

"Hello John.  It's Gordon Brown" - jgrahamc
http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/09/hello-john-its-gordon-brown.html

======
staunch
You did Alan Turing a big favor. Now you're slightly less indebted to him than
the rest of us :-)

------
edw519
_Amazing what you can do with 30 minutes of peace and an iPhone._

What's really amazing is how much difference one person can make. We're used
to thinking that way in our work, but sometimes it takes a selfless act on a
bigger issue to show us that our efforts don't have to be restricted to our
own projects.

Thank you, John. You are an inspiration.

~~~
jgrahamc
One thing that's worth talking about, and I'm trying to find a journalist to
write about this is that I used a combination of web stuff (my blog, Twitter,
Facebook) and pounding on journalists. I kept a really close eye on the rate
of change in the signature count and when it started to slow I hammered on old
media to get the story out there.

The major inflection points (past the initial push caused by the LGBT press
and places like Hacker News) was getting the story on the BBC. Key to that was
Richard Dawkins. He simply signed the petition and said so publicly and then
went on Channel 4 news. With him on board it was easy to tell a story to the
journalists and off it went.

------
prakash
Awesome story! Good one John!

------
pizza
John's a cool dude. I hope people pay attention to, _and learn from_ , acts
like this.

------
electromagnetic
This is great, it really shows what an entrepenurial spirit can do.

------
nickelplate
You rock.

------
bitdiddle
well done!

------
tomjen2
Now you just have to get the Queen to give him that knighthood...

