Douglas Rushkoff is a guest blogger.
Although I begged them (and they agreed at the time) to change their name from Personal Democracy Forum to Participatory Democracy Forum, the name remains the same. But the purpose remains the same, too, so I’m glad I got invited to participate in the Forum’s conference again this year in New York City on June 29 and 30.
The one thing that has changed, however, was my ability to negotiate a short-term discount of $100 for BoingBoing readers who want to go, by using the discount code “boingboingpdf”. That’s only going to work for the next 24 hours, but that’s better than nothing. (They are pretty good about finding roles for interns, too, so try for that if the entry fee is still too high.)
On the brightest side, this year’s confirmed participants include Danah Boyd, Clay Shirky, Frank Rich, Dan Gillmor, Jack Dorsey, Dave Troy, Baratune Thurston, Ana Marie Cox, Vivek Kundra, Amanda Rose, Tara Hunt, Nate Silver, Craig Newmark, Gina Bianchini, Beth Noveck, Jeff Jarvis, Scott Simon, Michael Wesch, Joe Rospars, David Weinberger, and Mark Pesce. And unlike a lot of conferences, these folks actually participate in the whole thing.
(Micah Sifry of PDF informs me that they tried to change the name to Participatory Democracy, but couldn’t find an unused url for it.)