从去年12月开始组织第一次上海的drupal用户群交流活动meetup以来，不知不觉已经过了11个月，drupal也从当初的5.3升级到了6.6。这一年之中发生了无数的故事，所幸米有什么大事故^^。我们组织的drupal交流活动也从第一次只有两个人在公司面面相觑，到春天的40多人在Netcircle漂亮宏伟的厨房隔壁的欧式大厅中讨论，到举办第一次上海drupalcamp，以及后来每月一次总有一些朋友在坚持的meetup，一直到上个月我们走进校园，去播撒中国未来的希望。

前几天喜闻drupal获得2008 Open Source 开源Overall CMS Award Winner的桂冠并再次蝉联最佳PHP开源CMS大奖，击败一众对手，标志着drupal的不断成熟与壮大。Drupal能在这个竞争激烈的web2.0时代脱颖而出，还是身怀不少绝技的。

Yesterday evening over a bowl of absolutely delicious Itik Tim and noodles, Peter and I discussed human psychology with a friend, and what would happen to society in the case of catastrophic disaster.

I have started to stock up a grab bag of survival essentials obtained from nearby Army and Navy's camping section, including iodine tablets, and a sealed tin of 37 various items, including string, matches, compass, etc.

Vancouver writer Jonathon Narvey interviewed Raincity's CEO, Robert Scales and President Kris Krug, and chatted with some of the Raincity Studios crew, for an article in Business in Vancouver magazine.

He discussed the Raincity Shanghai office including the work/lifestyle, communication processes, team building across oceans and technical challenges and advantages of working with a very multi-cultural team.

Having attended open source software and blogger symposiums in Beijing and Shanghai, Krug has seen China’s Web 2.0 dynamism up close. With a team of 13 employees in Shanghai, mostly open-source online publishing software developers, and their CEO Robert Scales, Raincity now has an established beachhead in the country.

The article also explored the size of the Internet market in China and the rise of open source software and inpact on innovation.

“Web 2.0 is exploding in China,” said Raincity Studios president Kris Krug. “The Chinese are totally wired, totally online, using web phones and all the mobile technology we use here.

“There’s a growing middle class wanting to use all these open-source tools, in part because that means they don’t have to worry about using proprietary software and pay licensing fees to western companies.”

He also dug deep into the personal expression issues around the Beijing Olympics - a topic we've discussed a lot recently in the China, Social Media, Olympics, etc. series and Scales' article at Now Public.

“Last time I was in Shanghai, the Chinese government announced they had just hired 100,000 new cyber-police,” Krug said. “That’s on top of however many they had to begin with.”

{snip}

Krug has also learned how easy it can be to run afoul of vigilant Chinese cyber-regulators.

“We were running a bar camp (an informal Web 2.0 drupal tutorial seminar), and our wiki was totally open. Anyone could register and write on it.

“Within a couple of days, we received a letter [stating] that we had to change our site in accordance with the rules in China. Users had to be pre-approved, content had to be moderated and we had to make changes on the website. We scrambled to make the changes in 24 hours.”

Continuing the dialog about China, The Olympics, Social Media and Everything ... here's a response to one of Dr. Andy Miah's questions for the 9th International Symposium on Olympic Studies:

"In what way are new media platforms enabling new forms of journalism to surround the Beijing Olympics?"

To craft well-rounded answers, Symposium participant Kris Krug (Robert Scales is also on board) sat round the table with Richard Eriksson (recently returned from Shanghai and currently stay-cationing), and myself, to tease out the issues which influence the answers.

In our chat, we reviewed each of Dr. Miah's questions and tried to "twist the kaleidescope" a bit to reflect a broader world view in the conversational answers.

Here's what we came up with in response to: "In what way are new media platforms enabling new forms of journalism to surround the Beijing Olympics?"

Continuing on with the coverage of "China, The Olympics, Social Media, Symposiums, etc." mini-series, I'm am co-opting Olympic scholar Dr. Andy Miah's questions for the panel he is organizing at the 9th International Symposium on Olympic Studies, in Beijing, August 5-7, 2008.

My point in doing this is to stimulate some discussion to push my own perceptions and resolve my own conflicts. You see, I am big fan of amateur sports (personally i prefer winter Olympic events) and an ardent advocate of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and someone who hopes for a greener planet. In some ways, I see these three as not jiving within the China paradigm. On another hand, i wonder is it really my place to ask an ancient culture why they do things they way they do?

As such, I question my personal (not professional) emotional investment in the athletes' struggle. Should I watch them strive for greatness on the CBC while the background struggle seems so much weightier? Or are the Olympics a time for healing and celebration where understandings are fostered and differences sorted out? In other words, should i participate in the Olympics from my couch or from the streets!