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FEATURED TOPICDigital Transition -The term "Digital Transition" describes the process all organizations must go through in the 21st Century, as they leverage new technologies that provide new options for Applications, Equipment, Processes, and Networks that make them more effective. In contrast, the term "Municipal Wireless" is limiting. It puts the network technology ahead of the application and process changes that drive the business case. ORIENTATION |
« November 2007 | Weblog | January 2008 » December 2007 ArchiveChristmas Letter VIII - Jet Pack/Hovercraft, iPod/iPhone/Prius, or "None of that Nonsense..."When I was a child in the 1960s, reading my dad's Popular Science magazine and the Weekly Reader at school, I used to fantasize about jet packs and hovercraft in some indeterminate future, but always in my lifetime. Usually the hazy future fell somewhere between"1984" and the "21st Century." Beyond 2000 seemed beyond my imagination. I was amazed at a future that was 32 years out in 1969 when I saw Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey at the movie theater, at the age of 12.
Well, that future is here (and gone), but I've seen no offers for personal jet packs or hover craft - not to mention an American Airlines flight to the moon... Yet that myth persists - I was more than a little amused a few years back when my daughter assured me that we'd all be driving in hover craft in five years, because "Lydia said so," and "it was in our Weekly Reader," or whatever the equivalent is for her generation. Good to see the family tradition carried on... Even as we outgrow In reality, the future tends to look a lot like the recent past - except when you get dramatic jolts from such dreamers, like the Apple iPod
or better yet, the Apple iPhone
and the Toyota Prius...
each of which look somewhat like the recent past, but with remarkable twists, pointing to what lies ahead in the future. Then there are those serious types who dismiss altogether the radical innovation behind Apple's iPod and iPhone and Toyota's Prius, seeing them as either a) silly notions held by those whose heads are in the clouds; or b) as trivial toys with little impact on serious aspects of society. Sensible people know that history moves slowly and the future looks a lot like the past. But these consumer products capture people's imagination, and because they like them, they drive changes in consumer behavior. As I reviewed the month of December and my posts, the prevailing themes were imagining and managing change - how one looks at the future, how one manages change, the weight one gives to such issues, and how one's generational perspective comes into play - all these aspects of change really come into the limelight when you give some deep thought to broadband. And such themes seem appropriate at this point, given that we all grow reflective as New Year's Eve arrives, and look forward with anticipation to new things in the New Year - that's today and tomorrow, BTW, for those without calendars. December Trains on Tracks v. Cars on Highways: Closed v. Open - in which I propose the analogy of railroads and highways as a model for broadband networks... Our history of physical transportation of atoms and molecules in our rail and road networks has lessons to teach us if we will listen. When we look at information transportation of bits and bytes in our telecommunication systems, we should think about how things transpired with transportation systems. When it came to making decisions on transporting physical material, whether in the form of raw commodities, manufactured products in boxes or real-live human beings, those deciding took advantage of multiple options that made the most sense for their priorities - choice was good. Ships and airplanes today complete the system, offering tremendous flexibility for businesses and consumers. We see this choice as a natural, and wouldn't have it any other way. But when it comes to telecommunications, it's as if our brains have been put on hold. Information material in the form of information bits, voice bits, or video bits is still treated as if it must flow over the closed networks of the big telecom provider, on their terms and conditions. (Not to leave Big Cable and Big Football out, in a true, Open System, I don't think that I would have missed watching the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys, the way I missed them this week.) The prevailing sentiment and conventional wisdom still assumes that the large closed networks of Big Telecom and Big Wireless, often one and the same - collectively, the "railroads" of today - are the only options that matter. The bottom line for me is this: We have a collective lack of imagination when it comes to broadband, IP applications, and digital content. We're stuck with Old World thinking in a New World. Still, for the most part, those who trumpet Verizon, AT&T, and the rest may be right, at least for now, that is. Alternatives to conventional broadband are still so new and so small as to get little attention. The winds of change are in the air, however, and the potential of Open Networks, like water on a stone, is having an inexorable effect on the Status Quo. Steeped in the Gospel of Open Networks that drives the Internet, Google has set its calculating eye on telecommunications, specifically, .the upcoming FCC 700 MHz spectrum auction in February. Forget the Past and the Future, Here in the Present, Ignorance is Bliss - in which I pondered the inability of most people to imagine a future much different than the present - until they see it, that is. As I wrote this summary, it dawned on me that when municipalities seek to bring in a third-party to operate a network according to Open Access principles, whether the city owns the network or not, they are mimicking the Google strategy that Feld described. Rather than wait on incumbent broadband providers to bring in new infrastructure or business models that better serve all the public, they're brining in the infrastructure themselves and installing the new business models that will bring about robust competition and lower rates. I think it's interesting to note that no matter what happens in February at the auction, the incumbents are not going away. They are classics who have shown an ability to adapt when they have to. Much of the change we discuss on these pages can be seen as efforts by different parties to force change on the incumbents or to simply go around them. But don't count them out, not just yet. They have lots of money, political connections, customers, and technology experience, and I think they will be around and influential for years to come. They just need a 2x4 to the head once in a while and would be well advised to follow both Joni's admonition about appreciating what you have while you still have it, as well as Harold's observation that most don't know the future until it bites them in the ass. Shamalama Ding Dong - Life is a Highway - in which I suggest that the seemingly mindless play of the roadtrip is actually a journey of discovery in disguise The Road Trip is firmly ensconced in the realm of Creativity, where things happen because they're allowed to happen, because you're out there breaking all the rules that normally keep you in line, out there in the world where nobody knows you, where its safer to take risks. Much of it proves pointless, but for some, it's what the situation demands. Over the past four years here in the Alternate Broadband universe (what I call the various worlds of Wi Fi Mesh, WiMAX, BPL, FTTH), it's been like we've been on one long road trip. It's been an ongoing experiment, a journey of discovery, never knowing what's around the next corner, going where the spirit moves you. We've had a destination in mind, but much of the value so far has come from the exploration and the knowledge we've found along the way. For many on the outside, it appears that we've been wasting time and money, we've been engaged in an irresponsible romp that's going nowhere. But on the inside, we see things differently - we've been enjoying a long ride of discovery. We've been trying out new things, seeing what works. When we pause to look back, we realize how far we've come and how much we've learned, and we see real value. And a couple of posts that talk about perspective in the process of change: - Digital Adolescents Stuck in Digital Puberty - in which I describe the transition from Analog to Digital, which is still underway Since the Rise of the Internet a little over 10 years ago, we've been alternating through many different attitudes, but mostly we've been collectively in denial as the Internet matures and grinds away at our institutions. For many, if not most in society, these changes lie under the surface, unrecognized, subliminal. But they affect us all, nevertheless, and we see more and more evidence of change, and the need to adjust, if we just open our eyes. Once you've had this realization, it's hard not to notice the evidence all around. In fact, getting us all to recognize the significant changes associated with transitioning from Analog to Digital, from stand-alone to connected, from fixed to mobile, is the principal goal of this website. Adjusting to change has to be one of the hardest things to do in life, yet we all have to do it as we age, so it's one of the most universal of themes. As societies go, healthy societies adjust well to change, less healthy ones don't. The least healthy societies get stuck and close themselves off from any outside influence in order to stay the same: just think of Cuba and North Korea. Recognizing this state of Digital Puberty that we've entered is not unlike going through the five stages of grief in the Kubler-Ross model , because such significant change involves a death and a rebirth. In the end, allowing yourself to be reborn, to reemerge from the process of change, involves accepting the death of the previous state. Until then, you're stuck. - From Analog to Digital - A Long, Strange Trip - in which I comment on our aged leadership in federal government which stands in contrast to the dramatic changes underway in technology - T-t-t-t-talking 'Bout My Generation - this post ties together the previous memes of digital adolescence and senesence and posits that generational perspective is valid from both sides It's inevitable for those at the beginning of their lives to look forward to the future with anticipation, and for those at the end of their lives to look backward with nostalgia. And where we choose to place our benchmarks has a large role in determining how we perceive the present. When older folks look back and marvel at how far they've come, it's sincere. But it's also dangerous if that nostalgia and love of the past causes them to take their eyes off of the future, wistfully reminiscing about the Good Old Days. And when younger people look forward and pine for the future before they're ready, impatient to have it all now, it's dangerous if they act on their wishes without full awareness of consequences. They risk repeating the mistakes of the past if they neglect the lessons of history and are in too much of a hurry. We need each other. Each generation has something to offer. We need the accumulated wisdom, maturity and caution of the older generation, and the energy, initiative and optimism of youth. We need both conservatives and progressives if we are to move forward as a society. We need the dynamic tension, the push and pull, the arguments that will help us preserve what's worth saving, and leave behind the things that keep us from moving ahead. Processing these thoughts, I come to the inescapable conclusion that we desperately need leadership, at all levels of society, who will face the facts with honesty and courage, who will lead us into the changes we need to make as a society. My focus in my job and on this website is on the broadband infrastructure that will take us to the future we deserve. Too many people look at how far we've come in ten years with broadband internet and mobile telephony. Too few look at how far we have to go to reach our potential. A Public Private Partnership We Can All Do Without - this post captures current events surrounding FISA and telecom immunity, as the Senate had an important debate in mid-December, ultimately punting the issue down the road until January Look Before You Leap - this series of posts tracks the decision-making process a city goes through as it stands on the brink of change, using the framework below
I'll close out this long post on change and the future with a couple of images from a few generations ago, when change and future speculation was primarily focused on that frontier that could never be crossed, that man should one day fly - imagine, man flying like a bird.... There's this famous image from Leonardo Da Vinci
and then here's a couple from Jules Verne - first, on personal flight
and then on flight to the Moon - really stretching out the imagination!
This has been fun - Happy Holidays all! Be sure to drive safely (or not at all) tonight! Posted on December 31, 2007 at 09:22 AM | Comments (1) Christmas Letter VII - Mad Scientists Run Amock
By the end of November, I was starting to get some clarity on this concept of Alternate Broadband. We're mad scientists, in a sense, mucking about with new technology, new business models, new concepts in community. It's been a good year for learning more about what alternatives are available to the conventional approach of cable and DSL at the wall and cellular data cards and phones through the air. At times, it helps to take a break from experimenting and document how far we've come and what we've learned. That's what I'm doing here on this site. It's true, nobody said it would be easy (and it hasn't been) - in fact, that's a gross understatement. Most continue to say this field is a crock, just look at all the negative press in the mainstream this year. But it's also true that nobody can argue that we haven't learned a lot by trying and failing and in many cases, succeeding. I think that's the storyline that starts to emerge as I look over the past year and contemplate next year. Trial and Error will take us a long way in the upcoming year, and the nature of experimentation means that there's always a killer app -a solution lurking in the shadows, waiting to be discovered. The rational Scientific Method builds on past failures to create a body of knowledge that moves civilization forward. That's what we're doing here, experimenting... it just looks rather ugly close up. And sometimes, things blow up. 1. For Alternate Broadband to succeed and thrive, we'll need creative solutions to at least these three issues (deals that lack a solution to any one of these three issues have a high fatality index - some may make it, but most will not): November In November, we began by finalizing our decisions concerning the written bids in the San Marcos deal, and winnowed the field from nine down to five, then heard oral presentations, ending up with two finalists. I went out to Los Angeles in November to kick off the Orange County wireless assessment and attend a one-day seminar on wireless broadband put on by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) and NetLogix. And not sitting idle, I followed a strong web focus in October (34) with an equal effort in November - 33 posts. Here's an overview of the Best Posts of November. You'll also notice that November is the first full month I made full use of graphic images and YouTube videos. I like the change. King Kong v. Godzilla - in which we review the upcoming battle between Big IT and Big Telecom. Speed Matters (So Does Price) - which offers, among other things, a speed test for your broadband connection Five posts on Southern California Association of Governments Wireless Conference (aka SCAG Wireless) - in which I reveal our plans for Orange County wireless assessment and other interesting tidbits from this one-day seminar (Scroll down to November 8 in the Archives) Playing Roulette with Your Broadband Future - a cautionary note about putting all one's chips on Red and spinning the roulette wheel - why not get smart and play several games of chance at once? The stakes are too high to do otherwise. The bottom line for me is as follows: In the Networked Information Age, our broadband information infrastructure has become too vital to be left in the hands of a select few, operating behind closed doors. Broadband has become too vital to place all of our chances for success on a narrow strategy defined and executed by insiders. When Big Government Thinks Big, Big Things Get Built - in which I suggest that our nation needs broadband infrastructure, and we need a plan to get there (includes a Green Eggs and Ham riff!) ... Whatever philosophical objections anyone may have to government involvement and leadership in broadband, there are just some things that the government does well. Building Roads is one of them. And in my mind's eye, broadband looks more and more like a road system. Why not? Let's start talking about a Big Government Program for Big Broadband...Why Not? Worked for the Interstate System 50 years ago... On this same theme, see also the follow-up posts Time to Challenge Some Bad Thinking about the Role of Government and In Assessing Change v. MOTS, Start with Putting Consensus Ahead of Coercion. I would argue that as we start to talk more openly and often about National Broadband Policy, we'll be forced to adopt a consensus model in order to move forward. It will take time to resolve differences and chart a path that is workable to all stakeholders - how much time will depend on the willingness of stakeholders to be open to others' viewpoints. And it must start by discrediting coercive means that exploit power positions, which are by definition inefficient, as they leave valuable contributers on the sidelines. Then, we start to look at the diversity within the Public Sector space with Government as a Layer Cake A Wicked Wind Blows Through the Senate, The Shankill Butchers Ride Tonight - I'll close this review of November with perhaps my favorite post of the month. This post addresses the climate of fear we now see operating in our country, vividly captured in the haunting song by the Decembrists - "The Shankill Butchers Ride Tonight." This post draws comparisons to what Abraham Lincoln saw and commented upon prior to the Civil War... And then on a lighter note, there's this: Posted on December 30, 2007 at 09:27 AM | Comments (0) Christmas Letter VI - House on Fire
Man, it's been a busy year .... as I write one of the last installments of my MetroNetIQ Christmas Letter, I realize how much ground I've covered on this site and in my business this year, and how far we have to go. Metropolitan Broadband, now Alternate Broadband, is one big, complex issue, one Wicked Problem, if you will. On then, to the final quarter of the year that is almost over, this last week in December, let's start with October...where, among other things, I proposed that our national telecommunications house is on fire in a series of posts Where There's Smoke ... October Yo, I really cranked it up in October, with 34 posts ... October was also the month we began to process the nine written responses to the San Marcos RFP. Nine - oh yeah...that was exciting to get so many responses... And, the month I learned that we had been selected as the finalist for the contract with Orange County Business Council to do the wireless broadband assessment of municipalities and ISDs in the OC... There were several critical posts this month, but given that there were so many, I'll be briefer here than I have been so far... Phoenix MetroNets, Rising from the Ashes - in which I describe our entry into a new phase of metropolitan broadband - "Emergent Customization," pointing a direction beyond Municipal Wireless Rock of Ages v. Water of Life - in which I describe the eternal paradox of change - balancing the need to preserve the past while adapting for the future (see also the follow-up Conservatives and Innovators - Wrestling for the Remote). When it comes to broadband policy and strategy, I don't think we can even begin to talk about these complex issues as a national community without including in the conversation those same government regulators, lawmakers, and large cable and telecom companies who some consider the Root of All Evil. I'm not one of those types, but I do believe in calling things like I see them. We need to start by bringing all this dirty linen out into the open. I'll try to be dispassionate, so bear with me. If you're part of the Reality-based community, you don't say "What Smoke?" or "That's just Smog." You don't deny what your eyes see and what your brain tells you. We must at least acknowledge that we have an underlying problem with our system. Before we can have an Open discussion on our collective broadband future, or even begin to craft solutions and a policy and a strategy that serve all interests, we first have to have Trust. We have to have Truth as the foundation for our discussion and we have to be Inclusive and engage all the parties. We have to be Honest. Pure Play MuniFi Morphing Into Intelligent Communities? - in which I suggest a new more holistic focus for Alternate Broadband Tangled Webs, Wicked Ways - perhaps the best of several posts about telecom immunity and FISA And Now for Something Completely Different - and two more, about OPLAN - in which I describe a new way of looking at telecom from Great Britain, where the model is less the railroad (ATT) and more the highway (Alternate Broadband). The Old Telecom Business Model - a scarcity-based business model, where a vertically integrated professional network operator manages a closed network and charge retail service fees to retail consumers in exchange for providing access to a limited commodity - Internet Access (and in many cases, bundled content and applications). In today's case, broadband bandwidth is but one more service to mete out to a starving consumer class, who should be grateful for the services the telecom provides over its proprietary network in a low-competition business environment. This service is more akin to buying a ticket on a railroad line to go from point A to point B. The New Telecom Business Model - an abundance-based business model, where a neutral network owner (city, pension fund, etc.) manages an open network and charges wholesale service fees to service providers in exchange for providing access to an abundant commodity, local network access on which to run services and applications for resale to retail consumers. In this new case, the provisioning of broadband bandwidth is separated from the retail services, content, and applications. The Open Network brings an abundance of retail service providers and the benefits of bounteous competition, turning bandwidth into a basic commodity and letting consumers pay instead for retail value-added services. This service is more akin to driving a car on a road or highway, to go wherever you damn well please. October was one busy month, but we went down paths that demanded attention. We have to come to grips with where our devotion to conventional broadband is taking us...so, while I still think its a wonderful life, I have a little more bile in my stomach when I contemplate what's going on...
