Personal Democracy Conference 2006

Yesterday morning, I took a very early am train to New York to attend a daylong “personal democracy” conference in New York. Conference title: “How Technology is Changing Politics.” I went last year as well. Five of my employees (Chris Casey, Chris Massicotte, Marin Hagen, Sean Robertson, Abbey Levenshus) also attended.

I saw a bit of some of the presentations including Eliot Spitzer, Elizabeth Edwards. I also talked to many of the usual suspects that I see at political technology conferences. And I probably should have talked to a lot more people.

I myself spoke on a panel called “Making Online Work Offline and in the Field.” The panel was quite unfocused for my taste. I think these panels should be organized around extremely short answers to moderator and audience questions, rather than a series of side-by-side speeches or plugs for companies. Maybe next year I'll try to moderate a panel instead..

I was also interviewed by Sanford Dickert for a podcast of the conference – we’ll see if it actually makes it on the air/Internet.

I took a picture of Lefty in front of Penn Station for the company web site.  

I was pretty beat, so I skipped the cocktail party, took a train back, and was very happy to get home just in time to hang with my wife and daughter before we all went to sleep.