... MC : << ethan zuckerman >> Speakers: << jim moore >>, << joi ito >> ---- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---- << ethan >> [opening remarks, welcome to the manifesto session] orlowski said... you couldn't have had the ukranian revolution with only online tools [16:08] see ircchan #gvmanifesto for quotes you want to be included in the manifesto [we're building a manifesto today!] << jim moore >> we're building a full, rich life online. you can actually get echo chambers, etc I've been involved in a few online community building activities, some of which were somewhat successful and others which weren't successful at all. one was the second superpower, an effort to become a second superpower... but it wasn't a set of instructions, more a discussion about it. the other was the dean campaign I came in there after it had already gotten started. I was really interested in it... How to take this to the next level, how to really get it started. but the campaign didn't succeed. dean wasn't elected, and certainly the dems weren't. Finally I've been working since last April on blogs from the Sudan to help focus attention on the genocide [blog link? --Ed.] This has now become what I call the post-modern genocide. A lot of people here have posted about this, Glenn Reynolds posts about Sudan every two or three days; I now have a section called genocide humor, where we have political cartoons about the Sudan genocide... you can pull up a whole set of cartoons about it. And now there's Sudan travel: people are planning for this to last a year or two, so they're planning long-term to visit camps. On the one hand this makes sense if it 's going to continue; on the other hand, it's kind of bizarre! As joi and I were thinking about this, we were thinking, we really need to raise this issue for this group in this room. We have some of the most powerful activists in this sphere. We also have people like Critt, blending over into the defense world. lots of interesting ties here, I'd love to think about this stuff. << joi >> I framed this earlier, but there's a very big question. why (a big why), why Sudan? why not the history of the Congo war? why not somebody else's problem? why should he gt the attention right now, when there are tons of things going on all over the place. There are tons of news items... yes, we all need to be aware that the Iraq war is going to happen; but we need to be aware pf sustained caring. It doesn't matter what you know if you don't care. How do you get the rest of the world caring about this. I think the big why is getting people to identify with eachother. There are kind of human rights /otaku/ ... They walk around with an issue saying "you've gotta care, you've gotta vare..." and you do feel guilty for a moment, but you don't care about it. So to really create change you have to really care about it. And that's where music and culture and real people you meet from these countries (having beers with them, online or otherwise -Ed) come in and make a difference. [16:15] I want to reframe the Manifesto: two levels here -- what we want to do is create some kind of document that has enough, is interesting enough, that it attracts a lot of people, that it can travel. Really smart viral marketers - it's amazing how well the metaphor actually works: if you think of an individual... [joi gets rid of incriminating window] ... who's reading a post [as infected], and someone who's excited about Sudan has contracted it, is contagious. The various ways you express it are vectors; different vectors/markets have different contagion rates. When someone's converted, they too become contagious. But they can go in and out of being contagious depending on how active the virus is within them. Think about Hotmail.. each person spread to more people who know that person. That's a quick contagion rate, like pumping. Other things have a lower contagion rate, which diminishes from the origin. Then you have to pump it somehow. There are other things who affect the contagion rate... * How long is someone contagious? I can get excited about Sudan for a week, a month... but not for a year. * you have to think, "how different are people", "how long until they are cured?", "how different are vectors?" * The other thing is, if you look at the diffusion curve : sending/getting a lot of views, but having a low conversion rate, or having low volume but high influence, has the same effect. One of the things I'm getting at is: how does the medium affect how people pick up memes? << jim >> [???] Jones, who worked on the political campaign : she became infected, and is probably the typhoid mary of Sudan. [laughter] So she's become a colleague on our blog; she actually has 3 blogs, simultaneously, on this very issue. So a view of those people is worth an awful lot. If that's our infection thing, now we have what we're trying to accomplish in this room : which is, somehow over the day, people were brought here, people thought about the world, how we like to shape the world. Now we have this opportunity to ourselves create a kind of virus. And we have pretty good vectors of transmission... lots of good people here. [I think "being a good virus vector" is a compliment