NOTE: A number of people talked to me about this today and these ideas are mostly "stolen" from those conversations.

Creative Commons, in some respects, is a movement about meritocracy. One in which, those who are talented are able to self-publish, gain recognition, and become valued for their talents. Without this opportunity, those from the ground are not able to shine. In addition, those voices that are currently not heard from, are able to tell their story.

Why then, do we continue to follow the top-down structure of conference presentations? The current version of conference presentations includes an assembly of panelists by conference organizers, who then deliver their opinions on a chosen topic to an audience of attendees.

These panelist are generally esteemed citizens who most people actually would like to hear talk. Thought that's true, we ought to consider the issue of "access," "star status," and the "unheard voices from the ground."

Though I can't prove it (!) those who have access to the conference organizers, or are well-known (star-status), are more likely to be chosen to present on a panel. This morning's keynote education panel is a great example of this. Though the panel was about education around the world, the members of the panel were all White men based on North America, none of which were teachers. Those in the audience, who were more diverse, had only a limited opportunity to ask questions. However, even those in the audience weren't a representative sample of the public.

How does this happen? It clearly is not intentional, however, it often happen because of the social networks we inhabit. Often, our social networks determine our opportunities in life and are a significant source of power. When a strong tightly knit network exists, it is often difficult to pull in unheard voices from the ground who do not have access to the networks, and often, we end up hearing the same voices over, and over again. Or we just talk amongst ourselves.

If Creative Commons is about freedom, democracy, bottom up, and building off of each others' works, then why in our own conference do we replicate the demographic power structure that seems to pervade every other sphere of life?

I would offer two reasons: one, we probably just haven't thought to challenge the traditional conference format, and two, busting through the confinements of social networks is not easy. It's true, amongst a certain type of person (and may I say, a VERY COOL person) that Creative Commons is very well-known, however, in the other social networks I inhabit, when I mention CC, people's eyes often glaze over. We need to make a greater effort to reach out to other people, those of different geographies, classes, and cultures.

As for the conference, my point, which I haven't actually made yet, is that the open educational track was trying to address some of these issues by offering a very interactive and different kind of conference structure. True, it is also being run by White men, but isn't everything?! All joking aside, they did make a great effort to change the top-down conference structure and I hope that we can seriously analyze power, access, and status in our own communities so that it better reflects our ideals as a movement. This, of course, is nothing new. Many high-tech companies, though they can build high-powered international networks that can transmit information faster than a pin drops (that you can't hear), they can't get their own projectors to work in their meetings. Somehow, the universe determines great irony for us. We're all just doing our best making an effort to continually make things better, in society and amongst ourselves. Everything is a work in progress. This is the true spirit of social activism.

tags: Dubrovnik Croatia education politics gender class race community summit07

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