I slept 9 hours last night, 10 hours the night before, At home, I sleep 6, maybe 7.  It's been raining here for 3-4 days, so we run out and do a walk or a hike in between downpours, sit on the porch and read books.  I have been writing the product specs for oakland local and for some maps we want to build.

Being in a new place ans have more unscheduled time feels like a gift. Stepping away from twitter and the web except for very sporadic bits of a day is totally a gift. My sprained thumb (!) is starting to feel a bit better.

I'm also starting to look ahead to later this summer, when  Oakland Local will kick in as  a major focus, along with some other smaller projects. We'll be doing some Public Media Collaborative training as well, and planning our own one day event of social media for social action.

But right now is that space between the worlds, the re charge and vacation space, and it is wonderful.

Ever notice how talking about self-love is one of those final privacy frontiers? The whole piece is here. Yep, it's a little edgy.

It's 6:22 am, and in a few minutes I am going to move into gear and start the day of travel leading to 2 weeks in Michigan, in s house on a lake that A's family built 90 years ago. This is my third visit, and it's amazing how this house and this town have become a home place for me; a place I think about when I am not there, and look forward to coming back to.

As a native New Yorker moved to the Bay area, I have no Michigan roots of my own, but I love it there...and look forward, every year, to learning more about the area.

This summer, I have big plans:

• swim, hike, bike, row, walk as much as possible
• read, nap, relax as much as possible
• write the product specs for Oakland Local and the related tools we want to build and get them back out the the team and contracted to build ASAP
• finish a tiny bit of client work I still need to complete
• write poetry
• read books
• blog and surf as much as I want to
• appreciate A, my wonderful partner
• miss my dog (but sleep later)
• I will be online, but further off the grid....can't wait,

Of course I just love this service!

"For users, Web2.0 was all about reorganizing web-based practices around Friends. For many users, direct communication tools like email and IM were used to communicate with one's closest and dearest while online communities were tools for connecting with strangers around shared interests. Web2.0 reworked all of that by allowing users to connect in new ways. While many of the tools may have been designed to help people find others, what Web2.0 showed was that people really wanted a way to connect with those that they already knew in new ways. Even tools like MySpace and Facebook which are typically labeled social networkING sites were never really about networking for most users. They were about socializing inside of pre-existing networks."

--dana boyd, talk given at microsoft, feb 2009

After 2.5 days at Knight's Future of News and Civic Media conference at  MIT, my brain is happily stuffed very full. Approximately 150 (?) people convened at the Strata building to talk about the future of civic media, news in an informed democracy and how technology tools can support--and accelerate--change. 

For me, who spent a chunk of last year working with Knight to manage the Knight News Challenge, this was a thrilling chance to be part of the announcement event--ie be in the room; however, as someone who is about to dive into building a new hyperlocal site for Oakland, it was also a chance to talk with, meet with, and observe a brilliant cross-section of practicioners from around the world.

Amy Gahran was our mobile scout, and did a great session on what could be achieved with crappy cell phones. Eric Newton talked about the Knight ecosystem to a room full of Knight chairs and program leaders (fascinating), and there were semi-bar-camp sessions on alternative funding models, 

There were so many cool people and projects--ExtrACT got me super-excited; I would like to work with their tools and build Oakland-area data maps. And it's always great to talk with Kevin Slavin of Area/Code; his brain is my brain's soul brother. And Ryan Sholin, Dan Pacheco, Chris O'Brien and so many news-y folks have got it going on in the best way.
And...I cojuld go on and on; basic facts would be I came home with three books, tons of new ideas, refreshed and new connections and so much excitement about what is possible.

And did I mention that the kick ass Lisa Williams led a team that proposed tweetbill--and that they won a small competition for $3K in funding to make it live.  Whee!

