Jim Gilliam is a geeky activist with big ideas. Shortly before the 2008 election, Jim started WhiteHouse2, a website imagining how the White House might work if it was run completely democratically by thousands of people over the internet. He is currently turning this into NationBuilder, a platform anyone can use to bring democracy to their government, business or non-profit in a radical and fun new way.

Shortly after the Iraq war started in 2003, Gilliam hooked up with award-winning filmmaker Robert Greenwald to research Uncovered: The War on Iraq, and tell the stories of dozens of government insiders, from CIA officers to weapons inspectors, all desperate to tell the world that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Released in just four short months, the film reached millions of people worldwide without any corporate distribution, based entirely on activists holding thousands of free screenings in their homes, churches, and small businesses. The grassroots political documentary was born, and Jim later evangelized the model at numerous film festivals and created a free web service, Brave New Theaters, enabling any filmmaker to use the same techniques to tell stories the traditional media is too afraid to touch.

Hear what Jim says is the biggest story of our generation. He talks about the promise of the Internet, and why his Dad's advice just can't be beat.

PdF Chat Time, new feature here at Personal Democracy Forum, gives you a behind the scenes glimpse into the lives of the politechnorati. Hear what inspires them, what keeps them up at night, and who throws the wildest parties. Get informed by the most knowledgeable players in the world of politics and technology.

To read the interview interview conducted by IM on June 15th click read more below.

A few days ago, YouTube, the giant videosharing site, unveiled some site upgrades that has a vocal chunk of its user base up in arms. The most important change, from the point of view of YouTube's burgeoning critics, is the removal of social data about videos in all the different categories and its replacement with videos that are being handpicked by the site's editors. People starting to call YouTube "EditorTube" in protest, a are using the site's tools to spread the word.