So my blog guilt has gotten unmanageable... and so I write. In my defense, I don't think I'm the only one who has fallen rather more silent on the blog front... and Tom has a theory about why. Blame Facebook.

This summer, I spent 3.5 weeks back out west ("home", as I still seem to call it, despite the fact that I don't live there and didn't even grow up there – but 8 years on the coast and my family there now are enough for me). It was a wonderful opportunity to integrate my new life, somehow. Reflection.

I am actually headed back a week tomorrow, for Web of Change. I think it's going to be epic! I haven't done a great job this year, communicating about Web of Change and all that it is, which is a shame, because this year is certainly going to be our biggest and best yet. We have about 90 people coming, and from all over Canada, the US, and the world. My dear friend and colleague Jodie (with the help of course of my also dear friends Jason and Phillip) has worked incredibly hard to bring together a group of amazing and diverse people working for social change. To serve them, she's fashioned an agenda full of juicy conversations about how we truly create change in the world, how we use technology as a means that end, and how we learn to work together better along the way.

I've been trying for a whole week to write this post, to no avail... It's always a bit crazy when an event that you've been building up to for months is suddenly over.

So Web of Change!

I really don't know where to start. For me, it was fantastic. It all came together, we had even more people than we had anticipated, the calibre of the people there was fantastic, and the weather even changed its mind at the last minute and blessed us with 4 days of sunshine (see picture proof).

The sessions were really good (see the live-blogged notes here) this year, stronger than in most previous. The most common complaint was that it was hard to chose between break-out offerings. I know I got a lot out of the sessions I attended... and I got to meet the super-star behind The Meatrix, Jonah Sachs. (Duuuuude, you're *so* internet famous!!)

Really I just don't even know what to say. My reactions are still settling, I'm still having conversations about people about it all, thinking about what worked, what didn't, and I'm also wrestling a cold I managed to get up there. Also, I'm pondering whether I'll be involved next year. I cannot imagine not being integrally involved with Web of Change, but it also might be time to pass the torch. We shall see...

If you want more, check out Micheal Silberman's post at EchoDitto, or Beth Kanter's at NetSquared.

Just a quick post to say that after much hard work on the part of our kick-ass conference convenors, we've got a fairly-finalized agenda for Web of Change ready!

It's looking pretty awesome, as is the list of people who are coming. If you're still thinking about coming, don't wait another single day... we're almost full.

I can't wait for the conference, but I gotta say, I also can't wait for it to be over. :P These last few weeks are always the hairiest...

Back in May there was a conference up at Hollyhock that I was very sad to miss – the Social Change Institute. (I used to work for the Hollyhock Leadership Insitute and it's events like that that make me wish I still did...) It was a gathering of visionaries in the social change world, and it sounded pretty incredible. You can read my friend and colleage Jason's report-out at the Web of Change site.

Anyhow, the great good news is that they recorded audio on a few of the sessions, and have posted them at Rabble's podcast station. So go and have a listen! Apparently the Van Jones talk is pretty powerful. I'll be checking it out later today.

And if you're turned on by what you hear, you might just be interested in Web of Change. :) Amazing things happen at Hollyhock, that's for sure.

I posted my thoughts about WineCamp and NetSquared, in retrospective, over at the Web of Change site.

This here is the link that you'll need...

Since I haven't posted anything here recently, I thought I might as well direct you thataways... And while it keeps you busy, I'll try and come up with some compelling content. (Funny that San Francisco filled me with so much to feverishly blog about. Life in Vancouver can't be *that* much less interesting, can it?)

I landed in San Francisco this morning, and it's been a pretty packed 12 hours so far. My visits to California are always characterized by crazy experiences of synchronicity and random moments of loveliness, and today was no exception.

Eddie met me off the Muni, and we went to Atlas in the Misson for lunch, since I was totally ravenous. Atlas turned out to be a crazy convergence of the internet famous, as we ran into Lane Becker of Adaptive Path and Jason Schultz of EFF on our way in, and then some of the NetSquared team and Zacker of CivicSpace on our way out. I had a weird moment when Jason said he recognized me from GETV – my 15 minutes of internet fame??

Eddie and I then booted it over the Bay Bridge to Berkeley, to the sweet little office from which Circle of Life operates. Circle of Life is the organization started by Julia Butterfly Hill of tree-sitting fame, and Eddie was booked to do an interview with their associate director, Amira, for NetSquared. More worlds collided as it turned out that she is the housemate of a former WOC alumni – and a total candidate for WOC 2006 herself, I might add. So I put in my plug and showed off our site and she got really stoked about it all.

So I totally dug Circle of Life. To the right there you can see half of their Values Board – talk about my kind of people. Also, you should check out their blog and read about Julia's current action – she's up a tree on South Central Farm in Los Angeles, advocating for the rights of the 350 working class families who run this community farm together and grow much of their food on it and are being threatened with eviction. It's a pretty powerful story. Amira was just editing a phone interview with Julia which she'll be posting as a podcast soon. Oh, the internet! That's the kind of stuff that really makes podcasting meaningful, to me.

The coincidences just kept coming after we left, and it turned out that Eddie and my friend Jason knew each other from Burning Man camp. Small world... But you know what, i'll let Flickr tell the rest of the story. Suffice to say that I love California and my trip is off to a great start...