apture

Personal Democracy Forum (PDF), the largest conference covering the intersection of government and politics, drew about 1,000 people to New York this week for its sixth annual gathering. There were lots of highlights, so I'm just decided to award a few superlatives, but I encourage you to check out the techPresident blog and others for more highlights.

 
Most popular government representative: Vivek Kundra
With about 80% of the attendees identifying themselves as Democrats, it's no surprise that the many Obama campaign and administration representatives should be well-received, but the real rockstar was the White House CIO, who used his time at the podium for a demo of http://www.usaspending.gov/. The new dashboard displays how more than $70 billion tax dollars are being spent on IT projects by the major government agencies. Kundra, who received a standing ovation, said a blog will be up in the next couple of weeks, so users are invited to provide feedback as they continue to improve the beta site. What a cool example of how web 2.0 technology can be used to facilitate more transparency, accountability and collaborative problem-solving in the U.S. government. As Decker Ngongang of Generation Engage pointed out, it could be interesting to see nonprofits use this model to show how their donor dollars are being spent.

 

Coolest technology demo: Apture

The Apture folks showed how their FREE tool can enhance blog posts and articles by allowing you to add background videos, articles, photos and the like, so readers can access more information without following links away from your site. See an example of how the World Wildlife Fund is using the tool.

 

Most likely to be flooded with new speaking requests: Michael Wesch
I heard him speak at the National Geographic Explorers Symposium a few weeks ago, so I knew the PDF crowd was in for a treat, but his standing ovation (the largest one, and the only one given besides that for Kundra) demonstrated his ability to speak to the larger cultural impacts of social media. A cultural anthropologist and media ecologist at Kansas State University, Wesch gave an amazing presentation entitled "The Machine is (Changing) Us: YouTube Culture and the Politics of Authenticity." He talked about what he and his students have discovered about vlogging, and people's attempts to connect without constraints via YouTube. I also particularly appreciated his analysis of the progression of "whatever" from a 1960s "I don't care. Whatever you think," to a 1990s "Whatever, I don't care what you think," and his call to move the meaning of the word to "I care. Let's do whatever it takes...by whatever means necessary."

 

Best take-away for online organizing: Don't neglect the offline element
I was reminded a few times, that online organizing is not really an end in itself, it's a tool we should be using to get people connected and active offline. In the "Twitter as a Platform for #Organizing and #Fundraising" panel, Allison Fine and Amanda Rose gave examples of how Twitter was a powerful tool to mobilize people for offline events. Allison Fine discussed the Twitter Vote Report campaign during which voters could help others stay informed about how election day was going, what problems were cropping up, and what was happening on the ground. Amanda Rose explained how Twestival came about, and how 10,000 people gathered offline in 200 cities to raise $250,000. She also mentioned that registration opened this week for Twestival local, a second iteration of the fundraiser taking place on September 12 and allowing each city to designate their own local beneficiary. The idea that we can't neglect the offline piece of organizing was reiterated by Joe Rospars of the Obama Campaign. He said the widely celebrated new media components of the campaign were always linked to offline activities and were never seen as a replacement for traditional methods.

 

Most active tweeter: @abenamer

Thanks to Twitterslurp, the PDF participants were able to watch the twitterfeed in realtime as the speakers gave their presentations. It also created a bit of a competition as prolific tweeters climbed the "Most Tweets" sidebar, but in the end, @abenamer pulled far and away with more than 500 tweets over two days.

 

That just scratches the surface of some of the good stuff coming out of PDF this year. For more takeaways, videos and more than 19,000 tweets covering the two-day conference, visit the PDF Twitterslurp page and the media page.