Conmergence

2008 Fiber To The Home Conference & Expo September 21 - 25, 2008 Gaylord Opryland® Resort & Convention Center, Nashville, TN

<ed.note>The conference's theme is "Linking Communities at the Speed of Light" but more intriguing to me is the the scheduled appearance of Don Tapscott (The Naked Corporation: How the Age of Transparency Will Revolutionize Business, Digital Capital: Harnessing the Power of Business Webs, Creating Value in the Networked Economy, Blueprint to the Digital Economy: Creating Wealth in the Era of E-Business, Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation, The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence, Who Knows: Safeguarding Your Privacy in a Networked World, Paradigm Shift: The New Promise of Information Technology)  adreessing his latest work, Wikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Implicit in Tapscott's writings is management's buy-in of the distrubuted digital enterprise-enabled results-only collaborative work environment. If you happen to be one of those creatures (especially if you are from Nashville), I invite you to join the Linkedin.com Project Net-Work group and Technology Nashville.</ed.note>

Sunday, September 21, 2008
1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.	Registration Opens
Monday, September 22, 2008
7:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.	Registration Opens
8:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.	Developer Panel Workshop  *Additional fee*
8:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.	Home Networking Workshop  *Additional fee*
1:00 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.	Track Session - Series 100  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
1:00 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.	FTTH Executive Summit *By invitation only* Moderated by: Don Tapscott, Author
2:00 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.	Track Session Series 200  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
3:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.	EXPO Grand Opening & Opening Reception *Open to all registered attendees*
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
7:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.	Registration Opens
7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m.	Continental Breakfast *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.	Opening General Session    *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only* Keynote Speaker - Don Tapscott, Author Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything Sponsored by: FTTH Council Awards Sponsored by: FTTxcellence Awards Sponsored by:
10:00 a.m. - 10:15 a.m.	Refreshment Break    *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
10:15 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.	Global Carrier Keynote Panel   *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
11:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.	EXPO Hall Opens   *Open to all registered attendees*
12:00 noon - 2:00 p.m.	Luncheon in EXPO Hall  *Open to all registered attendees*
3:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.	ITCo Panel  *Conference Pass attendees only*
3:15 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.	Track Session Series 300  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
4:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.	Track Session Series 400   *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
5:00 p.m. - 5:45 p.m.	Track Session Series 500   *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.	International attendee Reception   *By invitation only*
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
7:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.	Registration Open
7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m.	Continental Breakfast  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.	Government and Regulatory Panel
8:00 a.m. - 8:45 a.m.	Track Session Series 600  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
9:00 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.	Track Session Series 700  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
9:45 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.	Refreshment Break  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
10:00 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.	Track Session Series 800  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
11:00 a.m. - 12:15 a.m.	Panel Session Series 900  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
12:15 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.	On Own for Lunch
1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.	EXPO Hall Opens
4:15 p.m. - 5:45 p.m.	Closing General Session with Keynote Speaker  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.	EXTRAVAGANZA - Closing Reception with Entertainment *Additional fee* "Don't forget your dancing boots!"
Thursday, September 25, 2008
8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.	Post Conference Workshops

RE: Finding Resources for the Innovation Plantation

<ed.note>One of the topics of the upcoming Eighth Annual Technology Nashville Conference (Thursday, May 22, 2008, 7:20am - 2:30pm, Franklin Marriott Cool Springs) will be "Workforce Development - Solving the IT Shortage in Middle TN". Setting aside the fact that there is no IT shortage in Nashville, only possibly a shortage of IT folks who reside in Nashville (which is not the same thing when management ceases the geo-locking of work tasks and adopts distributed digital environments, results-only collaborative work environments) IT firms would do well to pay attention to the Asperger's-IT connection and make it part of their recruiting networking strategies.</ed.note>

World's next outsourcing hub: Kenya?

The Kenyan government is pumping millions of dollars into improving the nation's outdated telecom industry.