Posted on December 28, 2007 at 11:13 PM | Comments (0) Christmas Letter V - A Broadband Declaration of IndpendenceWhen do we know that we are living in history? It's hard to see the forest when you're down among all the trees, after all. Starting with July 4 last year, I began to see that there are parallels between what we are doing in taking on powerful government and business interests, in offering an alternative approach and in challenging a flawed status quo...not unlike the challenge our forefathers took on 230 years ago... It's a daunting task, taking on the rich, powerful, established status quo. And sometimes I wonder if we are up to it. But then, when I think of it, I don't see another way around it. The second half of 2007 proved to be just as eventful as the first half. - MetroNetIQ finally launched its RFP for City of San Marcos in July to widespread industry interest. Over the next several months, we worked the process, narrowing the list down to two final contenders by December. In web commentary, we also advanced somewhat in the second half of 2007. After attending a Broadband Properties summit in September, I came back thinking and talking more about Alternate Broadband, with a much expanded view of the potential of broadband. I realized I'd been too focused on mobility to the exclusion of capacity, as much as I had acknowledged multiple technologies when I launched this site nearly two years ago to track and explain Metropolitan Broadband, as opposed to Municipal Wireless. I'm ever more convinced that there is too narrow a focus among the different, narrowly-oriented interest groups (wireless mesh, municipal wireless, WiMAX, BPL, and FTTH) who share a common perspective as they offer alternatives to conventional broadband, aka Cable BB and DSL. A name is important, I realize now, in so much as it defines either narrowly or broadly the interest area - how one defines one's industry determines where one spends their energies, what info they track, and who they hang out with. July In looking at this very short list of blogs, I only count three in July...guess I was busy, between dealing with the San Marcos activities and my upcoming 50th birthday, as well as a two-week car trip to Washington DC. I reprinted one of my favorite blogs, A Declaration of Independence for Broadband Connectivity, originally composed on July 4, 2006. And then, there was this treatment of broadband as a utility... Under a utility paradigm, we accept that it is the role of all society, not just its telecom and cable providers, to finance and build the infrastructure necessary to provide broadband service to all consumers at an affordable rate. That approach drove the penetration of electricity and later, telephone service, and such a universal service model brought about dramatic economic development benefits. And by accepting diverse methods and technologies to provide such ubiquitous service, as a society we can harness the power of a portfolio and iterative feedback loops to manage risk and exploit innovations. Broadband at the last mile around the globe has been most successful so far in tightly knit societies with dense populations and where there is strong national government guidance and leadership. An American approach could be, must be different. We're too big a country, and we don't like heavy central control at the federal government level anyway. We do have an independent streak, though, which we should tap into. Extending broadband on such a scale to cover the nation would mirror the extension of early electric and telephone networks, which were seen as utilities to be provided to all citizens and businesses at affordable rates, because they were essential to society. So is broadband. I would urge this debate to be joined far and wide. Where broadband infrastructure is slow to build out, why not try a utility approach? It's worked before. Broadband at the Edge: Now a Public Utility? August I took a much anticipated family vacation in the first half of August, and got re-engaged on my return for the final 10 days of the month. My rate of posting began to pick up a bit - 8 posts, most of which focused on the demise of EarthLink's erstwhile interest in municipal wireless. I tied the spectacle to the Gartner Hype Cycle, feeling deep down that I too was stuck in the Trough of Disillusionment (a truly sucky place to be). I'd especially point out my last post of the month - Electric Utilities and Metropolitan Broadband - a Relatively Untested Opportunity, in Critical Need of Attention. When, oh when, will the electric utilities wake up and embrace Alternate Broadband?? Cities that own an electric utility are in a great position to take advantage of new broadband communications technologies, as are larger electric utilities. They produce significant revenue, they manage a critical distributed infrastructure, and they have a critical task to manage in the event of an outage. September In looking over the September archive, I counted 17 posts, so clearly, there was something to write about. I was also waiting on the submission of the written bids in the San Marcos RFP, due on Sept 27, so I had a little more time on my hands than usual...it helped to bring me some clarity. 1) I began to formulate this meme about broadband as infratructure... Let's Talk More about Broadband Infrastructure, Less about Individual Technologies One aspect of the events of this past week, I hope, will be an opening up of attitudes to a more technology neutral perspective when it comes to broadband communication. With an open mind, I hope we can begin to experiment with different combinations of technologies that provide custom solutions to different communities, and get away from arguments that pit one technology against another, and that seek to promote a one-size-fits-all model for the sake of mass consumption. Over the past few years, discussion on wireless and wired broadband has tended to fall in various camps that support one technology over another, Wi Fi Mesh v. WiMAX, cellular 3G v. Wi Fi Mesh, DSL v. Fiber, Fiber v. WiMAX. The problem with structuring the debate in such dualistic terms is that it starts with a biased argument that proceeds to create camps and promote divergence. In contrast, in the face of such a large challenge as national broadband infrastructure, what we all need is more cooperation and convergence, and more experimentation. For a Change, How about Trying Cooperation and Convergence 2) and I began to talk about an alternative to conventional broadband... It should, and it does. This is where leadership comes in, or rather, where it is absent. Our leaders should be taking the reins and correcting this situation. It's not happening at the federal level. I still hold out hope at the local level. Robert Cringely, writing his column on PBS.com, is less optimistic. This summer he had a good series on broadband infrastructure, and one month ago he presented a rather bleak outlook, concluding Game Over. He concludes that DSL and Cable won't get us there, dismisses cellular as technologically inadequate, and sweeps right by Wi Fi Mesh and WiMAX. That's where we differ. For if we are to ever get back to a leading position in broadband, or at least an adequate position to support a 21st Century economy, we must place some hope on local government innovation. I may share Cringely's lack of faith when it comes to national policy, the FCC, and the large cable and telecom providers, but I still have faith in small-town America to come through for us. There's enough innovation, money, and most importantly, incentive in our nation's smaller towns to craft solutions that can be adapted to the more dense urban areas. I remain optimistic, if only because the alternative is too grim. Broadband Infrastructure has become too important an issue to leave to the "professionals" anymore. It's time we had some competing alternatives working out in the hinterlands. It's time we took back some of the control over our broadband communication destinies. And the technology is available now for getting started. How Important is Broadband? Why Should We Care Enough to Change our Current Thinking, Anyway? 3) I summarized my views on EarthLink et al and put that whole issue to bed... 1. The demise of Big City Free Wi Fi was a market correction that was long overdue. 4) I had an AHA moment regarding mobility and capacity after attending the Broadband Properties Summit in Dallas ... My AHA is that it's Not EITHER FTTH OR Wireless Broadband. That's a false choice. It's BOTH FTTH AND Wireless Broadband. FTTH can lead, if the community is ready to make the leap to a 21st Century Future-Proof Broadband Network, if community and economic development are front and center, and if more competitive broadband market rates are needed. Wireless Broadband will be important as well for mobility, and that can come initially with Hot Spots, Hot Zones, or more ubiquitous coverage. Wireless Broadband can lead, if it's mobility that's most crucial, but a fiber loop will be needed for back haul initially, and the network will need to grow into a full FTTH network over time to provide necessary capacity to meet future capacity requirements. I've been moving in this direction for quite some time, even writing an RFP this summer that promoted a converged wired and wireless network, leveraging the best of current broadband technology (see City of San Marcos RFP). But this conference really gave me an opportunity to shine a light on what a converged wire line/wireless broadband network would look like. On the Cutting Edge - Citywide Broadband on Steroids 5) Finally, I began to be oriented on National Broadband Policy in the last two blogs, which crystallize my thinking on where we are in this nation when it comes to broadband ... A Second Opinion is needed to provide policy makers with background facts on how the rising broadband Internet is changing the rules of the telecommunications industry. We need an examination of new digital and radio technologies that challenge the current method of regulating spectrum, for instance. We need a fresh look at what is currently happening out in the laboratories of innovation across the United States. We need to listen more to those who are actively working to make a difference for our broadband future, if on a small scale at present. These innovators are the voices of the future. If we truly desire to compete in the global market, we cannot continue to hold up the industries of the past at the expense of the industries of the future. That path is a recipe for mediocrity and gradual decline, and the preliminary results are already in on that strategy. Let's recognize that fact, leverage our considerable advantages (including both the incumbent strengths and the diversity of innovation) and mobilize to do something about it. Like I've said before, anything interesting starts with a conversation. Way Past Time for a National Broadband Policy and Before you get discouraged, let's just acknowledge that there will be no EASY way out of this broadband infrastructure conundrum - this taxation discussion only serves to highlight that we are indeed in a crisis, and we should acknowledge that. I would argue further that progress outside the US and the steady march of technology already combine to create a figurative GUN TO OUR HEAD, leaving for a minute the issue of tax policy at various levels of government and in various geographies. In the issue of what Broadband means to us as a national government and as a national community, we have a sense of urgency that is there for the taking, if it is as yet unacknowledged by our political leaders. But let's probe further on the problem we face. I would argue that these and other questions regarding broadband infrastructure are characteristic of a phenomenon that social theorists call "Wicked Problems." We have to work together to solve such problems, or else we punt them down the road and they get worse. (See also my recommendation earlier today for a national dialogue that can lead us to a National Broadband Policy here). The concept of "wicked problems" was originally proposed by Horst Rittel (a pioneering theorist of design and planning, and late professor at the University of California, Berkeley) and M. Webber in a seminal treatise for social planning. Rittel expounded on the nature of ill-defined design and planning problems which he termed "wicked" (ie. messy, circular, aggressive) to contrast against the relatively "tame" problems of mathematics, chess, or puzzle solving. Wicked problem - Wikipedia Broadband in America: a "Wicked Game We Play" Ah, clarity ... and the courage it brings, courage that led me to make changes and to take sacred cows to task, because that's what it seems I became more focused on at the end of the year, once I began to go down the path of Alternate Broadband and where it should fit in a National Broadband Policy... Posted on December 28, 2007 at 10:19 PM | Comments (0) Christmas Letter IV - A Road Less Traveled
Well, Christmas Day has come and gone, yet the holiday season lives on. It's still an exhausting day in our household, little sleep with lots of activity to follow. Still, very special day and I feel very appreciative. As usual, I was rather ambitious in undertaking a task. Choosing to start a Christmas Letter in the middle of all the holiday rush by filling in the gaps of time with sporadic posts was a leap, but it seems to be working, so I'll plow on ahead. So, on to May, which was yet another eventful month for MetroNetiQ this year. The key thought as I look over this month and the blog posts is that we are really talking about taking a road less traveled. Those involved in this industry, and those cities that choose to go down this path, find themselves at the proverbial Fork in the Road and make the decision to take the Road Less Traveled. May In May, I sold an old car and bought a new one, all in the space of three days, using a variety of broadband tools, which I blogged about in Making Change Happen with Broadband I & II. It was a big event for me, because I hadn't done such transactions in quite a while and was a little surprised how simple the process proved to be, with all the new broadband applications and websites at hand. On that blog, I cataloged my purchase process, which I believe is near universal in any serious purchase, and which we should keep in mind as we go about making such decisions. 1. Personal Inventory. By May, we realized that we had won the City of Longview deal, but then as I was heading up there to go to the city council meeting for final approval, their political leadership made a last minute decision to postpone the long-planned network until the new city manager was installed - OUCH, that hurt, for me for sure, but also for the internal team inside City of Longview. As it turned out, that was enough to snuff the momentum built up over 18 months in this city. This was a lesson in many ways - I hate these kinds of lessons, but nevertheless, life keeps on doling them out. There clearly was nothing we could have done differently, for Pete's Sake - we won the bid, closed the deal and negotiated a good contract. But this event reminded me that any city is a complex organization, with diffuse leadership in a highly political environment. Many leaders are still very nervous about telecommunications infrastructure at this early stage, many unaware of new possibilities and paradigms, and they do not share the same priorities we see inside this industry. There remain so many ways that a deal can go south, so many competing options for city officials, and so much misinformation and ignorance, which all combine to complicate decision-making and confuse the issues. May, however, was the month we really got down to business in San Marcos, writing a new and different kind of RFP, one that would accommodate the changes we were seeing in the industry. We took several steps to match what we saw unfurling in the industry: I think this is some of the best of the blog postings from May: In contrast to this status quo, imagine a solution that is Small, Simple, Cheap, and Fast. (and keep repeating that mantra). Small, because that keeps costs low and provides lots of choices, allows more focus on niche solutions, and lowers barriers to entry. Simple, because there are fewer moving parts (see above) and that means the solution is more likely to work/less likely to fail. Cheap, because the costs of these new solutions are quite a bit cheaper - going over the air without paying for spectrum rights avoids such massive capital expenditures as trenching and spectrum rights acquisition through auctions. Fast, because its fairly simple to hang up these nodes on light poles or mount them on rooftops. We're now living in a world that is undergoing near constant change, on a rapid basis. When you have such dramatic change so consistently, doesn't it make sense to approach things differently than you have in the past? Doesn't it make sense to experiment with new models and try on new ways of doing things? Doesn't it make sense to take some risks? That's yet one more benefit of using new business models enabled by these new technologies - they allow rapid feedback cycles, which enable rapid improvement cycles. It's just like Open Source Software. Lots of experiments, lots of innovation, lots of improvements. That is what I believe is the bottom line on the need for different approaches to broadband provisioning: A divergence from the status quo is called for, and an opportunity presents itself to model the success of Open Source software development. This is what we will see more and more of in the coming year - more experimentation, more innovation, more change. As consumers, we should open ourselves up to new ways of doing things, exploring what we value and what we can do without. There are multiple lessons to be learned if we will set off on this path. Small, Simple, Cheap, and Fast - OHMMMMMMMM June We put the finishing touches on the San Marcos RFP in June, and I began an extensive pre-sell and communication effort to promote the opportunity to the vendor community. This blog, A Fresh Approach in San Marcos, provides a good overview of where we were at the end of June. For a review of June blogs, see here. Posted on December 25, 2007 at 08:20 PM | Comments (0) Christmas Letter III - Building a House with a Firm Foundation
Well, we did manage to sleep a couple of hours last night. My kids are 11 and 13, so they managed to sleep in to a decent hour this morning, and we had time to light a fire and make some eggnog latte before they got up. It was a very pleasant session of opening presents this year, finishing about 11:00. We've broken in the new ping pong table, Wesley is all over the Wii games he rec'd (my wife, Barbette: "are you kidding, he's being chased by police in a stolen car??!!??"), Blake is snapping pics with her new pink Casio digital camera, and I'm listening to tunes on my new iPod Nano (my first, we're late adopters)...Barbette eschews digital gifts... If we're at all typical, there are a lot of digital gifts being opened this morning across America. Many of those gifts have Wi Fi capability (Wesley's Wii console does). Let's see how the impact of another wave of Wi Fi-equipped handsets impacts this new industry this year... I've got a little time to blog before we sit down to our roast lamb chops and a nice Syrah ... Christmas really is one of my favorite holidays. Back to the Year in Review...where one of the key lessons of April is that in forming a community with the help of technology, we're building a house and need a strong foundation of planning and strategy development. April In April, we finally figured out that the Dubai deal wasn't going to go. But soon after that, in another partnership, MetroNetIQ was down selected for the City of Longview and entered into negotiations. We attended the Texas Association of Government IT Managers (TAGITM) conference in South Padre Island. And we launched the San Marcos project, with project orientation and community mobilization activities. On the website, you can see from the April archive that we had a heavy month of blogging (15) and covered a wide variety of topics. Perhaps my favorite quote comes from a blog titled Chasing the Key Demographic for a Sustainable Future, in which I talked about community formation and sustainable growth. Here are the lessons I pulled from a personal experience of community building... Lesson One: The beginning of a solution is an honest assessment of the problem and a willingness to take action to pursue the solution. Lesson Two: Time spent in crafting the strategy that fits best is not wasted time, but an investment in bettering the odds for success. Lesson Three: Start simple and focus on making important, often simple changes to make a more welcoming environment to generate success and build momentum that will energize your community to take on more change. Lesson Four: Community formation is a conscious activity that requires a deliberate strategy and focus, but once started, community activity is contagious and generates energy. Lesson Five: To attract a targeted demographic, spend time to understand their needs and then create the conditions that will attract or retain them - the underlying infrastructure is a good place to start. Lesson Six: Keep it Simple and focus on opportunities to create synergy and socially reinforcing behavior patterns, and work together as a community. Lesson Seven: To stand out and enjoy sustainable growth in the highly competitive 21st Century, a community needs leadership, initiative, a business plan and strategy, commitment, and mobilization of all the resources in the community. Posted on December 25, 2007 at 04:14 PM | Comments (0) Christmas Letter II - It's a Wonderful LifeWell, it's 10:00 pm on Christmas Eve, I just stepped out to smuggle a Ping Pong table from my neighbor's garage into my backyard (success!), and the family is watching It's a Wonderful Life...that George Bailey just told off that SOB Potter one more time. He really is a creep... I'm resisting making comparisons between Old Man Potter and recalcitrant Incumbents, Bailey Building and Loan and an enterprising community-based WISP ... Back to the Year in Review. March In March the big, big event was that we launched the San Marcos deal. Getting busy on the San Marcos project pushed away much of the business development activities - that's how it works with focus in a small company. But we also continued with the Longview deal ... we went up to present and hit the ball out of the park. As for the blog, there are some good posts in the March archive here, but I think the highlight of my writing for this month is the MuniWireless conference I attended in Dallas in March and the several blogs that provide the details. This particular blog Industry Snapshot - Final Thoughts on MuniWireless Texas 07 provides the best overview... 