I first e-met Doug through an online group he ran. It seemed to be interested in collecting descriptions of the kind of iniitatives I was interested in. He wanted them written in up in a particular format called "Pattern Language" - which was a complete mystery to me. We communicated through the list for some time, and I found his group very helpful and inclusive.
Subsequenty we met Face to Face at a workshop in Brighton (to do with Community Informatics), We met again at a wokshop on Pattern Language at the London Knolwedge Lab around the time of the publication of his book "Liberating Voices" - a pattern language for communication revolution (I bought a copy - and am glad that I did).