<ed.note>I reiterate my harrangue for the Kenya Call Center Industry -- driving in to a call center to access the wiki and VOIP is missing the point. Rural telehealth and disease management will never reach its full potential if you can't develop a management structure which can trust remote workers -- or develop enough tech monitoring tools savvy to fake it. Just because the US keeps talking "green" but refuses to adopt ROWE doesn't mean the rest of the world has to repeat the mistake.</ed.note>

"Expanding Africa’s Broadband Capacity", Connect Africa Summit in Kigali, 29-30 October 2007

Where: Kigali, Rwanda

Why: The main goal of the Summit is to help bring connectivity to Africa and promote "Connect Africa", a new partnership that seeks to expand the information and communication technology infrastructure of the continent, especially Internet broadband.

Who: Some 500 participants are expected to attend the Connect Africa Summit. Participants include the patrons of the initiative, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and Ghana’s President John Kufuor, who is also the African Union Chairman. High-level participants include International Telecommunication Union Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré; President of the African Development Bank Donald Kaberuka; and Intel Corporation Chairman Craig Barrett, who is also the Chair of the UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development. Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank Group, will make a contribution by video link. The Presidents of several African nations are expected to participate.

The event will bring together political leaders, including Ministers and Heads of State, CEOs and senior executives of global and African IT companies, leaders from civil society and heads of international and regional development banks. Industry leaders including Cisco, GSM Association, Ericsson, Huawei, British Telecom, Qualcomm, NTT DoCoMo, Neustar, Safaricom, Nokia-Siemens and Microsoft will attend and announce new initiatives to help bring connectivity to Africa.

The Summit sessions are designed for television to encourage interactive participation and key sessions will be moderated by Stephen Cole, a renowned TV anchor with Al Jazeera International. The event’s press conferences will be webcast live, and time slots for telephone interviews with prominent participants will be allocated for those journalists who cannot attend.

The event is organized by the International Telecommunication Union, the African Union, the World Bank Group and the Global Alliance for ICT and Development, in partnership with the African Development Bank, the African Telecommunication Union, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, and the Global Digital Solidarity Fund.

For further information, click here or contact:

Sanjay Acharya
Chief, Media Relations and Public Information
ITU
Tel: +41 22 730 5046
Mobile: +41 79 249 4861
Fax: +41 22 730 5939
E-mail

Contact: in New York Enrica Murmura, Tel: +1 212 963-5913, E-mail murmura@un.org; in Washington, DC Henny Rahardja, Tel. +1 202 473 4857, E-mail HRahardja@worldbank.org; in Tunis, Emmanuel K. Ngwainmbi, Tel: +216 71 10 26 27, E-mail e.ngwainmbi@afdb.org.

About ITU

Demand Distributed Homeshoring First [ Update ]

<ed.note>Birmingham, AL and Oklahoma City, OK rate well among the Top 50 Emerging Outsourcing Cities. Indian Tutors Teach U.S. Kids Math over the Internet. Jim Ware and Charlie Grantham size up distributed work in the future of work.

Older Post: Anthony O'Donnell, of Insurance & Technology, blogs on "Offsite But Not Offshore: Promoting a Domestic Outsourcing Alternative". My response rant ( with a typo fixed ): "Anthony: These insights are helpful as far as they go. But the thing to which everyone seems to be oblivious ( or are acting as if ) is that with global broadband building out, content management systems, VOIP, wikis, code repositories, online project management applications, IM, web cams, virtualized server clusters, etc. there is no need for a DEVELOPMENT CENTER at all. What the fed and states rural economic development folks, the institutional disabilities advocates and pseudo-green politicians don't seem to get is that we don't need to commute to one place ( wasting gas ). The open source movement ( which is kicking butt in the IT sector and changing the paradigm of HP, IBM, SUN, etc. ) teaches us that talent can work just fine on the distributed, digital enterprise known as the internet. It is the iddatarate management structure which refuses to reduce their workflows to metrics and measurable goals ( fear of the phrase "Would you like fries with that?" ). It is time for institutional shareholders to begin demanding during conference calls the steps firms are taking to digitize their business processes so that they can be fulfilled from anywhere in the world with a decent pipe."

Older Post:
If you see the CompeteAmerica PR piece you'll note the argument that "The Sanders Amendment will accelerate outsourcing and undermine U.S. economic growth" -- so basically CompeteAmerica's argument is "Give us H-1bs or we'll outsource the jobs anyway."