1. The industry supply chain looks increasingly like a barbell to me, with more growth at the ends than in the middle. We will also get more field data this year, which should prove revealing on how well these networks stand up to the tasks of providing the transport function for critical municipal digital applications - some good, some bad. The good data will be a press agent's dream and will be hawked to encourage more cities to enter, while the bad data will have the dual role of teaching the market what works and what doesn't, but also of providing a damper, slowing things down and driving a lot of the hype out. Thank Goodness. The hype is one thing that is growing tiresome for me, as it raises unrealistic expectations! The bottom line comment? I'm bullish on industry growth and predict stronger than average growth of municipal wireless projects in While some of my predictions and conclusions seem naive in hindsight, I'm glad I called two things early: first, the waning of the Public Private Partnership model, and second, exposing the Hype Cycle early on. [So, on the TV as I write, Donna Reed just welcomed George back, and now the townsfolk are streaming into the Bailey household ... everyone is giving George money ....they all really do love him and his life is worth it after all! Man, I'm a sap for this movie. Don't we all wish deep down that we lived in a community like Bedford Falls?....Frank Capra sure knew what he was doing, is all I can say....finally, the kids are going to bed now and we can get down to business.] Looks like I need to sign off and play Santa Claus...I hope no kids are reading this blog... Merry Christmas to all! Looks like I'll have to finish this letter after Christmas. Posted on December 24, 2007 at 10:31 PM | Comments (0) Christmas Letter I - A Long and Winding RoadI wrote our first family Christmas Letter this week, and let me tell you, it's hard not to fall into the trite, all-good-news, bragging kind of letter that people make fun of. That's just how these letters turn out when you start to write 'em. You tend to want to share the good stuff, and not talk so much about the less-than-good stuff. The surprise for me was how enjoyable the task was - it was helpful for me personally to write a letter like that, to realize what's important to me - so much good news about the kids and family. You realize how good your life is when you write a letter like that. So, I thought I'd try something of the same for you all on this blog, my website extended family. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, for my Christian readers! It's been a long and winding road this year, and I'm glad this website and you readers are along for the ride. Happy Holidays for everyone else, whatever your beliefs - this is a time of year to celebrate joy, family, community and being connected, particularly a propos on this website! January What a difference a year makes! Back in January, I was doing a lot of business development, especially exploring new business relationships. I was busy with an ongoing contract to move a medical practice into a new office building, in partnership with Randy Baker at Tuanis Technology here in Austin. Randy is the founder of the Austin Wireless Alliance and has great experience and skills in broadband, both the wired and wireless varieties. Getting to work with Randy was enjoyable. I brought Tuanis in on another potential opportunity in Dubai early this year, one of those deals that looked good at first, but failed to develop. It was interesting to investigate business affairs in that part of the world together with Randy and a Middle East technology consultant from Bahrain. And speaking of good deals, in January I was busy developing a written proposal for the City of Longview, together with Karl Edwards at Excelsio Communications. That was yet another highlight of the year, to get to work with Karl and get to know him better. And I was busy putting a report together for the City of San Marcos - I had a small contract from Nov-Jan, where I interviewed over 50 city leaders to get their impressions on the potential wireless plans of the city government. I had also submitted a bid for a bigger wireless project in San Marcos, waiting in January to hear back on how that was progressing. With regard to the MetroNetIQ blog, it's pretty easy - not much blogging in January - a quick look at the Archives shows only one blog, but it's a good one. See Cities as Complex Ecosystems: Mother Nature Knows Best. In Pulse, Frenay takes a view that nature has far more experience at organizing complexity than does man, as sophisticated as we think we are. It's hard to imagine more complex ecosystems than what we see outside our window. Whether we refer to weather, the interactions of predators and prey, symbiosis between animals and plants, the work of insects (most notably, ants), the tropical rain forest ecology, polar bears/seals/fish/icebergs - pick it, these are all complex systems that have figured out how to get along in balanced, closed ecosystems in harmony, without the help of man and his/her big brains. So, Frenay proposes that man's organizational efforts, while they've come a long way since the first plows moved dirt around in Mesopotamia 20,000 years ago, have a lot to learn from nature's organizational methods. Frenay argues that linear "machine age" thinking has served us well since the dawn of the Industrial Age a short 200 years ago, and that the corporation has accomplished wonders in a short 100 years, but our world systems are flawed because they do not adequately account for externalities like pollution and negative environmental impact. We're now reaching the limits of where we can go as a civilization with those tried and true models. He uses the metaphor of an animal species reaching the limits of its habitat and the consequences that nature imposes. To suspect that man is somehow immune to consequences is naive when you look at what happens to other species that outgrow their habitat's ability to support them. Frenay highlights how we're hitting limits, from the permanent damages man is causing to his island home by pumping waste into the air (CO2), to stripping away forests that take centuries to regenerate for short-term gains, to eliminating species from overconsumption. Connecting the dots is illuminating. Wheww. Nothing like a cold dose of reality. February February saw some important activity for MetroNetIQ. I started down a very interesting trail on broadband policy, for one. See the blog archive here for blog posts in February. There were some good posts in Feb - Broadband Leadership? It Starts at Home So I'm struck by the difference between what we were able to do back in the 60s and 70s, with sheer will power, perseverance, and good old American can-do attitude, compared with what we are not doing today as a nation, as we watch countries like Japan, Korea, Sweden, and France, move ahead with strong national leadership and vison, as they implement a broadband strategy to create a national communications infrastructure that befits the 21st Century. Why is that? How come, I ask myself, broadband doesn't capture the imagination of people today the way that space exploration did back then? Well, for one, we've become pretty used to techological magic in the past 40 years. For another, we lack the leadership we had back then. No leadership focus, no national mobilization. Making Metropolitan Broadband Work Once again, despite my approval of this particular test, I feel that when we compare 3G and Wi Fi Mesh, we engage in comparing apples to oranges - effectively, we try to make a "mobile data network" be a one-size-fits-all utility service. The fact is that Wi Fi Mesh networks are a decent relatively cheap alternative that provides better service over wider areas than Hot Spots or landline connections, adds a mobile access feature not found in either of those alternatives, and is available at a price point far more accessible to far more people than the relatively exclusive data plans of cell phone carriers. Time for Spectrum Reform? Well Past Time, More Like And it's hard to imagine a more cozy relationship between big business and big government than the current spectrum regulation at the FCC. Big Business likes spectrum auctions because it keeps the competition out. When it takes billions of dollars to win a spectrum auction, only the big guys win, and the little guys are left penned into their ghetto of unlicensed bands - free to innovate, but not free to grow large and threaten the established players. And Big Government gets the billions from the auctions to fill the government tills and finance the war in Iraq. Pardon me if I get a little cynical here, but I don't see this situation changing in the near term, even if it makes even more sense than it already does. Corruption favors the powerful and maintains their hold on power and this, folks, can only be described as a corrupt and inefficient system. We won't even go into the current relationship between FCC commissioners and staffers and the industry they "regulate." Penalty for Piling On - Fifteen Yards A political storm is brewing, where passionate social advocates are seeking to make the proposed municipal wireless network, like the US Marines, "be all that it can be." Problem is, their efforts to ensure consumer privacy and add other things, maybe with the best intentions for San Francisco, risk derailing the effort entirely. I wrote a long comment to Greg's essay, captured below. The essence of the comment is that well intentioned though they may be, such efforts by consumer advocates to pile too much onto a municipal wireless effort do indeed pose a serious rsk. These wireless projects need to get up and running more than anything, and they can be improved after the fact. We need lots more networks, and lots more experiments, not perfect networks that cover all the bases politically. Many more networks will give us all experience, with successes to borrow from, and failures to learn from. And that experience, with its successes and its failures, will make all the networks in the future the better for it. What's Municipal Wireless Good For? So, back to What's Muni Wireless Good For ... In addition to agreeing with Richard Martin and Craig Settles on the efficacy of muni wireless projects to kick start a technology and provide good experimental feedback, I listed three things (I'll add a separate blog with more - this will make a good Top Ten List): 1. Muni Wireless provides a stimulus for national debate on broadband. Bottom Line: Muni Wireless has defined a new industry and set the tone for a new debate on broadband in America, where all of our official leadership has gone AWOL. No longer is it "When will the telecoms and cables give us broadband?" Now, we have a trend line of cities taking matters into their own hands and bringing in new broadband infrastructure alternatives. Before Muni Wireless, they just could not do that - it was not an economically feasible option. Muni Wireless has changed the near term prospects for broadband in America, and that's pretty significant for a little underrated technology that everyone overlooked. Finally, I wrote at length on National Broadband Policy in my last two posts of the month - I urge you to read those fully. See both What's Municipal Wireless Good For? The Whole Enchilada and Lead, Follow, or Get out of the Way. The gist of those two posts was that we lack leadership in broadband, but we can get there and Municipal Wireless points the way: The bottom line for these three new benefits of Muni Wireless? The results may be small, but they will be cumulative. A town enjoys a positive impact when its community launches a Muni Wireless project: 1) they gain an opportunity to leverage new wireless applications; 2) they become engaged and mobilized; and 3) they enjoy incremental (and perhaps more dramatic) economic development benefits. And February wasn't a slouch away from the website. While I continued to work on the Dubai deal with Randy and Suleiman, and was short-listed on the Longview deal with Karl, we were down-selected as the finalist in the San Marcos Wireless Project bid (the big one) and negotiated the contract in February. We were thus set on the path to our most interesting project to date. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, hard to believe it was only 10 months ago. This is running long, so I'll pick up on March in the next post. Posted on December 24, 2007 at 09:04 PM | Comments (0) Look Before You Leap, Part 5
In previous posts on this topic (See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4), I've described a changing world that is increasingly networked and tied together and oriented around digital technology. I argued that to make local changes to accommodate and leverage these new opportunities and this changing landscape, we are faced with decisions and analysis along several dimensions, which I mapped on the sliding scale graphic above. I have only to describe a few days in my life to make the example. * "Long distance" has effectively disappeared as a telecommunications term when I can talk to my former executive in Paris over Skype with crystal clear sound, no latency, and at no cost, as I did yesterday morning. We still have to coordinate because of time difference, but that's not going away as long as we live in different spots relative to the sun. For those of us who have already made adapting our lifestyles to use these new tools a habit, life has indeed become quite different than it was before the Internet was available. In essence, there's a freedom of action that comes from using these technologies, which can be looked at as new tools. One of my big challenges is in encouraging others to make these changes so that they keep up with me (I still can't get my old buddy in Rome onto Skype, my wife has resisted getting a digital camera, but that will soon change - come on, Christmas! - and the whole purpose of this site is to encourage change). So while in Part 4 we examined new potential in systems, featuring a move towards Open, Web-based systems, in this analysis, we now turn to Process, which explores how we use systems to accomplish work and meet our goals. I'd suggest there's potential change on at least five dimensions when we look at process: 1. Analog to Digital - how people use technology and tools More after the jump.
3.1. Moving from Analog to Digital - One of the primary changes that we face in the environment today is technology driven. We're transforming into a digital society, and that involves moving from an Analog world to a Digital world. It involves learning a new language, the language our kids are speaking as Digital Natives. (See a post I wrote in April Town to Gown - and all points in between for more on the Digital Immigrants / Digital Natives meme). The Analog world has people moving information manually - processing paper documents by hand - where the Digital world uses technology to streamline processes. The Analog world has people picking up the telephone to convey information, the Digital world amends the process until often the human interaction of transferring information is removed altogether, leaving the humans to do a higher value activity. (See also these recent posts: From Analog to Digital - What a Long Strange Trip, and Digital Adolescents, Stuck in Digital Puberty). 3.2. Moving from Manual to Automatic - The Latin stem for the word "manual" refers to using one's hands. Manual processes involve a human being touching an object. In looking at how we get things done in any organization, it's important to consider that each one of those manual processes is subject to a cost and is prone to human error. Ultimately, we can't change everything over to automatic, but much of what we call progress has involved taking human touches out of processes. We saw it in the move from craft shops to factories, the primary innovation of the 20th century. In this new century, we'll see more and more process reform, because reducing time and costs makes more things possible. This is the nature of improved standards of living. From a city perspective, reducing costs in this way offers the opportunity to manage growth without adding more labor costs to the budget - in essence, keeping taxes low and spending citizen's money more wisely. Full leveraging of the Internet has only just begun, because it's such a new tool and we don't fully understand how we can use it to move away from old ways of doing business. But rest assured, many more efficiencies lie in this direction if we will keep on looking. 3.3. Moving from Fixed to Mobile - This transformation is best imagined by thinking of a plug into a wall socket and a hand-held device. This is moving from a telephone at your desk to a telephone on your hip. This is moving from a radio plugged into the wall to a radio powered by batteries and plugged into your ear. It is the moving from the world of the desk phone, the desktop PC, and the clock radio to the cellphone, the laptop, and the iPod. We started this transition when we put radios in our cars and trucks. We finish this transition when we carry those devices on our persons, wherever we go. Full mobility involves changing our business processes, because we can get everything we need, wherever we are. We no longer have to move around to access information, whether it is out on the Internet, or out in the field. With mobility, we're freed from the constraint of location. This change is bigger than most think, because we're used to having to move our bodies to get what we want. As climate issues gain more attention, look for more people to consider moving information over broadband networks instead of moving bodies in cars, trucks, and airplanes, burning fossil fuels, and polluting the air. (See the 2005 MetroNetIQ White Paper March to Mobility for a fuller discussion on this inevitable trend.) 3.4. Moving from Coercion to Collaboration - In the old days, employees did what they were told and if they didn't, they were fired. That's the essence of coercion, gaining one's way through aggressive threat. Later as bureaucracies ossified and became less effective, employees who would otherwise be fired were overlooked, disciplined in some manner or transferred to another task where they could cause less harm. Otherwise, the same model was in place - top-down coercion by management to force compliance to a set standard of performance. Sure, management tools are available to make the model work better, with limited success: annual performance reviews for feedback, raises in salary or wage (or more likely, withholding of raises), bonuses, training, junkets, and award ceremonies. All these formal mechanisms were devised to oil the cogs in the Coercion Machine and keep it running. We see this model continue in many, if not most businesses and organizations. Old habits die hard, but more and more, we see another model on the rise. In the new collaboration organizational model, workers share responsibility for outcomes and work much closer together. Professionalism is expected equally from managers and those managed. Work practice may be far less formal, but even with all the informality, more is expected. Independence is demanded by employees, who see themselves as better equipped than their bosses to know what needs to be done, since they're right there on the spot, where the action is, so to speak. In a more dynamic economy, jobs come open more often, and good employees recognize that they have more freedom of movement. The good ones are more likely to move on if not treated well, but if they're happy in their job, they'ill stay and become ever more valuable. Training is not so much a perk as a necessary expense, given the increasing complexity that technology brings. Having invested so much in their employees, and likely relying on fewer employees to do more, employers are eager to see that they stay on the job and remain productive. As tasks become more unique, problem-solving skills are more valued. In a complex work environment, it often takes multiple perspectives and skill sets to solve a problem, and this is especially true in smaller organizations, where fewer employees mean everyone wears multiple hats and carries greater responsibility. The only way this model works is if everyone works well together - if they collaborate, which when broken down means "to work together." This aspect of change has a better chance of being embraced if there is a move towards cultural transformation or if there is intense pressure to reduce labor costs. For this, of all the dimensions of change, involves cultural change, which is always slower than one would think. So, the change potential here will depend upon the degree to which the workplace has already changed, and the degree to which those in management envision a changing workplace and embrace the potential of a more collaborative environment for workers. (See also In Assessing Change v. MOTS, Start with Putting Consensus Ahead of Coercion and Something in Common). 3.5. Moving from Dependent to Independent to Interdependent - In a similar vein, in the old style of management, workers were dependent on information and other necessary resources from their bosses. As information and tools have moved to the desktop, workers have grown more independent, empowered as they are with all the tools they need to do their jobs. But as the work they do has grown more complex, there's a growing need to engage across the organization, and increasingly, with other organizations, in order to fulfill their goals and complete the necessary tasks of the job. In an effort to trim costs and become more efficient, more organizations have recognized the potential of outsourcing, where they break up their typical processes and farm out to external contractors the less critical functions to more efficient firms. As work becomes more complex and as more tools move out to the edge of organizations, as power and information spread throughout the organization, teams are formed to take on tasks. But the teams no longer need to be in one place. Information and communication technology enables dispersed teams to work together as if they were in the same place. The rise of wiki software enables teams to collaborate on information work product over the Internet. But for such interconnectivity to be leveraged to full advantage, workers need to develop skills in working together, and over time, they become more and more interdependent. Only the more advanced firms are moving in the direction of using Wikis, video communication and other tools to enable dispersed teams to function effectively, but this is a growing trend and these tools are increasingly available and affordable. The degree to which they're adopted and integrated into work processes is a sign of both the competitiveness of the organization and its sense of urgency. (See these posts as well: Stick to Your Knitting, Work Within Your Circle of Control and I Know You Are, But What Am I?). Posted on December 22, 2007 at 09:33 AM | Comments (0) Look Before You Leap, Part 4Having given some serious thought to what shapes one's views on change, the fundamental perspectives on change that one starts with (see Look Before You Leap, Part 3), I'd argue that the next category to consider would be the System, how it operates now, and how it could operate if all the new possibilities are considered. In the case of a city government, the "System" in its comprehensive definition would include the infrastructures the city maintains, the assets they employ, the human resources that operate within the system, the services the employees provide each other and their constituents, any outside services used by those city employees, and those citizens and visitors outside city government who interface with the system in some way. To bring some focus to this discussion, however, I'd limit the definition of System in this discussion to the communications infrastructure, assets and services used by city employees. I've identified two parameters within the system that impact the change decision - there could certainly be more, but for this exercise, I've settled on two: whether the system is closed or open, and whether the predominate tool in the system is local (the desktop) or remote (the Web).
