A Blog of Her Own

Well, it seems I spent most of my afternoon meeting with people and missing the sessions. This is OK, because my entire reason for coming was so that I could meet people - thus, it was a successful conference.

I did sneak into two sessions very late. One was on Engaging Local Business and I really just caught the very end of the last of the panelists, Stephanie from The Business Link.

She agrees that you can build relationships through technology, in her case videoconferencing. I actually came in while she was listing things we need to know when using VC - VC etiquette as it were. Like how to turn on ‘mute’ and when; the importance of ignoring the camera and becoming comfortable using the technology; other stuff.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions - if you don’t understand terminology, then ask. You’ll find you’re not the only one confused. And it makes the technical people think about the technology and how to explain it. My comment - it makes us techies look for better ways to explain and it makes us learn/understand the technology better. Teach others is often the best way to learn yourself.

The last session I attended was about virtual clusters. I missed the panelist who explained what was meant by a cluster; it’s characteristics, what makes one virtual, etc. I did make it in time to see the slide with examples on it. It seems that for the definition being used by the researchers, clusters included supply-chain integration (so everyone involved in a supply chain is a cluster). Apparantly this idea comes from Porter (of 5-forces fame) and at least one of the audience members thinks we should move back to an older definition of ‘cluster’ to mean a collection of peers; peers sharing information about a similar industry (but not direct competitors). He spoke of clusters forming in a highly specialized farming machinery industry where manufacturers of pea pickers would share information (cluster) with blueberry picker manufacturers, etc. So, the broad industry is the same and a cluster of ‘excellence’ may form, but they’re not directly competing with each other (which frees them to actually collaborate). Some of the other examples of clustering that is already happening included academic libraries and researchers. Not surprising there, really.

And so, the conference is over and there were ideas sparked. But mostly there were questions raised. It was disappointing to hear so many people asking why should they pay so much for SuperNet - What does it give you beyond Internet? And Internet is so much cheaper. There still has not been the right message communicated to municipal offices and community members about what SuperNet really is, what it really means. I know this conference was an attempt to do that (while also sharing some academic research). But we’re still not managing to share the right message. Sigh.

OK, it’s been pointed out that while I might know what SuperNet is, there may be some reading who don’t. So, for more info I’ll direct you to the government’s SuperNet site.

My short message is that the Alberta SuperNet is a broad-band fibre based network that connects 429 communities throughout Alberta. The exciting part is that SuperNet brings connectivity to communities that would not receive it if the build was left to commercial telco’s alone. There are direct SuperNet connections in every government office, public library, health facility, learning facility (schools, post-secondary), and municipal office. Commercial ISPs can arrange to connect to SuperNet as well, enabling high-speed Internet to be provided to regular Alberta citizens where ever they live.

First session for the day… We have representation from Axia, IBM, and the UofA.

Katrina Ashmore, Axia

I’m a little late arriving due to discussions with folks in the vendor showcase. Katrina is talking about why to use eBusiness and already I have a comment…she’s suggested that eBusiness allows you to trade 24/7 (no longer restricted to normal business hours). The flip side is you need to be up 24/7 - I’m thinking just about network/infrastructure operations need to be up and running, but you also have a need to provide service 24/7 or at least within a fast time frame.

I think back to my first experience streaming audio of the Alberta Legislature - we came in one morning to email that asked why they couldn’t access the session. It turns out that the person asking was in Denmark and they sent their email at 5am my time (we learned to post the time zone for session - oops). But we also learned that people around the world were accessing our site - that there was the potential to need to deal with system outages 24/7 because we had customers around the world. (Of course, at the Legislature we defined our primary customers to be people actually in Alberta and focused on service at home only.)

Kim Devooght, IBM Canada

“Innovation that Matters”

IBM claims that they coined the term eBusiness but they no longer use it. eBusiness is just business.

Sustainability is one of the issues when putting infrastructure such as SuperNet in place. How do you ensure that it pays for itself (anchor tenants, for example).

CEOs believe that a lot of their products are bein commoditized, competiton is coming from all directions, there is global volatility (safety, oil prices, natural disasters), competing business models. If you add this up, 85% say they are facing some fundamental change. The action is in the emerging world; while US is currently our largest trading partner, this is shifting. Emerging economies are the new marketplaces. 83% of cEOs think someone will come along and fundamentally change their business model. (I don’t think any of those 83% are recording industry execs - they’ve decided to fight change instead of adapting).

“the connectedness of everything” I just like that phrase.

Select statistics from the presentation:

• In 2006 will surpass the US in the number of broadband subscribers.
• In 2007, Slovenia will surpass the US in percentage of households with broadband connections.
• Email volume, in 2000 5.1 billion messages a day, by 2005 it had ballooned to 135 billion. Wonder how much is spam.
• Ooh, a new blog gets created every second. Cool.

