Alex Howard on Open Government; A conversation with FTC Commissioner Julie Brill & Professor John Palfrey; The Digital Dialectic

What can 21st century open government learn from open source, open data, open innovation and open journalism?

Tuesday, March 20, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, Cambridge, MA. This event will be webcast live.

In the 1990s, the Internet changed communication and commerce forever. A decade later, the Web 2.0 revolution created a new disruption, enabling hundreds of millions of citizens to publish, share, mix, comment, and upload media to a more dynamic online environment. In 2012, we're now living in the era of big data, where mobile devices and a real-time Web are dramatically shift the dynamic between governments and the governed. In the years since the first social networks went online, the disruption has spread to government, creating perceived shifts in power structures as large as those enabled by the introduction of the printing press centuries ago. As the means of publishing have become democratized and vast amounts of data have become available, new possibilities for civic advocates, activists, journalists, developers and entrepreneurs have emerged. The historic events of the last year, from Egypt to #Occupy to the SOPA debate, have breathed new life into the idea of open government fueled by technology. At the same time, a new spectre of new cutting edge surveillance states has arisen, where digital autocracies apply filtering, propaganda and tracking technologies to suppress speech, distort public opinion and capture or kill dissidents and protestors. Life is increasingly reflected and refracted by the cameras and screens of ubiquitous smartphones, accompanied by hazy norms around privacy, security and identity and Industrial Age laws and regulations that appear inadequate to the needs of the moment. In this talk on the power of platforms, Howard will talk about where the principles and technologies that built the Internet and World Wide Web are being integrated into government and society -- and by whom. These new digital platforms for communication, enabled by highly accessible and scalable Web technologies, have reinvigorated the hope that collective action can reforge the compact between citizens and government. Alexander Howard is the Government 2.0 Washington Correspondent for O'Reilly Media. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

A conversation with FTC Commissioner Julie Brill and Professor John Palfrey

Thursday, March 22, 6:00pm ET, Harvard Law School.

John Palfrey of the Berkman Center will engage Commissioner Julie Brill on the Federal Trade Commission’s policy and enforcement initiatives in the area of online privacy and data security. Every day we hear about privacy issues surrounding Facebook, Google, mobile apps, smartphones, Big Data and data brokers. Learn about the Federal Trade Commission’s efforts to protect consumers in this area. Julie Brill was sworn in as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission April 6, 2010, to a term that expires on September 25, 2016. Since joining the Commission, Ms. Brill has worked actively on issues most affecting today’s consumers, including protecting consumers’ privacy, encouraging appropriate advertising substantiation, guarding consumers from financial fraud, and maintaining competition in industries involving high tech and health care. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

The Digital Dialectic

Tuesday, March 27, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, Cambridge, MA. This event will be webcast live.

Virginia Heffernan will discuss "The Digital Dialectic": analog culture, digital culture and what's next. Virginia Heffernan is a national correspondent for Yahoo News, where her column, Machine Politics, appears every Thursday. For eight years, she wrote for The New York Times as a critic and columnist. Before that, she was a writer and editor at Slate and Harper's Magazine. She regularly speaks at universities, corporations and conferences, and has also written for The New Yorker, Mother Jones, Salon, Glamour, The Boston Phoenix, Marie Claire, The Moment, Tablet, and many more publications. Her works has been widely anthologized and in 2013 Free Press will publish her book, Magic and Loss: The Pleasures of the Internet. In 2002, she received a Ph.D. in English from Harvard. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

Rethink Music Conference

April 22-24, Hynes Convention Center, Boston, MA

Music is universal, but the business of music is changing. Produced by Berklee College of Music and midem, Rethink Music is a hands-on conference designed to bring music stakeholders together to discuss business models for the future, examine copyright challenges in the digital era, and analyze technological innovation in music and its distribution. Centered around transforming the music industry, Rethink Music’s programming does not just focus on discussing change, but rather making it happen. Registration required more information on the Rethink Music website>

DPLA West

April 27, San Francisco, CA

DPLA West—taking place on April 27, 2012 in San Francisco—is the second major public event bringing together librarians, technologists, creators, students, government leaders, and others interested in building a Digital Public Library of America. Convened by the DPLA Secretariat at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and co-hosted by the San Francisco Public Library, the event will assemble a wide range of stakeholders in a broad, open forum to facilitate innovation, collaboration, and connections across the DPLA effort. DPLA West will also showcase the work of the interim technical development team and continue to provide opportunities for public participation in the work of the DPLA. Registration required more information on the DPLA website>

RB 194: The Wiki 1%

This week at Radio Berkman we tried something new. During our recent interview with Berkman Fellow Justin Reich about his report The State of Wiki Usage in U.S. K-12 Schools: Leveraging Web 2.0 Data Warehouses to Assess Quality and Equity in Online Learning Environments, we learned that only one percent of educational wikis succeed in creating the kind of multimedia, collaborative learning environment we have come to associate with open educational resources like PBWikis and Wikispaces. Justin's findings, and their implications, are so intriguing that we decided it was time to go into the field and do some investigative work of our own. Radio Berkman wanted to know: Who is making those successful wikis and how? Producer Frances Harlow spent a day at Thayer Academy in Braintree, Massachusetts sitting in on professional development sessions and interviewing instructors, including Director of Studies and History Department Head (and classroom wiki "missionary") Matt Dunne, and Veteran History teacher Norma Atkinson. Listen to what she found and be sure to let us know what you think of this Radio Berkman experiment! video/audio on our website>