One of our goals for the 2010 Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference is to reach out to a broader and more diverse community. Our upcoming “save the date” announcement is the first good opportunity for this. Getting some attention on Twitter, blogs, and email lists can help raise awareness of “the best computer conference you’ve never heard of”, as Elizabeth Weise so memorably described it a decade ago.  But why should people care?
The intro from the 2006 conference says it well:
Now, more than ever, the lines of technology, freedom, and privacy are colliding. Governments continue their surveillance of citizens in the name of security, huge databases of information on every aspect of individuals’ lives are created, and debates are underway about controlling content. Yet, while technology is at the epicenter of these profound developments, technology also has the potential to advance the civil society…. CFP will explore issues that impact us all, wherever we are, around the world.
Indeed. And for the last two decades, the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference has been at the heart of this discussion, with a mix of technologists, lawyers, policy experts, academics, corporate executives, politicians, and activists. This year, we’ll be having it in Silicon Valley for the first time ever (yes, really!), and so it’s a unique chance to engage deeply and reframe the discussions that too often treat privacy and online rights as an afterthought.
Or so it seems to me. Then again, I’m a regular at the conference (1, 2), and spend a lot of my time hanging out with privacy and free speech advocates … so perhaps I’m not the best judge of what’s a good hook for everybody else.
So, it’d be great to hear some other perspectives. Last year’s program gives an idea of the wide range of topics that are covered at a typical CFP, and Lorrie Cranor’s Ten Years of Computers, Freedom and Privacy (from 2000) gives some historical perspective; I’ve included last year’s suggested topics in the first comment. Given all that …
Why do you care?
How would you convince others who aren’t “the usual suspects” that they should care?
jon
jon | 08-Sep-09 at 11:26 am | Permalink
Last year’s topics, from the call for participation:
Dorothy Glancy | 08-Sep-09 at 2:36 pm | Permalink
This looks like a good start.
Don’t we need to provide the dates early on in what we send?
Silicon Valley is enough of a place designator at this stage.
I also think that a title for this particular conference – or its theme – would make the appeal stronger. After two decades, it is always important to make clear that we have something new to say, new angles, new ideas, new synergies. Not to mention a new place, plus some new people. To my mind, it is the multitude of synergies in Computers Freedom and Privacy that seems to have most salience.
I still like “Good/Evil 2.0” as a theme. The logo could be based on a lovely yin/yang.
jon | 08-Sep-09 at 3:45 pm | Permalink
Dorothy, agreed on both counts: we’ll want to lead with the dates in the announcement, and we’ll want to come up with a compelling theme for this year’s conference. Here’s some of our Initial ideas — includng “Good/Evil 2.0” and “rebooting computers, freedom, and privacy”.
Deborah | 08-Sep-09 at 4:05 pm | Permalink
One thing that I don’t see in the blurb from 2006 is anything to do with social networks. A lot of people who use them aren’t the usual suspects, and many of those folks should think about coming to CFP.
The blurb for 2006 focuses on what the government (and many corporations) do *to* us – they extract information from us about ourselves for a variety of reasons and then put that information into databases. Privacy and other issues abound.
Today, with the use of social networks, we’re voluntarily giving out huge amounts of information about ourselves to whomever we’ve allowed into our network of ‘friends’. There are a lot of upsides to this, but there many negative consequences as well. Getting these ‘not the usual suspects’ folks to CFP where they can get a crash course in computers, freedom, and privacy will give them more confidence when they’re online.
Dawn | 08-Sep-09 at 5:36 pm | Permalink
I like the “The Transparent Citizen” the best because I think those 3 words encapsulates the misgivings that people have about all of these technological breakthroughs, especially the social networks, that we have all availed ourselves of. I think Deborah really hit the nail on the head when she mentioned social networks and databases.
Haven't been in a while | 10-Sep-09 at 8:00 am | Permalink
Announce that no one who’s spoken in the last 2 years will be on stage except as an MC or to make organizational announcements. My real reason for not going is the echo chamber issue.
jon | 14-Sep-09 at 9:48 am | Permalink
Thanks for the feedback, Deborah, Dawn, and Haven’t. Fascinating point on how social networks aren’t there at all in the 2006 blurb … how quickly things change; that’ll certainly be worth emphasizing.
Haven’t, while there were a lot of new voices there last year (including plenaries and keynotes with first-time participants), there’s no question that a key goal for CFP 2010 is to get more diverse perspectives. And I think there always are going to be some repeat presenters: on some core CFP issues it’s extremely important to hear from and engage with the key people. So it’ll be a balance on this front. Still, point taken — it’s another way in which we want to get beyond “the usual suspects”.
jon
jon | 14-Sep-09 at 9:50 am | Permalink
Some feedback from a friend on Facebook, posted with permission:
jon | 14-Sep-09 at 10:30 am | Permalink
More Facebook feedback, from a college student:
Edward Hasbrouck | 16-Sep-09 at 9:32 am | Permalink
I know CFP *won’t* be in DC this year, and I wouldn’t want too much of a Washington-centric focus, but I would like to see at least some “report card” on what the Obama administration has and hasn’t done with respect to issues of computers, freedom, and privacy. I also thought the international sessions were among the most interesting last year (I heard the same from several other people), and would like to make an explicit invitation to internationalism part of this year’s invite.
(One specific topic that would tie these two together would be a discussion with both USA and international participants on what the Obama administration has done internationally on computers, freedom, and privacy, and whether the USA has moved more into line with international norms or whether the USA is “ahead” or “behind” those norms on issues of digital freedom and privacy.)
Just my 2 cents.
Brielle | 01-Oct-09 at 8:20 am | Permalink
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” George Orwell
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“I wish people were more complicated, but they’re not.” Georgia (Television series: Dead Like Me)
bill macocinher | 25-Oct-09 at 12:47 am | Permalink
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