I've long been a big fan of Douglas Rushkoff. In this keynote "invocation," (courtesy of BlipTV, 8 mins) which opened the second day of the Personal Democracy Forum on June 24, 2008, he argues that there is no such thing as "personal democracy" and genuine democratic discourse can only be participatory and collective. The power to write and publish, he notes, may finally be in the hands of everyone (after centuries of domination by religious and political elites), but real democracy isn't just blogging and commenting, it's treating the entire world as "open source" and remakable by direct participation.

I met with Jon Husband this morning to begin to figure out the technical requirements for the W2 Community Media Arts Centre project. In many ways this centre exemplifies the type of project that I'm most comfortable with - a coalition of community groups working together to provide social space with a strong technology component. Politically it's an interesting space to be in, given my support for and involvement with the Woodsquat and what that site is now turning into.