I'm pretty confident that danah boyd's was the most talked about talk during the Personal Democracy Forum 2009 Conference in New York City. I can say this because she was mentioned more than 750 times in the twitter stream during the 2 days of the conference. Michael Wesch got a lot of buzz - almost 600 mentions - and Jeff Jarvis and Mark Pesce (who gave a really powerful talk last year too) did well, each getting almost 500 mentions. But boyd topped them all.

I was taken aback by email from devex on Monday that said "Buried in the $787 billion economic stimulus legislation ...is $286 million for technology upgrades at the U.S. Agency for International Development." I mean, USAID is the definition of "dinosaur". They'll never spend that much money well. But it was really driven home to me be by the article in Washington Technology which cut to the chase - "In a recently released study, research firm IDC estimates that the stimulus will generate more than $100.1 billion in technology spending during the next five years." I'm getting it. We're going to spend a lot of money on technology in the next few years. What do we do to make it worthwhile?

I really like the approach that Forum One is pitching - defining "shovel-ready" online, civic-infrastructure projects [disclaimer, though I no longer work there, I helped found Forum One, have great affection for the place, and have an ongoing financial interest. That said, this is still a good idea.] As Forum One CEO Chris Wolz explains, these initiatives will "enable governments, nonprofits, citizens and businesses to work together to solve important social problems." These are the modern equivalent of traditional infrastructure which has included "town halls, the highway system, and government R&D labs."

So far they've proposed five projects and are looking for ideas for five more. Here is the first batch:

co-written and data assembled by David James

This weekend’s Government 2.0 Camp is further proof that something very exciting is happening around the concepts of open, participatory, self, government. The Camp, the inaugural event of the Government 2.0 Club, is one of a series of mostly volunteer-led events tackling the meaning and implementation of the next generation of democracy and government.

Approximately 500 people interested in Government 2.0 assembled. It was a diverse group, including government employees, entrepreneurs, government contractors, and interested citizens. Through discussions, panels, and lots of hallway conversations, the participants came together to figure out what Government 2.0 means, where it is going, and how it applies to their work.

Tim O'Reilly announced a government 2.0 conference to be held in DC via twitter saying "Looks like the word is out, just before my #etech keynote where I was planning to announce it: Gov 2 Summit in DC http://www.gov2summit.com/." This is the latest in a whole series of events in DC focused on how technology will influence governance in the Obama age. Looks like we'll get "change we can believe in" or at least talk it to death.

Vivek Kundra describes the District of Columbia's vision of a digital public square where data is available to for-profit and non-profit organizations and government workers have modern technology tools to support their work. Catchy.

And the day before it was "energy." At least it was in the Congressional Record according to the Sunlight Foundation's Capitol Words project.

With all the noise from the people campaigning to govern it is easy to forget that there is still governing going on. So, in the spirit of "policy, not (much) politics," here's a summary of some interesting non-campaign activities of note.

After all, it is Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend. You can afford to take a few minutes to learn more about Sara Palin and maybe have a quiet chuckle...

Matthew Burton has a vision of supporting government with an open software platform managed by a foundation. A "Mozilla for government" if you will. He'll be online today at 2pm answering questions and taking comments about this vision as well as his other projects. Join in!

You can never leave the safety of the beltway without missing something. More twitter-dome news breaks while I'm at the beach. The Gray Lady runs with the story but misses the point. Representative Culberson makes a constructive intervention and apologizes for going partisan. Could this be progress?