Planblog

Ok, not quite. But doing a daily TV talk show from Oracle OpenWorld 2009 this year was tons of fun (remember, that’s where I work). There’s something about live video that’s really fresh, definitely something we will explore further.

Here’s the program site in case you’re interested. If you were among the millions who tuned in, here’s a good place to give feedback. Thanks!

20 years ago yesterday, I was watching MTV. Then the house started shaking (I jotted down a few more details of this memorable incident in this 2006 post).

Here’s a recording of ABC7 News’ live coverage immediately following the quake.

Only a matter of time until the next one hits.

Love this song. And the video.

Yesterday, I had the chance to further explore the US railroad network by taking the train from San Diego, CA to Anaheim, CA. It’s a two-hour ride along the beautiful Pacific Coast. Here’s a short video I took near San Clemente, CA. Enjoy!

Pacific Surfliner from Tim Bonnemann on Vimeo.

It’s not easy to get excited about German politics these days. In fact, most Germans I talk to have grown pretty frustrated over the years with the way politics is organized.

By and large, the political parties lack agility and drive, their platforms don’t seem to grasp the big picture challenges the country is facing and their personnel is either exhausted or lacks credibility (or both). There are no stars around anymore, and I dare you to try to remember the last time a political idea, concept or proposal made you go “wow!”

So, what if you were to re-engineer a political party in Germany today? Here’s a quick sketch, probably highly flawed, of five principles that I believe could make almost any party fairly popular within a few years.

A market with so many unhappy customers will be a huge opportunity for whoever manages to figure out how to do things differently, politically speaking.

Just sayin’…

20 years ago I entered the US for the first time. John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City, traveling TWA, on my way to California. I would spend the 1989/90 school year as a foreign exchange student in the San Francisco Bay Area, by far one of the best things I’ve ever done.

In ner Ecke, vom Garten, hat der Paule sein Beet
und da hat er sich dieses Jahr Rüben gesät.
Und da, wo sonst Bohnen die Stangen hochklettern,
wächst jetzt eine Rübe mit riesigen Blättern.

Paul staunt, und er sagt sich: Ei, wenn ich nur wüßt,
wie groß und wie schwer diese Rübe wohl ist.
Schon krempelt er eilig die Ärmel hoch,
packt die Rübe beim Schopf und zog und zog.

Doch die Rübe, die rührt sich kein bißchen vom Fleck,
Paul zieht, und Paul schwitzt, doch er kriegt sie nicht weg.
Da ruft der Paul seinen Freund, den Fritz,
und der kommt auch gleich um die Ecke geflitzt.

Hauruck zieht der Paul, und hauruck zieht der Fritz.
Alle Mann, nichts wie ran, ganz egal, ob man schwitzt.
Die Rübe ist dick, und die Rübe ist schwer,
wenn die dicke, schwere Rübe doch schon rausgezogen wär!

Jetzt ziehn sie zu zweit mit Hallo und Hauruck,
doch die Rübe bleibt drin, sie bewegt sich kein Stück.
Und Fritz, der läuft los, holt vom Nachbarn den Klaus,
zu dritt kommt die Rübe ganz sicher heraus.

Herrjeh, was ne Rübe, ja da staunt auch der Klaus.
Jetzt ziehn wir ganz fest, und dann kommt sie schon raus.
Doch die Rübe, die saß drin, und da sagte der Klaus:
Ich hol meine Schwester, die ist grad zu Haus.

Hauruck zieht der Paul ….

Jetzt ziehn sie zu viert, doch die Rübe bleibt drin.
Der Fritz meint schon traurig: ’s hat doch keinen Sinn.
Ganz plötzlich ruft Paul: hier, ich hab ne Idee,
wie wär’s, wenn wir mal zum Antonio gehn?

Doch da meint der Klaus: sowas hilft uns nicht weiter.
Das sind ja alles Kinder von so Gastarbeitern.
Mein Vater sagt immer, die verschwänden viel besser.
Und außerdem sind das Spaghettifresser!

Das ärgert den Paul, was der Klaus da so spricht.
Der Antonio ist kräftig, und dumm ist er nicht.
Und ausserdem, Klaus, hast Du eins wohl vergessen,
Du hast Dich an Spaghetti neulich fast überfressen.

Wir brauchen Antonio und auch seine Brüder.
Klaus’ Schwester versteht’s, und sie läuft schnell hinüber,
hat alle geholt, und gemeinsam gings ran,
alle Kinder zusammen, die packen jetzt an.

