After nearly two years in the making and tons of hard work, Tactical tech has finally released this booklet.

See http://www.tacticaltech.org/infodesign

I'm in Phnom Penh for a meeting of sex worker advocacy groups from around the globe. Tactical Tech is doing work on helping these groups exchange information for both their global advocacy work but also for local advocacy. We just completed a survey of organizations and one of the most striking examples of use of media for an advocacy strategy (and there's actually quite a few) is from a group in Taipei calle COSWAS that have produced an excellent video about the plight of Sex Workers.

I have to say I initially was caught a bit off guard - but I was seriously dissed at Asia Source II by a camp participant who apparently found me to be an arrogant american.   What was fascinating about it all was that it started out as a bit of fun by the Participants in the track I was facilitating.  They decided to prepare a short skit for morning circle that included them imitating the facilitators of the track.  Before the day was through, I found myself being seriously dissed on the camp blog, cries of homophobia being voiced by some of my closer friends at the camp and a series of events occuring that initially had me very troubled but ended up with me becoming very proud of the response by the camp participants.

I've just arrived in Jakarta and am helping out with prepping for Asia Source II. Fortunately things seem really under control here, considering 140 people are about to descend upon us. Jakarta is very hot and sticky, so I'm really looking forward to getting to Sukabumi, where the event is being held, which is in the mountains, and reportedly much cooler.

If you want to read more about Asia Source II, see the wiki thats been set up at http://www.foss-at-work.net/asiasource2/

This is my fifth Source Camp working as a facilitator - and I'm working on the "Open Source Software Migration and Implementation" track. These are by far my favorite training experiences because its 7 days of 3 hour sessions. So you really get to sink your teeth in. One thing that was learned pretty early on in these camps is that the camp is only as good as the participants.

I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that while I'm on the road I just come off like a big stupid american. I embrace being a new yorker and being big and brash and in people's faces - its a cultural thing, and I just can't try to surpress it. I do, however, try to minimize intentionally offending people and I'm not really fond of unintentionally offending people either, though I'm resigned to the fact that its just going to happen.

Two weeks ago I was in Antalya, Turkey doing a training for HIV/AIDS activists from Central Asia and Africa. Imagine my horror when in the middle of doing a presentation, I was corrected by a young Pakistani woman for using the term, "kyrgys" to refer to the delegates from Kyrgystan. She said this was on a par of calling people from her country "pakis". I was pretty horrified that I had offended this group of participants who also didn't speak english (we had translators), an additional barrier of getting friendlier with them.

To think I'm landed in Chiang Mai exactly one week ago and I couldn't wait for the week to end. Now I'm sorry that Friday has arrived and I only have one day left of sessions and shouting "skillshare!" when ever the mood takes me. I've learned a lot this week, mostly from the participants but then quite a bit from my fellow-facilitator's as well. A bit of what I know about doing training has been reinforced - those things being:

- You can never be overprepared.
- You should be ready to through whatever you've prepared out the window and do what you're gut tells you to do.
- Be flexible

I've always said, "everything I've ever learned about doing trainings, I've learned from Arif Mamdani." Arif has just posted some excellent words of wisdom about approaching trainings prior to his experience with Progressive Technology Project's Tech Camp.

Check out:
arnings-big-and-small/...

I'm in Thailand for a training. I can't tell you who we're training (cause then I'd have to kill you). But, I must say, after doing trainings now in India, Africa, Central Asia - Thailand is pretty nice. The food is great and I've got a great set of trainers. The participants are unbelievable: dedicated and thoughtful. The real plus though? Having computer equipment that is rented and if it doesn't work (or the Internet), it's somebody else's problem. My god, you mean I can just focus on the sessions? Priceless.

Ok, the pool is really nice too.