2.1. Moving from Closed to Open - One of the most revolutionary paradigm shifts in the technology world is the growing understanding that open systems adapt better than closed systems. First, to define terms. An open system allows great freedom of movement, while a closed system is under the strict control of a single owner or operator. Proponents of open systems cite their greater capacity for innovation and lower costs, while those who prefer closed systems generally cite the ability to maintain quality and generate sufficient profits to provide a financial path for upgrades and sustainability. I think the most ready analogy is the difference between our railroad system (closed) and our highway system (open). Another good analogy is the Microsoft software paradigm, which has MS in firm control of the entire structure (closed) vs. the world of Linux, where code is freely shared among a wide variety of producers and a community is responsible for maintaining quality and continuity (open). Still another analogy, this one closer to home, is the difference between the cellular wireless world, where content is managed in a "Walled Garden" (closed) and the Wi Fi wireless world, where content is as wide open as the Internet (open). Open systems leverage the input of many more eyes and ears and brains. They are quicker to identify mistakes, quicker to innovate and adapt and improve. Open systems also end up being cheaper and more accessible, because their primary motivation is inclusiveness rather than exclusivity. Exclusive approaches tend to create scarcity in order to keep profits high. Inclusive approaches leverage the network effect, which says that the value of the network goes up the more nodes there are on the network (aka Metcalfe's Law). I am typing this blog using Movable Type, a proprietary software (closed) but I'm interfacing with the Internet on a Firefox browser (open), on a Hot Spot in a bookstore (open). The first element of System to consider then is weigh the benefits and costs of a closed system vs an open system, in light of the particular demands that the city has identified. For a more in depth discussion on the spectrum of options between closed and open systems, I recommend this recent post Trains on Tracks v. Cars on Highways: Closed v. Open. 2.2. Moving from PC (Desktop or Laptop) to Web - Since the days when the first desktops were networked locally, we've been moving to a more network-centric approach. Arguably, we're starting to see the PC more closely resemble a telephone as an end node on a communications network. The un-networked PC has far less utility today than one that is hooked to a broadband connection. Two trends have run in parallel over the past decade, which combine to make this discussion open-ended: more powerful PCs and more networked PCs. First, the PC itself has grown more and more powerful in both processing power and storage capacity over the last decade. Microsoft software still holds the dominant position in operating systems, and we're used to a world where software licenses in an organization are assigned "per desktop." Second, the PC has grown ever more connected. It is increasingly rare to see a PC that is not used as an Internet device, more and more using a high speed broadband connection. Such popular commercial destinations as Amazon, eBay, CraigsList; popular media sites like YouTube, popular social networking sites like MySpace, and FaceBook; and valuable search tools like Google and Wikipedia have made the Internet an amazing destination that can only be reached through an access account, preferably one that is broadband, not dial-up. High-value websites are not the only significant change either. In the past five years, advances in Web Services have started to enable more functionality to reside on the Web. Many ISPs and web-based companies make web mail accounts and on-line storage available, which can be accessed from any device by locating a specific URL and account. Web 2.0 is a term that has come to symbolize new, innovative practices that leverage the Web as opposed to the desktop. Google has staked a position in this area to differentiate itself from Microsoft. For a full discussion of this new way of looking at the Web, see the post Web 2.0 Principles and Lessons. The second element of System to consider is how far your organization would embrace a move to leverage what is available over the Web, as opposed to keeping content and software resident on individual desktops and laptops. Using the Web opens up the organization to new potential in collaboration and productivity. For a more in depth discussion, see this post, Three Faces of One Change: Search Engines, Mass Collaboration, and Leaderless Organizations. Posted on December 21, 2007 at 06:26 PM | Comments (0) Look Before You Leap, Part 3Ah, decisions, decisions ... everyone has an opinion. Consider these two scenes from A Bronx Tale, where our hero, Calogero, is on the cusp of a very important decision for a 17-year old boy living in the Bronx in 1960...whether or not to date an attractive "colored" girl...He struggles with the decision, listening to his two mentors - the local Mafia Boss, Joey Orso, seen here... and his Dad, seen here ... In pondering a decision, you can listen to many people and getting advice is a good idea. But in the end, sound decision making based on process and facts is hard to beat. Making a good decision may start in getting sound advice, but it must also include self awareness - understanding how you look at the world. Our hero above has a struggle between following the rules and advice of the neighborhood and the local Mafioso, or those of his home and his Dad. How he decides this important decision that drives the plot of this movie will be driven by how he looks at the world, ultimately. And that, my friends, is where the decision-making process for cities starts - the world view of the decision-makers will influence how they interpret the facts. More at the jump. Decision Points in Making the Leap Perspective Ten Steps For Turning Attitude Into Action: 1. Understand the Power of Attitude According to Harrell, for each of us, our attitudes drive our belief systems. In turn, our beliefs shape how we look at the world. In turn, our perceptions become a means of shaping the reality we live in. In that sense, city leaders on the cusp of making important decisions about broadband are driven by their collective attitude about their future. Perspective, how a city looks at these issues, will drive how they decide on the changes they face.
1.1 Looking Forward or Looking Backward - One of the first choices a city leader has is between a primary orientation around which direction motivates their thinking: conservative or progressive. Either one can be a valid strategy if it is chosen consciously. City leaders can make a perfectly rational choice to focus on preserving what they have, reminiscing about times gone by and looking backward. Preservation of something that makes the city unique can be a valid strategy. Others can focus on looking forward as a strategy. The challenge we all face is that the world at large is moving ahead, and cities are being asked to make a choice, either actively or passively. Denying change and doing nothing, while passive, actually involves making the choice to stay the same. But choosing to look backward, thinking that is the "safer" path, paradoxically is not safe - it actually involves taking the risk of getting left behind and losing relevance. When the game changes and new tools are put down in front of you, you can choose to learn to play the new game, to wait, or to deny the changes you see. Looking forward involves gathering information, growing in awareness of your city, forging consensus around a plan and strategy, and taking some calculated risks to adapt to a changing environment. The first element of Perspective then is whether the decision-makers give more credence to preparing for the future or preserving the status quo. For a more in depth analysis of this particular duality, I recommend this post from Nov 15, In Assessing Change v. MOTS, Start with Putting Consensus Ahead of Coercion. 1.2. Static to Dynamic - There's no doubt about it, we're living in a faster world today than the one we faced a generation ago. If the world is moving faster, we need the tools to adapt. Product life cycles are shorter. Information that is immediately available puts a premium on processing and making decisions. The key element here that confounds leaders is uncertainty about the future. Planning cycles have shrunk from 10 years to 5 years to 1 year. How can you plan for the future with so much change? The answer is to build in flexibility, to make the system and processes agile. That way, whatever the future throws your way, you can react more readily. We can no longer expect with any certainty that the future will be a lot like the past. But the challenge is in determining what is important and what isn't, what will stay the same and what will change. I believe that there are principal aspects of life that remain the same such as the fundamental nature of the world and human behavior. Our options and tools may change, our environment may change, but our principles, for instance, remain steady. The second element of Perspective, I would argue, is whether those making decisions about change believe that the future is truly remarkably different, requiring a different approach, or whether the future will be about like the past, which removes the sense of urgency to take major steps to prepare for change. This post offers more insight into this element of change: When Complexity Overwhelms, Is It Finally Time for a Change? 1.3. Moving from Control Hierarchies to Smart Networks, from Top Down to Bottom Up - I think of three things when I think of this shift from planned organizational hierarchies focused on control to spontaneous smart networks - Networks, Emergence, and Collective Intelligence (see With Broadband Internet, is Traditional Government Becoming Irrelevant?). Networks are the dominant way that nature organizes complexity, whereas hierarchies are an old way of organization that human societies came up with. Networks are flexible and fascinating - it pays huge dividends to get well versed in Network Science - the fastest route I know to get smart on networks is to read this book: Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means. For further discussion on how the shift from an information society to a network society affects us, see Cities as Complex Ecosystems: Mother Nature Knows Best and E Pluribus, Unum: From 300M to 30K to 3141 to 50 to 1. The concept of Emergence digs into how ideas seemingly arise out of nowhere, rather than being passed down from on-high. It's really quite fascinating, and a better understanding of this concept is helpful, because modern communications technology facilitates emergence. As above, I think the most enjoyable way to better understand this concept is to sit down and read the very readable Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software. My recent analogy of Government as Layer Cake opens the door to understanding how local governments can play a more powerful role than the federal government, if they only recognize how empowered they truly are and take the initiative. Finally, the principle of the Wisdom of the Crowds describes how smarter decisions are actually made by larger groups of average, but well informed people than by smaller groups, but much better informed people. In other words, it's the openness and group dynamics that determine the wisdom of what is out there, not the superior intelligence of the group. This concept flies in the face of conventional "wisdom" - there's that word again - that says that Think Tanks are the way to go if you want good decision-making. The bestseller The Wisdom of Crowds should be considered essential reading, IMHO. (see also The Wisdom of Crowds, the Safety of Numbers and Playing Roulette with Your Broadband Future for more discussion.) Nothing complicated here, eh? The third element of Perspective, then, involves a basic belief in how organizations and societies should work - like a machine, with well-ordered roles and lots of control? Or like a jungle, with systems in balance and flexible role playing, but nary a hint of top-down control, other than what the system exerts as a natural consequence of the actors and their actions? Making this leap in perspective is perhaps one of the largest and most difficult of all, but it carries with it a huge change in perspective. Tolerance for chaos and ambiguity goes way up, which is likely to prove very hard to grasp for those in political leadership roles. Posted on December 21, 2007 at 09:52 AM | Comments (0) Look Before You Leap, Part 2In my previous post, I posed an observation and a challenge: in essence saying, "The World is Changing," and asking, "What Are You Going to Do About It?" Given the seriousness of the decisions, I'd suggest a process is in order, and offer these thoughts. Step One in this process would be understanding and accepting that yes, in fact, the world is changing. Step Two would be working to better understand the problem, its root causes. Step Three would be evaluating what the problem implies. Step Four would be understanding the options - the Upside. Step Five is playing defense - understanding the Downside, what can go wrong. Put another way, in another recent post, I used this analogy of health care decision making when facing a problem: a) the epiphany ("something's not right, we can do better...) Step Six, then, would be devising a Plan of Action, making decisions, the subject of this series of posts. Years ago, I took a course in Screenplay Writing, where I learned about Aristotle's views on storytelling, in particular, the Three Act Structure approach. (I believe there is no such thing as wasted time, just levels of experience - some more valuable than others!) So our story in this case starts out in Act One with how the actor looks at the world - Perspective. Moving on to Act Two, the body of the story, there are three dimensions of change: new system approaches for operating a city or System, new process options - the rules of operation or Process; and new solutions that embody the changes in systems and processes or Solution. Finally Act Three is the wind-up - whether its time to adapt, the type of change, and how much or Adaptation. I offer up this methodology for making decisions on change: this is a way of breaking down this complex decision into its component parts.
