to bask in the glory of like mindedness is one thing... to bask in the glory of an unconference is similar to making a space voyage. you never know what's going to be on the other side, but without a doubt, the relationships you build are life altering. for the past two years, the Drupal / Civicspace community have gathered around the Personal Democracy Forum to build these relationships.

after two years of bragging and ragging on the closed structure of PdF, last fall the editors of PdF agreed to do an unconference! on Saturday, May 19 at Pace, participants of PdF will gather to talk about how politics and technology are changing each other. as we are smack dab in the middle of a presidential campaign, i can promise you some very interesting conversations.

PdF unConference
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Pace University, Student Union, New York, NY
Start Time: 10:00 AM

pdf conference page
pdf unconference wiki

i'm sure some of you may wonder why this is not a *camp (barcamp or drupalcamp)... why didn't we call it PDFcamp. for one thing we are charging a nominal fee $35, which includes morning mimosas and rental of pace. there is a long standing community rule, that *camps are free or next to free.

second, i'm sure you're wondering why we didn't find sponsors to cover the additional cost. to be honest, we tried... or shall i say, i push for that to be the case. in the end, the editors of PdF felt that having people pay a little bit provides a control variable that entices people to attend. throughout all of my attempts, i've only seen an attrition rate of 1/3.

in this exploration of the unknown, i'm ecstatic to see what cross party relationships are forged.

also, after spending the past two years of advocating a non-profit / campaign staffer rate. Google and PdF are sponsoring free registration! Deadline is May 7th, but don't delay these are COVETED SPOTS!!!

Technorati Tags: barcamp, drupal, open government, personal democracy forum

my friends and i have slapped together a little podcamp nyc panel. tomorrow, we'll be in the village from 3 - 3:45. be prepared, the room only holds 35 people!!!

Hail to the YouMyWikiTube Chief - Political Participation within the context of Social Media

"Some where between YouTube and the future president of the free-world lies the dynamic political personalites of Nancy Scola (MyDD & Hearing Progressive Voices), Matt Browner Hamlin (Huffington Post & The Right's Field), Phillip Anderson (The Albany Project & Film maker), Fred Gooltz (Advomatic.com & Drinking Liberally) & Noel Hidalgo (Personal Democracy Forum & Noneck.org). The five will speak briefly on the impact of social media in the modern political debate and then debate the future of engagement, empowerment and emedia."

Technorati Tags: barcamp, democrats, future of cities, new york city, personal demoracy forum, podcamp nyc, podcamp

if you're looking for boiled down comments on the value of face to face conversations and how they support your constituency, check out this creating passionate users blog post. i've written before how online connections must meet physically, but in this post, kathy sierra lays out 10 universal components that are golden rules in building ANY constituency. fast companies' friends network is one the best examples of a physical medium using online tools to promote a disaggregate support network. heath row's journeys in 1999, 2000, and 2001 provide tangible experience supporting user networks. also, you should note that one of the best examples of diy face-to-face organizing is Four Eyed Monsters - check out henry jenkins' take on their impressive work.

1) Put together a "How To Start A Local User Group or Club" document. (noel's note - FastCompany.com has an interesting FAQ that should be a good start.) Include tips on things like finding a space, topic ideas, and getting speakers.

2) Offer free materials for the user groups User group meetings often start or end with prize drawings; give the user group leaders plenty of swag for the meetings. It'll make the leaders look good, etc.

3) Treat your user group leaders like royalty Sun puts JUG (Java User Group) leaders on a pedestal--helping them promote their groups, giving them special receptions at the annual JavaOne conference, etc.

4) Instead of a traditional user group, provide guidelines for a Study Group (noel's note - one really good example of this is the Drupal Dojo - a weekly user let training session.) Collect advice and lessons from other existing groups. Provide a list of suggested books to read, and 6-months' worth of topic plans.

5) Hold a very low-cost annual weekend conference. (noel's note - couchsurfing.com has historically set up "collectives" around the world to help maintain their website.) Make it ridiculously easy for people to get there. Find sponsors to help. Even better if you hold several mini-conferences a year, in different locations.

6) Encourage users to start a local BarCamp (or other *Camp). (noel's note - there are many examples of *camps - check out rootscamp or drupalcamp) Direct your users to the BarCamp Wiki where they can learn how to do it.

7) Utilize monthly meetings. There are many examples - Social Media Club's wiki, Drupal's Groups, NextNY.org's wiki, Frak Party, or Meetup.com. (original PSU's recommendation - Use Meetup.com as a resource!)

8) If you already have online user forums, enlist moderators to try to form an offline meetup. This is often one of the best places to start.

9) Hold special cocktail receptions/parties for user group leaders at industry conferences in your domain.

