live blogging

Thanks to a free box lunch and a water fountain, my blood sugar is back up and I'm ready to be a reporter. Forum is starting now -- I'm not in the main room, but am watching on a huge screen in the press pool. (They just named Case Foundation as a sponsor -- can we get a woot woot!)

It's just preliminary remarks right now, so I'm going to give you the coveted info for watching it live on SN-TV. ServiceNation is working with Kyte to stream the event, so don't just take my word for it -- watch it for yourself! (All instructions are at the bottom of the page.)

 

What's a national service event without a little SC POV? No fears, I haven't forgotten about you -- it's just that I've only been in the city for three hours, and it's a whirlwind (literally and figuratively -- oh, those NYC cabs.)

Here's what's happened so far: Read more »

Days of action take a lot of work and coordination. So do forums and summits. And movements ... well, we can't even cover all that in a blog post.

But take each of these elements one day, one person, one activity at a time, and you might just create something huge. That's the cumulative effect of ServiceNation, a campaign amibitously designed to "enact a new era of service and citizenship in America ... in which all Americans will work together to try and solve our greatest and most persistent societal challenges."

And they really do mean ALL Americans -- from the presidential candidates who will kick off the ServiceNation Summit on the anniversary of 9/11; to the 500 business, nonprofit, and government leaders convening there; to the countless community members participating in the national Day of Action on Sept. 27; to the most important participant of all ... YOU. Read more »

Amazing set of speakers at the plenary this morning at PDF.

Doug Rushkoff, the author of Open Source Democracy, opened the session. He gave a passionate denunciation of the oxymoron of putting the ideas of “personal” and “democracy” together. Going back to the origins of the notion of the individual in the Renaissance, Rushkoff explained that the rights of the individual reduce a sense of community and inevitably to more centralized, and powerful, government. Read more »

Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post gave a typically candid and sassy talk. I’ll summarize her pointed jab at the mainstream media: Read more »

Kari and I are at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City today and tomorrow.

You can see a live stream of the happenings here.

We’ve seen a few fascinating presentations this morning. We saw a demo of Linkfluence, neat spirographs of communities of bloggers through links between blogs.

Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake was a great example of how a blogger can taken an issue (hers was the Valerie Plame affair), run with it, and build up a following. However, I questioned her “actions” boiling down to taking ads out in newspapers. It’s very MoveOn.org. Is that the best we can do, take online passions, and take it to on land media?

Then Patrick Ruffini spoke (he’s a conservative blogger). He said, “A small networked group beats a large atomized group any day of the week.” Interesting — but I wonder when those small groups become impenetrable cliques?

Interesting stuff, more to come!