As most of you know, I undertake a pretty heavy schedule of speaking engagements around the world - promoting the concept of OPLANs and (hopefully!), literally 'opening minds to open networks'.  I am afraid that much of the time, I find I am speaking at events as a 'lone voice' for openness and that the message of the majority of the other speakers is being sung in a very different key.  On such occasions, I hope that those listening to my presenation gain more value, insight and encouragement than I do from listening to the other contributors.

Last week I was fortunate to be speaking at the international Wizards of OS4 event in Berlin.  This  was a very different state of affairs.  Focussing on the issues of 'openness' in a variety of contexts and disciplines and exploring with like-minded individuals how this contributes to a civil society, this under-lying theme of the convention was stimulating, cohesive and altogether informative - that's my take-away.  I met and spoke with a number of extremely enlightened and insightful individuals from around the world and without question, left with the feeling that I had gained more than I had given - the hallmark of any successful trade in a 'free market'.  Since the entire event was recorded and is freely available from the WOS4 website, I thought I could do no better than point you to a few of the contributions which informed and inspired me.  So a big 'thank you' to Volker Grassmuck  and his team for organising the event and inviting me to speak.  Here goes:

Lawrence Lessig, from Standford University and father of the creative commons is spending a year at the American Academy in Berlin - writing another book.  He gave a keynote address at WOS4 which, although it did not contain anything radically new but re-stated in new imaginative ways the core case for 'sharing and openness' which I and many others have been trying to proclaim for many a year - Lawrence was, as ever, compelling.   He has a rare gift in framing and articulating what I call the 'unconventional wisdom' and using powerful metaphor and imagery to get the message across.  Not to mention a new 'minimalist' split-second presentation style - all of his own - often with a single word on the screen.  Watch this presentation where he argues that the 20th century has allowed itself to become 'read only' era and only now, with the digital technologies of abundance are we 'rediscovering' that the human spirit is one that is fundamentally fed and feulled by 'read-write'.   You really should watch this presentation -  you will find it's message easy to incorproate into an OPLAN context.

Also - take a look at what is happening in Brazil which has emerged as the prime promoter of free culture, domestically and in international fora.  "We are going to tropicalize the digital revolution."   Under this motto from Brazil‘s Minister of Culture ,Gilberto Gil, the country is developing a broad range of activities for promoting digital culture.  

Finally, our Panel on Open Spectrum.   Chaired by Armin Medosch from London, joining him on that panel with me was Onno Purbo from Jakarta, Indonesia and Robert Horvitz, Director of the Open Spectrum Foundation, based in Prague.  It was good to get to know Robert after the panel (there we are together in the photo) and to share some common understanding of what is going on and where we are moving in this common drive towards user-controlled networking.  He is doing stirling work presenting regulators and public policy makers with the reasoned and well argued case for making more of the radio spectrum available as 'license exempt'.  Do support him and also John Wilson, who is carrying an Open Spectrum flag in the United Kingdom.  (John is an OPLAN Foundation Council of Reference member).   So try and take the time to watch the contributions from the panelists and watch out for Onno's "WokBolic" antenna - yes, made from a real cooking wok!    Couple that with the increased power levels being toyed with by various regulators for WiFi, and the idea of "wok-bolic-noodles" becomes a real possibility.   "Free food with Free Speech"  - now we're cooking!