Final scenes from Personal Democracy Forum

Here is a Flickr photo set from the Personal Democracy Forum. And a couple of last vignettes:

– From co-founder Micah Sifry in a passing conversation about the two schools of thought at grassroots politics conferences: "It comes down to this. Is it about getting more videos out there, or is it about organizing the grassroots?" Probably both.

– Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org at the voter-generated content session: "I have two big concerns with user-generated content. We have to focus on the best instead of the worst because there will always be crap. Second is a user bill of rights. We needs rights as members of these [online] communities."

– Steve Grove, news and politics editor of YouTube, at the conference’s closing session, offered four tips for video success:

1. Keep the camera rolling for authentic, unscripted moments.

2. Keep the content fresh — people want to see new videos.

3. Reach out and involve the community.

4. Be personable, be yourself. "The more authentic and real you are, the more compelling you are."

– Enjoyed spending time with David Cohn of NewAssignment.net and hope we can begin working together.

A couple of interesting politics-related outfits worth a look:

• Qvisory

• Mobile Commons

• change.org, a social networking platform for people to create political movements.

JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.