mtl3p

Hugo and I are helping out the organizers of the Artivistic conference prepare for the start on thursday. I was on the jury, helped out a bit the last two years and know the organizers somewhat.

I don’t really have time to write this post, but I meant to say something earlier.

Check out the program, see if there’s stuff that you want to check out. And definitely the closing party on Saturday night is going to be pretty cool. The space they have is in one of those enormous industrial buildings behind Ubisoft and it’s trippy just to be in. I’m anticipating one of those diverse but young, fairly arty / activisty and underground style party that starts early(ish) and lasts late. High hopes but I’ve got a good feeling bout it.

I’m rounding up some cool technical people that I want to attend so we’ll be hanging out talking cool geek projects with some of the presenters from Europe on Saturday early evening before the party. No web people allowed, just embedded systems and actual programmers. ;-) It’s not the kind of place to sit around talking about how cool Facebook is.

Artivistic is an international transdisciplinary three-day gathering on the interPlay between art, information and activism. Artivistic emerges out of the proposition that not only artists talk about art, academics about theory, and activists about activism. Founded in 2004, the event aims to promote transdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue on activist art beyond critique, to create and facilitate a human network of diverse peoples, and to inspire, proliferate, activate.

For the third edition of Artivistic, the expression [ un.occupied spaces ] was chosen to stimulate new ideas in response to the hidden confusions caused by the infinite networks of 21C globalization and neo-liberalism. [ un.occupied spaces ] dares to link the charged issues of environmentalism, indigenous and migrant struggles, and urban practices together through the angle of occupation. In an interconnected world, critical thought and action cannot but become flexible and uncompromising at once. To think with occupation consequently becomes a strategy for approaching these issues in a way that will reveal their interdependence, and fuel creative and tactical collaborative actions between “co-artists” (artists and non-artists). Built around three interrelated questions, the event consists of roundtables, workshops, interventions, exhibitions, performances, and screenings at our temporary headquarters at 5455 av. de Gaspé, #701 and in different venues and spaces of Montreal.

it’s the sun.

I got them because 1) my shoes have been a major embarrassment for months, 2) they make me hurt because the support is gone, 3) these are hot looking shoes and 4) my presentation went super well (even though I actually ended up getting really nervous and trying to switch between the web and powerpoint really really didn’t work well).

The organizers came up to me and said that because I was a crowd favorite the next time they would put me the morning of the first day. I think they were just being sweeties, but it was nice of them.

Robson street is cool.

Time to head back now. I’ll have a post in draft that I’ll publish when I get back - but overall the conference was great *because* they didn’t just focus on wifi mesh. There was a lot of presentations that talked about licensed spectrum, wimax and mixed wireline / wireless deployments. It was surprisingly good.

a full belly of sushi and sake and an amazing view of the ocean from the hotel room (with a balcony!) helps.

(i got an extra nice room tonight because they stuck me on some terrible hide-a-bed last night because they overbooked and I arrived at midnight.)

also - it’s really sunny and everyone’s smiling.

I’m heading to this tonight. I’ll be coming back on the wed night red-eye.

North American Wireless Cities Summit organized by the Strategy Institute. They’re a shop that puts on conferences on hot topics. I’m happy to be invited. I went to the last one they put on in Toronto and they pulled together a fine list of speakers. It’s nice having it *not* be put on by the vendors. It gives it less of that meat-market feel.

This time I get to be one of the “experts” on the front page.

Our exclusive event will share best practices from across the globe and help municipalities develop wireless networks suitable for their environment and that will respond to the needs of their economy.
Hear Industry Experts and Case Studies From:

* Peter Ladner, Councilor, CITY OF VANCOUVER
* Karl Kaiser, Chief Information Officer, CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS, MN
* Craig Settles, President, SUCCESSFUL.COM, Oakland, CA
* Michael Lenczner, Co-Founder, ILE SANS FIL, Montreal
* Don Fitzgerald, Executive Director, TEAM FREDERICTON
* Taipei, Taiwan
* Beijing, China
* Seattle, Washington

This is my 5th or 6th muni-wireless conference. At first I really felt out of place- seeing as ISF resembles a real muni-wireless network as much as sea-monkey’s farm resembles the Vancouver MarineLand. But for a few different reasons I am pretty comfortable now.