Best practices examples are in a public innovators report available through IBM. The slides may be posted at the SuperNet Opportunities Conference site. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (low-cost imagery to support rescue workers and the public), One Community (Cleveland, services to try to differentiate the city from other communities and attract people/business), World Urban Forum and HabitatJam (3-day online conversation to prepare for the Forum in June. 65,000 participants in the conversation, more than blog or online forum - tools to analyse the conversations (datamining). Called ‘Jam’ by IBM. Stories of long lines in less connected parts of the world so they could access computers to have their ideas/comments heard by the Forum), Grid examples (Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, Harvard Department of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Healthcare practices, World Community Grid…), and on and on and on.

Marketplace dynamics are driving innovation and adoptions of new solutions. SuperNet provides capacity.

Dr. Paul Messinger (UofA)

Discussion of Service beginning with a service interaction cycle. And some additional ‘problems’ being researched - eAuctions, Algorithms for services, behavioural studies (how consumers interact/navigate websites), etc. Really, a look at emerging questions, research, problems, etc. surrounding increased eBusiness.

Q&A observation - I’m glad I have my MBA. The references to Friedman (”everyone’s read Friedman’s book”) and Smith (”smith always wins”) and even ‘barriers to entry’ are not foreign language to me. But what about the others in the room? They’re not all academics or economists. So how did they feel about the discussion? Hmm. (OK, for those reading the blog who aren’t academics or economists or other and don’t know the references…Friedman’s book is ‘The World is Flat,’ Smith is Adam Smith who really laid down the foundations of economic thought, and finally, ‘barriers to entry’ is from Porter and is one of the forces that affects industry competition (oh, just Google Porter and “five forces”).)

Today we were treated to two presentations right after breakfast; Alain Casavant of Industry Canada and Dr. Thomas Keenan from the UofC. Here are my notes/musings. Again, coherence not guaranteed.

Alain Casavant (IC, Information Highway branch)

IC video shown had statistics stating (I think, it disappeared too quickly):

Income % with Internet access
<23,000 35%

70,000+ 90%

The indication is that there is an increasing digital divide, still. This is the reason why Industry Canada provides funding for community access (or at least has in the past). Now the thing that strikes me was the comment that access to computers and Internet (or lack of access) will drive future incomes-it’s the implied idea that not having access is the reason for the low income (or will be in the future). I’m not sure that this is the correct relationship. Lack of income translates to lack of technology (computer, Internet) in the home - but home isn’t the only place to get access. I guess that’s the point of community access programs.

I suppose I do buy the idea that in the future, income will be determined or affected by comfort with technology and access to information resources. We need skills and the theory is that we only really develop skills if we have easy access - access in the home is ‘best.’ There’s a tie in here to the thinking that computer gamers are more likely to become computer programmers. That theory states that the level of comfort with computers increases and, because of the ability to extend so many computer games, there’s an early introduction to programming (within the constraints of the game) increasing comfort levels with computer programming and computer science. The whole gaming thing is used to help explain why so few women are in the computer programming field, especially as game programmers (there are few games of interest to girls, so they don’t play, so they don’t develop comfort/programming skills, so they don’t become game programmers, so there aren’t any games written for girls, so there are few games of interest for girls…)

The theory with digital divide evolves along similar lines - you don’t have access to computer/Internet so you don’t learn to use them, you don’t develop computer skills so you can’t get jobs that require them (and there are more and more of these jobs in the knowledge economy), so you can’t increase your income so you can’t afford to have technology in your home so you can’t learn the skills (nor can your children), so…

Alain’s video actually went on to discuss a computer training program at Headingly Prison in Manitoba where inmates are being taught essential computer refurbishing skills and attaining A+ certification. This is an extremely good/interesting program and has spread to other locations now.

Dr. Thomas Keenan

Some truths about SuperNet

• It’s a tremendous resource
• Its uniqueness will be short-lived
• The pipe is just the enabler

It’s the imagination of what we do with it that really counts. This is the message I’ve been trying to convey for the last while-now that the network is built, we need to find something exciting to do with it.

Don’t be afraid to use your creativity when thinking about what to do now. Even wacky technology may appeal to some people.

http://Sciencechallenges.wonderville.ca

Live province-wide webcast to 196 schools

Like PGP, now the idea of “pretty good information” is becoming ubiquitous (if you have fast Internet) - ex Google Earth (amazing satellite photos, good enough for average consumer but military will still have better information). It’s the democratization of Information

The real power is in the combining of information sources. (This is the idea that Ray Patterson at UofA has about combing the web to piece together bits of personal information until a larger profile is created. A direction my final MBA paper could have taken - and maybe a future research topic)

The Internet is the “law of Unintended Consequences” writ large. (It can be used for good or evil) Even with good intentions (sharing information) can lead to unexpected consequences (when the city posts the tax assessments, entrepreneurs can search the database then target individuals to see if they want to appeal their taxes).