What I don't understand is why neither major politcal party is being called on the carpet by activists for not promoting a domestic telework economy as a National Economic Security Issue given the attendant "green" benefits caused by reduced unnecessary work-related commuting. Now I realize that this could be just another mechanism to offshore work ( though this reality is just the logical companion of a "meritocracy" mindset ) but it is also a mechanism to bring folks from rural workforces and high tech rural economic development projects into the mix ( as well as the 70% of folks with disabilites who are unemployed and who just can't get to the work place for lack of accessible transportation ). While I tend to knock Tennessee's Governor Bredesen on his short-term disabilities-related healthcare strategies, I must commend his work toward building a "The Trail to Innovation". I don't have anything "against" Indian or Chinese workers, but we do need to encourage a US workforce which will build the skills to be able to compete for gigs in other nations cyberly -- thus bringing that capital into this economy instead of the current outflow trend.

My personal bias is that "Demand Distributed Homeshoring First" would be more discerning rallying cry, however. The real question is why can't software development firms and corporate America IT shops seem to get past geolocking their positions in certain locales? How can you maintain any kind of credibility by forcing the development folks producing distributed development tools to all be on the same campus ( the eat your own dogfood axiom )? One reason, I strongly suspect, is that managers are aware that once they reduce their project goals to quantifiable metrics ( necessary to make distibuted work successful ) they, too, will be outsourced or automated out of their positions.

American employers and stockholders need to look seriously at the premise that there isn't an IT labor crunch, but rather, an IT laborer shortage in certain US geographies. The REAL PROBLEM is that many IT jobs ARE NOT LOCATION DEPENDENT, but managers refuse to trust their employees to telecommute. Almost all of the job vacancies I have seen recruiters pitch as difficult to fill are in the category of "you must relocate to a given city" with hiring managers refusing to give any credence to the IT worker's perfect understanding that the probability is pretty high that one week after they move their family to Silicon Valley, Boston, Redmond, wherehaveyou, that the position will be offshored to India. The irony is that now the Indian firms are racing to replicate the geolocked development center model in the US.</ed.note>

If You'd Like To Advocate For FOSS in Healthcare

as Ignacio H. Valdes, MD, MS suggests, you might want to call in on the AHIC Successor Public Technical Assistance Meeting to be held 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Eastern on September 5, 2007, to ask detailed questions related to a Notice of Funding Availability (NoFA) to resource an entity designated to design and establish the AHIC successor by Spring 2008 and the role FOSS will play. 

Here's the current vision.

BusinessWeek, IBM and the Future of Working Cyberly

here.

The Green Grid

The Green Grid is a consortium of information technology companies and professionals seeking to lower the overall consumption of power in data centers around the globe. The organization is chartered to develop meaningful, platform-neutral standards, measurement methods, processes and new technologies to improve energy efficient performance of global data centers.

Membership to The Green Grid is open to those companies and information technology professionals with an interest in helping to support the movement to improve data center power consumption, and improve overall efficiency.

Managing Virtual Distance - Driving Business Transformation through Distributed Work, November 14-16, 2007

The Disneyland Hotel • Anaheim, CA

THE One, THE Only Conference Focused on Strategies, Teams, Tools & Beyond in the Virtual Workplace
ANNOUNCING INAUGURAL CONFERENCE ON MANAGING VIRTUAL DISTANCE

• IDENTIFY, MANAGE & MEASURE virtual distance
• Break through language barriers & manage MULTI-CULTURAL ENVIRONMENTS
• Harness virtual KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
• Believe the unbelievable & witness the power of VIRTUAL WORLDS technology
• Transform business norms & cause cultural shifts in the way people work through SOCIAL NETWORKING
• Implement new millennium strategies that change the way we think about INNOVATION in a corporate context
• Manage, Train & Measure Productivity of the REMOTE EMPLOYEE
• Identify SECURITY CHALLENGES introduced by the transition into Web 2.0 and Web 3.0

To Register:
E-mail register@iirusa.com
Call 888.670.8200
Fax 941.365.2507 
Visit http://www.iirusa.com/virtual

