John Clippinger, Oliver Goodenough, and company have brought the question of the future of digital institutions to the Berkman Center today. We’ve been visited by old friends — David Johnson, Urs Gasser, Judith Donath — as well as distinguished neighbors from elsewhere at Harvard — including Prof. Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Prof. Joseph Nye, former dean of the Kennedy School. Prof. Nye is up on his MySpace, Second Life, among other digital bona fides. This gathering is the latest in the collaborations between the Berkman Center and the Gruter Institute. We welcome others to participate in this ongoing set of conversations about the digital identity metasystem and how it relates to big themes like trust, accountability, governance on the Internet, and the like.