Virtual Adjacency and the meaning of ÒPlace.Ó · CTN TeleCommunications, Inc. slide 3 CommLaw...

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COMPLETING THE NETWORKCommLaw Conspectus Symposium March 2008

Jay John Hellman, Ph.D. 202 841-1944 jay.hel lman@ alum.mit.edu

Virtual

Adjacency®

and the

meaning of

“Place.”




Virtual Adjacency® and the

meaning of “Place.”




The warm-up.

You can’t depend on your eyes if

your imagination is out of focus.

— Mark Twain




The warm-up.

Progress is the work of

unreasonable men.

— Ben Franklin




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 (tech only)! Computers will continue to get smaller,

more powerful, cheaper.

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

! Communications networks will becomehigh-bandwidth, cheaper.

! Transportation congestion will continueto worsen.




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 and space, time and 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 Univ. or medical

… … ...




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,




Virtual Adjacency® and

TerrorismBilmess 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




Gore Book - Virtual Adjacency®

not Telecommuting

• reinvent government

• make the NII relevant & productive

• concern for the environment

These are not three separate things!




Gore Book - Virtual Adjacency®

not Telecommuting

… I am sure that you will find it very helpful as we lookahead to economically and environmentally efficientways to reinvent government and I look forward tohearing your thoughts on it. …

Cong. Steny Hoyer

wrote transmittal letter:

The date was July 25, 1996!




DHS should be poster-child

2004:

When we

proposed a

balanced,

distributed

office plan

for DHS




DHS should be the poster-child

… embrace telework as a workplace priorityfor both the public and private sectors toimprove continuity of operations in theevent that a disaster – whether natural orman-made – strikes our country




New technologies empower the

individualCable Television is a one-way street:

They send

You receive.

In the world of virtual adjacency, the individual

generates content as significant as 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 doing

the right thing than the wrong thing.

Do well by doing good.

externalities

Virtual Adjacency and the meaning of ÒPlace.Ó · CTN TeleCommunications, Inc. slide 3 CommLaw...

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