I’m going to refer to the MonoRail quote (newspaper website screwy. alternative link), the “philly is the cruicible” comment and generally try to help municipal people separate the wheat from the chaff. There are some great places and uses for muniwireless (sp. semi-rural areas that are underserved by the market). But everyone would be served a lot better (including maybe even vendors) if we were a little more realistic about this technology / product.

I’ll be coming back for the final workshop of CRACIN. I’ve learned a lot through this project over the last 3 years. I’ll be said to see it end, even though I’m sure that I’ll continue to work with the people involved. I’ll be presenting there on ISF’s experiences on partnerships with academics as well as doing a presentation of the WhatisNetNeutrality site with Alison.

UPDATE - the summer program is actually next week. der.
——————
that time of year again.

The Summer Program
During the week of the Summer Program participants and trainers are able to listen to each other, learn from each other, relate to and challenge each other. It is a community of activists gathered together to affect the thinking and future work on community development, community organizing, community economic development and on how we can build and support healthy communities.

Yes, it’s at concordia, but it’s totally a half francophone, half anglophone scene.

This years program

I’ll be doing my first full-day workshop on thursday. And attending a bunch of cool other sessions.

Finding new technology that works for you
THURSDAY, 9:00 – 4:30 E

Just keeping up with the Internet can be quite a challenge. We are expected in the non-profit sector to take advantage of the latest trends often without having the necessary training or resources. Join us for a different kind of tech workshop. We will explore and explain some of the latest technology. We will share stories and learn from each other about what makes hightech projects work or fall flat. We will discuss the latest technologies (blogs, podcasts, Wikis, YouTube, MySpace, SecondLife, etc), without being expected to master them in a one-day session. Instead we will find ways to understand the current trends in technology and tools that can be applied in our organizations.

Michael Lenczner has worked at the intersection of activism, community and technology since 1999. He has worked as a trainer for six years with diverse groups in Canada and Africa including immigrants, seniors and more challengingly, doctors. He is a co-founder of Île Sans Fil and CivicAccess.

I’m going to try really hard to have people learn about the emotions and experiences that they and other actors to bring to tech/web projects. Basically, I don’t buy the whole “natural fit” idea between grassroots technology and the non-profit sector. I think that there’s wonderful reasons for why the sector hasn’t made better use of tech so far. I want participants to be aware of and reflect on the very different cultures and values of the tech sector (including the free software tech sector) and of the non-profit world. I hope that lessening the extremely high expectations for non-profits around technology and admitting the specific challenges of this collaboration will help us advance.

I’m thinking about doing some art-therapy type-stuff (i’ve been hanging out with art-therapy types) on technophobia and technophilia. At the very least we’ll be doing some story sharing around people’s best and worst experiences with technology.

I’m getting comfortable speaking in front of people and I’m down with co-facilitation, but I have less formal experience as a solo group leader and creating comfortable, open, safe spaces for reflection and sharing. I mean I’ve worked a lot as a group facilitator at the sexual assault center of mcgill (for outreach education, not for survivors) and as a group trainer for my friend’s outdoor youth-leadership workshop. But I’ve done it very rarely on my own.

So I’ve asked Omar (Koumbit)and Gerardo Sierra (University of the Streets)to join the workshop. And a friend / employee of ApathyisBoring, Rachel who’s been in charge of their web-development contract. They won’t be helping me facilitate - it’s to make sure that there’s some friendly faces as well as staking the deck with interesting participants.

(this lived in my draft forlder for a couple days for no reason)

–For the GTD folk.
Why be ruthless with your todo list? Here’s good reason by Schuyler (who was just in Montreal).

–Exciting CFP for a mesh network in Boston. - OpenAirBoston

“Specifically the focus is on innovation, according to answers to vendors posted on the group’s website. “Strong preference” will be given to the ability to provide a platform that will allow research, development and testing of new technologies and businesses based on that platform at a new Wireless Innovation Center (WIC).”

- article about the CFP

–Me hanging with favorite guys Anthony and Matt.

