Listics

Among the dozens of professional conference opportunities I’ll be missing this spring, Freedom to Connect stands out.  I’m an introvert so it takes a lot of energy for me to connect with people.  This conference brings together a number of people whom I’ve met and whom I’d like to know better with a number of people I haven’t met but would like the opportunity to meet and hear real-time.  I wouldn’t miss this for anything but the family obligation that has me elsewhere, NOT in Washington DC on March 30 and 31.

The fee is ridiculously low:  $250 for a full two day conference ($350 special procrastinators rate after March 1).  If you have an interest in Internet infrastructure and the policy issues that will channel our opportunities for the next decade or so, then you should attend.  David Isenberg writes,

The future of telecommunications starts now; there’s a new U.S. Telecom Act in the works, there’s unbundling in Europe, fast fiber in Asia, wireless across Africa and networks a-building in cities and villages around the world. Lead the discussion. Shape the debate. Assert your Freedom to Connect.

The need to communicate is primary, like the need to breathe, eat, sleep, reproduce, socialize and learn. Better connections make for better communication. Better connections drive economic growth through better access to suppliers, customers and ideas. Better connections provide for development and testing of ideas in science and the arts. Better connections improve the quality of everyday life. Better connections build stronger democracies. Strong democracies build strong networks.

Freedom to Connect belongs with Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion and Assembly. Each of these freedoms is related to the others and depends on the others, but stands distinct. Freedom to Connect, too, depends on the other four but carries its own meaning. Unlike the others, it does not yet have a body of law and practice surrounding it. There is no Digital Bill of Rights. Freedom to Connect is the place to start.

Too often the discussion of telecommunications policy turns on phrases like "overregulation," and "investment incentives." These are critical issues, to be sure, but like the term "last mile," such phrases frame the issues in network-centric terms. As more and more intelligence migrates to the edge of the network, users of the network need to be part of the policy debate. Let’s put the user back into the picture. Freedom to Connect provides the frame.

There are forty or so speakers, discussants, debaters, and presenters on the program.  Included are at least a dozen top flight professionals who blog… people like Weinberger, AKMA, Crawford, Jarvis, MacKinnon, Malik, Michalski, Werbach, Dewayne Hendricks, Dan Gillmor, and of course David Isenberg.  The registrant list is filling out into a who’s who of smart people informed about stupid networks.  Martin Geddes, Jon Lebkowsky, Judith Meskill and Bob Frankston are on the list as of today.

Vint Cerf and David Weinberger are keynoters.  Charlie Firestone from the Aspen Institute will be there moderating a debate.  Scott Heiferman, the Meetup guy, will be there to represent our interests vis à vis Freedom of Assembly.

I wish I could be there too.

Chris Locke, the CBO at HighBeam ("Nexis for the rest of us") is justifiably proud that the company’s founder, Patrick Spain,  made the FastCompany "Fast 50."

I’ve always thought of myself as a bit of a trend-hacker, an amateur cool-hunter.  So when I heard about this personal hook into the Fast 50, only two degrees of separation here, I wondered how I’d relate to the rest of the list.

Well, as of today, Fast Company isn’t that fast in keeping their links current, so it wasn’t easy finding my way into the list.  But following the CBO’s link and clicking through the previous and next links from there, I’ve managed to work my way through the list.  Here’s how I relate to the Fast 50:

1.  Jeffrey P. Ansell, 45

President

The Iams Co., a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble

Dayton, Ohio

I have two bags of Iams kibble in the kitchen… one for the puppy, one for the old dog.  Iams is a winner at our house.

2.  Tom Buxton, CommunityID.  No clue about these people.  I think Rebecca Ryan ought to give them a call and see if there’s some synergy there.

3.  Time Shares?  Condo bullshit?  Are you kidding me?

4.  Dennis Littky, never heard of the guy but he seems to be making a difference helping kids get a decent education.

5.  Panos Panay, SonicBids… I don’t exactly get it.  Sounds like eBay for booking agents or something.

6. Tom Ryan, 48

Executive vice president of branding
Quiznos Sub
Denver, Colorado

Quiznos, that’s my sub.  Can’t say enough good stuff about Quiznos.