In the graphic above, I envision a master control panel for change, with the parameters of change on several dimensions. As described above, I've divided the categories into Perspective, System, Process, Solution, and Adaptation. Decisions on change are necessarily based not only on the particular circumstances before the person or group faced with decisions, but also on how they would decide on these individual dimension scales. Attitudes about change on each of these parameters will collectively determine where they end up at the last decision, whether to change or remain the same. Often, using a tool like this takes the stress out of making a difficult decision - call this a modern version of the Ben Franklin method. So, how do you decide? Let me tell you about a simple tool many use and advocate. It is known as the "Ben Franklin" system. Take a lined pad- write the question to be decided at the top of page and below divide the remaining sheet into two vertical columns. The left is for the negative consequences of your action and the right is for the positive benefits. Assume for the moment you are undecided about buying a new car. You have selected the model but you are not sure this is the right time. Pose the question on the top of the pad--in the left column, list your reasons to wait, on the right side, list your reasons to buy now. In a sense, the side with the most reasons wins. The "Ben Franklin" system forces you to think about what you are about to do. It does not let you sweep under the rug what will happen if things don't work out. And it does not let you see the promises but not the perils of your choice. Try Ben Franklin Next up, getting down to the nitty gritty at each component level. Having fun yet? Posted on December 20, 2007 at 09:12 AM | Comments (0) Look Before You Leap, Part II feel for city officials these days. They're caught in a period of tremendous change, driven by technology advances that make possible new ways of looking at things and new methods of tackling age old problems. The Smart Cities I see are minding that adage, "Look Before You Leap." But there's a limit to the power of investigation. At some point, it comes decision time. Then the guiding adage becomes "He Who Hesitates is Lost." The nature of evolution is that things change over time, and as an environment changes, it behooves those within the environment to do one of two things: adapt or perish. Staying the same in the face of change is sometimes seen as another alternative, but it's really just a slower version of the second, a long slow slide into oblivion, as opposed to a dramatic leap over the cliff. Stasis is inadequate for the simple reason that the environmental change has made the current state less effective. I wrote about the nature of change in our physical world two months ago in the post Rock of Ages, Water of Life. Change is just the way our world and our lives are. Our task is to figure out how to adapt. Now is a good time for deep thoughts, for as we approach the Christmas holiday, we also approach the end of the year and a new beginning. Perhaps then it's time to go through that annual ritual of looking back before we look forward. I don't know whether or not this analysis will make it to the vaulted form of commentary known as the End-of-Year Top Ten List , but I thought I'd start to capture my thoughts on where we we've come and where we're going when it comes to broadband and cities. I'd argue that cities now have an ample body of evidence on these new alternate broadband technologies. Those who have done the work to understand these changes and their implications have what they need now to make decisions regarding broadband. They just need to figure out what they want to do about it. They have to decide if they are ready to act. They need to determine who they want their city to be when it grows up. Being on the cusp of change is not only a scary time for an individual or business, but also for a society or a city. In a previous post, I described how having mobile broadband available as a new option has put cities at a decision point on how to go forward, which I called Makng the Leap. In hindsight, I realize my thoughts haven't changed so much from May 2005, the month I launched this website, also the month I put my thoughts into this white paper On Structural Change. I pointed out back then that the Internet is a big grinder, working away at our institutions and structures, because it is so darn efficient as a distribution mechanism. The issue facing cities is whether they want to go down the path of full optimization by leveraging those Internet efficiencies. If they do, it'll mean dramatic change. Here's how I put it in the white paper back then. What do all these changes and challenges that threaten the status quo have in common? They rely on what I would call the Five Pillars of Disruption: 1) Technology, which creates new tools and methods to do more with less, brings ever lower costs and greater capability, whose essence is captured in Moore's Law; 2) Innovation driven by a global industry of research and development, wherein smart people apply new scientific discoveries to the marketplace in new ways not just to compete, but to change the rules of competition; 3) Capitalism, the system of economics that provides capital to new compelling business ideas, organizes production and labor, and efficiently distributes goods and services to markets for ever greater consumer value, creating more wealth than ever before seen in history; 4) Democracy, which provides the political stability where capital markets can flourish and workers can find the best way to apply their skills to improve their lot in life; and finally, 5) Diversity, whether of culture or of opinion, which allows differing perspectives to produce creative solutions for problems. For all its warts, the US marketplace has been the country that best embodied these traits in the past, but a variety of challengers are emerging in the world marketplace. These five factors combine to drive change at an ever-increasing pace. But the nature of this change, unlike change in the past, is to empower the edges - the individuals in the marketplace are gaining the power to do more for themselves, whether it is to produce the creative content more efficiently, or to distribute the information product amongst themselves, each of the industries above will see its control of the levers of distribution challenged. Like the recording companies who file suit against individuals for theft, these industries will not go quietly into the night. But the power of change is inevitable, because it is not limited to one government and cannot be controlled. It is Endemic, Pervasive, and Unstoppable and it can no longer be viewed as a unique or temporary phenomenon. It is here to stay. What are we to conclude from this new state of permanence I will call structural change? I am suggesting that leaders in the public and private sectors consider this paradigm shift. Such change is along multiple dimensions. It can take many forms and I think this topic is as good as any to assess where we are at the end of another year. So in the following posts I'll summarize the changes in city government implied by the structural change we all face. Because whether we acknowledge it or not, the change is here. How each of us chooses to deal with it is another story. Posted on December 20, 2007 at 08:37 AM | Comments (0) A Public Private Partnership We Can All Do WithoutThe phrase "Public Private Partnership"- "PPP" in shorthand - just sounds so good. It is everything we want from our leaders in business and government, evoking a Rodney King-like "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?" sentiment. But whether a PPP is a good cure, even good medicine, depends on In the case of broadband projects in cities, I'm convinced alternate broadband options will only gain traction if local public and private sector leaders manage to come together to foster change, so I'm a proponent of PPP. If that means we'll have a slow ramp up until any number of questions have been answered, then so be it. This is change that could take awhile, but be worth it in the end. It's certainly no reason to shy away from the issues that we face, no reason to shirk this path, no reason to discourage experimentation. In fact, we strongly encourage all of these things on this site. If there's a broader (forgive the pun) context to this debate about metropolitan broadband, it's the role of National Broadband Policy to lay out the issues and forge a consensus, and the role of our leadership at all levels to define and explain the impact of the internet on our lives going forward and plan both for positive aspects and potential negative aspects. Either way, the Genie is out of the bottle, the changes are coming. With that in mind, another thing I've been doing lately is to highlight the debate going on in Washington DC about the role of the telecommunications industry in bringing broadband infrastructure to the nation, and of late, about their role in helping the government in its efforts to "keep America safe." With the eroded trust levels the executive branch has earned over the past six years, I think this issue deserves close scrutiny, because all too often we have learned after the fact that the story we were told when we accepted changes proposed by either the government or the telecoms was in fact false and slanted, by an administration or telecom executives who had motives besides those they would talk about in public. Indeed, it looks like that has been the case here, where spying on the American public was a goal held by the government and accommodated by the telecoms even before that tragic day in September six years ago. More after the jump. IMHO, we have two parties who have already been working in a PPP: These two halves of a partnership have each done much to earn a high level of distrust and skepticism based on a history of secrecy and abuse of political power. But we need both of these institutions and neither is going away anytime soon. So we have to find a way to get them to work more for the nation and less for themselves. So forgive me when I look at this situation with a somewhat jaundiced eye. Having the large telecoms open up their networks and their customer data files to a federal government in a climate of national fear is dangerous, to say the least. That the public partner, sworn to uphold the Constitution, has shown consistent disdain for the rule of law is a red flag. In sum, I believe this is a Public Private Partnership that we can do without. In this particular case, release of data without a warrant has already gone on for over five years, and has resulted in an erosion of constitutional protections that are the foundation of our way of life - in short, the cure appears far worse than the disease. This reminds me of those cures from the Dark Ages, when the patient would die if treated, but had better odds of getting well if left alone. Scared of the doctor? Prefer to stay out of the hospital? Me too. On this site, I try to tie together complex issues, shine the light on the facts and encourage a rational discussion. You get a little opinion along with that. So let's start with some facts and definitions and see where the analysis takes us. FOURTH AMENDMENT [U.S. Constitution] - 'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.' Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution - Besides this Wikipedia reference, a great start, I recommend the more legal site FindLaw, which includes the actual text, and the 'Lectric Law Library's Legal Lexicon (no kidding). When it comes to searching and monitoring citizens and their things, the authors of the Constitution had very recent examples of government run amok, and put their antidote to government abuse of power down in writing. All of the argument about what the government can and can't do in monitoring US citizens starts here. The oath or affirmation of office of the President of the United States was established in the United States Constitution and is mandatory for a President upon beginning a term of office. The wording is prescribed by the Constitution (Article II, Section 1, Clause 8), as follows: Again, back to the Constitution, this time, Article II, Sec. 1, Clause 8, on what we expect from our president. As far as I'm concerned, this oath should be mounted on the president's bathroom wall over the toilet, next to the bed so it's the first thing the president sees in the morning and the last thing the president sees at night, and mounted permanently under glass at the president's desk in the Oval Office so it's staring at the president all day. Hell, let's make it a law to tattoo it on the president's belly, if we have to. This is the whole point - this is why we elect a president and put him/her in office; it's a solemn oath sworn on the Bible, a promise to the American people. We're in charge, we just let the president run things for a term, according to the rules we all agreed upon. The president should be able to close his/her eyes and see the Constitution - he/she swore an oath, for Pete's Sake! OK, that feels better to let it all out. Maybe I'm just naive and I don't understand power, maybe that's it. Here's a little excerpt of a Wikipedia article about the Office of Vice President - an oath that guides someone who clearly does understand power ... a little too much, I'm afraid... Unlike the president, the Constitution does not specify an oath of office for the vice president. Several variants of the oath have been used since 1789; the current form, which is also recited by Senators, Representatives and other government officers, has been used since 1884: Whoops! There it is again - the Constitution - every time you turn around, there we are, the people expecting our elected officials and representatives in government to swear an oath to "Support and defend the Constitution of the United States". But too many US citizens, wrapped up in their busy lives, seem to forget what that oath means. All those who feel that our VP Dick Cheney is bearing "true faith and allegiance to the same" please raise your hands... I thought so. Anyway, this is how I see it. The Constitution rules...unambiguously. But then we hear from our leaders that we're under attack, or at least, we were that one terrible day, who can forget 9/11? (queue Rudy Guiliani)..I can't, never will, and I hate that. But now, we also hear that our "way of life" is under constant attack, we're told to be afraid...many refer to a Global War on Terror or GWOT. Now I'm no weak-kneed Willie, no shrinking violet, but I do have a pretty good BS detector. Even I can tell that this whole "We're at war so normal rules don't apply" is a load of crap - it's just so convenient, especially when it's used by power-hungry imperialists to justify suspending allegiance to the Constitution! And so as a nation, we've actually come to this ..... Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) - besides this Wikipedia reference, which is very comprehensive, I encourage you to check out this link on FISA at the electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). This law was originally passed to curb abuses by our government back in the 1970s. And it's been amended a few times recently, to update it to accommodate the internet, but also to loosen up the reins of government. But it turns out, it doesn't really matter, because many in this administration don't think they have to follow it anyway! Which leads us to the nut of the issue, at least as far as it concerns the telecom policy wonks among us. Telecommunications Immunity - in a nutshell, this provision in the FISA bill rewrite has become a bone of contention and a focal point for the debate on the bill. The provision in the Senate Intelligence Committee version of the FISA bill makes telecom companies that cooperated with warrantless administration requests for phone taps and customer data retroactively immune from prosecution (they are currently under threat by multiple lawsuits for that activity). The House version of the rewrite does not include an Immunity provision, nor does the Senate Judiciary Committee version. For more on this topic, please see these recent posts on MetroNetIQ ... I really think that history will show this episode as a bigger deal than we are giving it credit for today. The current events this week were dramatic. Current Events 12/17 I'm no fan of one of our most senior Democrats, Sen. Harry Reid. And I'm getting less and less so each day. I have to admit, I'm dumbfounded how a guy like this got into such a high seat of power in the first place, but we seem to be getting better and better at electing worse and worse leaders here in the US. Something is terribly amiss, if we only look to Sen. Reid for evidence. He's a bundle of contradictions, apparently compromised in some way, and about as uninspiring a leader as you could find. Unless, that is, you stand him up against the current president and the current speaker of the house, when he starts to look about par for the course... In this telecom amnesty issue, Reid has seemed more Republican than Democratic, and he's the freakin' Senate Majority Leader!! Still, I consider this a note of progress, when he suggested that all the senators should have access to the full information so that they can vote with their eyes open. What a thought. See Senator Reid seeks More Information for a warm-up to the dramatic events of this week. The bill was brought to the floor (over the objections and hold of Sen. Dodd, a fellow Dem, BTW), debated and a vote of cloture was approved by a wide margin, which is a means of stopping a filibuster by limiting the allowed time for debate (approved by many Dems as well!). But in the end, the serious intent of opponents, principally Sen. Dodd, with strong support from Sens. Feingold and Kennedy, threatened a long fight, and with the holidays looming and a desire to get other bills passed, Sen. Reid folded and postponed action on the bill until January (see The YouTube clip below provides a good summary, which may be helpful at this point to put all the details in context. Even better, listen to this recap straight from the horses mouth, in this clip of Senator Dodd on Countdown from Dec 17. 12/18 OK, now the serious analysis of what went down at the Senate on Monday starts to unfold. First, spend some time reading this review on Salon by Glen Greenwald - Anatomy and significance of Monday's FISA victory. He's an astute attorney and passionate about the Constitution. He provides a comprehensive review and analysis, but check especially the comments - several touch on the potential threat of unchecked surveillance in the age of the internet, when the actual technology exists to enable some of the worst of the 1984 nightmare scenarios. And Glenn Greenwald brings up another aspect of the battle that the Post seems blissfully unaware of, and that is about how the whole notion of one man taking a stand on this issue came to pass. I first asked Dodd in early October on Air America if he would commit to filibuster retroactive telecom immunity, and he said at the time "Well, may have to do that....Hope it doesn't come to that." But it did. And on October 18, when the deal that Jello Jay Rockefeller and Dick Cheney made to give the telecoms immunity in exchange for...well, virtually nothing... was announced, an outcry rose up on the liberal blogs. Jane Hamsher in Why Did Reid Pull the Telecom Bill? I highly recommend this post - It's hard to beat this kind of in-depth analysis, and the whole process makes more sense when you read this insider account. This really was a case of liberal bloggers using the internet to first stimulate Senator Dodd to take a filibuster strategy seriously (he was on the edge anyway) and then putting pressure on the Senate leadership to raise the political risk of going along with the White House. For a change, we were actually participating in the process, rather than reading about a defeat ex post facto. This is an example of power from the edges coming into a traditional standoff and winning, at least for a day. 12/19 With a little time to digest this drama, the NY Times weighs in with an editorial, Bad Bill Now, Bad Bill Later that is well worth reading. And for a look ahead, try this feature on the role of Sen. Russ Feingold and his view of what lays ahead. Either Feingold or Dodd would get my vote for Majority Leader. In summary, this is one of my longest posts, but I feel it's important to make things as clear as I can. Otherwise, who needs it? I see it as a negative if technological progress brings political regression. The events chronicled on this website today and in other recent posts raise the very real risk that the current administration and current industry leaders do not respect the awesome power of the internet and new digital technologies. I can only hope that the masses will continue to use this tool to communicate with each other, to mobilize their resources, to clarify and hone their message, and to overwhelm our elected officials with feedback that says in a very loud voice, "Respect the Constitution, or Suffer the Consequences." Maybe then they'll finally get the message that this is a democratic republic, not a monarchy or dictatorship. The popular will must prevail. With a new year about to begin, this is an especially appropriate message for our leaders to hear. Let's hope they buy a clue and get focused on what's important, and soon. Posted on December 19, 2007 at 11:05 PM | Comments (0) San Marcos Project in the NewsThe San Antonio Express News covered the San Marcos wireless project in Sunday's paper, with a surprising title to the article: San Marcos isn't bailing out on citywide wireless project. I had to chuckle a little - perhaps the consultant is always the last to know, but I hadn't heard that there was any risk of San Marcos bailing out, so that title caught me a little off guard. From the outside looking in, I guess it's easy to assume that cities are all jumping out of wireless projects, given the mainstream press coverage of late. But the point was made well in this article that this particular city project is not that similar to many of the projects that have shut down recently. It was a good article though, more or less accurate in its portrayal of the San Marcos wireless project. It's NOT based on Free Wi Fi. It's NOT based on providing general public Internet access. It's NOT based on a business model that requires a private sector company to achieve great retail subscriber levels to break even or make money. It's NOT a big city wireless deal. It IS based on paid retail rates, some free access, and a variety of government, commercial and residential access options. It IS based on multiple applications providing multiple benefits, both in cost savings for city government departments and in new revenue opportunities for the city. It IS based on a business model that requires multiple cost efficiencies and revenue