I have a great deal of faith in technologists -- and by "technologists" I mean anyone really who works in developing, understanding, or shaping technologies -- because I've seen time and again that what they're committed to most is problem solving. Gov. Warner (yes, I know it is a bit pathetic to actually reference the wisdom of the guy that I work for) says time and again that if business worked like politics, executives would go to their shareholders at the end of the year and say, "we didn't actually do anything this year, but we sure made the other guy look bad." It's instead the ethos in the modern technology world to try the damnedest to build something better, day in and day out. Part of the motivation for doing so is money, of course, but there's nothing wrong with that.

I went down to South by Southwest Interactive -- a four-day festival of geekery, from technology to digital design -- in Austin in March of last year exactly because I wanted to surround myself with technologists after five years on Capitol Hill and be inspired by their spirit. It worked, and so I'll be going back again next year. SXSW 2007 will be a bit different though because the panels as the conference will in large part be chosen through an panel picking process. Everyone is invited to participate, though the votes of past and future attendees will count for more.

So I've gone and submitted a panel for this next SXSW. I'll admit it to you and to you alone that the idea behind it is to see if we can go ahead and suck some of that can-do spirit into the political process:

The on-going fight over network neutrality showcased the rising political interest and might of tech-minded folk. But neutrality was just the beginning. From free culture to muni-connectivity, from BitTorrent to the wireless spectrum, we'll hash over the issues held dear by technologists. And we'll figure out how the community can problem-solve its way into political service.