here --Ed.] So the question we want to address is : if we want to craft a virus here, a manifesto, what would it be? and more profoundly, what is the world we want to create? [16:20] << joi >> we want our hosts to be generally amenable to the right viruses. you want to be able to pick up all the important issues and care about it that's the environment we want to create and part of creation is how to design the right viruses, which become contagious. << jim >> [disease ecology... how to coordinate multiviral epidemics?] < Jon Peizer > If you're thinking of viral epidemics, it has to affect you personally. You have to get the disease... so the question is, how do it affect you personally? I've got my own problems, family problems, my communities, then a nation, then world problems. So how do you affect me personally and say 'this is something you should worry about; it impacts you' < ??? questioner > To me, there are certain people I respect and admire. And if they think something is important, it matters to me. Call it a brain virus, that makes you smarter... It's about making yourself feel better, it's about helping the world, being part of it. it's all about taking care of your own life. < Alex > This is something I've thought quite a bit about. To my mind, I have a very simple definition about what I hope we're trying to do. I think we live on a planet where there's a rate at which problems are getting worse, and a rate at which problems are being invented. If there's anything that's worthwhile, it's increasing the spread of these revolutions. < joi > How do you make sure this info is contagious? it's not just about distributing info. < Alex > That's true. I think one of the things hit on by Jonathan [Peizer] is, it's gotta hit home. there are numberous ways of doing that; to my mind it can really be summed up in 'how successful are we being at getting people to see home as a bigger place, and family as a more numerous group?' Are we getting to see where they live and who they live with? You talk to people in NY now, compared to 2000, there's a much greater emphasis on understand what's going on in the world. Events change people when they hit close to home. When you explain how things out there impact your own life, it makes a difference. It builds a system for changing people's perspectives on that. < ?? Questioner > I want to clarify the point of what we're trying to do. Jim said he was involved in some unsuccessful efforts, including being a part of the Dean campaign. I thought that was extremely successful! It's not about guaranteeing a win, but about being a player becoming a force. As joi was suggesting, whether high or low volume, you want to have influence I want to get a better handle on what we're talking about here critical mass where you take hundreds of thousands of voices operating at a level where no one hears. << Jim >> I certainly agree that I do think the dean campaign was a tremendous success... sitting behind you are Michael who ran meetup and Nico who was the webmaster... :-) I do regret it as a great success... it is amazing that the set of ideas embedded in that became a player, became big in the states. That said, it's also worth reflecting on the other side : I worry that we rujpet our success and then don't make the actual connection to the real world in Sudan, it's not enough simply to be a 'player' << ethan >> [trying to seize mike personally/ << jim >> [continuing amid chaos] : We don't have to change the whole world; if we just hit critical mass... it's also important to give ourselves credit here. << ethan >> I want to steer a bit. I'm just going to steer again 'casue I'm in the habit. I think it's a great reminder that a lot of things have started and don't have the same traction we'd like them to. One of the interesting things that's gone on today is we have people from a lot of different countries. I'd like to see us try to articulate, what's that common round. there's a joint project, that most if not all of us are invested right now. and that something has to do, with reaching out to a larger community... One way or another, we're trying to use this tech w=to creat a space that doesn't exist otherwise. I want to get us steered in that direction, but now I'm giving away the microphone, and I have no idea what's going to happen. < New questioner ??> Re: the dean campaign, there are a lot of us who identify with that community unless you make that identification with a group you don't normally identify with, you won't have any influence. Sudan is a great example of this. you can affect your own group, but it doesn't reach to the level of the decision makers b/c there isn't that kind of immediacy is that the group you'd like to reach with this manifesto? [11|16:30] << jim >> That's what *I'd* like to be able to do. I'd like to affect what people care about... << joi >> I think trying to get this manifesto to affect how the UN works, that's asking a lot. But if today we can get a manifesto which is spread widely which has thoughts in it regarding how to reach the outside... we need to break this inner species contagion thing. But I think our manifesto is only going to be readable to the techno-utopians. < jeff