Archive:2007 workshop reports

General comments
organizations to contact
 * roosevelt institute
 * eff (by all means - john g - security)
 * save the internet, save internet radio

Nelson
It's been great to work with people from all walks of life. We all want to encourage this wider community, and to ensure there is a student movement that caters specifically to them. There will have to be some reorganizing around http://freeculture.org to make space for everyone while making sure we don't overgeneralize what any one group is doing.

Gavin
People here have a tremendous diversity of background. sensitivity will be key to continue working together. I don't think that means not saying when your opinion differs. Our of all the conferences and things that I have been to, there is always these tensions and that is part of what makes a movement interesting. In order for it to work people have to be free to express themselves and be able to roll with the punches, and speak freely while speaking respectfully. We've done a pretty good job of this, I say this because I think it is the most important thing to keep in mind as we move forward as a movement - today has definitely reinforced that. I want to offer this as a takeaway and hope we continue to be respectful and work together where we can.

I'm impressed with all the people who stayed to the bitter end - people who I had no idea were interested in this and here they are. This is a really good catalyst for figuring out the direction of our organizatino. We would like it to be easy to do online, but the fact is that its not. People have a hard time working together online; maybe not for some projects, but I find that these kinds of events for Free Culture have been really important for establishing friendships and positive social connections to use and leverage. I hope we can do this again soon, even next year. and I like boston ;)

Ben
The main thing I got out of today: the vague ways we define both free and culture will be different depending on who we ask. The value we place in our own efforts and those of others will also vary. I don't think there was any specific conclusion on "Yes, this is how we implement free culture". I felt that across the board, everyone is optimistic that the answer is out there, or that some answer is applicable to all of our situations. This is very reassuring and inspiring where people are more or less on the same page that there can be this balance between personal profit and a comfortable lifestyle resulting from giving back to the community as much as possible. thanks to all for their very insightful input, and I hope these things keep going on.

Randy
Collaborative competition: I hope you will give some thought to the idea that extending what you do beyond this group

Elizabeth
I'm going to do something illegal, being down here on the floor. Freeculture.org is a student chapter-based organization. This was a conference for them. There is discussion about expanding Free Culture.org beyond those environments and even beyond youth environments. OK, I promise I won't do this again.

Nick
I think this is important because it gives us a couple of days where the main thing on our minds is free culture and not other work or clubs..

I was really really impressed with some of the ideas and actions that schools did this year, and hope those ideas are getting picked up and shouted on websites and shared with other schools, as they are often translated to other schools.

Christopher
I was really impressed with the conference and everyone involved with it. It seems clear to me that fc.org as a student org has a really important role, on campus, but also not restricted to working with students. So many good ideas, many of them now on the wiki, make me hopeful for the future of free culture.

Bill
I'm really excited about all the people from out of town who came, and those from boston as well - I didnt know about this until 2 days ago when I searched for 'free culture' on google. So this is very exciting. I also want to note the parallels between the free culture student movement and Students for a Democratic Society. I hope people will go back to their respective campuses and link up with parallel groups.

Zach
One thing Mako brought up in the last session: in activism, timing is very important. Free Culture right now is in a critical position; we can get the ideas here today out to a much larger audience; taking projects such as Wikipedia, helping to get other people engaged, really expanding the audience.

(Woman in the back row. Name?)
Following up on what Zach is saying: we are in a historic moment. Debates such as this should be taking place at a legislative level also. I would encourage this group to reach out to state and national representatives. it is very important that Congress hear the ideas being circulated here.

Max
I would like to take a second to encourage people to walk in that direction. I know there is an aversion to becoming poltiical, but as a political dork it would be more efficacious if we involved ourselves explicitly in debates about laws at the federal level, and partnered with orgs where it was applicable to affect some of these policies.

Neil
Coming here today, the great question was 'What is free culture?' I don't have any idea what it is, but I'm getting a better idea of what it's not. It's not limited by geography, personal background, or any of the rest. It's not about paywalls. It's not weak, passive, or finished. We should take this effusive good feeling, and think to act at the end of the day. Take those energies, do something, a blog post, a protest, whatever you want, and channel that into something.

SJ
I hope everyone takes some time out to make someone one or two generations older than you familiar with these issues. This transfer of knowledge about the changing world [online] to younger generations is only going to become more emphasized in the near future.

Kevin
There is an action step you can take with your warm fuzzies - tomorrow I'm extending the workshop we did today, and asking people to make their vision statements about what it is like after a few very succesful years of working on free culture projects and ideas. After you've been working on this... What is it like in that world? What do you talk about? What is different?

If you're not a member of the fc-discuss listserv, talk to me... and I'll send out a notice. ('''Note: you can read this notice in the fc-discuss archives and post your vision to this wiki page.)

Elizabeth
We'll send out one followup email to all the attendees with info about all of this, and wikilinks. Does anyone object?

Kevin
We had a great fruitful discussion in our workshop. I'd like to hear more from those people and from people who weren't even in Cambridge today.

Elizabeth
We are going as groups to these 5 restaurants; then at 9:30 we are having a dance conspiracy dance party, meeting by the Harvard Sq T, in the Pit. If you have your own headphones, bring them...