Archive: Year: 2009

"Collectively all of you, most of you whom are, I'm not sure, of drinking age, you've created the best political organization in America, and probably the best political organization that we've seen in the last 30, 40 years. That's a pretty big deal...

Andrew Rasiej and I are excited to announce that next year's Personal Democracy Forum, our seventh, will be taking place on June 3-5 in New York City, with the main conference on June 3rd and 4th at the CUNY Graduate Center and an unconference on June 5th (location TBA). We're going to open early registration just after New Year's with special discount rates, so watch this space. In the meantime, we think you will want to hold the dates so you can join the illustrious group we have already confirmed as speakers: -Saul Anuzis, National Chair of the GOP's Committee on Technology; -Nick Bilton, Lead Technology Writer for The New York Times Bits Blog and Author of the forthcoming book, I Live...

Over on USA.gov, they're running an interesting dialogue about how to improve the site, which is a primary portal for citizens seeking all kinds of information from government. (Compete.com says USA.gov averages just under a million unique visitors a month.) One person...

The international e-organization Avaaz, which was founded three years ago and describes itself as a "new global web movement with a simple democratic mission: to close the gap between the world we have, and the world most people everywhere want," is undergoing explosive growth around the Copenhagen climate change summit. Its e-petition campaign for a "Real Deal Now" is up to 13.7 million signers; that's a jump of 2.7 million since a week ago when activists staged a sit-in and started reading names of petition signers in an effort to dramatize their cause. [SEE CORRECTION BELOW.] To put this into context, consider that just a month ago in Barcelona, at PdF Europe, Avaaz campaign director Paul Hilder stated that the group's...

It's not every morning that you run into one of the most powerful men in the country in relatively intimate and unguarded surroundings, so today as I was boarding the shuttle down to DC and saw White House senior advisor David Axelrod seated by a window just behind the first class section, I decided I had to seize the moment. My parents gave me "change the world" disease when I was young, after all, and I probably will never shake it. The aisle was full in front of me anyway and thus I was literally standing across from him. Knowing I might only have a minute, I quickly pondered what to say. "Is this 'change we can believe in'?" I asked....

"What Matters Now" is a question we should ask ourselves all the time, but it also happens to be the title of a new, free e-book curated by our friend (and occasional PdF speaker) Seth Godin. He asked 70 people, including yours truly, to each contribute a page offering their answer, focused on one word that matters, plus a short (under 200 words) explanation. The result is a spicy bon-bon of a book, alternately compelling, contradictory, and provocative. You can download your copy here. The words contributed by each contributor are listed below. You need to download the eBook to read the accompanying essays. I'm humbled to be in such good company. Generosity by Seth Godin Fear by Anne Jackson Facts by Jessica Hagy Diginity...

1. There are too many top ten lists out there already. 2. No one remembers last year's top ten lists. 3. Any list is automatically self-limiting. 4. We didn't do a top ten list last year, either. 5. Ten is anyway an arbitrary number. 7. Link-baiting is so last century. 8. Lists are silly. 9. No one reads a top ten list to the bottom, so why bother....

Looking for a good transit app? There's a site for that. The good people at FrontSeat.org, makers of "software for civic life" like WalkScore.com (which promotes car-free living by providing a personalized "walkability" rating for any address) have unveiled their latest project: City-Go-Round. The site is a searchable database of public transit applications (apps) available in cities across America. Visitors also see a list of which transit agencies make their data publicly available to software developers and which agencies do not. “We are calling on transit agencies nationwide to open their data and follow the lead of the Open Government Directive issued this week by the White House,” said Mike Mathieu, founder and chairman of Front Seat. “City-Go-Round’s transit apps are...

The White House has just released its Open Government Directive, long-awaited by transparency and "government 2.0" advocates, and at first glance, the meat on the bone looks pretty juicy. (Or, if you prefer a vegan metaphor, the sauce on the seitan looks pretty, um, creamy?) Nancy's got a sharp and detailed write-up here, and since I've been stuck in a meeting all day, I'm only going to add one additional wrinkle on a topic close to my heart that I think is worth highlighting, nay, hailing. To me, one of the most important parts of the new directive is in this paragraph, in the section on "Publishing Government Information Online": To the extent practicable and subject to valid restrictions, agencies should publish...

A few minutes ago at 1:42pm, the White House blog announced a live web chat with Labor Secretary Hilda Solis "to discuss the contents of the Department of Labor’s new regulatory agenda, which focuses on improving the lives of working Americans and leveling the playing field for businesses that play by the rules." Questions can be submitted through this live chat window, via Twitter using the hashtag #DOLREGS, by calling 1-866-487-2365 or by emailing webmaster@dol.gov. There's only one hitch: the chat starts at 2:00pm. That's 18 minutes to engage a public. In fairness, the Department of Labor Regulations home page announced the upcoming chat sometime Friday afternoon, but that announcement didn't exactly get picked up by many observers. There's one consolation....