I just finished facilitating a session on creative online advocacy at the ConvergeSouth Conference in Greensboro.
We had a wonderful discussion touching on how blogs and other online tools are impacting the world. Since I was facilitating, I didn’t get to take notes, but I hope some of the participants will add their thoughts in the comments of this post.
Here are the blogs of the awesome participants from this session:
Ed Cone just announced that Hoder was held up by U.S. immigration for two days and was ultimately not allowed into the country, and therefore will not be here at the ConvergeSouth conference. Ed suggests we visit Hoder’s blog and tell him how much we missed him.
I suggest we visit the Department of Homeland Security and tell them how much they are doing to stifle the free speech and democracy they are supposed to be protecting with their totalitarian policies.
Currently in the session “Adding more voices to the conversation” at the ConvergeSouth conference.
Our panelists:
It looks like the ConvergeSouth Conference is yet another Internet conference without Internet access. 🙁
(This is being posted from my phone.)
Hoder‘s blog has already had a profound impact on Iranian politics and global understanding of middle eastern issues. And now he’s podcasting, too!
“During the last two or three years, Iranian blogging has flourished,” says Hadi Ghaemi, a native Iranian who now works for Human Rights Watch in New York City.
“In fact, blogging has become the main medium for information, new, analysis and exchange of information for Iranians, both inside and outside the country.”
– BBC NEWS | Technology | Persian blogging round the globe
Hoder and many, many other blog luminaries will be at the Converge South conference in Greensboro tomorrow and Saturday. Hope to see you there.
Operation Eden is the blog of professional photographer Clayton Cubitt from Slidell, LA, which is just across Lake Ponchartrain from New Orleans. He went down to help his mother recover after Hurricane Katrina and has taken some incredibly intense and beautiful pictures along the way, especially of the faces of the survivors there.
Tomorrow Brian and I will be attending the first of three weddings in as many weeks! (We are also attending at least three more weddings in the spring of 2006, not counting our own.) It’s a great thing to see so many of my friends falling in love with wonderful people.
First stop: Will and Shannon, who will get married at his family’s farm which hosts a corn maze! Will and Shannon are so cool that in their gift registry they included a suggestion to give to organizations promoting the freedom of same-sex couples to marry (which I did). This is such a good idea, we may have to borrow it for our wedding as well.
Today I’ll be keeping one ear tuned to the Duke Podcasting Symposium, billed as the first-ever academic symposium to address the topic.
Get yer red, hot (and free) tickets for Converge South, October 7 & 8.
A group of Greensboro volunteers recently announced that Greensboro has organized to host the inaugural year’s edition of ConvergeSouth, the South’s first free conference focused on moving North Carolina toward breakthroughs in creativity and diversity on the Internet. Exploring the digital revolution in publishing and expression, ConvergeSouth focuses on radical digital publishing and entertainment.
I’ll be speaking about OrangePolitics.org at a Friday session, and on Saturday morning I will lead a session on Online advocacy. (And then I will be taking off to attend an old friend’s wedding in Chapel Hill, oops!) Our activism session will go a little something like this:
![[peace balloons]](http://static.flickr.com/32/46546577_7e76fd0596_t.jpg)
Here are some great photos of the anti-war march on Saturday by Philly blogger Albert Yee. Look for Brian and me in the there, next to the brilliant Dr. Cornel West!
![[fuck empire]](http://static.flickr.com/29/46793546_d15b313d34_t.jpg)
Brian also took some good pictures including more Cackalack Thunder, and the shoulder of our friend Perry (a soldier) showing the “airborne” patch next to a “fuck empire” sticker on his fatigues. We also saw a Marine in full dress uniform with an anti-war sign. Hell yeah!
I estimated about 200,000 people were there. The police said 150,000, so we’re in the right ballpark. Interestingly, there are about 147,000 troops in Iraq right now.