After reading about a homeless avatar begging in Second Life (Thanks, Hamlet Au , SL Insider, and my friend Tony) I decided to pop into SL to check it out. I tracked down the resident named "MensajeroDeLaPaz Jubilee" and got a TP to his location, appropriately enough, right in front of one of the NBC-sponsored…
Category: Civil Society
My post on “Our Common Humanity” blog
I was invited to contribute to a new blog associated with a UN-affiliated meeting on "Our Common Humanity" taking place from November 28-29 in New York. I decided to do a general "best practices" post pointing to innovative uses of ICTs to promote positive social change, including some of my favorites like WITNESS, Global Voices…
Returning to the virtual Camp Darfur
During the talk that In Kenzo and I gave at RootsCamp on SL political organizing last week, In Kenzo brought up that she and a team of other volunteers had been working very hard over the past months to create the virtual Camp Darfur as an awareness raising and politicizing tool. I realized that I…
But do you REALLY want to work for an NGO?
Me with the WFM staff in 2001 A friend invited me to speak last week to a group of students interested in careers in International Relations at St Johns University in Queens. I have done these sorts of talks a number of times and it’s always both invigorating running into young people interested in social…
Pics and transcript from talk on SL political organizing
Tonight In Kenzo and I gave a little talk on the subject of Second Life political organizing and awareness raising. We had a small but very engaged group of a dozen or so progressive activists participating in "RootsCamp," a weeklong series of discussions on the fallout from the recent US elections. What follows is a…
Off to lefty camp with In Kenzo: today at 3pm PST!
Just a quick reminder that the lovely and talented In Kenzo and I will be presenting on the subject of Second Life political organizing and awareness raising campaigns at 3PM SLT / 6PM EST on Better World Island (direct SLURL). Part of a weeklong series of in-world meetings of progressive activists called "RootsCamp," I’m excited…
RootCamps in SL line-up for the coming week
The Second Life version of RootsCamp has quickly taken shape in the past day or so, with several exciting sessions coming together. RootsCamps are informal real world gatherings for progressive (mostly) American activists and organizers to discuss the results of the recent elections and start planning for the 2008 Presidential election. From what was only…
NetRoots: progressive avatars plot regime change
For folks on the lefty-side of the political spectrum, there’s a virtual space for gathering with other organizers and activists in Second Life at RootsCamp on Better World Island. Here’s how they describe it: RootsCamps are 2006 post-election debriefs. Progressives — everyone from the "netroots" to precinct captains to field organizers to national message consultants…
My Mission: Arming Ewoks with light sabers
Sitting in an ouzo bar late at night in Athens last Friday, I got asked by a colleague out-of-the-blue what my "vision" was. Never an easy question to answer whether enebriated or not (I wasn’t.) I think I replied something along the lines of, "Hey, how about that Acropolis!" Sitting on the subway this morning,…
My talk on e-democracy and the IGF
I prepared a statement for the panel on "Internet Governance for Participation," which I just finished speaking at. Time was running short, so I gave the abridged version of this session. Here’s the complete presentation, which is entitled “Top-down, Middle Layer and Bottom-up e-Democracy”…