1. How you can help:

Be a friend of the iSummit - download one of the buttons here, and add your name to the wiki or, even better, pledge the support of your organisation by sending us your logo (email: daniela 'at' icommons 'dot' org).

And don't forget to send in a submission to the sushi competition (the deadline has been extended to 30 May)! We want some great sushi to sample at the Mayor's Reception in Sapporo, and I'm not too keen on the idea of 'Hamburger Sushi'! See the Sushi competition page for more information.

2. The programme:

One of the outputs that we'll be developing through the iSummit this year is a 'Checklist on openness' - a user-friendly guide for those who are wanting to 'go open' but don't know 'how'. In the same way that some communities have developed guides for implementing environmental sustainability in their work (Tom Chance pointed me to a great one that we're using for the iSummit here), the 'Checklist on openness' will be a valuable resource for government officials wanting to apply open standards to public information, for curriculum developers wanting to publish open textbooks, for videographers wanting their film resources to be as open to remixing as possible, for Internet entrepreneurs wanting to apply openness to their Web 2.0 businesses, and for researchers wanting to apply open philosophy to the development and publishing of their research.

Many participants at the iSummit know that there is a lot more to 'going open' than applying a Creative Commons license to selected works. Openness is an 'approach' rather than a 'product' - something that involves every aspect of the way we design informative and creative projects - from the software that we use to build the product, the policies that govern how and by whom the product is created, the licenses that tell others how they can use and re-use copyrightable products, the rules that govern trademark and patents associated with the product, and in which format, and to whom the final product is distributed.

The Checklist that we will begin producing with participants at this year's iSummit will form a valuable resource that we will revisit in the months and years to come, and that will form a practical accompaniment to declarations and policy statements like the Cape Town Open Education Declaration by showing how those who know nothing about the commons can implement the lofty ideas that such instruments express.

Remember to join one of the following mailing lists dedicated to the parallel tracks at the iSummit this year where we'll be discussing the Checklist and a whole lot of other ways to participate:

1. Open education - English
2. Open business - English
3. Local context global commons: Voices from the global South -  English
4. DIY Video - back due to popular demand! - English
5. Open in Japan - mostly Japanese

Or the satellite event:
6. "The First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture" - English

A reminder that the iSummit is primarily an event where we 'get things done'. This means that you'll want to be as involved as possible in your chosen track to get the most benefit. Each track has set itself some great collaborative outcomes and we're going to have a lot of fun working through the sessions until the final report-back. So make sure you join up to the track lists soon and get to know people before so that you can hit the ground running when you   arrive in Sapporo.

That's it for this week. Here's the second Japanese lesson by Fumi - I think it might just be my favourite.