sources. It IS designed to make sense for a medium sized city in a high growth corridor. So besides those things, I guess, it is a wireless broadband deal, like others we have read about. Posted on December 17, 2007 at 01:58 PM | Comments (0) Crossing the Chasm, Making the LeapThe rise of Metropolitan Broadband as an option has given city leaders something new to think about. It has changed the dynamic when it comes to city management and planning. I'd think that a good analogy is taking a hike in the mountains. There comes a point when an obstruction is encountered, say a gorge that needs to be crossed. The hiker faces three principal options: a) forge ahead: they can choose to continue on the same path, in which case a strategy is needed to make the leap over the obstacle; b) turn around: they can turn around and try a different way; or c) stop: they can decide to stop where they are and pitch their tent. The point is that cities have options as they move through time, and many choose b) or c), two conservative paths that seem to have less risk. Option a), Forge Ahead, becomes for city leaders the "Road Less Traveled," as it entails risk to forge ahead through obstacles and implies living with a goal in mind and taking risks. Unlike cities, companies are created to succeed or fail. They are not guaranteed some kind of existence. They can actually go away if not managed well. A few years back, author Geoffrey Moore wrote what became a business classic in tech circles, Crossing the Chasm. He makes what many might consider an obvious point: companies can start out with a bang and gain great acceptance among "early adopters," but they must change the way they approach the market if they are going to duplicate that early success with the broader market, which will approach their product or service differently. This amounts to a "chasm" between Stage One and Stage Two, which must be crossed in order to have sustained growth and success. Here's the best review from Amazon, after the jump. Moore's primary point in this book is that the early adopters of a technology are not necessarily the same as the mainstream market. Moore points out that early adapters often buy things because they're cool, not for practical reasons. Early adapters deal with pain in the form of bad interfaces, minimal network effects. etc. Following this informal observation, Moore divides the population into innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. This is his "Technology Adoption Life Cycle", of which the "underlying thesis is that technology is absorbed into any given community in stages corresponding to the psychological and social profiles of various segments within that market" (p. 15). He illustrates this with a bell curve with a horizontal axis corresponding to time of adoption. There's no explanation for why a Bell curve; I'm guessing it just looks pretty in PowerPoint. Moore continues with "this process can be thought of as a continuum with definite stages, each associated with a definable group" (p. 15), although actual definitions are notable by their absence. So Moore advises us that marketing to the two groups might have to be different. Complex? No. Obvious? Perhaps. In any case, this observation is followed with 185 pages of examples and pep talks which I found perfectly readable, but without much additional content. The second point, which is really just as important, is that the way to "cross the chasm" is by targeting a single industry or group of users, a so-called "vertical market". The only way customers who are beyond the early adopter phase are going to buy into a new product is if it is easy to adopt or if it truly fills a perceived desperate need. That is, it looks less "disruptive". Usually this means a lot of custom integration with industry-specific infrastructure. It's easier to build something well integrated with existing, for say, just the airline industry and their SABRE database backend, than it is to try to target the entire Fortune 500, each sector of which has adopted different sorts of databases. It worked just the way Moore described for my company, where Moore's book was required reading. So, what about cities? They rise and fall based on circumstance and leadership, but tend to have more staying power than companies. Cities may go bankrupt if things go really bad, but rarely do they go away altogether. How many ghost towns do you really encounter on the road of life? Cities tend to just slide into mediocrity, rather than go away altogether. What is it about cities that really "get it" and thrive, becoming vibrant places where people want to live and make a future for themselves? I'd argue that cities that face the truth about themselves are healthy cities. They're aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and like a good sports team, they play to those strengths and address their weaknesses. They develop a plan to make the most of what they have. When it comes to broadband, cities face a challenge similar to the hiker at the start of this post, similar to tech companies in a growth stage, a la Geoffrey Moore - they have now encountered an obstacle in their path and need to determine what it is they will do with themselves - Forge Ahead, Turn Around, or Stop? To forge ahead, they'll need to make a leap to transform themselves from the old way of doing things to the new way. They'll have to reinvent themselves to adapt to the times. And in today's world, that adaptation has to do with broadband infrastructure. Call it Making the Leap. Posted on December 16, 2007 at 05:35 AM | Comments (0) Sharing the Christmas Spirit
In Spanish, "milagro" means "miracle" and this season seems to call for a miracle right about now. Call this "Tequila-Blogging".....Happy Holidays from MetroNetIQ! Not to be all gloom and doom, but sometimes I feel a little down. My favorite holiday season approaches, yet I continue to read political blogs that decry the direction we're heading. Last night at the Austin Wireless Association Holiday Party (why can't we just call it a Chistmas Party???), talk was about the municipal wireless world unraveling and (some) folks were wringing their hands. And then, today's NY Times details the results of the Mitchell Report on steroid use in baseball - see Say it Ain't So, Roger, and Barry, and ... - even you, Rocket??? Big sigh..... Time to step back and appreciate that this time of year, I get to see old friends at parties, I end up calling people I haven't spoken to that much all year, others come into town to visit relatives and call me, I sneak off to play golf, and generally, start to kick back and unwind, as the year we call "2007" does the same. So take a hint from me and try something different this year. When you head over to your friend's house, you'll be that much more welcome if you bring along a Bottle of Margaritas, already mixed. Picture that blue bottle above, the tequila inside transformed into a Margarita, with a red ribbon around its neck. A nice change of pace from a bottle of wine, showing up on the doorstep with this libation will make you stand out and your friends will appreciate your brilliance all the more. So, I thought I'd share one of the things I'm thankful for - as a bartender in my youth, I made millions of margaritas by hand, before the machines were all the rage. I'd free pour into the blender and let 'er rip. All I have to do is smell that stale behind the bar smell and all those memories come flooding back... As an amateur bartender these past 25 years (I long since gave up making money at that - that was part of my mispent youth), I've had the occasion to experiment, and this is the best recipe I'll wager you will find for making a margarita, and it's true to the original recipe too! Just remember "3-2-2" and "fresh" and keep chanting those two terms, as you read on. Making the "322" Margarita, to go Ingredients 1. Tequila: Start with Milagro brand 100% pure agave silver tequila. Buy three bottles and start to experiment at home, which will give you some empty bottles (you'll need these later). This tequila has my vote for the best value tequila on the market - you can get a fifth for about $25 in most liquor stores - if you take your tequila in the form of that delectable concoction known as the "Margarita," that is. No doubt you can drop a pretty penny for a finer sipping tequila, but mixing an expensive tequila with Triple Sec and lime just isn't a good use of your money. The bottle is pretty, and it is sealed with a cork, not a screw top - a touch of class. 2. Triple Sec: Others like to use Cointreau or Grand Marnier, but again, I think this is a waste of good money, as the stronger orange flavor actually thows out the balance of the finished product. It's a matter of taste, and I've done some tasting. As far as I'm concerned, simple cheap Triple Sec does fine for this cocktail. 3. Lime Juice: Here's where a simple change of pace can make a big difference. Don't settle for premade juices, or juices mixed with sugar. Take your time and squeeze your own. The freshness matters. Get a hand squeezer at Williams Sonoma, or better yet, one of those models that sits on the counter, to make the task easier. And we've found that key limes, those little tiny limes, are the best value and actually provide more juice, and the juice is a little bit sweeter. Making the Drink 1. Start with the lime juice, because this is the most variable. If you buy plenty of limes, you'll have some flexibility in the recipe. So we usually get 40-80 key limes. Squeeze away, and measure out the juice in 8 oz containers. We often have a juicing party with the kids, they get fresh lime ade afterwards, and we freeze 2-3 containers pre-measured to 8 oz. 2. Pour the 8 oz of fresh squeezed lime juice into an empty Milagro bottle. 3. Measure out 8 oz. of Triple Sec and add to the Milagro bottle. 4. Measure out 12 oz. of Milagro Tequila and add to the Milagro bottle. 5. Pop in the cork top and shake it around. 6. Pour over plenty of ice and drink it slowly, savoring the different tastes. Any odd amounts of lime juice can always be matched with Triple Sec and Tequila using the 3-2-2 ratio - you don't have to follow the 12/8/8 ratio above, that just works for us to make a bottle and keep it in the refrigerator or take it to a friend's house. This drink actually comes across much stronger than the Margaritas you're used to, so treat it like a Martini, sipping in moderation. But once you get used to this smooth drink, you'll have a hard time going back to the sweet frozen varieties at the Mexican food restaurants that are more typical. In the past, we've added this recipe onto a blank business card decorated with Christmas symbols and tied it to a full bottle of margaritas with a red ribbon for a unique gift. Share the spirit, and have a great Christmas Holiday and a Wonderful New Year! Finally, I heard this song on the radio the other day ... helps me keep things in perspective to laugh a little at all the folly of the holly, this time of year. Posted on December 14, 2007 at 08:11 AM | Comments (0) T-t-t-t-talking 'Bout My Generation"Hope I die before I get old" - one of the last lines in My Generation, has to be one of the most poignant lyrics to capture the angst and anger of a generation. The performance by The Who was another defining moment in the series. As they often did during that period, The Who destroyed their instruments at the conclusion of their performance. However, a stage hand, at the request of the band, had overloaded Keith Moon's kick drum with explosives. When they were detonated, the explosion was so intense, Moon was injured by cymbal shrapnel and bandmate Pete Townshend's hearing was permanently damaged. The Who on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour My penchant for history and looking back is no doubt a byproduct of my 50 years on the planet. I'm often struck by how recent events are tracking what we all witnessed in the 1960s, a time wrenched by social and technological change, not unlike this decade we live in now. The parallels between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War, between Nixon's Watergate and current Bush administration behavior are striking. But there is also a parallel between the Generation Gap that became pronounced in the 1960s and the gap we're experiencing today. Watching that video - after I got over laughing at Tommy Smothers interaction with Pete Townshend at the end - was like a visceral punch to the gut as it brought back the arguments I used to have with my father in the late 60s and early 70s, my own personal generation gap. Last week, I compared our experience in Alternate Broadband over the past four years to an extended road trip from college (Shamalama Ding Dong - Life is a Highway), reveling in the recklessness of youth that pursues a journey of discovery not so much for the practical goal at the end of the road, but for the experience of the journey. Yesterday, I wrote about my kid's entrance into adolescence (Digital Adolescents Stuck in Digital Puberty), suggesting that as a society we are stuck in that awkward period of unrest and confusion - adolescence. I also highlighted our aging political leadership and their analog roots in yesterday's post (From Analog to Digital - A Long, Strange Trip), pondering whether the really, really old men and women in senior positions in Washington can truly grasp the historical significance of technology changes we face today, and whether they have the energy to deal with those changes wisely. It's no coincidence that I wrote about adolescence and its corollary, senescence, in one day. I'm here in my personal life now, stuck in between my kids and my parents. This is My Generation, the tail end of the Baby Boom. I lost my dad three years ago (and miss him every day), and recently moved my 75-year old mom back to town. Thinking about different perspectives of generations is inescapable for me - it's a big part of my life right now. Understanding the Generation Gap is also very important to understanding how society works today. It's inevitable for those at the beginning of their lives to look forward to the future with anticipation, and for those at the end of their lives to look backward with nostalgia. And where we choose to place our benchmarks has a large role in determining how we perceive the present. When older folks look back and marvel at how far they've come, it's sincere. But it's also dangerous if that nostalgia and love of the past causes them to take their eyes off of the future, wistfully reminiscing about the Good Old Days. And when younger people look forward and pine for the future before they're ready, impatient to have it all now, it's dangerous if they act on their wishes without full awareness of consequences. They risk repeating the mistakes of the past if they neglect the lessons of history and are in too much of a hurry. We need each other. Each generation has something to offer. We need the accumulated wisdom, maturity and caution of the older generation, and the energy, initiative and optimism of youth. We need both conservatives and progressives if we are to move forward as a society. We need the dynamic tension, the push and pull, the arguments that will help us preserve what's worth saving, and leave behind the things that keep us from moving ahead. Processing these thoughts, I come to the inescapable conclusion that we desperately need leadership, at all levels of society, who will face the facts with honesty and courage, who will lead us into the changes we need to make as a society. My focus in my job and on this website is on the broadband infrastructure that will take us to the future we deserve. Too many people look at how far we've come in ten years with broadband internet and mobile telephony. Too few look at how far we have to go to reach our potential. It's vital that we set benchmarks that will stretch us. It's like what my kids go through daily now in private school - the faculty gives them a ceiling to reach for, an incredibly challenging curriculum that makes them stretch to the limits of their abilities. And they do, time after time - it's amazing what they're learning. In contrast, what I see all too often in public education is a culture that focuses on a floor that all have to rise above, a minimal standard to pass, and the result is mediocrity more often than excellence. We're lucky to be able to afford private school, and I would think this is a challenge for public schools to rise to, and some do. As a society, when it comes to broadband, we're in the same boat. We desperately need to stretch to an impossibly high ceiling, to set our benchmarks on having the best infrastructure that technology can give us. We risk our future when we settle for a floor, a benchmark of 200 Kbs, when we accept mediocrity, when we marvel with nostalgia at how far we've come in ten years, instead of being impatient that we're not the leading country in the new Network Age. I hate to say it, but we are set on the path to mediocrity if we don't change our ways. We need to be more impatient with our leadership, like that young Pete Townshend from 40 years ago, banging his guitar against the speakers to express his frustration... what are we banging against to express our frustration? I don't hope I die before I get old, but I do hope I live to see broadband reach its potential. Posted on December 12, 2007 at 05:50 AM | Comments (0) Putting the Science back into Political ScienceIt seems that the Right and the Left have found something to agree on - now that's newsworthy... Their point of agreement? Our political leadership has a serious gap when it comes to being informed on matters of science and technology. We don't want to be led by the blind. At least, some of us don't. A new group has been formed to bring focus to this issue and ensure that we don't go down the same path again when we choose our next president - a glimmer of hope! Apparently many Americans agreed with him, according to polls taken shortly after the debate. But lack of interest in the scientific literacy of our next president does not mean that the issue is irrelevant. Popular ambivalence may rather reflect the fact that most Americans are scientifically illiterate. A 2006 National Science Foundation survey found that 25% of Americans did not know the earth goes around the sun. Our president will thus have to act in part as an "educator in chief" as well as commander in chief. Someone who is not scientifically literate will find it difficult to fill this role. This summer in Aspen, Colo., a group of scientists, journalists and business people convened at a "science summit" to discuss ways to build a growing awareness of the importance of scientific issues in government. A working group was convened to explore ways that the scientific and business communities might work together to ensure that science becomes an issue in the 2008 campaign. Science and the Candidates - Wall St. Journal Op-Ed We the People depend on the applications that flow from science for our health, safety, prosperity, livelihood, and future well-being. Thus, we have a right, indeed a duty, to know where prospective lawmakers and policy makers stand on a wide array of scientific issues, and more importantly, their rationale for that position. What should our scientific priorities be in regard to energy, space travel, biotechnology, defense, academic and educational just to name a few, and what kind of resources should be devoted to those items? Science Debate 08 - Daily Kos When opinion pieces in the Wall St. Journal and Daily Kos have a point of significant agreement, it certainly gets my attention! So, where do the candidates stand on broadband infrastructure? Well, according to this quick overview of policy positions in a follow up article on Daily Kos (A Presidential Science Debate), there is hope, at least on the Democratic side. From Obama: Technology and Innovation Plan Barack Obama's comprehensive technology and innovation plan will: * Ensure the full and free exchange of information among Americans through an open Internet and diverse media outlets. From Edwards: An Agenda to Promote Innovation 1. Supporting American Ingenuity: The most important factor for America's future prosperity is investment in education, science, technology and innovation. As president, Edwards will make the Research and Experimentation tax credit permanent. The credit has expired or nearly expired 11 times in the last 25 years, discouraging companies from making long-term commitments to research. Ideological debates at NIH about things like stem cell technology have drained resources from promising research. Edwards will increase spending on basic research at the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health and lift stifling research restrictions. He will also modernize our patent laws - which haven't been updated in 50 years - to provide incentives for research. From Clinton: Innovation Agenda 1. Establish a $50-billion Strategic Energy Fund. If anyone can track down the Republican positions on broadband infrastructure before I can get to it, please let me know... Posted on December 12, 2007 at 05:24 AM | Comments (0) Your Government at "Work"WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission's monthly meetings are scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. Under Chairman Kevin J. Martin, the trains don't always run on time, and recently they've come close to veering off the rails. On Nov. 27, for instance, the FCC was slated to consider controversial proposals dealing with potential new cable TV regulations and increasing women and minority ownership of broadcast stations. Journalists, lobbyists and spectators waited as the five commissioners on the fractious panel wrangled over the issues eight floors above. When they finally showed up for the public session -- nearly 12 hours late -- the few spectators remaining had front-row seats for the sniping and accusations that are threatening to become hallmarks of FCC meetings. Critics usually blame Martin, a soft-spoken Republican known as a political tactician who has accomplished the rare feat of being criticized by all four of his fellow commissioners. He is also facing a congressional inquiry into the FCC's procedures and allegations of flawed research studies, suppressing data, ignoring public input and holding hearings with minimal notice. Criticism of the FCC's chairman is widely aired Sometimes when I read articles like this I sigh and wonder, "Must we really wait another year for another administration to finally get the leadership we so desperately need, right now?" and then I skip to "Where the hell do they find these people?" This recent, depressing article in the LA Times details the I was reminded of my time in 1995-1996 spent as a regulatory lobbyist for CSW, a large electric utility holding company headquartered in Dallas. I was fresh out of business school and a stint as a research director at the Texas Senate. It was exciting to be learning all about the electric industry. My