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Get the down and low before I stand up to be counted at FOSDEM

“Sensational!” raves the Guardian newspaper, “a revelation, not to be missed” gushes the Hindustan Times (or they certainly would if they knew it was happening).

Saturday February 4th, (that’s tomorrow as I write these words) this blog will be playing to a packed house at FOSDEM. Tickets will be hard to come by so make sure you come early for the 11:30 am showtime. Actually, tickets are free, as you already know if you’ll be at FOSDEM 2012. Hopefully the bit about a packed house is true though.

To prepare yourself for the tightly clustered burst of information I plan to emit tomorrow, you may want to read up a bit ahead of time. I’ve put together a short list of resources to give you a head start if some of these ideas are new to you. The following three links elaborate on three core concepts of my talk.

• Transnational Advocacy Networks: Keck and Sikkink came up with an idea that helps think about how principled groups of people try to influence politics. This is academic, but still a good read, and more accessible than their longer, book-length study.
• ACTA: the blog of Canadian law profesor Michael Geist is the best one-stop shop for learning about ACTA, as well as many other related subjects. The linked article further links on to some of the organisations trying to oppose the entry into force of the agreement.
• Methods of activism: oh look, a handy list of many ways to pursue policy objectives online and in meatspace. The variety on this list should demonstrate how many ways there are to try to change the world for the better. And the list doesn’t even include coding cool software, which has to count as a major oversight for anyone thinking about how the online world works.

Quickly perusing this blog could also help to give you a sense of where I’m coming from. My post about the idea of transnational advocacy networks would be especially good background reading.

Later on, I’ll post a more extensive bibliography for those who want to do further reading.