Full Circle Associates

Jon Lebkowsky sent out this release today about the cool set of panels he and others are organizing for SXSW in March. If this is of interest to you, and you plan to be in Austin, let us know as there will also be a gathering the day after to really dig into the subjects. There are some very cool people who I am really looking forward to hanging with.

Activist Technology/SXSW Press Release

Scheduled March 11-15 in Austin, TX, the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival brings together leading innovators in the new media industry. Part of the 2005 program for SXSW Interactive is a mini-track of sessions that explore the relationship of technology to democracy and advocacy. This mini-track was created by Activist Technology (http://activist-tech.org), a loose coalition of technologists and activists who have been thinking and talking about political applications of technology since the Dean presidential campaign, and some well before that. Working with SXSW Interactive, the group has conceptualized a set of sessions that will explore how activists and developers can work together, and how the Internet offers a platform for activist collaboration and democratic evolution.

"Do blogs really have a democratizing effect? Are we just creating mobs with better tools, or are we facilitating a collective intelligence where the whole will be much smarter than any of its parts? Are we seeing a new kind of politics? Or will political technology be co-opted and controlled for business as usual? We have ideas, but we don't really know," says Jon Lebkowsky, one of the coordinators of these sessions. "We'll offer some ideas, and we're eager to hear feedback from the people who join us."

The sessions, sponsored by e-Volve Foundation and Andy Rappaport, are:

March 14
· How to Create Activist Technology (5:00-6:00)

March 15
· Deliberative Democracy and Interactive Technology (10:00-11:00)
· Are Political Parties Obsolete? (11:30-12:30)
· How to Think About Democracy and Technology (3:30-4:30)

Speakers include:
· Amalia Anderson - League of Rural Voters
· Tom Atlee , author of The Tao of Democracy
· Ren Bucholz - EFF
· Christian Crumlish , author of The Power of Many
· Kaliya Hamlin, Identity Commons, Planetwork, and Integrative Activism
· Aldon Hynes - Center for Investigative Online Research
· Jon Lebkowsky, Polycot
· Rebecca MacKinnon - Berkman Center for Internet & Society
· Jerry Michalski , Sociate
· Jed Miller , ACLU
· Kathy Mitchell , Consumer Union
· Andy Rappaport , August Capital
· Mitch Ratcliffe - Internet/Media Strategies Inc.
· Dan Robinson - E-Volve
· Erin Rogers - Union of Concerned Scientists
· Shabbir Safdar - Mindshare Interactive Campaigns
· Glenn Smith , Drive Democracy, author of The Politics of Deceit
· Lars Torres , AmericaSpeaks
· Nancy White , Full Circle
· Ethan Zuckerman - Berkman Center for Internet and Society

For more information about the Activist Technology group, see http://www.activist-tech.org or email info@activist-tech.org. The registration fee to attend the SXSW Interactive Festival is $275. Register online at www.sxsw.com."For more information about the SXSW Interactive Festival, see http://www.sxsw.com/ or e-mail inter@sxsw.com