"Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are." -Bertold Brecht

It's now been three and a half years since DemocracyInAction and I got together -- three and a half years of change and growth and learning on the fly.

We got to thinking ... why not try out a long-distance thing?

So I'm excited -- and, yeah, a little nervous -- to announce that next week, yours truly will shake the Beltway dust off his heels and open up DemocracyInAction Midwest. (That name could be a little snappier. Suggestions?)

DIA Midwest will be based out of lovely Bloomington, Indiana, conveniently located where someone smarter than I can study something I don't understand while I do stuff like this:

(And of course, the ol' hobby blog.)

What does this mean for Salsa users in the Midwest?

And for a moment, all is right in the world.

Drop her a note if you feel so inclined.

I was talking with a friend the other day thinking of starting a blog of her own, and it got me trying to parse through the deliverable benefits you get from this sort of enterprise.

Community, active learning ... those things are great, and very real. But the one most quantifiable to a bottom-line-oriented boss is likely to be search.

Every post on a blog is a signpost that says, "here's a resource about X" -- for months or years afterwards when people punch the keywords into Google. It's an incredibly powerful, cheap and genuine search strategy and for any charity whose issue isn't solely indicated by incredibly crowded search environments like "Britney Spears panties". Every day, we see a steady trickle of traffic on topics we've covered here, both on-topic to our raison d'etre and off.

I got a weird but welcome example of that this week on my other blog. All of a sudden one day, I had huge traffic (by my paltry standards) coming to a single post -- but there was no identifiable link out there. It was all search. Out of nowhere, months after the publication, that post had its highest-traffic day ... and then, it dropped back into obscurity:

What the heck?

Monday's registration deadline for the DIA user conference has passed, but you might have noticed you can still get to the registration page.

Here's the deal: there are about a dozen spots left. We'd like to fill them, but we also need to have a final-final head count for the hotel by the end of the week. So registration is going to be held open to tomorrow, Friday, June 20. That's the stone-cold, after-the-deadline deadline; we won't be able to handle on-site registrations, so if you're still juggling plans or otherwise uncertain, get in touch with us and let us know what's up no later than tomorrow.

This. Is. Hot.

Lawrence Lessig, Stanford law professor, free culture paladin, social change advocate -- man, in short, about the technology activist town -- has just been officially confirmed to keynote the upcoming DemocracyInAction Community Conference.

The conference takes place June 26-27 in downtown Washington, D.C.; Lessig will address the morning plenary on Friday, June 27th on "Change Congress". Maybe you caught him at the recent National Conference on Media Reform?

You'll find him on the expanded agenda also just released.

Did we mention (repeatedly?) that that's on top of two days' wall-to-wall Salsa training, online strategizing, and elbow rubbing with the best and brightest?

Did we mention there are only three days left to register?

Don't put it off another day -- register now!

The speakers list is coming together, and dang if it isn't a fine one. Rub elbows with the likes of:

• Marty Kearns (Green Media Toolshed, Net-centric Campaigns)
• Judith Freeman (New Organizing Institute)
• Marc Laitin (Consultant)
• Colin Delany (e.politics)
• Jenn Smith (Watershed)
• Allyson Kapin (Rad Campaign)
• David Taylor (Radical Designs)
• Rosalyn Lemieux  (Consultant)
• Alan Rosenblatt (Center for American Progress)
• Trina Zahller (Oil Change International)

And crib organizing notes from the best and brightest, like

• MomsRising
• Center for American Progress
• Oceana
• 1SkyBrave
• Step It Up
• Oil Change International
• CIVIC
• True Majority
• Genocide Intervention Network
• Code Pink

Did we mention that you're running out of time to register?

Last-minute shoppers, the June 16 deadline for registration is fast approaching.

Maybe you've been busy. Haven't had time yet. Been waiting on a few things to fall into place. We've all been there.

But the calendar has rolled over to June and space is limited, so now's the time to make the time to register.

It's here! In the spirit of providing the best learning opportunities, networking possibilities and progressive leadership for 2008 and beyond, we've been working hard on preparing our first ever community conference.

We're talking two days of hands-on, interactive training from DemocracyInAction staff and your colleagues in other member organizations!

The conference will take place in Washington, D.C. on June 26-27th at the Hotel Palomar. If you haven't checked the location out yet, it's a sustainably developed hotel in the heart of Dupont Circle with fabulous conference space (think windows in every room) and delicious meal plans (vegans and veggies, rejoice!)

Like most of the blogoverse, I've consented to the unsatisfying and barely compensated practice of selling myself to Google Adsense on my hobby blog, which I should add is pointedly non-partisan.

I hardly monitor religiously the stuff Google pitches my paltry readership, but you get the occasional one that makes you scratch your head and flip back to the entry to figure out how it made the match.

Other times, there's less mystery than an episode of Columbo. Like when you post about an execution in Iran, and you get ...

Save the date and watch for updates: June 26-27 in Washington D.C., at the Hotel Palomar we'll be hosting our first user conference.

A lot's been happening in the year since we rolled out Salsa, both in the toolset and in the space, so there'll be plenty to talk about.

We'll do some tools features, both old standbys and the new toys that seem to roll out every day; we'll do some strategy training and best practices; we'll do a lot of peer learning because there are much smarter people than us doing all kinds of innovative things; we'll have no shortage of socializing, networking, and general merrymaking with the fantastic circle of progressive activists using Salsa; and we'll learn from each other where we should be headed next.

The agenda is in a developmental stage, so if you've got something you're dying to see happen, drop it in the comments here or drop one of us a line.