Citizen Will

Category: Technology

  • ConvergeSouth 2006 – Social Networking, MySpace

    Walked in on Bora Coturnix ( BlogAroundTheClock ) discussing his use of MySpace to identify folk by common Yugoslavian last names and then reach out through th “Add to Friend” function of MySpace to contact them… Nearly every one contacted joined. He goes on to describe, given the youth of those folks responding, how his […]

  • ConvergeSouth 2006 – Building a Media Culture within the News Organization

    A room chock-full of “real” journalists. Followed by media/PR consultants and then a sprinkling of citizen activists. So far, introductions. Local political whiz, former Council member, Gerry C is here – I look forward to meeting him face to face. Anglico (Jim Protzman) and SouthernDem are here for BlueNC. SouthernDem is a great, citizen journalist. […]

  • ConvergeSouth 2006 – Elizabeth Edwards

    First session of ConvergeSouth just wrapped. So far the “UN” part of conference hasn’t really kicked in…probably too early on a Saturday morning to do total engagement. I had the opportunity to be the first non-“Ed Cone” questioner of Elizabeth. I put a tough one to her, asking if she had had a conversation with […]

  • ConvergeSouth 2006

    I really enjoyed Greensboro’s first ‘blog-con ConvergeSouth, an “unconference” that attracted quite a few interesting and/or notorious folks. Good conversation (no surprise as Anton “Mr. Sugar” points out that ‘bloggers are usually good conversationalist), good food and a chance to learn by interaction. Tomorrow’s promises to be even better. Elizabeth Edwards will keynote on “Building […]

  • Easthom, Stancil Breath a Little Life Back into Municipal Network Initiative

    From Council member Laurin Easthom’s ‘blog The Easthom Page: At our last council meeting, I read the above history of wireless in town, and gave our new town manager, Roger Stancil, the opportunity to begin a process. He appointed a staff committee headed by Flo Miller to keep the process alive in exploring a municipal […]

  • A Measure of Transparency in Local Government

    Mark Peters, one of the founders of Orange County political forum SqueezeThePulp and a school-focused activist, created this report card to publicly track local governments fulfillment of their stated goal of greater online efforts to promote e-democracy . Mark’s site, OrangeRecordings, serves as a clearinghouse for podCasts of school board, council, board of alderman and […]

  • SxSWi: Inciting Self-Organizing Mobs for Local Progressive Activism

    I submitted a panel proposal for Austin’s South-by-Southwest Interactive (SxSWi) 2007 titled Inciting Self-Organizing Mobs for Local Progressive Activism Educated and opinionated, netizens are a fractious bunch. Rarely does on-line irritation translate into “real-world” local activism. With the proliferation of no-cost, net-based infrastructure and the power of the “long tail”, why do so few arm […]

  • OrangePolitics: Three Down, Many More to Go

    Congratulations to Ruby, the editors and many commenters that have made local ‘blog OrangePolitics such a vital forum for our community. Three years ago, less than a week into OP’s life, Ruby graciously permitted me to blather on about Chapel Hill’s red-light scamera fiasco. Over the years, though I know I’ve tested her patience, she’s […]

  • Sally, Kirk and Shearon-Harris

    Following up on my post Shearon-Harris Offline: Who Tripped Over the Wire?, I’d like to direct your attention to two of our wonderful local ‘bloggers. Sally Greene has two great posts on the Shearon-Harris nuke plant safety issues and the resulting spin. First, FAIRWarning Tonight I went to the briefing in Pittsboro on the Shearon […]

  • Next Stop, NextBus.

    According to the following Sept. 22nd Town news release, the NextBus system is nearly ready for its trial run. Suggested online access is through Chapel Hill Transit’s www.chtransit.org site, the blue “Real Time Transit” link. I suggest by-passing the lame Java-applet and go straight to the vastly simpler and more forward thinking Google Maps interface. […]

  • DTH on WIFI: They have a point…

    From Sept. 18th’s Daily Tar Heel by kind permission of Mason Phillips. Nice to see a shout-out to my series on the poor decision to go with the proprietary lock-in NextBus system over an open-standards system. An alternative standards-based system could’ve delivered Internet access along all 23 transit routes – an alternative providing excellent penetration […]

  • Shearon-Harris Offline: Who tripped over the wire?

    Local Progress Energy nuke plant Shearon-Harris went unexpectedly offline (or in nuke industry jargon “had an unplanned outage”) this morning: Progress Energy’s Shearon Harris nuclear plant shut down today at about 10 a.m., in the first unplanned outage this year. The nuclear plant, about 25 miles southwest of Raleigh, turned itself off automatically when the […]

  • ZeFrank’s Simple, Nuanced Message

    I’m stuck in a video culture. The immediacy of the message, the ability to project nuance, is quite alluring. Today’s low-cost of creation and dissemination has helped unleash citizen’s voices which otherwise would never be heard. Yesterday, I featured Keith Olbermann’s Sept. 11th impassioned defense of dissent. It was a strong, direct, thoughtful yet emotional […]

  • Low Flo

    Fall’s accelerating activity both weather and otherwise has slowed my ‘blog flow. It hasn’t been all work and no play as E. and I stretched our 7 year record of being the last out at the Exchange Pool. Don’t worry, I have plenty to say on Carolina North, UNC’s Leadership group (of which I recently […]

  • Web 2.0 Activism: Yahoo Maps + Flickr

    Web 2.0 is a disputed frame of reference bounding the next generation of web-based, collaborative applications. Once upon a time (a few short years ago), tech sales-droids touted ASPs (application service providers) as the natural replacement for individual applications. Net-based alternatives for accounting, human resources or even word-processing would be run and managed from centralized […]