[okfn-discuss] OKCon 2008

[Rufus Pollock]

> Hello,
> 
> Apologies for the delays in getting a second iteration of the OKCon 2008 
> draft announce out! I've included it inline below.

No problem and thanks for doing it. This looks a massive improvement and 
getting very close to something we can send (which we should do asap 
...) Comments below.

[snip]

~rufus

> Subject: OKCon 2008: London School of Economics, 15th March 2008
> 
> # OKCon 2008 - 'Applications and Services'

'Open Knowledge: Applications, Tools and Services'

> # London School of Economics

where: ...

> # 15th March 2008
> # home: <http://www.okfn.org/okcon/>

www: ...

Do we need a register item right now? I think we can leave this and put 
up registration system later (we have to work out whether we charge and 
how much etc)

> # wiki: <http://www.okfn.org/wiki/okcon2008/>


Would have intro para on general background (o/w this all comes out of 
leftfield). Here's a first stab -- I'm sure it can be improved:

Following a successful inaugral event last year the Open Knowledge 
Conference (OKCon) is back in March 2008 with more on the subject of 
open data, open content and open information generally. 'Open' here 
means material which you are free for others to use, reuse and 
redistribute without restriction and knowledge is taken broadly to 
include everything from sonnets to statistics, genes to geodata.

> In the past few years we've witnessed the rise of web-based services - 
> from social networking sites to online spreadsheet packages. While we 
> have definitions for open software and open knowledge, what is an open 
> service? What kinds of new services can be built using open knowledge?

I think this para is great but should be move down so you start with the 
next one.

> We've seen the growth of successful open knowledge projects - from peer 
> reviewed journals to community edited encyclopaedias - but what impact 
> can open licensing have in education, research and commerce? Does open 
> licensing have benefits for researchers? Is sharing the key to scaling? 
> What kinds of business models are available to open knowledge 
> distributors? How is open knowledge applied in different institutional 
> and professional contexts?
> 
> There now exists a vast amount of open content and data. What tools are 
> avaiable to analyse and represent this wealth of material? How can we 
> sort, search, store it to increase its availability and visibility?

I'd put services item here.

> The second Open Knowledge conference will bring together individuals and 
> groups from across the open knowledge spectrum for a day of seminars and 
> workshops around the theme of 'Applications and Services'. Three main 
> sessions will focus on 'Transport and Environment', 'Visualization and 
> Analysis' and 'Education'.

I'd mod last one to Education and Academia so we have more flexibility.

> We are currently welcoming submissions and suggestions. If you are 
> interested in giving a paper, facilitating or otherwise helping out, 
> please contact info [at] okfn [dot] org. Early registration is 
> encouraged as space is limited!

Great.