[okfn-discuss] open knowledge event this autumn: proposal

Tue Jul 11 06:16:22 UTC 2006

Hi Jo, Rufus, Julian, all..

On Sun, Jul 09, 2006 at 08:15:43PM -0700, Jo Walsh wrote:
> Sorry it's taken me so long to respond to this thread. Please count me
> in! I'm planning to be in Europe from early September to early
> October. So i'm a bit cut off from "the scene" but i'd like to do what
> i can to help. I'd be up for organising another open geodata stream,
> or something beyond that. 

That would be great. The Geodata panel was *excellent* last time. Has
Volker Grassmuck asked you about Wizards of OS? I know he's planning a
geodata stream there... and I recommended that he ask you about it.
Perhaps if he's flying people over, we can poach a few if we schedule
carefully.

> It would be great to get something running with publicwhip, with
> mysociety (who are doing increasingly mapping oriented work). I would
> like to meet more librarians. I don't hear much bbc backstage buzz
> from so far away, but I think they're still doing solid stuff? 

Librarians ++ - a good idea, and yes, the link-ups between access to
public information / democratic leverage is a good idea.

> I like 2 days, if that's possible, with the same group of people. +1
> on trying to keep it very practical. Now and then i talk to cliques in
> Boston and New York about doing a geospatial-themed version of something
> like this, but in a climate of a lot more access to data to start
> with. http://whereweare.net/Parallel_Streams was the initial general idea.
> Talks in the mornings, practical hacking sessions in the afternoon,
> demoparty in the evenings. 

I think whereweare is a lovely plan. Although I agree with you Rufus that
we should be open to many different practical and impractical ;)
approaches - we need some kind of binding story to sell.

Last year this was FII - which, in my opinion is partly defined by the
way it obviates litigious concerns. This was therefore a little
exclusive of projects that concentrated on licensing frameworks. I'm
still skeptical about these, but I agree that it's important to include
them to build a full picture of 'the movement' ;)

Perhaps a better binding principle would be an inclusive one - which I
think the geodata debate has become. It does seem to bind and underpin
many of the other streams. Perhaps that could be the story within which
all the other 'streams' are brought together.

> Would we still be able to use Limehouse Town Hall? 

Limehouse is being used on the weekend of the 15th, 16th and 17th for the
clearerchannel.org activist online video distribution festie. It would
be useful to set dates really really soon and make sure we've got
support from other Limehouse people.

> What do we do next? :)

Design a programme and do it. I'm not sure I can offer to help organise
much at all though.. since I'm already helping with the clearerchannel
event. I'd prefer a smaller programme with less funding-kerfuffle than
last year, focus on quality, in-depth discussion, fewer presenters, more
open space, better planning ;).

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