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This year reminds me of year 2000. People expecting “millennium bug”, in the end the bug-o-mighty didn’t show up. And coming along it with the dotcom crash, burst of the bubbles. But no matter how reminding it is, the year 2008 for me in Taiwan is so unique that I will never forget.

This is the year of economic recession of the whole world. After showing up in the foreign media, the financial glacier is directly entering our life, swallowed hug amount of asset, money, and jobs, leaving us still coming black hole of emptiness. The most terrible moment is the layoff of George Oates, the guest speaker of our Culturemondo Roundtable Meeting in Taipei, she is the original Flickr staff before Yahoo! purchased the web 2.0 star, and the key person in inspiring project Flickr Commons. The storm is influencing the friends around us, especially for such a peripheral role of the world (esp. neglected in UN) in Taiwan.

In year 2008, KMT is coming back to rule again after 8 years of ruling under DPP, Democratic Progressive Party. It changes a lot in every part of life in Taiwan, too. Very serious. Through DPP didn’t do a good job in past governance, but KMT is bring back and generate a lot of new issues in every aspect of our social / economical / political life. As Jerry had mentioned in his blog, we are facing a great era of our own “Great Transformation”.

I had a completion in my job / work in year 2008. That is amazing. With friends / collaborators like Charles, Lo, Mengshan, Wilson, Joy, and a lot of other friends like Slime & the association etc., I had finished the roundtable event planning and execution. It’s really a great work!!! We had invited 30+ people all over the world coming to Taiwan, including important centers, institutes, great minds to gather and discuss about the future of online culture content, resources and services. The preparation work could be traced back to 1 year ago, and 5 of us of International Steering Committee gathered in Brighton, UK did a wonderful job in settling down the core tone and dynamics of the digital culture and heritage roundtable. Thanks you all again in joining us and make this roundtable a best ever experience for me and all of us.

Besides the preparation trip to Brighton, I had 2 other international trips to Nagoya, Japan and Queenstown, New Zealand. Those trips are a continuation of collaboration with ALFAE Foundation, Japan in APAN eCulture Working Group. We had a perfect 2 days workshop in Nagoya, impressed by Japanese agricultural innovation and worked on the future of eCulture, and APAN Meeting in New Zealand I was elected as the APAN eCulture Working Group (ECWG) co-chair. Great Malaysian and Japanese colleagues had organized wonderful meetings in New Zealand, for instance, NZ’s secondlife
/opensim educational applications had opened up my ideas toward Secondlife. Indirectly influence my suggestion to Charles on arranging a local Secondlife workshop in this TechnoCulture Expo event, parallel event of Culturemondo Roundtable Meeting.

Year 2008 is also my year of reunion with old friends, and meeting new friends. Danny Butt in New Zealand, Graham Harwood, Saul Albert, Dr. Matthew Fuller and Olga in London. Ravikant in India, Shahidul in Bangladesh. In this roundtable meeting I got a lot of old and new friends, like 陳泰穎 in TELDAP, Joyce from NDHU, Hongjohn and Manray

Year 2008 is full of bad news of friends with illness, but also with the inspiring updates of people fighting back. Eric in NCTU got cancer and he started a cancer diary. Shashiwati is getting better when back to India. Geert had gone through a heart surgery. Etc. Those information really shocks me. Year 2008 is also a year for me and June start rechecking the health aspect of our life. My best mentor, friend, Steve Cisler passed away May 15, 2008. I had connected with Ted again and shared the total feeling of other people toward him, the figure and my best role model as an independent researcher/thinktank. Those of us who connected would have a precious chance to review ourselves, our lives, to cherish the wonderful part and inspire again.

CHANGE. Year 2008 is the year of Obama. Because he not only speaks to his fellow Americans, but also to other parts of the world listening to the radio in remote areas. Through I didn’t follow much on his campaign and his success and after, I still think he is the best present for everyone in the world (so far). He is the poetic symbol of CHANGE. “As the long time coming….” We all deserved a good chance of CHANGE and bright future, as the long time coming.

Happy New Year 2009, my friends.

Not only people, but also jobs, production process, union, and media company disappeared in this video clip. It functioned like a sad, but quiet witness, smoking alone at the corner of a bar. Only when you talked and listened to her, you found so much important memory and a lot of details of social identity was embedded in the photos.

剛剛閱讀中祥寄來、finimay 所撰寫的〈什麼是公共？（採訪篇） 〉，為國民黨立委與公共電視之間的鬥爭多增加了一篇詳細的解說，敬請參考。之前羅世宏老師（〈公視問題，藍綠皆有責〉）與魏玓、劉昌德老師（〈重建公視監督體制〉）兩篇文章也擲地有聲地把論述面的重點突顯出來。

然而在運動面上，我比較覺得缺乏一種多樣化的運動策略來加以平衡。對於底層的民眾，他們總是想要保持想像中的中立，希望能夠不偏頗任何一方地收集資訊、儘可能地做出判斷。在《新新聞》本次爭議的報導（汪仁玠，〈畸形公廣 深陷政治泥淖〉）中，讀者看到了想要「收集」的公廣集團負面資訊，我們也可以假設性的推估，這也呈現了國民黨立委們所採取行動的「輿論基礎」。

公視高層以購買媒體廣告第一線訴諸民眾來將問題凸顯；立委凍結公視運算長達一整年，並且更提出以「監督」為名的實質影響力擴張方案，削弱原本董監事代表性，意圖改弦易張。對這些行動的回應上，公視記者將公視「手工製作過程」的種種辛勞與文化呈現出來；學者提出一個超然的、理想性高的監督架構與問題框架；媒體記者問出實際上造成衝突的問題以及背後的種種矛盾。然而我想要問的是，運動端對於這個複雜的多層面問題，想要提出什麼樣的解答？運動端要如何介入這複雜的問題，然後讓協商與談判繼續進行，或者全盤推翻？

對此有幾種可能：(1) 削弱立委諸公所代言的民意代表性，拒絕他們作為「監督」適切的代表。這可以透過審視公廣集團的定位、憲法層面的立委提案違憲問題，這類爭議是否需透過立法院所確立其基礎的機關 NCC 來做裁決，而同時其民意基礎與立院立委選舉版圖更替之間的關係，這些將處理這個代表性的外部基礎；而立委們內部立場、歷史記錄、黨派色彩等內部的矛盾與差異，應該被標示出來被民眾公開審視，這個取徑將從內部削弱其所宣稱的代表性。(2) 呈現公廣集團的內部矛盾與差異，工會立場與高層態度是否一致？公視與華視，以及其他電視台，對於這個事件的態度是如何？歷史因素如何影響現前的立場選擇，以及對之後的影響？主管機關又跟公廣集團之間有著什麼樣的矛盾與裂縫，需要在這樣的運動當中被縫補、修復或者擴大、撕裂？ (3) 一般民眾跟這樣的提案之間，有什麼樣的關連？民眾將被迫付出什麼樣的代價？有沒有可能從這樣的觀點中生產對基層民眾的說帖？公廣集團需要對民眾再做出什麼樣的努力，證明自己與他們（尤其是選擇噤聲、支持國民黨立委提案的民眾）的生活息息相關？

我覺得這個案子的影響實在非常的大，絕對應該是超越藍綠的一種態度與立場的思辨；因此雜亂地想了這許多紛亂的思緒，跟所有支持與反對國民黨立委的朋友、支持與反對聲援公視的朋友共享。

Philip Rosedale in TED this May was talking about Secondlife. Very basic introduction of this new world. I myself would like to use it in educational context with the audience “listening” to the early founder’s imagination. It’s very good and clear, that’s why I like it.