The New World of Work
Daniel W. Rasmus
Director of Information Work Vision – MICROSOFT

Virtual Distance Under High-Stress
Honorable Jerry MacArthur Hultin
President – POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY & FORMER UNDER SECRETARY OF THE U.S. NAVY

Global Projects vs. Traditional Projects
Karan Sorensen
Chief Information Officer – JOHNSON & JOHNSON PHARMACEUTICAL R&D

Legal Issues & IP Protection
Michael S. Mensik
Partner – BAKER & MCKENZIE

Virtual Worlds Technology
Philip Rosedale
Founder & CEO – LINDEN LABS

Secrets of High-Performance Distributed Teams
Cynthia C. Froggatt
Author of “Work Naked: Eight Essential Principles for Peak Performance in the Virtual Workplace”

Leadership in the Digital Age
Charles H. House
Executive Director – STANFORD UNIVERSITY, MEDIA X LAB

A Perspective From Corporate Resources
Ann Bamesberger
Vice President of Open Work Services – SUN MICROSYSTEMS

More here.

This Day in Connected Health

<ed.note>FasterCures SmartBrief pointed me here while Wireless Healthcare Weekly News pointed me here. This is, of course, serendipitous and synergistic given this, you know, if anyone in power pays attention.</ed.note>

If Congress Can't Understand the Decrease in STEM Students

<ed.note>it is, in part, because CIOs are being paid to down-salary and geo-concentrate tech-related gigs and the folks intelligent enough to enter STEM classes are also intelligent enough to use this new-fangled world wide web thingie and read about. Informed, market forces can be very efficient re: incenting activity.

The comments at one posting on this reality ( "This is all about containing costs. There are more than enough well trained US citizens available to fill these positions." and "There are lots of other professionals with elite qualifications (and sometimes experience) that would love to join the revolution. What about using technology to employ people where they currently live?" ) reinforce for me the inconsistency of the fedgov's lack of policy to encourage firms which make software to enable the distributed, digital enterprise, which the fedgov buys, to adopt the work over ip paradigm, especially at as time when politicos "make hay" over e85 ( noone dares mention it is in part because of all that commuting folks are doing ).

Any currently running Green politician out there willing to make "the work over ip paradigm as default position" part of their campaign speech? "e-nable first, then e85." How would that play with the Iowa server farmers?</ed.note>

Un-Cover-ed Tennessee [ Repost: was Faces of Tenncare - Portrait Project ]

<ed.note>Apparently, things semantically delicious are all the rage within fedgovworld -- stories about intellipedia and even various campaign sites using RSS. I bet Donna, who recently left a comment on this 2006 post I've just gotten around to publishing, wished there were a push for tools for transparency in tennessee politics -- semantic sunshine, if you will. Hint: Donna, you can start here and here and here. A thematically similar post to the following can also be found here.</ed.note>

Aired January 3, 2006, WPLN's Kim Green reports on "a young Nashville photojournalist has spent half a year quietly documenting the people affected by TennCare cuts. Now she's collaborating with a local filmmaker to harness the emotional impact of these photos and distribute them nationally."

Dana on Open Politics

here.

<ed.note>Wasn't the Constitution open source? Where are those guys on this issue?</ed.note>

Open Letter to Jim Cooper: If xbrl is good enough for corporations, why not for governments?

<ed.note>My email to Jim Cooper: Jim: Thanks for coming to the debate in Nashville. I'd like to suggest that the Congress and the NGA.org build a universal chart of accounts for the States and the FedGov and express the budgets in extensible business reporting language. FYI: I'll be blogging your response. Thanks.</ed.note>

October 30, 2006, "Will the AICPA Take Over XBRL Standards?" David M. Katz, CFO.com

Companies could be filing XBRL-ready financial statements as soon as 2008. But some observers worry that the definitions corporations will have to follow will be written almost entirely by accountants.

Online Technology for Social Change: From Struggle to Strategy

By conducting surveys and interviews over a nine-month period, the dotOrganize team has charted the state of online technology in the social change sector.

