Save the date of May 18, folks, and make your plans to be in New York City, because this year the fourth annual Personal Democracy Forum is going to be our biggest and best conference yet. The theme this year is "The Flattening of Politics"--how the distance is rapidly disappearing between the people at the top and bottom of campaigns, political media and voter activism.

We're excited to announce that PdF and Google have teamed up to offer registration scholarships for 40 qualified political professionals that cover the full cost of the Personal Democracy Forum conference on May 18th and the unConference on May 19th.

If you're a campaign staffer blazing a new trail in online politics, a non-profit professional trying new technologies with great results, or an activist with ideas about the next big thing to change elections, you should apply!

You already know that the 2007 PdF Conference is on Friday, May 18th, but did you know that the First Annual PdF unConference will be held the next day, Saturday, May 19th?

What's an "unconference"?

The idea is simple. At an unconference, there are no set presenters and no designated audience. Anyone and everyone can schedule a session, discussion, or demonstration, either before the day on the PdF unConference wiki or at the unConference itself. The PdF unConference is a way of extending Friday's discussion to Saturday, creating an open environment for digging into the details and nitty-gritty of how we're all using technology to change politics. Tickets for the unConference are $35 and we'll provide coffee/tea, lunch, and wifi.

The PdF unConference is the perfect chance to demo your new project or hash out that question about tech politics that's been keeping you up at night, and to do it in collaboration with some of the best minds in technology and politics.

You can go here to register for both the main conference and the unConference.

I’m here at PDF this morning, clicking, typing, surfing with hundreds of other folks here.

Larry Lessig, professor at Stanford and founder of Creative Commons, is the first speaker of the day and he provided a thankfully caffeinated start on a dreary, rainy day.

Interesting, if a bit low-key, conversation between Tom Friedman (NY Times) and Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. A bit like our own PDF MBA seminar, in Schmidt’s defense, it is very early CA time for much pep.

Great talk/reading (from his version 3.0 of his book coming out later this year) by Tom Friedman.

Basically, he believes flattening is intensifying everywhere he goes.

Few thoughts from the hallway outside the main hall here at PDF:

Dana Boyd and Matt Stoller rock.

No line at the ladies room - I love tech conferences!

[We're going to post text or excerpts from the proceedings of PdF2007 here as fast as we can get them. (And we're also working to get footage from the mainhall sessions up online too, but that will take til tomorrow.) MyDD blogger Matt Stoller gave a great talk explaining the rise of the netroots, which he abridged slightly because time was tight; we're thrilled to publish the full text below. The editors.]

A few years ago, I had what's called a 'crazy uncle' theory of internet politics. I noticed that the figures who did well online all seemed like a crazy uncle saying things that are true but extremely uncomfortable, that power and authority was built on silly illusions. You know, it's like when you're a kid at Thanksgiving and your uncle starts telling you about how much pot your parents smoked, which you had never really known about. It's uncomfortable but kind of awesome.

[This morning, danah boyd gave a great presentation on how politicians are failing to understand the social dynamics of online social networks. She's posted the "rough unedited crib of the actual talk" on her website, and we're pleased that she's given us permission to post it here as well. The editors.]

Think about the publics that you know, the publics where politics occur. Gatherings like this... conference halls, shopping malls, political rallies, etc. How do politics take place in these spaces? Obviously, speeches are a part of it, but there's more that happens in these publics. At the very simplest level, there's a lot of shaking hands with everyday people. Ideally, there's a lot of listening to people's stories... Always, there's presence. Presence has been a critical component of political discourse because it allows people to connect to and relate with politicians. Through shared presence, politicians are made "real."

Just finished my session on Building Powerful Online Communities: Best Practices. The panelists included me, Ian Bogost talking about gaming, Matt Lewis of Townhall.com, James Rucker of ColorofChange and Heather Holdridge of Care2 who served as our moderator.