"That was the house that I stayed in this past weekend: a girl I'm dating, her friend whom I tried to date, a girl who dated multiple friends of mine, and a girl who has asked me out and is the twin sister of another girl that I dated. And until this weekend, I knew each of them entirely independently of each other. Are you kidding? Is that not a little ridiculous? The whole thing was one degree of Andrew."

--Andrew, Igniter dater, writing about his (weekend) dating life and the six degrees (or 46 degrees) of seperation he had with every other women in the weekend share house.

Susan sez:  The world is really small till you want to paint it.

 Will three guys in suits in a plenary session get off news and get into nabes and nerds? This is clearly the academic session debating the issues; energy in room diminishing.

The academics are MUCH more conservative that Albert Ibarguen, which is delightful to watch, but pretty annoying, actually, Newspaper academics, please just get over yourselves.

@agahran:Why am I having Deja vu in this #kncmit plenary? Oh yeah: 1000th time I've heard it (content, views, format). Sigh... #fncm09 #knc09

Three years into the grant process, Knight is starting to evaluate impact of the first 2 years of funding, says Alberto Ibarguen at the MIT conference I'm at right now. Knight sees itself as a facilitator of both growth and change; and it's clear they have seeded so many enterprises--the Digital Media centers at various universities, lots of community and news funded projects.

Alberto bering asked by Henry Jenkins about user skift and city papers, classifieds' demise and the general expense of quality news at the local level as change factors for the industyr imploding. "Time and money," Alberto says, "But a much small base to pay for all of it."

Henrk Jenkins quizzing Eric Klineman around the demise of news (figting for Air)--he says the "devertatin of local media has been happening for some riime." (Susan sez: this makes me think of the corporate consolidation of radio more than at community weeklies). He says that the digital outlets he studied for his book were all dependent on newspaper reporting, ergo, now that newspapers are dying, what happens to the production of news across media?

Eric K says he debates "enthuiasts of citizen media" who argue new reporters will replace the current priesthood, but he says that we're going to lose information we had in the past. (Susan says" Off the top of my head, I TOTALLY disagree; there's a vibrancy to online journalism that needs more support, and many people to train, but I don't see who only corporate journalists are being deemed capable of quality work thst is wrong thought.)

Alberto says the foundation's conclusion was thay the were "neither smart enough or big enough to save the newspaper business, but it was time to spend money on experiments for the future." He adds "It also is what led us to the issue of universal access and the urgency we fele in giving every american broadband access." (Susan sez: Amen!)

Alberto says: Knght wants to fund the news that people need to have t function in a democracy--on a digital platform. 

Henry Jenkins ties this to local moves; Eric K says dimishing interest in local is not about lack of sense of place, but investment/identity in web based communities taking away from our local sense of place.

ALberto: We don't just looks for ideas that work for the News Challenge, we want ideas that help build a local community.

The 2009 winners of #KNC09 were announced today--here's the table. Congrats to all!

DocumentCloud	$ 719,500	Eric Umansky Scott Klein Aron Pilhofer Ben Koski	ProPublica, with The New York Times	New York, N.Y.	2009
Media Bugs	$ 335,000	Scott Rosenberg		Berkeley, Calif.	2009
Councilpedia	$ 250,000	Gail Robinson	Gotham Gazette	New York, N.Y.	2009
Data Visualization	$ 243,600	Aaron Presnall	The Jefferson Institute	Washington, D.C.	2009
Mobile Media Toolkit	$ 200,000	Katrin Verclas	MobileActive	Springfield, Mass.	2009
The Daily Phoenix	$ 95,000	Aleksandra Chojnacka Adam Klawonn		Phoenix, Ariz.	2009
Crowdsourcing Crisis Information	$ 70,000	Ory Okolloh	Ushahidi	Orlando, Fla.	2009
Virtual Street Corners	$ 40,000	John Ewing		Roxbury, Mass.	2009
CMS Upload Utility	$ 10,000	Joe Boydston	McNaughton Newspaper Group	Placerville, Calif.	2009