7.  John Scharffenberger, 53

CEO and cofounder
Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker
Berkeley, California

High end chocolates… I have a box of Scharffenberger’s on my desk.  They’re the best.

8.  Zappos online shoes?   This is bullshit. DSW is where it’s at.

9.  Fuhgeddaboutit

10.  Andrew Zolli, 34

Founder
Z+Partners
New York, New York

Curator for Pop!Tech.  A consultant with a long term strategic planning bent. 

11. 
Not since the hydrogen fuel cell and the perpetual motion machine have we seen such an important product.  I’m serious.  Jetboil rox!  Oh wait.  It’s just a more efficient backpacker stove.  Well, that’s nice too I guess.

12.  Tony Bates, 37

Vice president and general manager
Cisco Systems Inc.
San Jose, California

"After
four years of hard work, dedication and take-out food, on May 25, 2024,
my team of 500 engineers and I unveiled the CRS-1, code named HFR or
Huge, Fast Router. The result of this $500 million project is the
highest-capacity Internet protocol (IP) backbone router ever brought to
market. Theoretically, with this router, the entire global population
can have a simultaneous phone call using VoIP technology. More
importantly, as the most powerful and sophisticated router of the
Information Age, the CRS-1 is capable of completing the transition from
the telephone era to the Internet era."

I mean, it’s no "Jetboil" but it could have an impact.  Besides, I like the acronym.  CRS… hmmm, where have I heard that before?  Slipped my mind, I guess.

13.  Stewart Butterfield, 31 Caterina Fake, 34

President and VP marketing and community
Ludicorp Research & Development Ltd.
Vancouver, British Columbia

Flickr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

14, 15, 16… not Flickr.  not even Jetboil really.

17.  Tim Peters put Dell in the printer market.  I ordered mine in January.  It’s supposed to be delivered in March.   Sorry Tim, I’d rather have a Jetboil.

18.  Everybody’s favorite oxymoron…

19. A good thing…

20.  Patrick Spain, 52

Founder, Chairman, and CEO

HighBeam Research Inc.
Chicago, Illinois

Nexis for the rest of us. 

21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29… some good stuff, like recycling motherboards… but basically this is about me, and except for the MasterCard identity thing, I don’t know who these people are or why I’m supposed to care.

30.  Niklas Zennstroem, 39

Cofounder and CEO

Skype Technologies S.A.
Luxembourg

Skype
is the Global P2P Telephony Company™ that is changing the
telecommunications world by offering consumers free, superior-quality
calling worldwide. In 2024, Skype officially released Skype 1.0;
Skype’s voice service has grown to over 2 billion minutes served, over
12 million registered users, almost 30 million downloads and almost 1
million concurrent users online.

31.  Stephen DeWitt, 38

CEO and President

Azul Systems Inc.
Mountain View, California

Azul
Systems is the first new computer company in 10 years to develop a new
class of enterprise system from the chip level up. In September,
President and CEO Stephen DeWitt unveiled Azul, introducing the
industry’s first network attached processing solution to captivated
industry watchers. Network attached processing eliminates capacity
planning at the application level, finally bringing the benefits of
utility computing within reach. Azul’s powerful new chip is at the core
of these systems. It contains up to 384 coherent processor cores and
256GB of fully symmetric memory and does not expose its binaries to end
users - a chip that is designed specifically for virtual machine
execution.

The rest of the pack…

32 through 50… some cool stuff… batteries, hydrogen powered sports car, las vegas pawn shop, Hewlett Packard strategy (oops)…  some of these certainly deserve a second look. 

Final score…  of the Fast Fifty  nine have some immediacy for me (ten if you count Jetboil):  Iams dog food, Quiznos sub sandwiches,  Scharffenberger high end chocolate, Pop!Tech, Cisco, Flickr, HighBeam, Skype, and Azul.  Some of the other stuff is just lame… on-line shoe sales and pawn shop software; some of it is important, like recycling motherboards and crafting hydrogen powered sports cars.

I actually expected a lot more from the publication where Heath Row blogs.