Matt’s got the group pic of the CWN con up and he does a little song and dance about hating portal pages. He should get together with Boris and they can make a club. :-)

–I was able to hang out with Tracey for dinner last night (she was in town for a meeting with her scent terrorism associates).

–Anthony’s got a great quote in some newspaper about MuniWireless = MonoRails. Fantastic.

“”They are the monorails of this decade: the wrong technology, totally overpromised and completely undelivered,” said Anthony Townsend, research director at the Institute for the Future, a think tank.”

I’m going to open with that for my next presentation at a muniwireless conference and pause as the vendors simultaneously ___ themselves. hehe.

–I got to spend a day with Gabe a week or two ago. He’s finally got a website. http://www.pwd.ca. - It aggregates events from google calendar and eventful all fancy-like.

–Maddog was on my panel. How crazy is that. The man is a legend. I’ve been reading his articles often recently in LJ (they send me 6 free each month - accounting error after I wrote for them)).

–Lastly - my dad is great - I just saw him today and he looks like a million bucks. And only 5 weeks till amy gets back. Rock on.

Rococo camp

Should be great. Lots and lots of energy and some very cool people. I’m sad that I’m missing it.

Quebec is in the house! ;-) And they’re presenting in french. Sweet.

—————
11:00 Panel: The Digital Divide (La fracture numerique)
* Monique Chartrand, Directrice Generale du Communautique
* Pierrot Peladeau, Centre Bioethique de Montreal, Institut de Recherches Clinique de Montreal
* Denis Boudreau, Director WebConforme
* Cherkaoui Ferdous, Solidarité rurale du Québec
* Christian Vaillant, CLÉ-Montréal
* Michel Dumais, CIBL

—————–
It’s nice to see Denis, Monique, and Michel. I like going to the same conferences as some of my Montreal peers. I don’t get to do it often because the specific fields that we’re in (within community technology) are different.

So I’m at the conference. I’m stunned by how small the crowd is. Not more than 200 people so far. Which isn’t a bad thing. It’s actually a big plus because I know that pretty much everyone here is pretty hot at what they do. Very different that something like the CHI con I went to last year.

Oh - and if people were wondering where all the women were (in terms of tech conferences) I found them. They’re all here. :-)

I’m at the morning panel listening to Mara Keisling, a transgender woman talk about privacy. She’s a good + funny speaker. I wasn’t expecting to hear about the US gov’s transit department’s policy on helper-monkeys this morning.

It’s worth it to check out the schedule. I’m busy with family stuff (my dad just had an operation and my mom’s in the big smoke taking care of my grandmother after her hip surgery) but I’m going to make sure to come back from 5-9 tomorrow to see the hactivism + human rights panel, then Michael Geist as a dinner speaker, then the armchair discussion with Diffie and Rotenberg. That’s a dope 4 hours. Especially because it includes getting fed. ;-)

I’m really happy to be speaking next week at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference. It will be for the session “Hot Spots are Chilly for Free Speech” moderated by Nicole Ozer from the ACLU and I’ll be with Professors Leslie Regan Shade and Andrew Clement (who I’ve been working with through CRACIN and CWIRP). It’s going to be about what’s happening within the MuniWireless market and what that means for internet freedoms (lame term, but i mean anonymity/privacy, etc).

What will I be talking about?

Instead of looking at how regulation is effecting wireless networks I’ll be asking how does the current wireless environment impact regulation including privacy/security laws? The whole lawrence lessig thing of technology and practice influencing laws, not only the other way around as well as the power of the default design by sandvig (default design of wireless routers being unsecured). Specifically I’ll look at how CWN’s have practiced privacy in the 7 years because it’s an important history/context to consider when thinking through these issues for the Muniwireless market. And even more specifically, looking at how ISF has practiced privacy over the last 3 1/2 years, considering that we’re one of the top CWNs. Hint - it’s because we centralized through creating the wifidog architecture (unlike earlier CWN’s that envisioned decentralized networks) that we’ve had most of our success. Not a good sign for privacy and a direct repudiation - intentional or not - of much of the earlier CWN ideology (both European and NA) which about building to ensure anonymity and lack of centralized control.

relevant articles:

Network must protect privacy