http://www.confabb.com/conferences/index Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:12:30 GMT Attendee Reviews of Personal Democracy Forum 2008 http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews Excellent across the board - kudos to Andrew and Micah and team. Special thanks to providing Larry Lessig with a forum for his exceptional call to action for ChangeCongress. Also, a very good call on going to 2 days, and theming one about the electoral process and one about governing. Lets see more next year on progress on sunlighting government and creating participation, as well as a similar focus on sunlighting the electoral process and increasing participation there as well. -- John Sebes Open Source Digital Voting Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:12:30 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#401 John Sebes http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews Jonathan is not to be missed. Funny, insightful and extremely provocative Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:19:43 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#400 Salim Ismail http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews Micah and Andrew really nailed it with this one. Not often I get my head spun, but here it spun a bunch of times. Some amazing presentations Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:17:56 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#399 Salim Ismail http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews I hope you all do it again next year. The content and level of speakers was, overall, very impressive. There were some hits and misses, but that is always the case. Overall, a very good two days. Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:19:20 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#398 Lisa McAvoy http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews Hi, I would say that the content of most of first day speeches were too vague. I had the impression that trying to cover too many topics, nothing was treated with relevant depth. The second day was different, and most of the conferences added value and substance. The "Community" functionality through the site platform was not particulary great as most of the people didn't update their profiles. Best, Ricardo Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:09:50 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#397 Ricardo Amado Castillo http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews The conference attendees, speakers, panelists, and moderators were great. So A+ for people! The venue was a bit lacking - great for a speaker or a concert, but not for a two-day event. Definitely not enough power (many were driven to the back of the room) for a tech conference, and the video policy / usher police did not inspire a participatory feeling. Speaking of participation, my main critique is that the conference was not nearly participatory enough. The live question app was underutilized by participants but even moreso by moderators, and the conversion to the twitter backchannel capitalized on a tech in heavy use, but was also underutilized by moderators. Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:55:45 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#396 Eric Grant http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews Thanks - I enjoyed the event. Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:46:23 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#395 Sarah Granger http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews This conference was put together thoughtfully, with a good balance of plenary and breakout sessions. The speakers were insightful, as were the attendees. The organizers clearly really cared about how the conference was going, were flexible, willing to experiment, and excited to highlight new technologies. What more can we ask for? Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:29:22 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#393 Vanessa Scanfeld http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews Wish we had more time! Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:09:58 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#392 Lou Klepner http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews I love this kind of analysis. Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:07:24 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#391 Katherine Watier http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews so, as a Brit, I was unaware of Elizabeth, and to a part, her husband, John Edwards, but was blown away by such a cool lady exhibiting great awareness of the social Web, in particular her musings on celebrity and Facebook, and all this over a flaky Skype video connection. Fun when John came home to face 1000+ people in his living room. Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:17:56 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#390 Mr Paul Downey http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews I'm a dork. After studying Lessig in school, it's great to see him live. Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:25:59 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#388 Katherine Watier http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews Coming over all the way from Germany was a good thing. Great networking great presentations and discussions! Will be here again next year. Would love more content that reflects on what is happening outside the US internationally. ;-) Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:43:22 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#394 Mr. Oliver Zeisberger http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews Thought-provoking, hilarious, and right on. Awesome talk. Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:55:37 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#387 Marco Pardi http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews Really interesting discussion, but would have been better with more slides Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:43:17 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#386 Salim Ismail http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews great talk, great presentation Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:25:17 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#385 Jon Mandell http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews presented an interesting challenge to replace industrial language with empowerment language when discussing the (potential) power of the internet. i hadn't thought about the industrial "extraction" culture filtering in to the online universe, but it's true that it has. it may be partly semantic, but also reflects the way we think - so thanks for pointing it out. Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:01:00 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#389 Vanessa Scanfeld http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews Half way through, I am very satisfied. Definitely worth the money and travel just for day one alone :-) Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:01:05 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#384 Ken Laureys http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews This was a good review of openness issues and the actions of corporate gatekeepers to keep out competitive services and devices. Not sure what Hodder added, aside from the entertainment of finding out that she did indeed have photos of herself on the Internet. Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:29:33 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#381 Mr. John Breyault http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews Anthony presented a number of ways of showing and tracking how blog posts ripple through the blogosphere visually. In particular, a post by Jeff Jarvis rippled right through really fast. Very cool stuff! Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:58:47 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#383 Salim Ismail http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews This was the most thought provoking and inspiring session, as it became clear just how much work there is to do on making governmental and democratic practices open, timely, and honest. I came away feeling very motivated, and enjoyed most of the speakers here. My only complaint would be that Catalist's section of the talk felt more like an advertisement, or at the least an unnecessary lesson on how to use their software, than a talk. Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:46:48 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#382 Eric Mill http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews Really liked the tone of her talk. It will be all too easy for us to get lost in dataset and visualization forgetting the meaning of metrics. A great speaker, and I look forward to reading more of her thoughts online and in any books she's written. Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:41:38 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#378 Mr. Jordan Schroder http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews Humor, insight and not scared of saying what's so... loved it. So goddamn refreshing Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:09:32 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#380 Salim Ismail http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews at least the 2 sides agree, internet good for democracy Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:59:56 GMT http://www.confabb.com/conferences/60420-personal-democracy-forum-2008/reviews#379 Jon Mandell