Jarvis > Being a tv critic, [I? tom?] may be a populist. On weblogs [he] may be raving about it. I really want to talk about faith in fellow man; goodness and wisdom and... if you don't believe in that you don't believe in democracy, free markets, a lot of other things. One of the fundamental beginnings : we just want to empower people to do what they want to do. Once you enable people to use these tools, The first step is to make them available, to the world and to the people and make sure there are no barriers to them. And then out of that, a common belief in democracy... that when you empower the people, when you do that which gives power to the citizens, you will win; if not you will lose. If you have faith in them, that's good. < joi > If you go too far, you become a technology determinist / free market libertarian. Saying 'just build the tools' is naive. How do we design what we're saying to have an effect on people's minds so they participate? < jj > I agree, but... when you're talking about the tools in the hands of individuals that's where the magic occurs. put these tools in the hands of citizens expect them to want this power... good things will come of it. That will also help them be heard. The Sudan genocide linked to people in the us in part because of the Christians there; you have to find links to communities for each issue. Think about how issues interconnect; revealing new interconnections people don't think about (for instance, through being consumers...) Sometimes by making invisible connections visible, that might be one path to doing what we're talking about. << jim >> To put those two together, 1) jim is talking about identifying these tools 2) but then there's also creating the linkage that bring people together (through them) << joi >> Just looking at tools here on irc, I agree that tools are political. So I want you to convince me : that if you give everyone these tools, they will use them. I go out and talk to people, and ask them what they do. They say, oh, I watch tv, I have a girlfriend... I doubt [that] if I gave them a pc and blog software they would use it. < jj > Let me go back to tv. when we only broadcast a few programs, that's what they watched. once we gave them more programs, they watched better programs we have to have faith in them to do good things, and give them the opportunity to do it. < ?? prev q about india group blogs > I really agree with that. Let people choose what they feel comfortable with [like non-individual blogging in India], and let them show what they will do with those tools. << joi >> I think we're agreeing. basically what I'm saying is that in addition to the technology, there is some kind of messaging... maybe we need to give people access to tv in addition to a blog tool maybe there needs to be a group of initially active people. depending on what you're trying to say, and the people you're trying to activate, it's not just about giving free accounts on [Typepad]. I want us to think about, what are the issues you're thinking about when you're promoting your issue, which I think you're saying : empowerment... when you turn to specific architecture of creating a campaign. < Ory > I just want to make the point, when you talk about tv, someone was creating the content. There has to be from point A to point B If I go to Kenya and talk about 'this is a great thing' people say "why? How does this effect organizing women?" There have to be people up and doing it already that makes sense. tools are not enough... < jim > what are those models like? [are they ... or catalytic human beings?] < ory > I think they're catalytic human beings. From my personal experience, two individuals taught me blogging. It was something... like a conversation. Then you get on and you start, you look at what other people are doing. The great thing about blogs is it empowers you to do whatever you want with it. There is something powerful about talking about what people really want. Once you categorize something, once you've categorized it as a concern, sure it affects the blogosphere as whole. Once you say christian, you can take it out of the blogosphere (people naturally start talking about it at their church, or print it in local christian papers)... inser4ting it in other parts of the world adds to this idea that what we're trying to do is create a mechanism to empower people who will otherwise be unempowered. << joi >> Now if I want to affect the UN, the way to do it is via formal submissions... not through other writing... The Int'l Landmine Treaty would not have happened without the internet; NGOs were able to lobby directly to get this done. It's not all about blogs and digital stuff. < pdx ?? > I wanted to riff briefly on space vs. place; this is important. Tools are about building the space, but then we have to invest it w2ith some sense of placeness. It's important when talking about global issues, b/c we're in the same physical space, we share a lot of things, a lot of culture. [16:45] Taking that next step to figure what is this place about, I think the idea of common ground is very strong. < ?? > [quick tangent into voting and politics] It seems to me what we really need are the votes - the threatened vote... the