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…
Category: Politics
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,…
Save State of Play IV!
Just got a message from some of the organizers of the conference "State of Play IV" scheduled for January 7-9, 2007 in Singapore that they are in dire need of additional sponsors for the event. Organized by Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, New York Law School, Trinity University, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore,…
Chinese rep: “we don’t have software blocking Internet sites.”
Yesterday, during the "openness" session at the Internet Governance Forum, there was a fascinating interchange among the panelists, the audience, and finally a member of the Chinese government delegation on the question of Chinese censorship of the Internet. The controversy kicked off with a representative of Rapporteurs Sans Frontieres, a group legendary for their media-stealing…
Survey of recent e-consultations
As I prepare my remarks for the Internet Governance Forum next week, I’m interested in what can be learned from recent ICT-enabled consultations that have taken place around different political processes. Here are a few notable ones: Minnesota just finished an interesting multi-modal e-debate among all six candidates for governor A joint US/Canadian consultation took…
First gubernatorial e-debate in Minnesota
e-Democracy guru Steven Clift has done it again, organizing the first gubernatorial e-debate in Minnesota. His site smoothly brings together streaming videos posted by each of the candidates, daily blog posts and rebuttals, RSS feeds, flickr photos, and email updates. Taking place from October 9-19, several issues important to Minnesotans have already been debated, including…
Your tax dollars at work: US government regulation of virtual worlds
Reuters (now with their own Second Life Bureau desk!) reports that the US Congress is considering how virtual economies such as those within Second Life and World of Warcraft interact with US tax code. According to federal economist Dan Miller: Right now we’re at the preliminary stages of looking at the issue and what kind…
Thoughts on strategic uses of virtual environments for the UN
Recently I was contacted by the programme officer of a UN agency for advice on how they could best use the virtual world of Second Life to promote their organization’s goals. As an activist with more than ten years of experience with various international campaigns and coalitions at the United Nations, and an active Second…