And, just because you can post something online doesn’t mean you should. For example, Texas state posting of last meal requests, posting photos and statistics of arrested individuals (not in Texas). Putting too much personal info up (names, photos of soccer team enabling stalking…) This leads to…

We should think before posting. Once it’s up, there’s no way to take it back. Things on the web can take on a life of their own. If not, there’s always the ‘wayback machine.’

Biometrics will raise the privacy war stakes. Oh, I don’t even want to go here. RFID in US passports, RFID in our clothing, photos and fingerprints to enter the US, even scanners on our computers. OK, I like my fingerprint scanner on my computer-it’s more convenient than remembering my password (when it works). Of course, this speaks to the fact that most people will give up privacy in exchange for things like convenience or coupons or airmiles or…

Location awareness - increasingly everything will know where we are. That’s the RFID thing and GPS enabled devices again

Opportunities abound - see teenhollywood.com (located anywhere; running a business building websites for hollywood stars from Calgary). MYK diagnostics building a business model to service pediatric radiology for everywhere between Calgary and Vancouver.

Predictions:

Smartest people are going to get the work

It won’t matter where you live

There will be huge competition (global)

We have to be fast! Advantage is temporary.

The time for action is here.

Julia asked if Dr. Keenan presented at Netspeed. If not, I think we should consider him for next year.

OK, so it’s the longest day of the year and I’m sitting in a hotel room blogging. Solstice should be celebrated! I did spend some time meditating and while watching the sun slowly sinking, so that will have to do this year. Should have light for a few more hours.

Now, on to the point of this entry. Still at the SuperNet Opportunities Conference, this time the banquet dinner. I left my tablet in the hotel room because I figured they wouldn’t do much in the way of program over dinner. I was wrong. And, to be honest, the talk at dinner was the most exciting thing I’ve heard all day! I’ve been working SuperNet too long.

This is an intitiative of the Galileo Educational Network and the specific project was Stories and Spaces - work with the Kainai in southern Alberta. Let’s see, what did I write in my analog notebook…

Galileo is about teaching teachers how to incorporate new technologies in their teaching toolkit. Galileo is asking “what can you do with technology that you’ve never been able to imagine before?” That’s the question all Albertans should be asking themselves now. Because we have some amazing technology and ICT infrastructure available to us now.

The Stories and Spaces project was about trying to bring life to a way of being - to enable the sharing of elders’ knowledge with the next generation. My interpretation: recording of oral history and combining with video to create a new story - using technology to tell a story. It has some echos of [murmur] (see blog entries about the community wireless network). The students did all the video work and interviewing for the project. Teachers and Galileo worked together to “design authentically intellectual work that builds knowledge.” Real work and school work became indistinquishable.

I highly recommend you check out the website below. It’s just amazing to see what was done. This is cool stuff.

Stories and Spaces

OK, so I’m in Calgary for a short conference put on by the Van Horne institute to explore the opportunities SuperNet brings to Albertans. I’m here more from a sense of duty than because I think I’ll learn new things…I’ve been taking notes and now I’ll post a little of what I’m hearing and thinking about.

One person did comment on the irony of a conference in the Telus Conference Centre that has NO wireless connectivity at all. Not even Telus paid wireless connectivity. Maybe that’s something Bell can provide.

It’s been a long day, and there’s actually still more to come, so I’m just going to go with my rough notes from sessions today…I’m not going to guarantee I’m coherent.

Opening session was just a discussion of what SuperNet is. Dennis Mudryk from RGE, Lisa Shackleton from Axia, and James Schultz from Bell were the presenters. Well, after some opening remarks from such notables as Hon. Luke Oulette (Minister, RGE), Dr. David Mitchell (UofC), Dr. Frits Pannekoek (Athabasca U), and a lady representing the Van Horne Institute.

But on to a session (since there’s no point recapping the ‘what is SuperNet’ - I know that already). The eBusiness - eEconomy session was my first for the day. Let’s see how well MS OneNote pastes into the blog…

The panel today is made up of Dr. Richard Field (UofA), Wayne Cao (MLA, Calgary-Fort), and Darrell Toma (Alberta Chamber of Commerce)

Dr. Field compares a quote from ‘Until the Sun Falls’ about mongol tribes, comparing the sweep of the mongol advances to what we are seeing with globalization today. SuperNet is bringing the playing field to rural communities, putting them on the global path, and exposing them to things and competitors that rural communities didn’t even know existed. So, in essence, rural communities (small businesses) have to be prepared for this new world in order to play on this new field.

