Our Jake: One of Jake Brewer’s White House colleagues likened him to the “mayor of the building” despite only having been on the job for 15 weeks, Sarah Wheaton of Politico reports as part of a round-up of tributes to our fallen friend.

Brewer’s behind-the-scenes work co-founding and building the pro-immigration group Define American is lovingly detailed by Elise Foley for the Huffington Post.

“We are mourning all that he had yet to do,” writes Jennifer Pahlka, the founder of Code for America. She includes two beautiful tributes to Jake in her post, one from his close friend Clay Johnson, and one from Ryan Resella, a Code for America Fellow. Read the whole thing.

Luke Fretwell, the founder of GovFresh, shares his memories of Jake Brewer.

The Jake Brewer memorial education fund has raised more than $264,000 from over 3,400 donors.

This is civic tech: Dan O’Neil of the Smart Chicago Collaborative explains why it’s “not your typical civic tech outfit.” He writes: “What we’ve learned at Smart Chicago is that direct service to regular residents beats any technology that any single developer can make by slogging along alone. We’ve learned that direct action—being in rooms with real people, working together, sharing our money and our food and our love—works.” Amen, brother!

Kickstarter has reorganized as a Public Benefit Corporation, its co-founders announced yesterday.

Food for thought: how the rise of the conversational user interface will re-orient how we interact with computers, by David Pierce for Wired.

Fusion’s Kashmir Hill offers a tour of anti-surveillance artist Trevor Paglen’s new gallery show in New York City.