During PdF 2010, one of the afternoon session featured "The best of European tech politics".
Here's a summary and some reflections written by the moderator, PDF friend and speaker Jon Worth.

If you’re a United States internet politics person visiting Europe all you have to do is speak about the 2008 Presidential campaign run by Barack Obama and you’ll have the audience falling over themselves. We want some of that! The logos, the brand, the halo-like image behind Barack’s head at barackobama.com, the candidate who did it online. Let some of the gold dust rub off on us, the Europeans!

Did you attend Personal Democracy Forum 2010?
Check Nancy Scola's recap of some of the sessions and what other attendants wrote about the conference.
And we will give you information about PDF Europe conference very soon!

• Germany | The resigned President and the power of social media
  Last week Horst Köhler resigned as Federal President of Germany after some comments on the German peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. As reported by Spiegel online:

  The president had become the target of intense criticism following remarks he made during a surprise visit to soldiers of the Bundeswehr German army in Afghanistan on May 22. In an interview with a German radio reporter who accompanied him on the trip, he seemed to justify his country's military missions abroad with the need to protect economic interests.

  "A country of our size, with its focus on exports and thus reliance on foreign trade, must be aware that ... military deployments are necessary in an emergency to protect our interests -- for example when it comes to trade routes, for example when it comes to preventing regional instabilities that could negatively influence our trade, jobs and incomes," Köhler said.

  But it wasn't the radio interview to lead to his resignation. PEP-NET founder Rolf Luhers explain how German social media played a role in that. He reports in fact that the first to pick up Köhler’s  remarks was a fairly unknown blog called unpolitik.de. Other bloggers followed but none of these posts made it to the mainstream media (a detailed roundup in German can be read on carta.info ).

We landed in a beautiful and sunny New York to attend the seventh edition of Personal Democracy Forum.

European politics will have its spot tomorrow at 3.30pm in a session called "Best of Europe Tech-Politics", featuring Bente Kalsnes, James Crabtree, Benoit Thieulin and moderated by Jon Worth.

See you there if you are at the conference - and, if not, follow us @pdf_europe!

We're pleased (or sorry) to report that the block of tickets on sale at extra discounted "early-early-bird" rates for Personal Democracy Forum 2010 has sold out -- in fact, demand was greater than expected!

Every year at the annual Personal Democracy Forum, we pick a theme to help give our ongoing conversation a focus. Two years ago, it was "Rebooting America." Last year, it was "We.gov." This year, we've decided to borrow a little inspiration from our friends at Edge.org and go with a big question: Can the Internet Fix Politics?

Big news! Personal Democracy Forum Europe, our first conference overseas, is happening November 20-21 in Barcelona, at the Torre Agbar (pictured below). To get on the mailing list for more details, go to www.personaldemocracy.eu and sign up!