Committee Of 100 Blog Panel

I've finally arrived home from the Prince William Committee of 100 panel on blogging, ethics, and the 1st amendment. I had a wonderful time except for the dread fear I always go through when having to do a public speaking event. (which I rarely if ever do, because I'm not big on dread fear).

There wasn't as much disagreement on the panel as you may have expected. I wasn't that surprised. I did think the discussion was interesting.

I prepared too much, part of that fear thing. If I ever have to do something like this again, I'll be "better" prepared.

The entire thing will be on the web somewhere in video form. I may not link to it -- I don't think I'll enjoy seeing myself, as I'm certain I'll hate what I say and how I look. And I can only hope and pray that I didn't do anything embarrassing.

I may post some of my prepared comments later in a different thread, or maybe not. I'm working on some theories of how we can "take back" the web as a force for good, but I'm not sure that's possible, or whether my ideas would actually work. Maybe we can discuss it together.

I finally met Jonathan Marks, who for the record I still dispise as an internet persona. :)

But as is true for nearly every person I meet, I had no trouble carrying on a civil and actually interesting conversation in person -- we spoke for over 20 minutes. This reminds me that I've meant to put down my thoughts about the last election, and I'll probably do that in the next few days now that I had a chance to articulate them.

I sat at a table with Earnie Porta, Mayor of the Town of Occaquan. I truly enjoyed speaking with him, and with the others at my table who while not as public a figure as Earnie were equally engaging.

I'll probably wait to post anything particularly substantive, and instead read what others might be posting. There were many bloggers at the event.