What's been so great about moving to New York is that there are so many interesting events. I have, um, a large handful of interests, some personal and some professional (most both, which is nice) and just about every day there's some event in New York City to attend. In fact, often there's so many that they conflict and you have to pick just one. Tonight, for example, there's an event at the United Federation of Teachers on how the labor movement and progressive bloggers can create some synergy:
LABOR AND BLOGS: Can labor and blogs work together?
A panel discussion coordinated by Kombiz Lavasany
Featuring Nathan Newman (PLAN, TPMCafe), Chris Bowers and Scott Shields (MyDD), and Micah Sifry (PersonalDemocracy.com)
6:15, United Federation of Teachers
52 Broadway, 10th Floor
But there's also an event that I've waiting two months for, since my row-mate on the plan down to SXSW told me about it. The Internet Telecommunications Program at NYU is hosting its annual spring show. ITP is part of the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, and is a two-year program that sees itself as "a living community of technologists, theorists, engineers, designers, and artists uniquely dedicated to pushing the boundaries of interactivity in the real and digital worlds." The spring show is the ITP's students' chance to show off the projects they're working on. The projects are, um, creative -- one that I previewed online was a shirt that allows you to hug yourself more effectively. Still, I think I'm going to get a chance to see and play with a lot of neat interactive technologies.
The ITP show runs tonight and tomorrow. But unless it's so terrific that I want to go back a second time, tomorrow I'm going to go to an event hosted by the Drum Major Institute. (DMI's name comes from the MLK quote "If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice." Yeah, I don't know what that means.) DMI is hosting an event for David Sirota's his new book, Hostile Takeover, about the influence of big business and corruption in Washington. It's at the SEIU Serkasky-Davis Conference Center at 330 West 42nd Street. Someone -- I can't remember who -- once described Sirota as "a man without an off switch," so I'm looking forward to what should be a high-charged event.
Monday is the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference on the convergence of politics and technology. New York gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer is giving keynote address. The guest(s) for the "keynote conversation" is still a surprise, but I'm guessing it's John and Elizabeth somebody or other. I'm going to be moderating a panel on "The Rising Power of Local Political Blogs." I don't know much at all about localized political blogging and so I'm looking forward to being in the position to force my panelists to answer the questions rattling around in my head. I'm curious as to how political blogs tied to one offline space differ from national blogs. Does it matter that a local blogger and the community he or she creates interact, you know, offline a great deal too? (Both because they would have anyway in the course of their normal lives and because they're drawn together by the blog.) Do people manage identity differently as a result? I have a sneaking suspicion that localized political blogs might have a special knack for "preaching beyond the choir." If that's true, then why? Should be interesting.
All in all, an exciting week to be a young-ish progressive geek in New York City. Then again, seems like many of them are. Yeah, I'm in love with the big apple.