job was to provide "interface" work at the Texas Public Utility Commission - I was the eyes and ears of the corporation at the regulatory commission in Austin. I'd cover events like public meetings and administrative hearings and report on them, and meet and work with staff to work through detailed issues and provide the utility's viewpoint. It was a great education and an interesting job for the 20 months I did it, before I was promoted out of that role. But those opening paragraphs describing multiple hour-long waits in the FCC's public meeting room while the commissioners wrangled over issues in private brought back some of the most painful memories I had from 15 years ago, covering the long public meetings of the PUCT. As in painful on my back and rear side. I can still remember those chairs. I guess my point is that sometimes government can be a real pain in the ass. Posted on December 12, 2007 at 05:06 AM | Comments (0) From Analog to Digital - A Long, Strange TripI enjoyed writing this post this morning (see Digital Adolescents Stuck in Digital Puberty). It began a discussion on what I think is a seismic shift in our society, one that gets scant coverage considering the enormity of its implications. Technology acts on society: it wins over some converts, but others fight the change and seek to preserve the status quo. Technology drags us all into the 21st century, changing society along the way, but its pull has greater impact on "early adopters" than on "laggards." There are those who resist, but also those who are left out because of economics or education. When those who wish to participate are left out, we call it a Digital Divide. A staggered rate of technology adoption leads to a society out of balance. And the less attention is paid to the Digital Divide, the wider the gap gets. In the US, Europe and elsewhere around the globe, efforts to address such inequalities get labeled as Digital Inclusion or e-Inclusion, or eclusion, take your pick. Why does it matter? Digital Inclusion and Technology Adoption deserve your attention for two reasons. First, a healthy society requires that its members all have access to the tools necessary for success, whether its health care, education, jobs, or broadband and digital technology - if there are differences, they should be minimal. Different segments of society should at least be on the same planet when it comes to technology - even better if they are on the same page. The pace of change is such that those who get left behind technologically these days, out of choice or lack of access, are really, really left behind. Second, telecommunication networks increase in value the more nodes (phones, computers, etc.) are connected (aka Metcalfe's Law). It's corollary, Reed's Law, states that the value of social networks increases exponentially the more members are in the network, because of the value of sub-networks. In any society, people naturally organize themselves in networks. Just look at MySpace and FaceBook to better understand the value that society imputes to social networks. The Bottom Line: Networks organize and drive today's economy and society. If you're not on the network, increasingly, that means that you're irrelevant. Our leadership underestimates the impacts that digital networks have and resists changes to our society, often to our collective detriment. Our political leaders today grew up in a different world. The average age of members in the US Senate is 62, and with leadership based on seniority, many committee chairmen are over 70. A person who is 70 years old this year would have graduated high school in 1955, which was a big year in the history of computers: 1955 Steve Jobs is born February 24, 1955 The old men of computing, inventors of the Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Office, and the World Wide Web, were all born in 1955, when our political leadership was graduating from high school, slide rules in hand. When they graduated: * Computers ran mostly on vacuum tubes - very expensive large mainframes that required highly skilled operators - there was no such thing as a PC or Mac, much less a laptop or a tablet PC This list could go on and on - the point is that life was simpler then, in many ways ... the world has changed immeasurably in the past 50 years, and in big chunks, decade by decade. The really big digital impacts didn't even begin until 25 years ago, when our leaders were well into their 40s. Many of those who resist change and deny its significance either don't understand it fully, underestimate its impacts, or simply resent the pace of change. We won't go back to the way things used to be, there is no putting the toothpaste back in the tube. The world of the last century is gone forever, but many who vote continue to elect leadership that looks backward instead of to the future. Only when young people begin to outvote the old, when the voices of Progress outvote the voices of Conservatism, when those who value technology stand up in the political process to demand technological sophistication from their leaders - only then will we see informed lawmaking in Washington, DC. Until then, we'll have to look to local government, where younger people have a louder voice, for political leadership. Be sure to see TechPresident to track the twin issues of technology and the presidential race, if this posting hits home. Posted on December 10, 2007 at 10:32 PM | Comments (0) Digital Adolescents Stuck in Digital PubertyIt occurred to me that our current situation, culturally speaking, is not unlike that of an adolescent, whose body is beset by hormonal invasion that turns quotidian events into internal tempests that rock their worlds from hour to hour. With an 11-year old and a 13-year old living under my roof with my wife and me, I'm slowly coming to grips with the fact that we have a new house guest, not altogether welcome - Puberty. Too bad there's no Hormonal Channel, like the Weather Channel, to warn me of the next hurricane approaching. I'm constantly hit with these unexpected blasts of anger and anxiety, left wondering how long our new guest will be staying. No doubt longer than we'd like. So, if this is the situation I'm in, I better learn how to live in it, hadn't I? As a society, I'm convinced we're in a similar position, faced with a similar dilemma. We need to learn to live in a new mode, but for now, we're stuck in Digital Adolescence, between the analog childhood that we had grown so accustomed to - predictable, relatively slow, high touch - and the digital adulthood that is now a fact of life and that we know deep down is our destiny - forever changing, fast-paced, hard technology-based. When did this happen to us? It's hard to pin down, but I'd argue that we had a long, slow run up with the Rise of Computers from the 1960s through the 1980s, then we crossed the Rubicon sometime around 1995. (Some argue that we're still in this Information Age, but I think the Internet marked a significant disruptive transition from the Information Age to the Network Age, meaning that being connected is distinctly different than being dependent on information, but that's a topic for another post - still, do take time to read that link on the Information Age, which is loaded with good information and insights). Since the Rise of the Internet a little over 10 years ago, we've been alternating through many different attitudes, but mostly we've been collectively in denial as the Internet matures and grinds away at our institutions. For many, if not most in society, these changes lie under the surface, unrecognized, subliminal. But they affect us all, nevertheless, and we see more and more evidence of change, and the need to adjust, if we just open our eyes. Once you've had this realization, it's hard not to notice the evidence all around. In fact, getting us all to recognize the significant changes associated with transitioning from Analog to Digital, from stand-alone to connected, from fixed to mobile, is the principal goal of this website. Adjusting to change has to be one of the hardest things to do in life, yet we all have to do it as we age, so it's one of the most universal of themes. As societies go, healthy societies adjust well to change, less healthy ones don't. The least healthy societies get stuck and close themselves off from any outside influence in order to stay the same: just think of Cuba and North Korea. Recognizing this state of Digital Puberty that we've entered is not unlike going through the five stages of grief in the Kubler-Ross model , because such significant change involves a death and a rebirth. In the end, allowing yourself to be reborn, to reemerge from the process of change, involves accepting the death of the previous state. Until then, you're stuck. The stages are: 1. Denial: The initial stage: "It can't be happening." Kubler-Ross originally applied these stages to any form of catastrophic personal loss (job, income, freedom). This also includes the death of a loved one and divorce. Kubler-Ross also claimed these steps do not necessarily come in order, nor are they all experienced by all patients, though she stated a person will always experience at least two. Others have noticed that any significant personal change can elicit these stages. For example, experienced criminal defense attorneys are aware that defendants who are facing stiff sentences, yet have no defenses or mitigating factors to lessen their sentences, often experience the stages. Accordingly, they must get to the acceptance stage before they are prepared to plead guilty. Additionally, the change in circumstances does not always have to be a negative one, just significant enough to cause a grief response to the loss (Scire, 2007). Accepting a new work position, for example, causes one to lose their routine, workplace friendships, familiar drive to work, even customary lunch sources. At first, we deny that the change is all that significant, many even don't know what you're talking about. But then years pass, companies rise and fall, and society changes. Who can argue that we are not significantly different than we were 10 years ago, a blink of an eye when it comes to history? A mere decade ago, who had even heard of broadband, of Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, etc., etc., etc.? Recognizing these changes and doing something about them is not easy. We have all kinds of terms for those who fail to grow up, from the Peter Pan Syndrome to the recent Failure to Launch. My personal favorite in this genre is the 1986 Rob Reiner film classic, Stand by Me, which chronicles that awkward point in our lives when some of our gang have moved on to be interested in more mature matters, while others lag behind. And for comedic effect, Arrested Development is hard to beat at capturing the inanity of growing up, or failing to do so. Part of the challenge comes from the lack of leadership. When we have leaders who look back instead of looking forward, as a society we're hamstrung. We're stuck in distracting and unproductive debates that stall our progress, diverting our energies from adjusting to change to preserving the status quo. As I write this post, I'm streaming audio from NPR, which just reported on Al Gore's acceptance of the Nobel Prize for his work in getting the world to accept the very real and significant fact that the world is heating up, which may very well threaten life on the planet. Now there's a hard reality to accept, especially since dealing with it involves dealing with the death of our very modern, relatively carefree lifestyles of consumerism and blissful ignorance of its consequences. I'd argue that we persist in acting like rebellious teenagers, holding on to our childish ways in the face of change, denying the need to accept our progress into an adult world of hard decisions and consequences. Consider then this list of societal issues that have been neglected over the past decade, look at them through the lens of Functional/Dysfunctional Change discussed in this post, and consider to what degree the problems we face stem from our clinging to the status quo in denial of the need for change. And while you're at it, add Broadband Infrastructure to the list. Climate Change We need to get busy, because the longer we stay stuck in the Five Stages of Grief, the longer we fail to deal with these issues and the worse they become. Posted on December 10, 2007 at 08:05 AM | Comments (0) Shamalama Ding Dong - Life is a Highway Boon: Jesus. What's going on? When was the last time you hopped in the car with your buddies and just drove, for the hell of it? For many of us, it was all the way back in college that we last had the privilege of dropping everything and hitting the road...the college road trip has become a legend, its pointless, stupid, hilarious essence captured best in the movie and clip above. Long sighhhhhhhhh, thoughts of going back to school .... In some ways, though, the Road Trip does have its place, even in business. "The Road Trip ... not just for drunk, irresponsible college kids anymore." At its most basic, a road trip is in fact an exploration of new territory, unbounded by conventional constraints, a journey more valued for its own sake, than for its destination. A lot like life, when you think about it. How often do we hear that admonition - "It's about the journey, not the destination..."? And then we shrug and go back to our computer and work on the project plan, because too often in business, it's just the opposite - "It's about the destination and how fast and cheap you can get there. Screw the journey." The Road Trip is firmly ensconced in the realm of Creativity, where things happen because they're allowed to happen, because you're out there breaking all the rules that normally keep you in line, out there in the world where nobody knows you, where its safer to take risks. Much of it proves pointless, but for some, it's what the situation demands. Over the past four years here in the Alternate Broadband universe (what I call the various worlds of Wi Fi Mesh, WiMAX, BPL, FTTH), it's been like we've been on one long road trip. It's been an ongoing experiment, a journey of discovery, never knowing what's around the next corner, going where the spirit moves you. We've had a destination in mind, but much of the value so far has come from the exploration and the knowledge we've found along the way. For many on the outside, it appears that we've been wasting time and money, we've been engaged in an irresponsible romp that's going nowhere. But on the inside, we see things differently - we've been enjoying a long ride of discovery. We've been trying out new things, seeing what works. When we pause to look back, we realize how far we've come and how much we've learned, and we see real value. Thomas Edison knew about the value of Failure in the Pursuit of a Discovery. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. Nearly every man who develops an idea works at it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then gets discouraged. Thomas Edison Quotes It often seems as if, in the eyes of the conservative, serious establishment telecom world, (and the mainstream press), that Alternate Broadband start ups, the whole industry in fact, is worthy of only dismissal and derision. We're like the Delta House - the "Animal House fraternity." You can almost hear them as they scan news articles about EarthLink's withdrawal (and I have, over and over again). "...those guys can't be serious, they can't hold a candle to our 'carrier grade' quality ..." "...how can unlicensed wireless ever be taken seriously? You can't rely on that...you need licensed spectrum if you want to have a wireless network that you can count on..." I have to admit, in many cases, they've been right. But without this experimentation, where would we be? They overlook the value of experimentation. We've been prodding the established world to get busy and to take more risks. And isn't that always the case when it comes to innovation and startups that disrupt the status quo? They're out there, they screw up and screw up, all the way to getting it right, and then, there's a collective gasp, when the rest of the world realizes that the BIG CHANGE has occurred. Then everyone wonders how they did it. See Fumbling the Future by Smith and Alexander (my favorite book from business school). It tells the story of how the great Xerox corporation, sitting on a pile of cash as the computer world was undergoing a sea change in the mid-1970s, gathered together scientists in the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). It tells the story in great detail of how these brilliant guys, unfettered by convention and the need to earn a living, puttered around in their lab, in essence, on a nerd version of a road trip of their very own. They proceeded to invent the first PC and not just that, they invented all the accoutrement of the PC world: the mouse, the GUI interface, even a LAN...and then, faced with destiny, their executives let it all go, because they couldn't recognize the potential of the future that was staring them in the face. But then, it had happened earlier, in an ironic twist of fate, 20 years before, when Xerox was first getting started. In need of cash, Xerox offered IBM a stake in the company back in the 1950s, but their "experts" dramatically underestimated the potential of xerorgraphy - dry copying . "There will never be a significant market for copies - we estimate the worldwide market at 50,000...no thanks, we'll pass on this investment." Fast forward twenty years, and it was the establishment geniuses in corporate HQ at Xerox now, who looked at what the scientists had come up with and said words to the effect of: "oh, those toys the boys at PARC came up with, no, there's no serious market for computers in homes - computers are for specific business purposes..." Folks, we've been here before, over and over. It took people like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak at Apple to grasp the potential of the PC and take them to market, people like Bill Gates and Paul Allen at Microsoft to come up with the software to make them work and invent a new industry. These were young kids, granted, very smart young kids, confident in their ability to do great things and dismissive of conventional wisdom. Same with Michael Dell a few years later. The list goes on and on. Most of the world is content to follow the existing train tracks laid down by others, pursuing conventional paths that take them where they are meant to go. It's predictable and safe, understandable too. We can't all be Steve Jobs. A job at one of the large telecom companies offers much, and they provide a valuable service. I think they have their place, but they don't have an exclusive lock on value. Because the telecom companies are operating a railroad, which takes its clients where the telecom company wants to go, they face limits in times of change. As long as they have enough people who are happy with where the tracks take them, and the fares are deemed as a value, then I expect that they will have a business. But change challenges their business model. The potential of the Internet is more like a highway system than a railroad system. And only when all the connecting roads and streets are finally built out - the Last Mile network - and everyone is out there on the road, will we begin to see the full potential of the Internet. It's still a long way off, but those days are coming. We believe that the somewhat-spontaneous experiments of the open world of the Alternate Broadband universe are pushing out the envelope as fast or faster than the planned experiments and careful steps of the closed Conventional Broadband world of cable and DSL. And we also believe that there is room for both. Those large companies need the Alternate Broadband world to go out and take the risks, to experiment and come up with new broadband models. The smart ones among the Conventional Broadband players will watch advances in the Alternate Broadband space and adapt, while the overconfident ones will deny the changes until it is too late. Change is happening fast, the world is not the same as it was four years ago when I started in this space. What will the railroad operators do when the tracks no longer go where people want to go? What will they do when alternatives, like roads and cars, come along to compete with their railroad monopolies? Some will adapt, but others will go away. I recommend the great website of this British guy, Martin Geddes, called Telco 2.0, and this article in particular. Telco 2.0: Beyond bundling: the future of broadband. These guys come from the telecom world, and their mission is as much to reform their brethren and make them aware of the need to change their ways. And their Euro-perspective gives this site a great twist and valuable insights. I think it's undeniable that in the 21st Century, we live in a world of choices, and life is indeed a highway. Once having tasted the freedom of driving a car wherever one pleases, it's hard to go back to the tyranny of railroad timetables, ticket punchers, late trains, and walking five blocks in the rain after getting off the train. The train and the railroad have their place when you know where you're going - they will be there for predictable service delivery, when you need to get to your job fast and efficiently. But there's no substitute for a road system when you're not sure where you need to go, and when you may need to change directions and explore. For that world, we need an infrastructure that provides us with great flexibility. I may be wrong, but I believe that's the role of the Alternate Broadband world, to help hasten the day when we have the Last Mile Network built out, and everyone looks at broadband computing as naturally as they do the automobile today. Then, we will have arrived. Until then, Life is a Highway, I want to drive it all night long... Posted on December 06, 2007 at 08:23 PM | Comments (0) Forget the Past and the Future, Here in the Present, Ignorance is BlissI was 13 in 1970, but seeing Joni Mitchell here in concert makes me wish I had gone to more concerts when I was young...didn't seem to appreciate all the good music opportunities out there at the time... "Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you got till it's gone, they paved paradise, put up a parking lot"...Joni MItchell, Big Yellow Taxi, 1970 We don't appreciate what we have in the present until it has ... passed us by and is no longer available. - ironic, isn't it? Joni MItchell poetically made that point and her poetry entered the popular lexicon. Here's another truth to consider. We don't appreciate what we will have, or even what we can have in the future, until we see it with our own two eyes. (Can anyone think of a song whose lyrics say that more poetically?) As Harold Feld put it in this very good, very long post on Google's rationale for bidding in the upcoming FCC 700 MHz spectrum auction on his website, Harold Feld's Tales of the Sausage Factory: But Google has one big advantage - everybody else wants the same world Google does, they just don't know it yet. That may sound absurd, elitist, patronizing, etc. But the fact is that most people don't realize what they want until someone with entrepreneurial vision thinks it up and sells it to them. .... So I believe that, given the option, people will discover they really want an open wireless network. But they have to have the option available to them first, and the only way Google can do that is by winning licenses. I highly recommend a 15-minute break to pull up this article and read it fully. Feld says in more convincing fashion what I've felt for some time, and tried to get across on this website...we won't get the future we want if we count on the incumbents giving it to us, we'll get the future they want. Google is going to go after this spectrum, not so that it can go out and compete with ATT & Verizon and other mobile carriers at their game, but so that they can use the spectrum to create an alternate Open market where many carriers provide greater flexibility, more content, and lower prices, similar to the wired Internet world of today - and force those carriers to play a new game, one more closely tied to the highly successful and popular vision that Google has implemented over the past several years. Like many of us out here, Google has no faith in the FCC ever bringing about the wireless future that many of us want. Unlike many of us, Google can actually do something about it besides wring their hands and write snarky blog posts. Here then is a quick highlight of Feld's prophecy of a Google wireless world, which he provides in four parts. 