Personal Democracy Forum - Dr. Eric Schmidt and Thomas Friedman
I have a lot to write about regarding today's Personal Democracy Forum 2007, as well as tomorrow's PDF 2007 Unconference. I need to get a new laptop that is a little smaller and more powerful so I can begin carrying it with me for live-blogging. I felt I was the only one at the conference without a laptop (not completely accurate, but it does fit within the spirit of politics, I suppose). I have been using Twitter for live-commenting, so sign up as my friend there and you can see things in real time.
I one thing I want to mention briefly today is the keynote between Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, and Thomas Friedman, the 3-time Pulitzer Prize winner at the NY Times and author of The World Is Flat. They had an interview/discussion, where Eric basically discussed how he wants Google to be a transparent company and how technology is both changing and nearly forcing that to happen. I appreciated his discussion about Google's relationship with China (which I have blogged about before), his reference of "the Great Firewall of China," ways some people in China can in fact get around the Chinese demand that Google blocks and censors some content, and finally his warning that people need to be proactive with commenting on and annotating in their own videos and online presence before other people do it for and to you. This call is for more proactivity before others speak on our behalfs. What a marketing and PR nightmare that is ahead! I hope the video of the interview will be available online someplace.
Lots more tomorrow!