior leaders to live more impactful and freer lives. I lead the Public Technology Leadership Collaborative at Data & Society, a peer-learning collective of scholars, researchers, and government leaders working to ensure data and technology serve the public interest. And I'm a Non-Resident Fellow with the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab.  

Before all that, I led the Disinformation Action Lab at Data & Society, which won the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public inaugural Award for Excellence for its multi-stakeholder work on the 2020 Census. Once upon a time, I co-founded and ultimately led the Center for Digital Development at the U.S. Agency for International Development. I helped grow the team from 2 to 55, developed our strategy, and designed multi-stakeholder alliances like the Digital Impact Alliance.

I’m a graduate of the University of Washington (Go Huskies!) and the Harvard Kennedy School, and sometimes I teach at George Washington University. I’m a Seattleite by disposition living in Los Angeles, an obnoxiously proud uncle, and a new pug dad.