(Buffalo) Well, after 24 hours on progressively smaller planes I'm finally here in Buffalo, arriving late last night. An eventless flight on Qantas and American Airlines - a nice sunrise over the Californian coastline flying into LAX, and luckily none of the landing gear problems that occurred so dramatically and telegenically on a JetBlue flight at the same airport just a few days ago. Flying across the U.S. by daylight for the first time I was struck by the vast and barren expanses of land still left more or less untouched especially in the West (this would have been Arizona in particular, I guess) - perhaps its just me, but you don't think about America in such terms these days... Of course I also couldn't help but think 'Google Earth' at the same time - will have to revisit some of the sites along the way later (was that the Las Vegas or Phoenix speedway I saw from the air?).

• 28 Sep., 1 p.m.: Produsers and Produsage - workshop at SUNY Buffalo
• 28 Sep., 6 p.m.: 'Anyone Can Edit': Understanding the Produser - guest lecture at SUNY Buffalo
• 30 Sep., 1.30 p.m.: Teaching Creativity in a Creative Town - exhibition in the Creativity Marketplace at the Creative Places + Spaces conference, Toronto
• 8 Oct., 8.30 a.m.: Wikinews: The Next Generation of Online News? - paper at the Association of Internet Researchers conference in Chicago
• 11 Oct., 10 a.m.: 'Anyone Can Edit': Understanding the Produser - guest lecture at New School, New York City
• 11 Oct., 6 p.m.: Gatewatching: Collaborative Online …

A number of elections took place over the weekend - in Afghanistan, New Zealand, and Germany - but it's the German one which stands to produce the most lasting effect (and entertainment, if the first days after the election are any guide). German voters have delivered a result which has puzzled many and has been described by some as unworkable - even though upon closer inspection it has opened up rather than closed down political options for those who are willing and able to realise them.

To begin with, however, the result (which has the conservative CDU/CSU and the progressive Social Democrats neck and neck at around 35%, and the three minor parties Free Democrats, Greens, and Left/PDS at 8-9%) is a clear demonstration of how significantly more representative and democratic the German electoral system is, especially when compared with British, Australian, or U.S. models. A look at the map of directly elected German representatives shows that a Westminster-style election would likely have produced a highly polarised parliament dominated by the major parties, however much their share of the votes has been slashed in the election - potentially with a small number of independents and minor-party candidates holding a tenuous balance of power. Instead, however, the German system adds list candidates to these directly elected representatives until the balance of parties in parliament represents the distribution of votes - and so the 35/34/9/8/8 split in percentages is reflected very accurately in the 225/222/61/54/51 distribution of seats.

With my host Trebor Scholz from the Institute for Distributed Creativity I'm now confirming the various talks and presentations I'm giving in Buffalo and New York City as part of my research residency at the iDC - my thanks for them for having me and organising these events. For any readers based over there, here's what we have planned so far:

Buffalo

• 28 Sep., 1-3 p.m. - Workshop at SUNY Buffalo
  Produsers and Produsage 
   
• 28 Sep., 6 p.m. - guest lecture at SUNY Buffalo (room 235):
  'Anyone Can Edit': Understanding the Produser
  The Mojtaba Saminejad Lecture (see announcement)

New York City

• 11 Oct., 10 a.m. - guest lecture at the New School:
  'Anyone Can Edit': Understanding the Produser
   
• 11 Oct., 6 p.m. - guest talk at The Thing:
  Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production
  

  Recent years have seen the emergence of collaborative publishing models in key news Websites ranging from the worldwide Indymedia network to the massively successful technology news site Slashdot and further to the multitude of Weblogs. Such sites have been instrumental in debunking political misinformation and providing first-hand coverage of unfolding events from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina, but also provide an important corrective to the mainstream news media in their everyday coverage of current events.

This made it into my inbox today. With Sal Humphreys, I have a paper in this - but unfortunately we're both unable to make it. Wish I could be there...

Call for Participation

2005 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON WIKIS (WikiSym 2005)

Oct 16-18, San Diego, California, U.S.A.

WikiSym 2005 features keynotes by

• Ward Cunningham (inventor of the wiki)
• Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia), and
• Robert Hass (former U.S. poet laureate).

The program offers a research paper track providing the best in current wiki research, as well as workshops, tutorials, demos, and social events. Everyone who is involved in using, researching, or developing wikis is invited to participate!