only people who do things are people running for election so we're talking about our vote. I've been seeking for a while to aggregate my intention: 'here's my values profile!' announcing it to the world, then we learn something about the collective values of this district. Every bill has its own value profile. If sen. Flemur finds out that 73% of his district is uninterested in his proposal... [he can act on that knowledge] See for instance seemyvote.com; abdicate the private ballot to show what people believe. < jim > like bottom polling? < jj > One thing that occurs to me, and joi has probably answered this before it's not all about a cause the loser matters (wants to talk) becoming a player matters but some of this is Iranian bloggers being able to write about sex; it's about being able to use this to do what you want to do. < ory > If you're writing or speaking about something you wouldn't already have done, b/c you have a blog... once you start blogging or reading, you have a tendency to start thinking and reading about things you wouldn't otherwise have done. it's like the exercise of free speech becomes the first political act. < David w > I don't know if this is helpful... but I'm a little concerned that the meme of "meme" may get in the way of what we want to do. memes and viruses are genetic material that gts passed from person to person... it doesn't get changed, it gets replicated. I don't think that's what we want, right? If we had that, then the world wouldn't be the way it is... both the issue and the joy is that we don't ... that our ideas always change as we get them into conversation. The whole aim of conversation is not to have a meme (but to constantly change ideas) but in fact a lot of the conversation so far has been about other stuff. Spatial metaphors, common ground... << jim >> [to David w] Give us one more loop, is there something we can grab hold of? < dw > That's just the thing, I can't! << ethan >> Can everyone get lots, lots more concrete? There are lots of people in this room wh have ideas they need to get out to a larger audience, and I think there are a lot of other people in this room who could help with that. < ?? alpha > On shame : It's like a roomful of psychologists... Thinking about new things in the content of shame: [reading/blogging about issues] gives people new ideas about what it means to be a moral person. There's a mythology part, about how we're connected to others, but there's another very internal part about how we can be good people. << jim >> Let's say somebody was trying to do something in the blog world, to move people.. how would they do that? < alpha > Who else wants the mike? ;) you can't just say who's a good person... [but you can make people think about it] << joi >> To be a bit more concrete.. We have a variety of eope who have skills in different mediums, different ways of coercing people to do stuff. You have to traverse a number of groups you can't just move from A to B in the blogosphere. What I'm talking about are these long paths you take from A to B, it depend on what the end result of that right thing" is. sometimes "coercion" is the end. We can convince a lot of people, but we can't get action b/c at the end of the day there are a lot of people with vested interests you have to go through to get to the end. Today, monopolies exist, assholes exist, there's a bunch of things you have to do. you can't just assume everyone is [interested in helping out once activated]... < Jon Peizer > Over the last 18 months [this is a preamble to being concrete], we've had a problem with mil vehicles not having armor. Many people have died, many more have become amputees. but it took one dogface to get up and ask th secretary 'why don't we have armor?' for this to become a federal case... [then] all of a sudden productivity changes... etc. [caused by just] One concept. So the media takes something compelling and makes a federal case of it. Another thing: 60 mins does a project on the prez's records in the mil. the docs turn out to be false. How do we know? B/c there are a whole bunch of fact-checking bloggers. Reporters who used to go to police stations now go to bloggers who do the footwork for them. Lots easier... Datamining for info and news. There's power here... in multiple bloggers getting together and discussing. The Question is : how can -- to deal with Darfour and Sudan, e.g. -- can the bloggers in this room get together and discuss this, knowing very well that the media is trolling this stuff, and it becomes an international media event b/c they're looking for stories too? < ?? > I tend to grossly oversimplify, but it seems to me that here today, sitting in this room, with all these incredibly smart people with the power to create anything, any tool , whatever, and the power to drive it to all those eyeballs... that we [should] make a commitment to putting what we're interested in on the wiki [URL?? not up until next week --Ed.], and commit to linking to eachother. That's where it's got to start. You've got to have a community to make changes... yeah, we're a little isolated, even in our projects. Someone could localize anything, really fast... if you can find someone to come translate