[DigDemo] Round up

A lot of blogorhea from me yesterday. Sorry.

So, now that the last Birds of a Feather meeting is over, here's what the day looked like.

Granted, I'm on the organizing committee, but I thought it was pretty durn good. Trippi made what I think is the essential case: The Internet portion of the Dean campaign was a dot-com miracle, not a dot-com bust. He was a stirring speaker. I thought he wasn't nearly as good on what went wrong with the campaign; he pinned too much of it on the media for my taste. We need reflection now — and quickly — on exactly what worked and what didn't because we have to push ahead quickly.

The conference tried to stick with specifics and with the practical, which it succeeded at pretty well. I'm sure it wasn't nitty-gritty enough for some, but it was too mixed a crowd (which by itself was a good thing). There was a sense that what the various campaigns have built is bigger than the campaigns themselves. The BoF I went to about unifying the technology brought supporters of various candidates (and the guy behind RightMarch.com) together to plan how to apply the work already done to the work that needs to be done.

The panels were at worst very good. Two, in particular, were stand outs, given my interests: I thought Dan Gillmor's panel, with Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen, was outstanding, and the last panel, featuring Joi Ito and Ethan Zuckerman, splashed some needed cold water in our rosy little American faces.

And then there was my favorite part: The interstices. I haven't been to a conference in a few months, and I always forget, during the dreariness of packing and the glumness of leaving my family, how much I enjoy being with these folks that I admire, respect and love.

I came away reinvigorated, with a sense that we're going to be build an infrastructure that may de-boob the White House in 2004 and over the longer term could help revive a diverse, strong, democracy. So, a really good day.