Tra gli eventi tecnologici a cui ho partecipato Reboot è il più vicino alla cultura internet originale. Radicalismo cognitivo, richiami allo yoga e allo zen, Djs, spazio giochi per i bambini, feste interrotte dall’arrivo della polizia (l’anno scorso): si sente benissimo l’origine controculturale della scena hacker. E i grandi vecchi come Dave Winer o David Weinberger (entrambi presenti: il secondo ieri ha affrontato con una passione quasi fisica il tema della moralità e della cyberutopia, nientemeno) hanno uno status simile a quello degli ex partigiani nell’Italia degli anni 60: hanno un prestigio indiscusso, sono circondati di grande affetto e rispetto, e in virtù di questo si possono permettere posizioni più radicali e innovative di chiunque altro. Non so se la mia generazione riuscirà a produrre pensatori altrettanto influenti in questa cultura. Non credo. Meglio tenerci stretti questi.

That between Nadia El-Imam and Bror Salmelin is a really unlikely alliance. She’s an Afro-Swedish interaction designer in her 20s, rooted in the hacker culture and suspicious towards large public bureaucracies; he is a Finnish senior officer at the European Commission in his 50s, technology expert (he had an important role in the birth of the Living Lab movement) and with a very institutional role. Despite many language differences, the two managed to understand (somewhat) and respect each other, and together they conceived and deployed Future building for wikicrats, a really innovative initiative: rather than setting up their own Brussels event, the Commission launched a workshop within Reboot – that, for people unfamiliar with it, is an event of the international hacker community started in 1998, where you can rub shoulders with people like Howard Rheingold, Tim O’Reilly and Dave Winer. The workshop’s goal is to share a new way of thinking about technology policy, that takes the best from both the governance culture (accuntability, impartiality, inclusivity, orientation towards the common good) and the hacker culture (sharing. radical transparency, meritocracy, autonomy).

They invited people that, with a few exceptions, are not technology policy experts. They are people just like you and me, who create or use technology; they are very diverse for culture, personal history, profession and interests. They are also interesting people. Gianluca Dettori is a venture capitalist; Robin Chase is an entrepreneur interested in transport; Amelia Andersdotter is a key figure in the Swedish Pirate Party; Elvira Berlingieri is a digital law expert; I should be speaking for the creative world (pretty tall assignment); Freek van Krevel works at the Commission, and together with David Osimo he is only professional technology policy expert.

I expect that, interacting within a context of shared values, these people acquire new metaphors to think about tech policy through the people who do it and who are impacted by it. Civil servants say “hi-tech firms”, and they think of Economics 101 models mashed with neoliberal rhethoric; well, these models are light-years distant from the people who actually build companies, and interacting with Robin and Gianluca might help amending, deepening or downright discarding them. Similiarly, many hackers think of “Eurocrats” as some kind of grey trolls obsessed with the shapes of bananas; and they have no idea of the real interest and – yes – ideals of people like Bror and Freek. Participants to FBFW can act as personae for each other. Its personal approach should help this, and I really hope it could enhance mutual understanding across tech policy stakeholders.

Knowing a little the stiff-upper-lip style favoured oy the European Commission, this is really a giant cultural leap. We’ll see how it goes. For now: kudos Nadia and Bror. We need more stuff like this IMHO.

Tag: wikicrats
Twitter hashtag: #wikicrats
Livestream URL: www.ustream.tv/channel/wikicrats-at-reboot11

I may be too optimistic, but I see some signals that a new kind of conversation is opening between (some) public administrations and (some) citizens. Here they are:

1. The OECD workshop I took part in last week, in London. We talked of co-design and co-delivery in public services, public administrations and citizens together; and we went about it in a free flowing, informal style, basing the discussion on detailed case studies. Interestingly, it was not a one-off, but part of a series (Innovative Delivery Workshop Series), so it seems that the OECD has some intention of carrying this stuff forwards.

2. The Public Services 2.0 group is launching today a collective brainstorming that should lead to an open declaration to present to the EU ministerial conference on the European IT strategy (Målmo, November 2009)

3. The European Commission participates an a typical hacker conference like Reboot, and it chooses it as the venue for a workshop on how to help the new European Parliament to make wise decisions on technology policy.

It is not realistic to expect miracle solutions from all this; they are very small initiatives. But they are small wise moves, and they are way better than the current balkanisation of the debate (check out this video). in which the Hon. Gabriella Carlucci (former TV showgirl, presently vice president of the Italian parliamentary commission on childhood) tells dissenting blogger Alessandro Gilioli that she wishes his son would be stalked by a pedophile while on Facebook. Check it out, and then tell me we don’t need to let all sides talk, openly and respectfully.