those 400 words. [ [[m:Translation]] --Ed.] < joi > I think the point sj made, that lots of people going out and finding their friends to do a quick bit of work... [that this is a way to build a quick network] is really true, and we should expand our networks that way. < jim > ref back to bloggercon : We all agreed we would adopt a country. I adopted the Sudan b/c I had a tenuous connection to the civil rights issues there, and I got sucked in... and it became a very interesting story. < ?? > [This tangent] also connects [to] the "what's touching me, what's not touching me" idea [re: how to find links to different audiences, what to care about] [17:00] < joi > Global Voices? is that the name, for now? << ethan >> I would like this group of people who are interested in using blogs to make a difference, to have a sense of identity. I would like us to have a name, to have a mission... I apologize for slamming that, for being so blunt. But for me, I will be unhappy if we leave in half an hour, without a consensus that we should work together on at least some of these issues so we can take some of the energy that has been in this room today, and move forward. It's possible that some of us will continue interacting with one another. It would be nice to have a structure, framework, sense of identity; to [go work on something] not just because *I* need it [for my own projects], but because Jeff needs it, because Hoder needs it... because someone here [in this room] needs it. < jj > [to Ethan] What have you heard today? Get the ball rolling [for us] ... << ethan >> What ory said earlier, and what these guys said : * It's important not just to speak, but to get heard. Another thing I've heard is that: * Tools are fairly important. We need those tools to be relatively free, for people to be able to get them. * We also need to be able to turn to one another... I've heard a lot of other stuff today I'd love to see come out in this session. < jj > How many people love that? (~40% raise their hands) Anyone not like it? (no hands) That's sort of a democracy :) < journalist?? > Don't assume we're trolling [for content, for others to do legwork for us]; often we're not trolling; we're just busy. People often think of us as gatekeepers, barring the gates to idea. we're not; we're hungry for ideas! We're hoping to be part of this community. We're looking for things to write about. Right now the world we're talking about, traditional media is still immensely powerful. [and people shouldn't see them as a separate entity to struggle with] Anyone who wants my email... < RMack > Part of this bare minimum then, is we need to decide a bare minimum of structure we need to collaborate this. I've been in some groups where there's irc, and a wiki, and a blog... and it all peters out. Too many conversations going on, nobody knows where to go to have the conversation. We need to agree what tool we're going to use, how we'll establish this mechanism. So this loose affiliation can continue to have a real constructive conversation... < ?? > This seems to be a group that 1) believes in fee speech, first and foremost, both in including it and in extending it and making sure more people can articular their idea. And in the transformative power of exercising that. 2) believes in direct connection b/t people that allows ourselves to believe in a bigger "Here" and wider "Us", that the direct connection b/t people across boundaries and political lines is itself transformative, and brings change... 3) It seems to me that this is a group of planetary citizens... I bet we have 95% agreement on what we should be doing in this world... I think these issues are real, and most people here believe that what we're doing is something other than just fun, that we're doing this for a reason. That would be my summation in three parts. << joi >> I think everyone has a different mode that we're comfortable with... Hoder, can we continue to use this page right here? [pointing to Hoder's wiki: We should get everyone's name on a wiki, with their blogs and webpages, what they're good at, what they need help in get a draft of the manifesto.. I like mediawiki, since it lets you have a talk page for each page... you can discuss things there as a manifesto we can have an irc chan that's generally open so when you're sitting in the airport you can chat with other people we should have a group blog, a tag on delicious...some of the bridges on the media should say 'this is a really important email' I should put it on the blog and on the wiki. But I think that single media forms tend to known out people who don't like it... (mailing list) I think you should now and then read through the mailing list and pick up on this group. I suggest that as a starting point we leave with today. < ?z? > I have a practical and another point. Prac Point: successes I've had with groups and discussions have always been associated with a particular champion. Somebody's gotta do the heavy lifting. Probably one of the people from this group has to step up, seed it, get on people's cases, all of those unpleasant organizing things. << joi >> totally agreed. For free software projects like this, you have have to have a champion to get it