In the Washington Post yesterday, Jeffery Frank described DC in August as deceptively sublime, and really quite contemplative (Cheers to You, August ). I think he’s right. DC gets hot and sticky, members of Congress go home and test the mood of the country, the crowds lessen, as does the hustle and bustle. Much of that opens-up the city, in a nice, easy, way, and while we’re here sometimes we have time to think.This week I’m thinking about privacy, globalization, and very old hills. Tomorrow night I’m heading up to Boston to join the symposium faculty and give a talk at the 2007 Privacy Symposium at Harvard. Since it’s an academic setting we are supposed to think big thoughts. I’m not sure I have one; but I’ll slog on.A few things are clear to me. We do not want privacy rules that stifle the ‘Interactions-Based Economy,’ either as technical matter, or with regard to emerging, and yet undiscovered business models. We don’t want privacy rules that by their terms pick technology winners and losers by government fiat -instead of market demands. In matters of security and privacy, policy affects architecture -so much so, that really, policy is architecture. And we don’t want to create a single situs (or perhaps worse, multiple situses) for techno-regulatory-arbitrage around security and privacy regulation that spirals us out of the cycle of innovation. Read More »

In the Washington Post yesterday, Jeffery Frank described DC in August as deceptively sublime, and really quite contemplative (Cheers to You, August ). I think he’s right. DC gets hot and sticky, members of Congress go home and test the mood of the country, the crowds lessen, as does the hustle and bustle. Much of that opens-up the city, in a nice, easy, way, and while we’re here sometimes we have time to think.This week I’m thinking about privacy, globalization, and very old hills. Tomorrow night I’m heading up to Boston to join the symposium faculty and give a talk at the 2007 Privacy Symposium at Harvard. Since it’s an academic setting we are supposed to think big thoughts. I’m not sure I have one; but I’ll slog on.A few things are clear to me. We do not want privacy rules that stifle the ‘Interactions-Based Economy,’ either as technical matter, or with regard to emerging, and yet undiscovered business models. We don’t want privacy rules that by their terms pick technology winners and losers by government fiat -instead of market demands. In matters of security and privacy, policy affects architecture -so much so, that really, policy is architecture. And we don’t want to create a single situs (or perhaps worse, multiple situses) for techno-regulatory-arbitrage around security and privacy regulation that spirals us out of the cycle of innovation. Read More »

OTTAWA, CANADA -- If there’s one subject bureaucrats within the federal government continually worry about up in the great white north, is the increasing productivity gap between the U.S. and Canada. Business leaders and government bureaucrats alike have repeatedly raised the alarm over the failure to address the growing gap. For the same reason U.S. politicians don’t like to talk about the importance of productivity, Canadian politicians haven’t figured out how to sell or impart the importance of tackling the issue. Let’s face it; besides difficulties trying to frame arguments into ideas and policies that equate to votes, the average person believes productivity involves working harder for less money, which of course is not the case. Making the issue even more urgent, will be future demographic challenges and its associated labor shortages that stand to exacerbate the issue. According to the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity (http://www.competeprosper.ca/), Canada trailed by $9,200 in per capita GDP compared to the U.S. While other factors contribute to the problem (i.e. high capital, corporate, & personal tax rates), a fundamental underlying issue is the lack of ICT investment by Canadian companies in comparison to Americans. In the same report, it points out that US companies invest nearly 67% more per employee in ICT equipment than companies in Canada. Read More »

OTTAWA, CANADA -- If there’s one subject bureaucrats within the federal government continually worry about up in the great white north, is the increasing productivity gap between the U.S. and Canada. Business leaders and government bureaucrats alike have repeatedly raised the alarm over the failure to address the growing gap. For the same reason U.S. politicians don’t like to talk about the importance of productivity, Canadian politicians haven’t figured out how to sell or impart the importance of tackling the issue. Let’s face it; besides difficulties trying to frame arguments into ideas and policies that equate to votes, the average person believes productivity involves working harder for less money. Making the issue even more urgent, will be future demographic challenges and the associated labor shortages that only stand to exacerbate the issue. According to the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity (http://www.competeprosper.ca/), Canada trailed by $9,200 in per capita GDP compared to the U.S. While other factors contribute to the problem (i.e. high capital, corporate, & personal tax rates), a fundamental underlying issue is the lack of ICT investment by Canadian companies in comparison to Americans. In the same report, it points out that US companies invest nearly 67% more per employee in ICT equipment than companies in Canada.What’s interesting about the under investment of ICT by Canadian companies is the contrary investment cable and telcos have been making in residential markets. In its recently released annual Telecom Report (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/NEWS/RELEASES/2007/r070726.htm), the CRTC noted that this market continues to experience growth driven by residential adoption of new technologies, with overall telecom revenues growing to $36.1B ($CDN) up nearly $2B from the previous year. Among G8 countries, Canada still retains the number one rank with respect to broadband adoption, but slipping. However, the news isn’t all bad. Broadband deployment continues to progress and its availability increased from 92% of households in 2005 to 93% in 2006. The number that subscribe to high-speed Internet reached 60% of all households. But that still represents an increased of more than 17% from the previous year. This bodes well for continued efforts in Canada as the infrastructure is in place to utilize new Web 2.0 collaborative technology tools now and into in the foreseeable future. So why isn’t the private sector investing in the technological productivity tools to utilize the platform that has been built out? Part of it is attributable to the high-tech bubble hangover that still lingers. Perhaps it’s part of a”been there, done that” public policy mindset. But in order for Canada to increase productivity and grow its current standard of living, governments need to once again develop innovative, bold, and forward thinking policies that either incent or create the climate for increased private sector ICT investment. Without more political attention on productivity levels, U.S. gains will continue to outstrip those of Canada’s. With the network becoming the platform for increasing productivity gains, multiplier effect will increase exponentially when the U.S. Congress is able to adopt and implement a viable, national, and truly high speed broad-band policy.

WASHINGTON, DC -- Next Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on a set of rules that will govern the auction of the 700 MHz DTV spectrum, the most important spectrum frequencies ever to be auctioned by the federal government, setting in place a process that will transform public safety communications, the way Americans watch TV, and how Americans connect to and use the Internet. As the FCC process began to wind toward its conclusion this week, the usual suspects-and some new ones-were pitching their ideas about how the rules should be written. If you’ve been spending your free time following the Michael Vick case instead of watching the 700 MHz proceeding, you may have missed Google’s efforts to propose an ever-expanding list of”open access” conditions that it says the FCC should impose on the winning bidder for part of the spectrum. It has trumpeted its desire to”commit” at least $4.6 billion of its own money in the auction if the FCC will only write the rules as Google has dictated them. Google seems to have a very different view of the wireless market than Cisco does. It apparently believes, contrary to the FCC and Federal Trade Commission, that there is insufficient competition to ensure that consumers will be treated fairly. It wants new rules that would prohibit the licensee from bundling the price of handsets and service. It wants the federal government to mandate that service providers allow access to other wireless networks. It wants the FCC to impose requirements that dictate the terms under which the winner will sell network capacity to others, as well as the terms by which the winner will interconnect with other networks. Read More »