Peace!

My name is B. Dolan, and I'm the Executive Director of Knowmore.org; a web based community, whose mission is "chronicling and resisting corporate attacks on democracy, worker's and human rights, fair trade, business ethics and the environment."

I'm also a performance artist, poet, and clown, but that's a whole other introduction...

The genesis of the Knowmore project came in 2004, in the aftermath of the failed campaign to elect John Kerry. I had worked for 6 months on the Kerry campaign, making the 6 hour drive up to New Hampshire on weekends to canvass and phonebank in my nearest swing state, swallowing or pushing aside all of my huge reservations about Kerry as a candidate, playing along with the good ole' Illusion of Choice. Anything But Bush, went the mantra.

However, in the days after Bush-Lite went down in defeat, I was forced to re-examine my contribution to the movement for social justice and change.

I started thinking about the ways in which I contributed to the practices I decried; how my own consumption was linked to inequality and suffering in ways I didn't even fully understand. I was voting, I realized, every time I opened my wallet.

Sage Francis and myself launched Knowmore in 2005, with the aim of creating a "a vast database of easily searchable corporate and political info designed to aid responsible citizens, progressive thinkers and activists." The aim of the site was simple enough: to allow users to enter the name of any brand, product, or company and see the corresponding company's entire rapsheet.

Since then, we've embarked on a national tour with Sage to promote the site and gained tens of thousands of readers--and hundreds of donors and volunteers--around the world. We've covered around 300 companies, representing thousands of consumer brands and subsidiaries, published a groundbreaking report and even found ourselves testifying against a CEO! :)

Now, Knowmore has arranged to unveil our Firefox Extension at N2Y3! I'm unfortunately called away to represent Knowmore and Strange Famous Records on a European tour for the next two weeks, but I'll be sending 3 of our most dynamic and motivated volunteers to represent us.

I'm proud to unveil the future of Knowmore at this years NetSquared Conference. Joe, Tom, and Eric have taken great initiative to propel us forward, and the full resources of Knowmore support this endeavor and expansion in this direction.

I hope to see you all at next year's conference, and am confident that our team will be holding it down in the meantime!

Stay on the battlefield,

B. Dolan