*stretch* Just getting up after a big first night here at Web of Change. We had a great meal together last night and then spent a couple hours getting to know each other.
The crowd is amazing… big names that everyone will know are here… like Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and CivicSpace Labs, the Humane Society, etc… as well as lots of web and online people from various local, state and federal politicians and governments. People came from as far away as Amsterdam with big concentrations of peeps from NY, DC, SF, and Vancouver. Some other interesting random demographics (that I haven’t figured out whether to place significance in or not) are… everyone here is less than 50, and I bet only a handful are in there 40’s, the group is split between viewing technology as the problem or the solution, everyone has a(t least one) website, everyone has a cause, the group is half female, 90% of us are white, and I don’t think anyone here likely voted for George Bush.
70 of us or so walked in the dark up to the ‘drum circle house’… a new structure built here at Hollyhock to accommodate the Nigerian drummers who spend a lot of time teaching here. We sat around on the floor and went around the room and each of us took a minute or two to introduce ourselves. Jason was smart… we can read each others bios online and probably already have. Save the formal, scientific description of your skills and exploits for your resume… tell us your name, where you live, and what is ‘rocking your world’. It was cool to hear everyone get passionate about something and made the session a lot less boring than most icebreaker meetings that I’ve been to.
Pretty much the rest of the night was spent bouncing between the gingerbread house, the clothing optional hot tub, and the smoking temple… but you’ll have to ask Phil, Leda, and Alex about that.