Carl Malamud's Rules for Radicals

This morning Carl Malamud of public.resource.org regaled FutureWeb and WWW2010 participants with tales of his adventures in trying to get governemnt data online in the early 1990's. The topic of his keynote was 10 "Rules for Radicals" about open standards in government.

1. Everything is an experiment.
2. When you get an opening, run with it as fast as you can. Eventually the powers that be will catch up with what you are doing, so do as much as you can before they think of a reason to stop you.
3. Eyeballs rule. A large user base generates a lot of leverage.
4. When you achive your objective, don't be afraid to start (start!) being nice.
5. Keep asking the question until they can say yes.
6. When you get the microphone, make your point clearly and quickly while you have the opportunity to be heard.
7. Get standing so that you can make your case (which is of course well-documented).
8. Try to get bureaucrats to threaten you (and win the higher ground).
9. Look for overreaching. It's easy to make your point when the example is so obviously wrong.
10. Don't be afraid to fail.