started... once you have a champion, they can't quit until they find another champion! < ?? > Why not just go p2p, and go whack someone if they don't do what they say they were going to. < original ?z? > Other Point: I think we should be cognizant that there is a lot of agreement here that might not be shared with other people, and we should be sure that we are really open here... that we aren't just ignoring those who disagree with our preconceived notions. < ??? > I'm just gonna... I'm not a techno-utopian. I'm here with our CTO and from LA. Coming from the biz world, the more simplistic non-tech world that I do Some things stand out to me, because it seems everybody really is on the same wavelength. What is the true goal? Everyone understands the power of blogs, that they 're useful for communicating with others. We agree we need to get more people into the blogosphere. Shouldn't one of the main goals be, to simplify the ability to create a blog? It's one of the biggest problems that is out there (being a non-technical person) I just set up 12 blogs for my customers. I learnt CSS coding, HTML... it took me a day just to learn bare-bones CSS. I spent days on this... there's no way you will get any percentage of the population to create a blog, unless it's a couple clicks [ed: hmm, we already have millions of them...] It should be so simple that you don't have to do anything but a few clicks, and it's just plug and play. It needs to be simplified to a ridiculous degree; even creating devices that can just do blogs (cf. Dan Gillmor's content earlier today) The very people we're taking about, are not even blogging (cf Sudan) Concrete : simplify the product, get it so everyone can get on. Then work on reducing the 90% of crap [content], as we discussed yesterday. [filtering systems, Frassle, move those things forward] Then obviously you can have a bigger discussion... << jim >> Specific response, then we can move on. I want to say that, for instance, Typepad is really straightforward, and so is Microsoft space. And I think dan gillmor's thoughts and other people's thoughts about specific devices is true. On the Sudan thing... it's Janice's idea that there should be something up here it's the green ribbon thing: we've been trying to launch a digital green ribbon campaign... it's nontrivial but its' doable. the majority of orgs in Sudan use sat phones, it's difficult, but you could more easily do things like that in Kenya [for instance...] [11|17:15] << joi >> I think we should work on finding consensus here first, since we do have a lot of diversity. We should reach common ground, pick up space; 'cause we can grow this thing, but we need to have a veyr high lev of commitment. We need to focus on what we can agree on that will get us marking[?]. << jim >> joi, I agree; but I want to say, I think we have a kind of emergent set of principles. And I like the idea of a multitool /well/ that we all come to. In terms of the sort of strong leader that, erm, Ethan seems poised to do -- It feels like we're very close here... one model I like: I like Janice's idea that people say what they're caring about now. << ethan >> I want to jump in here. Two more comments, then I'll take the mike back... < ?? > q: on thing we're talking about on irc : I'm moving to Mexico, I want to be a very active bridge blogger b/t Mexico and the US. And I'd be very interested in knowing what berkman is doing with other institutions around the us. < Jerzy > It would be interesting if some of the bloggers here could suggest ideas for people in other countries. For instance Jeremy was suggesting he wants to go to blog about Belarus - how do you decide to do something like that? We would need someone to write an introduction to "what is blogging"... << ethan >> There are an amazing number of new ideas that are floating about (good ideas) e.g., bloggercorps... I think this points to two things, one of which is really good, and one of which is really bad. The really good is there is alt least a dozen things in this discussion that we could do: tools, making them free, email and airplanes... pairing bloggers with one another... aggregators of bridge blogs. The Q [and the really bad thing?] is whether we're going to do them. [or how we choose?] < (Liza Sabater) > There are people already doing this... it's just a question of letting people know that we're doing it. There's already people doing this : Blogger corps, David has a project over there, I have one over here. It's just a matter of letting everyone know what is available that they can participate in. < joi > Can I ask a question about this? I don't mean to sound like ICANN here, but: Is there some commonality among these groups that requires a new group to be formed? Do we all want to join one group? << ethan >> My hope, in having everyone in one place, is to develop some identity. What I'm looking for is a conceptual commitment, that we're working on this together. I agree on practical terms, we're going to have a site that points to a bunch of initiatives. All I'm looking for, and it's very simple, is frankly a sense, and a name to go with it, that we're all working together on things that are to one degree or another related to it. I think