ME and Ophelia

O'REILLY EMERGING TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE
And digital democracy teach-in forum, Feb 9, 2004, San Diego, CA

"Internet technologies are putting power back into the hands of the people. Using blogs, MeetUp, cell phones, websites, and plain old email, citizen activists have already altered the face of the next US presidential election. In a less-noticed but potentially seismic shift, concerned citizens are using the same tools to have more say in the day-to-day tasks of governing. Are we on the verge of a fundamental shift towards truer democracy, or will these new Internet-fueled tools be co-opted to maintain the status quo?

That question and more will be asked at the O'Reilly Digital Democracy Teach-In, a day that brings together the pioneers who are re-inventing democracy for our networked world. Those who are defying conventional wisdom and changing the rules of the game--whether they're supporting a political candidate, advocating for a cause, or pulling back the covers on the workings of their local government."

The O'Reilly Digital Democracy Teach-In will be co-located with the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. The Forum is scheduled for Monday, February 9, 2004 from 9am - 5pm at the Westin Horton Plaza, San Diego, CA, USA.

View details for all sessions here. View details about speakers here.

[Link courtesy of James Crabtree at VoxPolitics]
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THE VOXPOLITICS BLOG
On net campaigning and e-democracy in UK politics

James Crabtree at VoxPolitics blogs that he's off to a conference in 'Calafornia' next week, and is hoping to gate crash this (see above) "high-powered looking wonk-in on e-democracy". Says he wishes the organisers hadn't set it up thus: If we think of democracy as a social/political operating system, advocacy is a key source of "application development" (yawn.. he's so right)

Extract from About VoxPolitics: "James Crabtree runs the Industrial Society's iSociety ICT research project (Indsoc.co.uk). He also helped to develop the Digital Futures project at the Institute of Public Policy Research. A former political consultant, he worked as a webmaster and press secretary for a congressional candidate during US Election 2000. He will shortly help launch the web presence for the policy journal Renewal."