Dr. Field’s research involved surveying rural businesses to look at many things - non-computer users, some computer use, some Internet use, power users who would like to have a high-speed network (and used whenever possible). In one case, had a music studio that used Internet to deliver content. The customers for the power users were located around the world while the others were focussed on local customers only.

There are issues with supporting computers in rural communities - there is not the technical support locally yet (a support infrastructure) - there is a need to travel to another location for repair, training, etc. This definitely reflects my limited experience with trying to help rural libraries with attaching to SuperNet. Even when there is some computer expertise in the community, SuperNet requires a deeper understanding of networking technologies than most rural computer technical people have-they don’t normally need to understand VLANs and MPLS VPNs and diffserve and … So, I can see how it will be difficult to encourage technology take-up if there is no support structure to help novice users choose technology and keep it running. Libraries can help deliver training, but it would tax their resources to try to truly support increased technology in a small community. Perhaps this is an area for opportunity. We could have the travelling computer doctor that moves through the province fixing and supporting computers in rural communities. Anyone want to help me build a business case/model?

Darrell Toma

Darrell brings to us a discussion from a business background, the AB Chambers of Commerce view of SuperNet. SuperNEt has not yet been a topic of interest in Chambers meetings that he’s attended so far. Around the rural theme…

As a theme - future is around the knowledge-based economy (technology businesses). Right now, though, rural businesses particularly need access to markets while the primary need in urban settings is infrastructure to handle the intense growth.

While Internet can help rural areas by opening up communication channels and electronic delivery means, there is still a gap. Quality of websites is not there yet - a need for some of those support services that fit around technology and the use of computers. So now the traveling computer repair person should take a traveling web-developer with them. More seriously, though, I know Three Hills has already identified another option for addressing some of the ecommerce elements identified here - Summer web developer camp for high-school students. Train your most tech savvy community members to create quality sites for rural businesses. And by tech savvy here, we don’t necessarily mean the most ‘geeky’ folks - the people who are comfortable with technology as users and know what the web should look like. You’d learn job skills such as graphic design, business communication and PR, maybe even work flows for order processing. Combine that with simple tools and some programming and you’ve exposed a range of students to career opportunities. And you build connections between local youth and business people. There’s definitely something here (but I still think we need to over-rule Ken’s suggested name for this camp - “re-boot camp”).

Principles, though - Keep it Simple and Proven. That’s the only way you’ll get existing businesses to adopt new technology and processes. This will need to come with education and building relationships. Darrell actually said “you can’t build relationships on the Internet or the SuperNet.” I beg to differ. He might not be able to. And I might have trouble doing it. But you ask any 12 year old and they have no problem building relationships online. The increasing popularity of social software is a clear indication that we are learning how to build relationships online, we can connect with this new tool once we get used to the technology - once we get over our ties to the old ways of doing things.

Wayne Cao

The government views SuperNet as part of the strategy for building Alberta’s image as a great place to work and live and do business.

Talk about how much economic growth the province has experienced over the last 10 years. But since this is my blog, I get to rant now…Investment in Alberta is primarily (almost exclusively) in the Energy sector. If you have oil and gas projects, you can find investment funds. BUT, if you are trying to build businesses in other areas - if you’re trying to capitalize on the new ‘knowledge economy’ - there is no access to capital. We have no venture capital funds for non-energy sector initiatives. The province doesn’t provide any incentive for VC firms to locate here (ie Tax Incentives). So, if Albertans want to access VC funds, they have to go elsewhere (Toronto, the US) which will bring with it a requirement to have a presence of some form in that remote location.

So, Alberta has the ICT infrastructure now to support business anywhere, the infrastructure needed to truly support knowledge-based businesses. But we don’t have the rest of the package - an environment that attracts knowledge workers and entrepreneurs - mentors, funds, tax incentives. I could even go so far as to say (in the province of *many* good Universities) a lack properly educated workers. I know there are a lot of really smart people out there, the Universities and other post-secondary institutions are doing a good job of educating people…but, in fairly traditional areas. We pump out engineers and trades to support the oil and gas industry. What do we need to support different types of businesses, businesses that are not based on natural resources or agriculture (the traditional strengths of Alberta)?

I’m all for this vision of the government to enable new businesses. But I don’t think ICT infrastructure (SuperNet) alone will do the job. I think the government is still thinking of new ways to do existing business - extend your customer base, become more efficient, increase communication - but there is still no vision for *new* business models, for whole new types of business and work. Our Alberta vision is actually rather grounded and ‘practical’ it’s not innovative, really. We’re not breaking brand new ground. So how do we do that? How do we come up with the next disruptive business model - the next Amazon.com?