Ok. Some big changes happened over the last 3 months and I have failed update this blog. Here goes;

I took a break from working at the World Bank to move to Rome, Italy and manage the web for the World Food Programme. I have been in Rome since early July and enjoying every bit of it.

I am proud of what I have worked on at the Bank:

• Launched the buzzmonitor, an open source aggregator that has been downloaded close to 4,000 times.
• Helped the Bank's experts and economist embrace blogging
• Did a cool mashup
• Got the first World Bank API going (they launched it last week, yay!)
• Invited some luminaries to speak to Bank management about what's going on today on the web
• Worked with great folks like Pierre, Irakli, Goga, Jeff, Nicole, Zeina and many others.

All in all it was a great experience. The World Bank is a fascinating, incredibly complex place with lots and lots of brilliant folks. It's a bit of a bureaucracy too, of course, but I am positive that social media will continue to have a strong impact on the organization.

Out with the old...I am now at the World Food Programme, the world's largest humanitarian agency. Boy is it different from the Bank. We are in constant emergency mode. From Myanmar to Georgia to Haiti to North Korea...WFP staff is all over the world delivering food to the poorest of the poor. This presents a whole new set of challenges and opportunities on how we can use the web and I hope to share some of what I have in mind on this blog.

Onwards,

PG