This report compiles insights from more than 400 social change groups, technology providers, and nonprofit technology capacity builders, examining the needs of organizers working to utilize new technologies, and offering recommendations for how to meet those needs more effectively.

While organizers have begun to harness some of the Web’s amazing power over the past five years, our research shows that they are still struggling in their effort to make use of new and emerging technologies.

They’re excited about the possibilities, but are unable to take advantage of them. Regardless of size and financial situation, they feel strapped for time, money, and know-how. They feel that their software lacks the features they need, that they lack the training and support to use the software, and they’re frustrated by the lack of integration between tools.

As a sector, we can make this situation better.

This report investigates ways to respond to these obstacles with enduring, community-driven solutions.

Tennessee Gubenatorial Debate Tonight [ was Speaking of Interactive Data... ]

<ed.note><update>Kai Ryssdalof of Marketplace interviewed Austan Goolsbee, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Goolsbee told Ryssdal that Larry Kotlikoff, of Boston University, one of our leading budget experts, recently told him that "by the standards of business, the U.S. is actually bankrupt. The promises we're on the hook for will cost $70 trillion more than the revenue we're going to bring in. He figures to pay it off would take something like an 80 percent hike in all income taxes." I guess that explains why no politician wants to apply the tools of open book management to government.</update>

Speaking of Interactive Data, the one question I can GUARANTEE WILL NOT BE ASKED of Bredesen or Bryson this weekend ( see debate schedule at lwvtn.org ) will be whether each would commit Tennessee to producing a web-based number crunchable budget ( xbrl ) referring to a NGA.org sponsored "State's Universal Chart of Accounts" which will allow apples to apples comparison.

Need I say it? Vote Technotarian!</ed.note>

The Semantics of Security [ was Open Letter to Harold Ford { Update }]

<ed.note>The Tennessee Mule Day listing in the National Asset Database teaches us it is time for you to ask your politcian if they are "right on xml." Bob Glusko follows up his Needed: Terrorist Target Markup Language post with this. There are all kinds of subject matter experts doing good interoperability and semantic work out there; it's time for the citizenry to step up to the plate and demand professionalism from their politicians. The technology (Web services and DOJ's Global Justice eXtensible Markup Language) behind the recently completed National Sex Offender Public Registry (NSOPR) is both time and cost-effective, establishing "a link between existing state and territory public sex offender registries. The link allows data from different hardware and software systems to be recognized and shown through the national search site" shows it can be done when the public demands it. The Homeland Security and Justice departments National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) beta is another. Meanwhile, this is the status quo.</ed.note>

AdvocacyDev III, Oakland, July 31 to August 2

If you’re passionate and/or curious about developing open source software for online organizing and online advocacy, Aspiration invites you to join us for AdvocacyDev III.

The third annual convening of developers, organizers, and activists working with open source tools for online activism will take place in Oakland, California from July 31 to August 2. If you’re interested in creating better tools for online activists and organizers, please join us for knowledge sharing and brainstorming!

In addition, Electric Embers will host their second annual Most Excellent AdvocacyDev Veggie-Friendly BBQ Shindig on Monday night the 31st.

For latest complete details, see http://www.aspirationtech.org/events/advocacydev3

Sessions will include…

• Show and tell on all the latest open source eAdvocacy platforms and tools, including the latest from CivicSpace/CiviCRM, Radical Designs Activist Mobilization Platform (AMP), GoodStorm, and others.
• ScoutSeven’s DotOrganize project, and the findings of their research on needs and gaps in nonprofit eAdvocacy and database capabilities.
• MobileVoter will share the latest in Cell phone/SMS organizing techniques, and join in discussion on how to better integrate SMS support into open source eAdvocacy tools.
• PICnet will demo their brand-new
  NonprofitSoapbox platform, which integrates other open source tools and platforms.
• Emerging technologies: Discussion of the role of VOIP and the Asterisk platform, and How-To’s on podcasting and activist blogging.
• Prototyping new advocacy tools: Using Ruby on Rails to do rapid web development.
• Building and configuring CivicSpace/CiviCRM sites
• In-depth Drupal development session: Module development and theming
• Business Development: How to pay the bills and work on advocacy development projects)
• eAdvocacy Capacity Building: What trainings, documentation and knowledge sharing is necessary to grow the pool of practitioners in the eAdvocacy space. What is needed to better empower local organizers with local causes to use these tools?
• Open standards and open API’s (Application Programmer Interfaces) for eAdvocacy: what’s needed to allow better data sharing, pooling of legislative and other public data, and enable feature interoperability between platforms? What eAdvocacy “mashups” are useful and possible?
• Email Deliverability: While features and functionality of open source advocacy platforms continue to grow, deliverability of associated email blasts continues to decrease as service providers raise spam barriers and network neutrality is threatened.
• Usability: how can online activist tools be made friendlier and more accessible for organizers and activists?
• Trainings and skillshares on various platforms, tactics, and techniques.