Hauruck zieht der Paul, …

Den Antonio zieht der Carlo mit Hallo und Hauruck,
und sieh da die dicke Rübe, die bewegt sich ein Stück.
Und jetzt nochmal Hauruck, und die Erde bricht auf,
die Rübe kommt raus und liegt groß oben drauf.

Die Kinder, die purzeln jetzt all durcheinander,
doch freut sich ein jeder nun über den andern.
Sie sehn, wenn man sowas gemeinsam anpackt,
wird die allerdickste Rübe aus der Erde geschafft.

Fredrik Vahle / Christiane Knauf (Schallplattenproduktionen „Die Rübe“, 1973)

I’ll be going on a trip to Germany next week to visit the family (been a while).

Remote chance I make it to PolitCamp ‘09 in Berlin first weekend in May. Otherwise staying near Cologne for the most part.

Holla if you wanna meet up.

As someone who is not entirely without blame for coming up with the idea in the first place, I was particularly bummed to not be able to attend the second iteration of eDemocracyCamp in person this year. Oh well, next time…

Watching the event from a distance, though, it looks as if things went well and people enjoyed themselves, thanks to a truly great team effort of sponsors and organizers.

Here’s a random (and yet mostly un-vetted) list of projects and resources I picked up via Twitter over the course of the day. Some cool stuff there for sure:

• Selectricity — Selectricity is voting machinery for the masses. We help groups make better decisions, more easily. We allow voting, usually in form of ranking a list of choices in order of preference, and have the computer help groups make better decisions.
• OpenRegs.com — OpenRegs.com is an easy-to-navigate regulatory portal. Every day, federal agencies issue dozens of rules that affect you, your business, and your family. We make it easy to keep track of proposed and final regulations and to submit comments to the agencies.
• OpenDialogCoalition — The OpenDialogCoalition is a loose collaborative of people and organizations proposing and exploring web 2.0 technologies with best practices in user-centered identity, online community and cross-boundary integration for open government and the digital economy.
• Knowledge As Power — Our mission is to help invididuals become effective citizens within the legislative process.
• The OrangeBand Initiative — People who take an OrangeBand and display it someplace visible demonstrate their commitment to practice listening at work and in life. When asked about the OrangeBand, they say something like, “It means I’m interested in listening to what’s important to the people around me. What’s important to you?” And the conversation begins.
• http://www.listening101.com
• Democracy 2 — Democracy 2 is the ultimate political strategy / simulation game. Based on a sophisticated neural network, the game simulates the motivations, loyalties and desires of everyone in the country.
• Why, Kai? — Kai Degner Is Mayor Of Harrisonburg, VA
• Government Innovators Network — This portal is produced by the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School, and is a marketplace of ideas and examples of government innovation.
• Metagovernment — The goal of the Metagovernment project is to make the governance of any community as accessible as a free software project. No one is required to participate, but everyone is allowed to participate, just as software developers can contribute to open source projects and editors can contribute to Wikipedia.
• http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water
• http://wiki.github.com/djwonk/voting/api
• http://hellocongress.org/ — We’re your constituents, and we’re here to serve you. Type a legislator’s name into the box, or put your address in and we’ll figure it out. Complete list of legislators.
• http://citability.org — Making government accessible, reliable, and transparent with advanced permalinks.
• readthebill.org — “Congress should change its rules to require that non-emergency legislation and conference reports be posted on the Internet for 72 hours before debate begins.”
• Ready.gov
• DeepDebate.org — The mission of DeepDebate.Org is to create the best open and transparent forum for ideas to compete.
• Sustained Dialogue — ustained Dialogue (SD) is a systematic, open-ended political process to transform relationships over time.
• TheExpiredMeter.com — Educating & Informing Chicagoans About Fighting Parking Tickets & Parking Issues
• MixedInk — MixedInk takes a fresh approach to collaborative writing. It’s a fun, democratic and elegant way for people to weave their best ideas together. (Plus, it’s free!)
• White House 2 — White House 2 is a multi-partisan network of 8325 citizens imagining how the White House might work if it was run completely democratically by thousands of people over the internet. It’s free and all U.S. citizens can join.

Thanks again to everyone on the ground who made it happen.

Summer 2010.

A series of conversations, meetups, barcamps all around the Mediterranean.

A collaborative journey in between places, worlds, cultures.

A North-South, East-West, Orient-Occident cross-pollination.

Some travel required. No shortage of topics.

Anyone game?

PS: Thanks for the inspiration, Cem!