I had brunch with Frank Lanza this morning.  This was quite a coincidence since only a few hours earlier I’d received a mis-addressed purchase order for some of Frank’s gear which I reproduce below:

Interstate Electronics
http://www.l-3com.com

To Whom It May Concern:

Please forward, at your earliest
convenience, 23 Trident nuclear warheads.

Feel free to bill me if this
is required. Money is no object.

thank you,

RageBoy

Frank and I had a laugh about this one.  Here’s this guy buying retail when you can literally pick up  free Sapwood SS6 warheads anywhere on the Klyuchi test range in Kamchatka.   Of course a lot of them are duds.  And they’re all pre-mirv and kind of heavy-duty, nothing you’d want to try to deliver to the target in a mini-van. But okay, if Siberian travel is too daunting at this time of year, a quick trip to the Gulf and you should be able to find everything from weaponized germs to cancer dust… and if you really can’t get the big bang off your mind, there’s always a pallet of Bechtel’s Best ready to fall off a truck out back by the loading dock at Y-12 in Oak Ridge. 

Who buys retail?

Anyway, I was glad to move the PO back into the L-3 order entry process.  Legendary customer service…. that’s my motto.  Well, actually my motto is "Filling today’s needs tomorrow with yesterday’s technology," but I couldn’t figure out how to work that in to my little story about brunch with Frank (no relation to Mario) Lanza.

We’re all familiar with the Complete Idiot’s Guides…  the range of topics is incredible, yet the series suffers from a lamentably low GQ (Grandiosity Quotient).  Rather than aim at people who want to learn a foreign language, rewire the garage, or raise lab rats and turn a profit, I’m aiming this new series at people who REALLY want to improve themselves.

I call the series "How Hard Could It Be?"  Some sample titles:  "Rocket Science… How Hard Could It Be?"  "Brain Surgery… How Hard Could It Be?"  "Large Hadron Accelerator Construction… How Hard Could It Be?"  These well written, information laden, nicely bound slim volumes are conceived as a Great Books of the 21st Century collection - something no real post-postmodern renaissance person will want to be without.

While the high volume sales are expected from wire racks near the check-out lines at finer bookstores everywhere, it should be noted that faux-leather bound sets also will be available, complete with engraved bookplates.

LexThink! Chicago

I refer you to the Om Malik and David Isenberg postings on a big one that got away.  David styles it the Gary Winnick Global Double Crossing.    Om Malik echoes Isenberg’s observations that mainstream media is giving this one a pass. 

Yesterday, from Singapore, David Weinberger wondered why the Peterson murder trial got so much press.  Answer:  to suck up bandwidth (both column inches and audience attention) that might otherwise be used reporting on stories like this one.

Jeneane Sessum excerpts a 1990 article by Michael Ventura:

As a worker, I am not an "operating cost." I am how the job gets done.
I am the job. I am the company. Without me and my companion workers,
there’s nothing. I’m willing to take my lumps in a world in which
little is certain, but I deserve a say. Not just some cosmetic "input,"
but significant power in good times or bad. A place at the table where
decisions are made. Nothing less is fair. So nothing less is moral.

And
if you, as owners or management or government, deny me this - then you
are choosing not to be moral, and you are committing a crime against
me. Do you expect me not to struggle?

Faced with a budget crisis, the Governor of the State of Wisconsin intends to lay-off 10.000 state workers. My advice:  take a close look at how this is being managed.  There is a clear win possible if they take the time to work with the demographics of the situation.  The number of baby boomers due to retire can make up the bulk of the target staff reduction, but that will require working with people, re-organizing work to deliver public services with less staff.  Before the governor chops off heads, he owes it to the state to show us a demographic analysis of retirement projections.

Either that, or there are going to be bricks through windshields, fires, walk-outs, intimidation of contractors who are engaged to do state workers’ jobs.  We could be looking at a one term governor here, and it’s too bad he’s a Democrat faced with clearing up Republican caused problems.  But it’s worse that he isn’t applying the egalitarian principles we’d expect from a Democrat.  Is there still room for progressives in the Democratic Party?