10) Advertise/promote your user group events on your main page! Remember, passionate users MUST connect with others who share that passion, so this is not a nice-to-have... it's an essential part of any product, service, or cause for which people are passionate.

Technorati Tags: couchsurfing, coworking, drupalcamp, economy 2.0, fast company, four eyed monsters

for those of you who are at SXSW interactive and Barcamp Austin 2, TODAY (saturday) at 3.30, we'll be meeting to talk about the coworking movement. please spread the word to your fellow attendants...

Saturday, 10 March @ 3.30 pm
Barcamp Austin 2
508 East Sixth Street, Austin, TX

Technorati Tags: barcamp, barcamp austin, coworking, SXSW, SXSW interactive

this is just a bit of a cross promotion of my luck of seven vlog.

Technorati Tags: harvard, luck of seven, social entrepreneur club, social entrepreneurship, vlog

Next weekend (24 Feb) will be the fourth annual Grassroots Media Conference at the New School. If you've ever wondered how to make the world go "boom" with thought... register today!!!

The Tuesday following the conference, our best friends at the Craigslist Foundation will be hosting a non-profit social. Yeah, these are they same guys who got you your last roommate, now they are trying to find you funding to change the world... I have attended the past four CLF events and the last bootcamp, and every time I am amazed at the quality and depth of advice given and the food... oh yeah, the CLF knows to make a spread... if you're a non-profitteer, young entrepreneur who provides services to non-profits or someone looking to break into the world of social capitalism... Register today!

Join Craigslist Foundation for a FREE Nonprofit Night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) on Tuesday, February 27 from 5:30PM - 8:30PM. Find out about local support resources, participate in small group coaching, connect with peers and potential supporters and create new opportunities for collaboration at Craigslist Foundation's Nonprofit Night.

5:30 PM - 6:00 PM Food and beverages will be provided.
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM Presenter: Cheryl Dorsey, President, Echoing Green
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM Nonprofit Coaching & Career Counseling/Networking

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Technorati Tags: conferences, Craigslist Bootcamp, Craigslist Foundation, fundraising, gothamist, new york city, nextNY, online advocacy, puppy, sustainable development

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it's hard to think of all that has happened yesterday when yesterday's second to the last speaker is reverberating through your head. i'm absolutely impressed with the quality of speakers and the diversity of ideas. there is one theme that seems to be more prevalent than most...

we need to build ecologies, not systems.

speaker by speaker we have been introduced to the ubiquity of data, communication methods and it's impact to everything around us. most importantly, many of yesterday's coversations focused on the envroment, and how we don't take physical impact into consideration. rarely, before today, have i ever heard the concept of the physical world discussed in such dire and unforgettable ways.

lee bryant's morning presentation spoke on ways we need to rethink our intelligence inside the enterprise. while he waxed on collective intelligence, his statement "we need to feed our minds, not our machines..." stood out. from my personal view point he is correct, we have entered a point were our focus is too much on products and not on practice. after lunch, sugata mitra extendisng this concept when he spoke on reengineering primary education. he focused on peer education and how children from small improvised towns across india, cambodia, and south africa can teach them self to learn new languages and technology.

after lunch, julian bleecker spoke susinctly on his research on the affects of second life on our first life. mind you this is just surface research... we are now living in a world where our desire to participate in a "second life" has highly expensive, and non-sustainable costs. best quote - "there is no way to reboot our first life if it crashes..."

BUT that doesn't mean we should stop...

mr. bleecker's comments were mirrored in a similar presination by Suren Erkman and Paola Chillani who solely focused their conversations on sustanable develoment. both reiterated the fact, we must start thinking of everything as an ecosystem. slide after slide and from two different vantage points - humanity and industry - we see the systemic fallacy of our consumption. no penguins army here... just plain thought into how we can increase efficiency and design a better world at the same time.

then, my brain exploded. i had lunch with Ben Cerveny and he mentioned that his presentation would be on metaphors, but little did i know that his presentation would be the keystone of all other conversations. eloquently, mr. cerveny linked every digital action to a biological term. through this synthesis of actions, we have shaped information to be the proteins of the digital age.

these proteins, like in biology, are the building blocks of life... it's hard for me to even attempt to be so eloquent as mr. cerveny. needless to say, the world we live in now is like a school of fish, and as mr. cerveny reiterated "a fish does not know what the school looks like..."

that's day one of lift!

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Technorati Tags: ben cerveny, hole in the wall experiment, Julian Bleecker, Lee Bryant, lift conference, lift07, Paola Ghillani
Paola Ghillani, digital ecology, second life, Sugata Mitra, Suren Erkman, sustainable development, technology, web 2.0

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