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.

Thanks to RB (no katzenjammers there) for the link to David Churbuck’s site.  Smart stuff from David… he says what I’ve been thinking - about Carly,  about Newsburst,  about High Beam - about every post I read over there was well considered, smart, informative.  Thanks for the pointer RB, you’re the bomb!. 

David Weinberger has an interesting post with a discussion thread that is truely informative about the Technorati taxonomy effort.

First, the whirled peas… Peter Lems writes to share an opportunity for an early end to this too long Iraq war.  The plan is to gather signatures on a petition and deliver them to the newly inaugurated Fuehrer-in Chief on the day following his inauguration next month.  I signed.  You should too.  This is the spit-in-the-ocean school of democratic practice, but we dare not give up.

Followed by the foie gras… Mark Morford fulfills his role as the Typhoid Mary of contagious depression today, comparing the Schwarzeneger Bay Bridge plan with the soaring design of France’s new Millau span.  The California experiment continues.  You can sign up for Morford’s mailings here.

And, finally, the main course (whirled chicken?)… Chris Locke, HighBeam CBO, has revivified his EGR newsletter.  What you get with your subscription is pretty much what you get by visiting the HighBeam blog.  I understand that there are cortisone creams that will cure it for you.  What you don’t seem to get, but might enjoy, is the content that you can find only by taking the Stygian Subway out of Orthogonal Station, closing your eyes really tight, and opening them when your browser lands here.  To subscribe to the EGR mail list… go here. 
 

A real blog, by John Eno.

[Thanks to Doc for the link to Mike Sanders who links to a review of Covey’s Eighth Habit and gives me a rush…]

"Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs." 

Great advice.  I don’t know which leg is easier to grasp, but I am certain that if I just let go and let it wail that I can do either or both as the situation requires.  I’m working with the walking wounded.  A prior administration bled the State’s coffers dry and now the perceived wisdom is that state services can be shrunk to fit our diminished budget.  Shrinking services means laying off people and the agency that engaged me intends to cut ten percent of its staff over the next year or so.  One a day… 365 people will be out on the street.  That’s the plan.  It’s a matter of public record.

I work with about fifty people statewide who enable the technology that provides the IT infrastructure necessary for modern road building.  This isn’t the time for the rap about the modern highway system and how it makes the Egyptian pyramids look like sand castles slapped together by school kids in a sandbox during recess.  In fact, that’s giving those ancient Egyptians too little credit — but the point remains that the Interstate Highway System is the eighth wonder of the world. 

I can’t tell you how many cubic miles of concrete were poured over how many metric kilotons of roadbed to pave a stretch of road between Superior and Eau Claire.  But I have software that can give us the answer if we need it.

There are several dozen people around the state who support these systems and they’re worried that they won’t have jobs.  I’m traveling with a message.  The glass is half full, I tell them.  The state needs you right where you are.  Your work is safe.  Okay, your jobs may change, but you won’t lose your jobs.  That’s what I’m telling them and I know I’m not lying.

Some are afraid, especially the young ones.  No seniority, no experience working in the belly of the beast, the thrashing convulsing vomiting beast, dyspeptic, ill from decades of overeating… naturally for those in the mists of the acid reflux, those in the gale force winds of the foul breath roaring from the cavernous maw, those on the ground stepping lively to avoid being trampled by the mindless pain crazed brute, this isn’t as they say - PARANOIA - it is legitimate fear.

But I’m here to say the glass is half full.  The system needs people in our professions. The boomers are retiring.  A clear eyed look at the demographics would tell you that the numbers are those of a posturing politician.  Governor Jim can meet his numbers through attrition mostly.  The glass is half full for my co-workers across the state.  And the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. 

Not even Bob Dylan said that.

Found this link at Crooked Timber.   Not only does the OCLC have a top 1000 list, but it also has this dramatically deep ISBN listing that’s fun to surf.   Say you were scrolling through the list and you stopped at number  50 which happens to be Shakespeare’s "The Tempest."    You plug in your zip code to get a list of the several nearby libraries that have it available for you.  Fine, but "The Tempest" has about eleven dozen editions and the OCLC has a tidy ISBN listing that’s a grab-bag of surprises.  Clicking through the ISBNs you run across a lot of critical commentary and then SURPRISE!  Here’s a recording by a lot of Redgraves!  I mean — it’s not a poodcast or something… you still have to check it out of the library, but how cool is this?  Very.  No doubt.