Virtual Adjacency and the meaning of ÒPlace.Óoperations in the event that a disaster Ð whether...

CTN TeleCommunications, Inc. slide 1

COMPLETING THE NETWORKCommLaw Conspectus Symposium March 2008r

Jay John Hellman, Ph.D. 202 841-1944 [email protected] www.VirtualAdjacency.com

Virtual

Adjacency®

and the

meaning of

“Place.”




Virtual Adjacency® and the

meaning of “Place.”




The warm-up:

You can’t depend on your eyes

when your imagination

is out of focus.

— Mark Twain




The warm-up:

Progress is the work of

unreasonable men.

— George Bernard Shaw




The Social Impact of

Technology Change.

The evolution of technology has two very different impacts:

* It improves something we already do.

— this is simple and straightforward.

* It makes things possible that were not possible

before the technology was invented.

— this involves behavioral change.




Technology change makes

things possible that never were.

It is disruptive.Tomorrow is not a piecewise

linear extrapolation of yesterday.




Trend Summary! Computers will continue to get smaller, more powerful, cheaper.

! Video screens will get larger, thinner, higher resolution, cheaper.

! Communications networks will become high-bandwidth, cheaper.

! Transportation congestion will continue to worsen.

! We can no longer build our way out of transportation problems.

! Much of what we think of as a "transportation problem" is in fact a

"communications problem.”

! Urban decay and suburban sprawl are no longer tolerable

(e.g. Maryland “Smart Growth” Law of 1996.)

! Office buildings will become more like clubs than factories

their purpose is to facilitate face-to-face interaction of human beings.




The Hellman Transformper Robert Metcalfe, Ph.D. (ethernet / 3Com)

TimeTime

DomainDomain

minutes

SpaceSpace

DomainDomain

miles

Transportation

The days of people putting up with commutes that they hateThe days of people putting up with commutes that they hate

to arrive at a building they do not enjoy are numbered.to arrive at a building they do not enjoy are numbered.

Be where you want to be, do what you have to do.Be where you want to be, do what you have to do.®®

People People ““livelive”” in two different dimensions in two different dimensions —— time time andand space space ——

and they shift between them without realizing.and they shift between them without realizing.

Virtual Adjacency®

Communication




Virtual

Adjacency

and the

meaning

of “Place.”




Bandwidth.

Fiber is to Bandwidth

as the Integrated Circuit is to

Transistors.

— George Gilder




The numbers boggle the mind.

60 * 60 * 24 * 365 = 31,536,000

— # of seconds in 1 year

2 billion * 8 = 16,000,000,000

— # of transistors on an 2GB chip

16 billion * 3 = 48,000,000,000

— # of solder joints on an 2GB chip

1,500 years to count that high; $15 to purchase




Fiber Analogy with

Nervous System.

Imagine an “organism”

where each “cell” is a

human-being …




Why is Virtual Adjacency®

important?

Urban decay — Poverty

Crime — Recidivism

Latch key kids — dual incomes

Medical care — quality / time

… … ...




Why is Virtual Adjacency®

important?

Terrorism — ideas not guns

Social Security — make elders productive

Unemployment — learning is a job

Homelessness — Homeless University or it is a medical problem

… … ...




Virtual Adjacency® and Terrorism

Insurgencies are ultimately inspired by ideas, …

As such, the single most important step the United States could take

toward victory is re-creating an information agency to discredit our

enemies' narratives and amplify those of our allies.





Already, the escalating cost of the wars has crowded out

spending on virtually all other discretionary federal programs,





Bilmess and Stiglitz cont. We could have had a Marshall Plan to help

desperately poor countries, winning the hearts and maybe the minds of

Muslim nations now gripped by anti-Americanism.

In a world with millions of illiterate children, we could have achieved

literacy for all -- for less than the price of a month's combat in Iraq.

Closer to home, we could have funded countless schools to give

children locked in the underclass a shot at decent lives.

Or we could have tackled the massive problem of Social Security





The Pentagon

CANNOT win

this “war.”

A multi-national

Peace Corps —

empowered by

information

technologies

can.

http://hir.harvard.edu/index.php?page=article&id=1336




jjh/ Gore ‘book’ — Virtual Adjacency®

not Telecommuting

• reinvent government

• make the NII relevant & productive

• concern for the environment

These are not three separate things!




jjh/ Gore ‘book’ — Virtual Adjacency®

not Telecommuting

… I am sure that you will

find it very helpful as we look

ahead to economically and

environmentally efficient

ways to reinvent government

and I look forward to hearing

your thoughts on it. …

Cong. Steny Hoyerwrote the

transmittal letter:

The date was July 25, 1996 !




DHS should be the poster-child!

It was 2004:

We proposed a

balanced,

distributed

office plan for

DHS:

Virtual

Consolidation




DHS should be the poster-child

… embrace telework as a workplace priority for both the

public and private sectors to improve continuity of

operations in the event that a disaster

– whether natural or man-made – strikes our country




New technologies empower the

individual

Cable Television is a one-way street:

They send / You receive.

In the world of virtual adjacency,the individual generates content every bit as

significant as any he (she) might be receiving !




The role of government.

In the context of private-sector daily life,it is to create a “playing field”

where it is easier to make money doingthe right thing than the wrong thing.

Do well by doing good.

externalities

Virtual Adjacency and the meaning of ÒPlace.Óoperations in the event that a disaster Ð whether...

Documents

Transcript of Virtual Adjacency and the meaning of ÒPlace.Óoperations in the event that a disaster Ð whether...