Always rid yourself of desires in order to observe its secrets,but always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations.– Lao Tse on observing the Tao.
I encountered this quote on a playbill for The Shaming of the True many years ago and have always kept a copy of this observation near to hand.
Whether public or private and whatever the scope, there are three critical aspects to any communications or technology project:
Of course these aspects are interwoven, but each heading stands on its own, and we can determine a logical flow for project planning. We’ll need clarity on each, and anything less would be irresponsible.
Consider public communications initiatives such as municipal (or more accurately, city-wide) wireless and broadband networks as have been the focus of many cities and towns across the country, including Chicago.
The inconvenient truth about communications infrastructure (and other public technology) projects is that we’re horribly irresponsible about achieving the clarity needed in these three areas for a good outcome.
Our tendency has been to take the ownership and business model for granted (let industry do it!), to accept the technology on offer by the vendors, and to build a constituency for the network among different interest groups with claims that the network will meet their needs and desires.
We’re doing this bass-ackwards, we’re costing the people, the public, a lot of money (in aggregate, and individually), and we aren’t getting the reliability and functionality we should be getting from these networks.
Network purpose (or purposes) and character should be the logical driver of the process. Purpose should drive technology choice and together these should map out the options for ownership and business model.
We shouldn’t accept any limitation on the ownership/business model options without a deep and clear understanding of the network purpose and the sort of reliability, functionality and accountability that purpose demands. Too much effort is spent in debates and lobbying promulgated by the usual suspects, the purveyors of networks. Unchecked, each vendor’s biased agenda with respect to business model and ready-technology warps public deliberation.
All too often, American cities have closed the doors to viable ownership models as a result of lobbying and tactical rhetoric. To state the case more strongly: they do so at great cost to the public and to the commonweal; they do not serve our interests well, they do not proceed with clarity of public purpose.
What are the ownership models? We can build, buy, or rent. If we take business as our paradigmatic example, big businesses tend to build and buy their own networks whenever they can. Doesn’t it make as much sense for communities and for local governments to do likewise?
I’ve spent a lot of time arguing which of the three aspects should drive the other, and why the business-ownership model should not drive the process. Exploring the technology and the purposes of the network are a lot more work, but that is where we should be directing our attention.
I’ll only briefly mention that the range of technology options is more constrained by a policy regime then it is by the physics and network design.
The definition of network purposes is left as an exercise for your community.
Kaliya asks: When the 9/11 of the net happens what will we do?
We’ve been living with the politics of fear for a long time. It’s a ham-handed strategy for social control. This politics of fear is a misdirection… we all know that we need to be wary of those claiming to protect us. I certainly agree with the call to Organize, and to Organize now… but my doubt in this is whether we can truly rally sufficient support to defend the character of the Internet and all our beloved ‘Net freedoms when our society has been willing to let go of our basic but hard fought civil rights.
A friend shared Philippians 4:4-9 with me today:
4Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!
5Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.
6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
9Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Think about such things, put them into practice.
From: http://keep-the-core-neutral.org/
The Keep The Core Neutral Coalition is committed to protecting freedom of expression and innovation in domain name policy at ICANN.
This means basing gTLD-approval policy on criteria of only a technical/operational and related nature, and refraining from embedding any particular national, regional, moral, or religious policy objectives into global ICANN policy.
Nothing happening in the Midwest?
Via the Open Space listserv, courtesy Doug Germann:
Perhaps the earliest open space poet was Emily Dickinson. In 1858, she wrote:
In the name of the Bee–
And of the Butterfly–
And of the Breeze–Amen!