1. Google Has A Different Vision For the Wireless World It Can Only Achieve By Owning Licenses. Google needs the licenses so that it can create an Open marketplace - a "mobile broadband" industry to replace the current "wireless phone" industry. In this world, people do not buy "mobile phone service" with the option to load all manner of various features for additional prices onto their phones. People buy a wireless service contract for a "dumb pipe" similar to what they buy (now) from cable and DSL companies. ... Google would very much like to replicate this wire line experience in the wireless world. But this would require the equivalent of a slash-and-burn on the existing wireless business model. Unsurprisingly, existing wireless carriers will not become party to this radical reshaping of the industry unless they have no choice. But if consumers can chose a wireless network that gives them flat rate dumb pipe (as the basic contract, with the option to add on more customer service for additional fees), then over time they will, and the closed wireless carriers will respond to the competitive pressure by changing their business models. When you think about it, it's not altogether unlike what Steve Jobs did with iTunes and the iPod. Rather than wait for the recording industry to reform itself, he went around them with an alternate business model. Feld highlights the history of the ISP business, where in the beginning AOL sold expensive metered service in a walled garden environment, but over time, competitors forced them to abandon that model for a more open system. This is where the analysis gets really exciting! it's not just about whether Google can expand their empire to include wireless devices. If Google is not successful in getting an Open paradigm for the wireless space, there's a very real chance that the Telecoms will be successful in bringing the metered, Closed paradigm from wireless over into the wired world. And that would suck for Google (not to mention the rest of us). Consider why open source software competes against Microsoft, despite the best efforts of MS to kill it. The answer is because open source plays by a very different set of rules. Open source can't be "Netscaped" because it doesn't play by the same rules as Microsoft. So the tricks that put MS at the top of the proprietary tree and help it cut down any serious competition don't work on open source products. Here, Feld draws the comparison of Open Source software and Microsoft. Open Source advocates don't follow MS rules, but are able to compete because they play a different game. ...to repeat, the fact that Google doesn't want to run the network is a strength not a weakness. Google wants the consequences of an open network, and wants to absolutely ensure that the network will be totally and completely open. ... When you combine Point 1 + Point 2, the idea of Google being serious about winning makes more sense. They cannot get what they really want any other way. And they will avoid the doomsday scenario feared by the investment analysts. Google won't go broke if it wins this spectrum, blazing headlong into becoming a network operator. They'll get others to build and operate a network according to Google's rules, because it's Google's spectrum. 3. Anonymous Bidding Changes Everything. Dare we hope that our government is getting wise and will run an auction that can't be gamed by the big guys? For the first time, the FCC will operate under a system of anonymous bidding. Analysts really have not digested just what that means to bidding strategies and behaviors. ... Google appears to understand that under this new set of rules, a well funded new entrant has a host of new opportunities to overcome the advantages of incumbents. And at the same time, Google cannot count on a more "open friendly" bidder winning the licenses. To meet its goals with certainty, Google must acquire a national footprint. At the same time, parties trying to block Google (or other new entrants) from acquiring a national footprint will have a very difficult time doing so. It is impossible to be strong everywhere, and parties that have relied on the mutual interests of similarly situated bidders to guarantee that a new entrant will meet with stiff resistance on every front find themselves forced to rely on their own devices without assistance. ... this promises to be the single most unpredictable auction in FCC history. Such uncertainty favors bold well funded newcomers like Google, to the disadvantage of traditional winners like Verizon and AT&T. 4. When Google Commits, It Does So All The Way. Sure, Google dabbles, but when it jumps in, it does so with both feet. Consider Google's acquisition of YouTube for what some analysts judged as the excessive sum of $1.65 billion. ... Google's decision to jump into the wireless auction and take on the likes of AT&T and Verizon mirrors its decision to acquire YouTube and take on media giants such as Viacom. It's extremely high-risk, and it remains unclear to conventionally-minded analysts focused on the bottom line how Google will come out ahead. ... Mind you, I don't say that Google definitively will win. Verizon and AT&T are not slouches when it comes to getting what they want, even when they have to fight fair (they may not prefer it, but they can do it if they must). Just as I wouldn't underestimate Google in this competition, nor would I underestimate AT&T or Verizon. I think they are starting to see that they are in for the fight of their lives with Google (even if they don't fully grasp the scenario Feld laid out in his article). As I wrote this summary, it dawned on me that when municipalities seek to bring in a third-party to operate a network according to Open Access principles, whether the city owns the network or not, they are mimicking the Google strategy that Feld described. Rather than wait on incumbent broadband providers to bring in new infrastructure or business models that better serve all the public, they're brining in the infrastructure themselves and installing the new business models that will bring about robust competition and lower rates. I think it's interesting to note that no matter what happens in February at the auction, the incumbents are not going away. They are classics who have shown an ability to adapt when they have to. Much of the change we discuss on these pages can be seen as efforts by different parties to force change on the incumbents or to simply go around them. But don't count them out, not just yet. They have lots of money, political connections, customers, and technology experience, and I think they will be around and influential for years to come. They just need a 2x4 to the head once in a while and would be well advised to follow both Joni's admonition about appreciating what you have while you still have it, as well as Harold's observation that most don't know the future until it bites them in the ass. And do give the Counting Crows credit for recognizing something to appreciate after it has passed and gone on. Joni's Big Yellow Taxi is one for the ages, brought back to a new generation by the Crows... Posted on December 03, 2007 at 01:09 PM | Comments (0) Something in CommonEveryone ought to study and learn a foreign language at some point in their lives, preferably sooner than later. The sooner you set your brain to that task, the better off it will be for the effort. Some lucky kids start out their lives by learning second and third languages as children, when their brains are very plastic and can easily adapt to such changes. Later in life, it becomes more of an academic exercise, not as natural but still highly beneficial. I'm so happy I took that first French class in the eighth grade some 37 years ago and went on to study Latin in high school, then dabbled in Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and learned Swedish that year I lived in Sweden, 25 years ago. My daughter is now in her third year of Latin in the eighth grade and just received high honors on her report card, and my son is following in her footsteps in his first year in Latin in the sixth grade. They're doing it right. Seeing them studying Latin last night at the kitchen table brought to mind all the time I spent learning grammar and vocabulary so long ago. In fact, there's an OpEd in the NY Times today, extolling the virtues of an education that includes Latin (see A Vote for Latin). Little did I realize the fringe benefits I'd enjoy from that early hard work - first and foremost, beyond being able to communicate in other languages, all that study of language gave me added perspective, as well as vocabulary and grammar skills in my own language - I love English, and as you can tell, enjoy writing. What's more, learning foreign languages changed the way I look at the world and encouraged a desire to travel and get out and see the world, which I did in abundance in my twenties. When you experience the common elements of all these different languages, societies and cultures, through one-on-one interaction with other people, the point is driven home. How much we have in common with people all around the globe. As different as we all are, we have so much in common. And the proof is there in the pudding. You can tell when you look at the words, really look at them, that they have something in "common." Dictionary.com shows us that Community shares a stem in the Latin word for "common" - communis, with Communication. What both those words have in common, is the stem "common." And then there is the Latin word for "with" -"cum," which in English becomes the stem "co-" "com-" or "con-". Just think of all those words that begin with those three stems ...what they have in common is they all involve bringing together things, people, efforts, actions, studies, etc. Cooperate The list could go on and on. Having something in common is the basis for all friendship, the connections we form with others. From those connections we gain the experience we need to establish trust. From trust, we get the courage to accomplish things by working together, to share risks and reap greater rewards. Our joint actions involve bringing things together. All those things we really enjoy in life, those things that make it worthwhile, come from connecting with others and finding a way to live and work together. I remember when I was a kid, I used to wonder at all the Christmas cards that would come in the mail from people I'd never met. Little did I realize that for my parents, the ritual of sending and receiving Christmas cards was the one sure way that they'd be able to stay in touch, to maintain a common bond that they'd established with friends and loved ones from the earlier stages of their lives. For a military family that had to relocate often, staying in touch took on an added importance and meaning. So today, I'm tasked with putting together the Christmas mailing list, which will be a tweaking of last year's list. That won't be that big an effort. The bigger effort will be in writing the Christmas letter, taking the family picture, and sending the cards out. All that effort has a meaning though. It communicates to those friends and family the closeness we still feel. It says to them that at one point and still, we had and still have something in common with them, we were and still are a part of a community, and so we communicate. I find it hard to fathom sometimes, but even I still write letters and send cards, especially at Christmas time. But we communicate with more variety now than we used to; our need to communicate has in no way diminished, and we have more tools at our disposal. It's far easier to pick up the phone and make a call, in fact, long distance is beginning to fade away as a communications term. And then there's email. Now there's too much of a good thing. And while we may send fewer letters, we actually end up writing more, I would argue, by using these new electronic media. An essential element to make all this communication work is broadband infrastructure - "always on" makes writing that much easier. Broadband technology is making it ever easier to communicate and stay in touch, to form and keep communities. In a world where events and activities seem to conspire to pull us apart, broadband has become one of our most potent and vital tools. We will never stop talking, never stop connecting. Our need to stay connected will not diminish. Broadband, in that light, is not that exotic, but rather one more step in an evolutionary path to find easier, better, and cheaper means of staying in touch with the many communities that we have become part of. Posted on December 03, 2007 at 08:13 AM | Comments (0) Trains on Tracks v. Cars on Highways: Closed v. OpenA long, long time ago, the national railroad system would pass for High Technology. Railroads were king. In time, regulatory agencies were formed by governments to control the market power of these monopolies. Location of tracks meant everything - towns that were passed up saw commercial potential wither. When the new technologies of the Automobile Age came along, startups formed to work out the kinks. But as the industry matured, companies multiplied, and startups turned into major employers, things changed. The Model T became a transportation option for the masses, and the owners and drivers of all those cars and soon, all those trucks, demanded ever better paved roads and highways. Slowly but surely, the open system of cars & highways began to replace the closed system of trains and tracks as the preferred human transportation model, except in dense corridors, where commuter trains persist today. But railroads continued to be an option for moving freight cheaply, even as the trucking industry rose up. Multimodal transportation evolved and these closed and open systems found ways to coexist, sometimes because of government efforts and controls, but often despite government management. Our history of physical transportation of atoms and molecules in our rail and road networks has lessons to teach us if we will listen. When we look at information transportation of bits and bytes in our telecommunication systems, we should think about how things transpired with transportation systems. When it came to making decisions on transporting physical material, whether in the form of raw commodities, manufactured products in boxes or real-live human beings, those deciding took advantage of multiple options that made the most sense for their priorities - choice was good. Ships and airplanes today complete the system, offering tremendous flexibility for businesses and consumers. We see this choice as a natural, and wouldn't have it any other way. But when it comes to telecommunications, it's as if our brains have been put on hold. Information material in the form of information bits, voice bits, or video bits is still treated as if it must flow over the closed networks of the big telecom provider, on their terms and conditions. (Not to leave Big Cable and Big Football out, in a true, Open System, I don't think that I would have missed watching the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys, the way I missed them this week.) The prevailing sentiment and conventional wisdom still assumes that the large closed networks of Big Telecom and Big Wireless, often one and the same - collectively, the "railroads" of today - are the only options that matter. The bottom line for me is this: We have a collective lack of imagination when it comes to broadband, IP applications, and digital content. We're stuck with Old World thinking in a New World. Still, for the most part, those who trumpet Verizon, AT&T, and the rest may be right, at least for now, that is. Alternatives to conventional broadband are still so new and so small as to get little attention. The winds of change are in the air, however, and the potential of Open Networks, like water on a stone, is having an inexorable effect on the Status Quo. Steeped in the Gospel of Open Networks that drives the Internet, Google has set its calculating eye on telecommunications, specifically, .the upcoming FCC 700 MHz spectrum auction in February. It's big news this week, then, the recent steps that Verizon took to allow handset makers to interface in new ways with their network. Is this a legitimate start of a trend to open up their network? Don't know that, but apparently it's big enough news to get an editorial mention in the New York Times. There is a deep common sense behind the openness that is being forced on the world of mobile technology providers. If nothing else, it unleashes the twin powers of consumer choice and consumer desire. It gets carriers out of the business of telling us what tools we should want on our cellphones, and it frees cellphone manufacturers from the restrictions placed upon them by the carriers. The logical end of mobile openness is a set of shared, even convergent standards that may mean faster communication for consumers using any phone, any software, and any carrier. And that is where the real revolution in mobile computing will begin. A Cellular Sea Change But the potential of the Open Network still has a long way to go to impress those who control large telecommunication companies. It took a lot to get Verizon to this step, most especially, an FCC listening to some of the arguments of Google. Note the language in the editorial above, "openness that is being forced on the world of mobile technology providers." Like the Times, I'm not convinced that their heart is really in it, not yet. Just look at what it took to get them to go this far, and also see how their less progressive cousin, ATT, views such moves. Neither was Stephenson [AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson] willing to give ground when asked about Verizon Wireless's recently announced plans to open its network, divorcing the handset from any particular service. (See Verizon Tears Down the 'Walled Garden' .) "I thought it was overblown," he said of the reaction to Verizon's announcement. "The industry's headed that way, right? The wire line network, over time, became open-access." Stephenson noted during the talk that open networks would emerge if the market demanded it - but later refused to acknowledge Verizon's move as evidence that the market was demanding anything. After the talk, he told Light Reading that AT&T hasn't seen any demand for an arrangement like Verizon's. In fact, AT&T's network is as "open" as they come, Stephenson claimed. "You can take a Nokia Corp. phone and connect it to our network, just put in your own SIM [subscriber identity module] card. We don't see customers do that. They want the phone subsidized." Applications for AT&T's wireless network can be written in Java, he added, citing that as further evidence of the network's openness. Stephenson likewise downplayed Google's Android platform, which aims to provide an open-source operating system and development environment for mobile devices. (See Google Makes Mobile Move, Google: Android's Not Evil, and Analysts: Google Plans Lack Substance.) "Here are all these people that make large, carrier-class operating systems. And here's a new entrant who's never built a carrier-class operating system." Still, he said, AT&T will consider using Android if customers demand it. AT&T Parties Like It's 1999 While I have no crystal ball, I suspect that bigger changes are underway than we can even imagine right now. For instance, when I hear AT&T's Stephenson deny the significant changes we all see happening, using words like "carrier class," I can't help but hear the dismissive tone of the railroad titans of 100 years ago, as they derided the potential of the rickety Model Ts when compared to their mighty locomotives. The upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction has brought pressure to bear on the nation's communication ecosystem, pressure I think that neither the FCC, AT&T nor Verizon quite anticipated. We'll know in early February whether Google's impact will extend beyond this current phase as the owner of new spectrum, or if their primary impact will have been to bring in pressure from the outside to force change, at least temporarily. Only time will tell how long established firms like AT&T can hold on to what they have; they have so much going for them nowadays. But the evolution of physical transportation showed us that Open has advantages that Closed lacks, and also, that Open and Closed can ultimately coexist in an efficient system. It need not be a choice of Either/Or, but more, a question of ever greater choices and lower costs. For all that history shows us, why should we continue to deny the potential in change? If we had the same attitude back then about the Open Network of automobiles and roads that we have today about a possible Open Network made up of alternatives to phones and telecom networks, I'd be rushing out the door right now to run to the station, because I had a train to catch and I had to keep to their schedule, rather than getting in my car and driving away, whenever and wherever I damn well please.... Please tell me what makes Telecommunications so different from Transportation? Other than the fact that we have very powerful telecom companies who slow change down, that is, to maintain their control until they are forced to accept change, bit by bit... Posted on December 01, 2007 at 12:48 PM | Comments (0) |
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