The event will take place at East Bay Community Foundation Conference Center in Downtown Oakland.

To Register, please go to

https://secure.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/Aspiration/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=1602&t=advocacydevII.dwt

If the above link doesn't work, try

http://tinyurl.com/mmf4z

AdvocacyDev III is organized by Aspiration, http://www.aspirationtech.org

For more information, contact advocacydev@aspirationtech.org

Allen Gunn
Executive Director, Aspiration
+1.415.216.7252
http://www.aspirationtech.org

Aspiration: "Better Tools for a Better World"

e-Participation, Social Inclusion, Democratic Engagement: The Next Big e-Agenda has Arrived

http://www.edemocracysymposium.org

Citizen Centric e-Government: The UN is talking about it. The EU and Council of Europe are talking about it. Governments around the world are grappling with it.

But what is it – simply allowing citizens to conduct their business with government online? Or, using the power of IT to radically reengineer the relationship between citizens and government?

What’s really happening – merely hosting a few online consultations to talk to the usual suspects? Or, deploying technology in new and innovative ways to ensure that even the hardest to reach groups are included?

What’s really coming next – a few isolated initiatives? Or, a new global policy agenda that will radically redefine the way we have all come to think about ‘eGovernment.’

This summer, senior government officials from central and local government, NGO’s from around the world and leading eGovernment experts will come together to discuss the evolving relationship between eGovernment and eParticipation and to critically re-examine the way in which ‘readiness’ in these areas is defined and measured globally.

To ensure genuine international input from every level of government and all key sectors, participants will have the opportunity to attend the Symposium in either Budapest or Baltimore.

The Budapest Symposium will set the stage for discussion and debate around the critical challenges stakeholders face as they struggle to deliver the full potential of e-Government.

The Baltimore Symposium will be a 1 day event on the 3 August, which will take the findings of Budapest and explore them at greater depth in the country that has pioneered the art of online campaigning but now faces the challenge of translating e-advocacy tools into more inclusive governing.

Help shape the debate by participating in these highly timely and dynamic events. Topics will break outside the conventional conference agenda to critically re-examine the impact of technology on citizen-centric government as we know it. Plenary panels and small group sessions will highlight key democracy activities from all levels of government and society.

If you are interested in exploring new approaches to governance and citizen participation in the new information age then this conference is for you.

Act SWIFTly

June 23, 2006 - "Treasury Tracks Financial Data In Secret Program", By GLENN R. SIMPSON, Page A1, The Wall Street Journal

Since 9/11, U.S. Has Used Subpoenas to Access Records From Fund-Transfer System

<ed.note>It's good to see that the fedgov is aware of xml-flavored technologies. Obviously we can expect to see them applied to the federal budget to provide transparency for taxpayers ;-)</ed.note>

Since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the U.S. Treasury Department has been secretly tracking suspected terrorist financing through a far-reaching program that gives it access to records from the network that handles nearly all international financial transfers.

The information comes from a Belgian firm known by its acronym, Swift, which manages much of the world's financial-message traffic. Under the program, U.S. counter-terrorism analysts query Swift's vast database of billions of financial transactions for information on activity by suspected terrorists. The program operates under a series of broad U.S. subpoenas.

U.S. officials say the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program has been highly successful both in leading to the apprehension of terrorism suspects and in thwarting terrorist operations. People familiar with the program said, for example, that it yielded useful information on the bombings last July 7 in London. The program "has helped to disrupt terrorist cells and operations and has helped save lives," Treasury said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.