in a literal sense a name is tremendously important. if we can decide together that we're all 'bridge bloggers' or that we're all 'global voices'... < sj > I want to suggest a unilateral American alternative to debating about the name -- something anyone can do is create the site associating people and projects with this idea. Then people can debate over the name. The debate over the name should be secondary to having the site/data in one place... < jim > It would help to know "Why"... if you could justify the work that we're doing today, in the context of things that are important. << ethan >> Are you asking me to justify this whole day? I would hope that your work in Sudan would benefit from knowing more about tools... < jim > Yes... < jj > I think we agree that we're not all going to walk out of here and do the same [coordinated] thing. But we all want similar overall progress to be made. What I wanted to see was a particular blog tool... I talked to a bunch of people about it, and they did nothing. Right now, Rebecca has a good idea, and it goes out in to the ether, and nobody knows how to pick it up. < joi > Personally, the diversity of this group is more intense than anything I've had at this level of participation. We've got Hoder, ohmynews, social networks, business... I think if we can move forward, we will have a much greater impact than you usually get from group discussions like this. So what I want to find is some common theme that we can all agree on to help us move forward. The other thing is we have to build capital in this entity/association. When we write about it, we want to say 'this was thanks to global voices'; We want to be able to say we associate with it... we want people to write about our work. ... << ethan >> I think we should say that we're definitely pre-manifesto and work on it... I think there is a set of common ground I think there is a common mission statement whether we want to take Alex's four statements, or work out a mission statement down the line... what matters is the practical side, and really working on it. < jj > I think the way to do this is on the wiki. Put up your version and we'll do it. < ?? > distributed mindshare... I could spend a long time trying to reach a certain audience; I can reach out to Hoder and he can do it in a matter of minutes. < ??? > I don't know anyone here very well, so they can reach out to lots of people I don't know at all. Think of this as hypothetical, even if it's not: I was just in Cairo talking on the street to 50 people even there, Darfour, Sudan, nobody in cairo thinks there are human rights violations going on (in Sudan). Who knows people in cairo? media, bloggers? They could write about this and boom, change this in a week, a day, an hour! < ??-2 > [a] perfect example. < ?? > This is going to require volunteers, people to sign up for things... A way to accept donations awareness, the bloggers piece, tell the world about it... sharing contacts. We are saying we're kind of the representatives of blogs; we need the ebays of the world, the Linked-Ins of the world. If we're going to do this, let's really do it, not just make a little thing about it, but say it's the "I Internet specialty group". [11|17:30] < Jon Peizer > Let me actually come down [to say this]. Here I am. I'm going to represent OSI as a funder for a moment. I'm sitting at a conference, and watching people from all over the world who are representing the new media -- people on the cutting edge who are going to present real, more democratic ways of presenting news. I hear people talking together about what they're going got do. As a funder, if I was thinking about catalyzing this, I haven't heard an idea about what I should do. As a funder who is interested in supporting progressive movements, would be interested enough to go and make an investment. < Hoder > Present another impact? to Iran... < joi > I don't think we'll convert all of you. It won't be that contagious. But if we put a manifesto together, we put a page up, we get something going, and we have something to start with... We can come back to you and say we now have a mission, we have a vision, we have people on the ground in Iran and ?? and wherever. Then we'll have something real to talk about. And maybe we can capitalize on shame and say, "let's get together in a year, for a day or so," and we'll all make excuses about how we're not going to be able to come... but we'll be there. < jj > As I say at ??, 'take the sale!' We all have agreement. < RMack > I think one of the things you said is right. that too much of the tools development has been by people who live in dev countries not in Africa. one of the things we can decide is down in the grass roots let's get the ideas out there... the blogging tools we're trying to push on them doesn't work with pcs and how would they like to communicate? how can we adapt the tech to better work with what ordinary people there who want a voice need? in a way, having submeetings, and having people become channels to bring that info t developers, how to find us: google "global voices" ! anybody who's signed up as an author can post. once you have the authority, you're good to go forever. thanks all! GOOD NIGHT. :)