I'm really pleased with how everything went at PdF Europe's first conference in Barcelona. We had a great mix of political hacks and hackers from all over the Continent, and the conversations buzzing in the hallways before, during and after each session are the best proof that people were connecting to each other in all kinds of fruitful ways. (Indeed, the continuing buzz on Twitter around the hashtag #pdfeu is the best proof to me that we planted many productive seeds at the Torre Agbar.)

The formal proceedings surfaced several vital topics that will continue to be discussed and debated, including:
-Is the Obama campaign experience of mass participation in electoral politics powered by the net really transferable to Europe? Is it just a question of new leadership and more bold experimentation, or are people not yet demanding enough from politics to make it happen?
-Do enough people care about "Europe" as a new political identity to support a transnational conversation about the EU and opening up its institutions to greater scrutiny and public engagement?

The jury is still out on these questions. At the same time, we also definitely saw consensus around topics like the need to defend the freedom of the internet from mistaken policies or practices that would hinder individual usage or created walled gardens instead of public spaces, and the value of pursuing common projects like transparency or combating online censorship. And there was also a lot of value in simply talking shop and trading best practices on everything from managing a politician's online presence to keeping your blog afloat. So in those respects the conference was also successful.

Finally, we need to recognize that we have only begun. The event wasn't perfect and simply by coming and attempting to create a common space for conversation we also discovered barriers that we will have to work on bridging. Those include most obviously the language barrier--I for one have a much better sense of what my English-speaking colleagues at PdF Europe thought of the forum than I do my Spanish-speaking colleagues (Google Translate needs to get even better!).

There are also cultural bridges that need more work. We American PdF-ers may come across as too enthusiastic to share a new way of doing politics that to us is a radical break from American top-down, capital-intensive, opaque, anti-democratic traditions, but to European ears still sounds like a form of American pushiness. In that respect, as time goes by and personal relationships deepen, I hope that PdF will be strengthened by contributions from leaders and thinkers in Europe and elsewhere.

But the bottom line is this: Personal Democracy Forum is an idea-virus, and based on the results of PdF Europe in Barcelona, the virus is clearly starting to spread.

Some of the lines that have stuck in my head from the two days:
-Asked, can the internet foster a pan-European conversation, yes or no, Jeremie Zimmerman, an amazing activist who founded the French group La Quadrature du Net said, "Yes, but unfortunately it will be in English."
-"We take the internet for granted sometimes," said Susan Pointer of Google, noting that we have to fight to protect its freedom.
-There seems to be a glass ceiling on how politicians share online, Belgian blogger Clo Willaerts noted. Once they hit the level of minister, the degree of openness and authenticity displayed on their web presence essentially disappears.
-Julian Assange, co-founder of Wikileaks: "Why aren't more journalists being arrested in Europe?"
-Scott Heiferman, founder of Meetup, who gave what I think is the best talk I've ever seen Scott give: "The power to combine is the mother of all awesomeness."
-Antonio Sofi: "Statistics are like a bikini: what they show is interesting, but what they hide is crucial."

And one of my own: "All politics is local, but consciousness is global."

Here are some links to interesting blog posts that people have been sharing about the event:
--Stephen Clarke: "Post-match analysis: Personal Democracy Forum in Barcelona. Clarke, who is the web director for the European Parliament, and spoke at the conference, gives a great overview of the event.
-Jon Worth: "The PdF Compass". EU-uber-blogger Jon Worth offers a nifty and "completely unofficial compass" placing various PdF Europe speakers on two relevant axes: how inside or outside the "system" they are, and how local-national-global they are. I think he pretty well nails most of us.
-Alberto Cottica: "PdF Europe, a First Impression". Cottica, an Italian economist and musician who is in charge of the first Web 2.0-style project of the Italian government, makes some cogent points about weaknesses in the format and content mix.
-Alejandro Ribó: "Two journeys to the center of politics and technology: PDFEU’09 #pdfeu". Ribó, a doctoral student at the Oxford Internet Institute, correctly points out that we were consciously trying to "imprint" a certain way of thinking about the positive, disruptive, democratizing power of technology, and argues that we need to spend more time questioning those assumptions too. I agree, but hey, we have to start with an thesis before we spend time on the antithesis, no?
-Xavier Peytibi: "Desnudos en la pista de baile: los políticos en la red (PDFEU) (y 4)". This is the last of several detailed posts by a Spanish blogger who not only provides a terrific summary of the two days' session, but has also compiled a great list of links and observations from others to chew on.
-Tim Highfield: "Into the Eurosphere". Thanks to the wonderful audio streaming provided by Civico, people tuned in from all over the world--close to 2000 individual streams I'm told, though we haven't gotten the detailed breakdown yet. Indeed, this is a post from a listener in Brisbane, Australia!

Three more post-mortems that I just came across:
-Vassilis Goulandris: "What Do Obama and Meg Ryan Have in Common?" Goulandris, an e-democracy designer from Greece and one of our Google Fellows, gives a smart analysis of the Obama campaign and also reminds us of Esther Dyson's memorable line: "Power corrupts, but it also seduces."
-The City of Barcelona has an official write-up of the event here.
-"I attended PdF09 and I will attend PdF10," promises a blogger who goes by the name "Eurosocialiste." Hear hear!

Main hall photo courtesy of Chesta52 on Flickr.