Still, disclosure of its existence may be controversial in Europe and other parts of the world and within the global banking industry, which has long worried about the privacy of transactions. U.S. officials said few American citizens would have financial data that fall under the program, because they are unlikely to engage in international money transfers.

Stuart Levey, Treasury's top counter-terrorism official, said the program was initiated after department lawyers determined they had the legal authority to subpoena Swift, which keeps its data in the U.S. To his knowledge, Mr. Levey said, such broad subpoenas of Swift data had not been attempted previously.

He said the subpoenas are based on a longstanding U.S. law dealing with economic sanctions, known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Passed in 1977, it allows the president to impose economic sanctions when dealing with a national-security threat. The law has been used, among other things, to impose sanctions on rogue states.

See also NYTime's treatment.

Bill Hobbs has Great News [Update: was "Bill Hobbs has Dismal News"]

<ed.note>O.k. I have to stop picking on Bill Hobbs now for not picking up on the theme of xml-based government disclosure since he recently posted this which pointed me to this and this. Thanks, Bill!</ed.note>

[ Update: This is from an earlier version of the same rant: ]

<ed.note>Bill Hobbs has a post on government disclosure (or nondisclosure) here.

The National Governors Association needs to develop a universal chart of accounts for all the states which can provide the foundation for "apples to apples" comparisons of state budgets. These should be expressed in the xml interactive data technology known as extensible business reporting language (xbrl). The Urban League has developed such a beast for nonprofits but nonprofits seek disclosure as quickly as states do ;-) Wouldn't it be cool if you had to prove your org's societal worth before you get the fed tax exemption -- but I digress...

SEC Chairman Cox is pushing for xbrl-based corporate disclosure ( same general intent as Sarbox ) and the UK taxing authority will mandate it by March 2010. If anyone needs help just contact xml.gov or Eric Cohen at PWC. [ Update: Newt's signed on to the SEC's initiative. ]

It's strange that the one thing the two main political parties agree on is that the citizenry doesn't deserve to see the real numbers in a manner which allows them to see the underlying context. [ Update: Open Letter to Tenn Gubs: Before the election will you sign a legally binding contract committing you to creating a state budget which will be expressed in extensible markup language and will show the state accounts at close of business daily and be made available on the state web site? ]</ed.note>

[ Update: This is an even earlier version of the same rant: ]

<ed.note>Except for seeing politicians as economic factors which have to be accounted for re: healthcare I'm not really a political blogger. Bill Hobbs is reporting on the current street theater of the Tennessee Legislature as they try to keep reporters occupied with the blog disclosure red herring -- blog disclosure being a good thing imho -- but in a thread I continue to post in Bill's comments -- but strangely never gets picked up as a main topic -- is that the tool of true political disclosure is: ta da -- xbrl!

Yes, I know you're tired of hearing about it and yes I'm the most politically cynical person alive but we're still morally required to go thru the motions, aren't we? Every concerned voter should be able to see the logic in a "Show me the money" approach -- my fear is that voters are only concerned about getting theirs, a sort of hush money republic -- a hushmocracy, if you will. So here's the latest comment posted -- more or less (o.k. a tad bit more -- the last thought's new):

"It occurs to me that folks might not get why xbrl is so important to disclosure. Simply put, extensible business reporting markup language is a tool that is an xml based way of reporting budgets (among other things), to the line item, if desired. It's gaining global adoption but adoption lags here in the US -- I don't know why -- does anyone working on Wall Street have any suggestions? Oh and Bill -- since it's an xml based technology it can be programmatically produced and posted to a blog (say by a politician) near real-time. Now there are pdf-to-xml conversion houses out there so if politicians want to publish full budgets in pdf that can be dealt with, too. But if transparency is the goal -- as opposed to rhetorizing about transparency -- I say vote for xbrl! Here's a faq for folks who want to learn more http://xbrl.edgar-online.com/x/faqs/ I think the NGA.org ought to come up with xbrl budgets for all 50 state so that we can compare programs for efficacy and efficiency."

</ed.note>