Sean Park Portrait
Quote of The Day Title
There's no bad time to innovate.
- Jeff Bezos

Dependency.

Well after 6 days essentially without email or web access, I’m back online.  From the giant number of unread emails in my inbox,  I’m sure one or two of you are wondering why the radio silence.  Apologies. Now you know.

I must admit, although I wouldn’t say it was surprising per se, this episode did open my eyes on how indispensible (only 15 odd years after it’s popularization) fast, unfettered, continuous access to the web is for the way I (and many others I’m sure) work.  

Had I known that I would not have access to the web for 6 days, I obviously would have organized my time differently (and I wouldn’t have spent the better part of three days in a futile bid to fix it) – there are still things that can be done offline, but even for many of these – reading, research, writing – my default mode has evolved to weave in annotating, footnoting, elaborating, complementing these activities with online tools (the most common, but by no means exclusive being Google, social bookmarking, wikis, social networks…)  

I guess if there is a silver lining to this disaster (I feel like I’ve fallen a month behind in my ‘to do’ list…), a ‘learning’ to take away, it is that the productivity enhancing power of the ubiquitous web (at least or especially for ‘knowledge workers’) is truly incredible.  And I’m not sure we really appreciate it.  It’s like aging:  if I look in the mirror, I don’t think I look much different than I did 15 years ago;  until I look at a photo of myself from 15 years ago!  

So here’s a challenge.  Take a moment to reflect on how you live and work today.  Now try to transpose this to 1994:  could you do what you do today?  more slowly?  at all?  And if you have the luxury and inclination to do so,  try switching off the internet/email and your mobile phone for a week (landlines and fax machines allowed.)  If you do, what you might find will surely excite – because you will appreciate how much more productive you now are – and frighten you – because you will realize how dependent you are – in equal measure.  

If banks are systemically important to our economic and social system, then telecommunications infrastructure is vital.  I wonder if our politicians understand this. 

 

 

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Permalink||Comments|Filed under 'Miscellaneous, Sixth Paradigm, Tools'
Paraphrasing Gibson…(on CDOs) If I had a billion dollars… (second verse)
  • It's peculiar that I find myself reading this during a brief spell of connectivity in an otherwise off net week in Spain.

    I think Charles Stross captured this issue brilliantly in one of the early chapters of 'Accelerando', and he goes on to explore how telecoms have become part of critical national infrastructure in 'Halting State' - both worth keeping on hand for the next time you're offline.
  • Thanks for the tips, shall add them to my Amazon Wish list (which doubles as my future reading list...)
  • You should also put Cryptonomicon on there if you've not read that already. It's about a bunch of tech startup guys doing a 'bank 2.0' thing.
  • Serendipity that this was the next item in my aggregator - http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/17/japan-inte...

    My brother in law has been using a service like that in Japan for a few years. Makes me feel like I'm on the dusty old side road of the 'information superhighway' when using so called broadband services in EU/US.
  • (One of) the problem(s) I believe is that regulators apply a 'fair rate of return on capital' algorithm when setting rates for monopoly infrastructure, but don't adjust for stupidity in deploying capital... (think 3G auction bids in the mobile space for example...) This of course isn't entirely true but still...

    I have yet to hear a good argument against prohibiting vertical integration on top of core base infrastructure (pipelines, fibre, backbone rail...), it's not perfect but it is the 'least bad' way of organizing natural monopolies...you need to remove the conflict and create infrastructure providers who are truly agnostic as to who is using their "pipes", I just don't think this can ever be the case at the big integrated telcos no matter how many Chinese Walls are in place...

    I wonder if Japan (and/or South Korea) are structured differently in this respect, or if the cultural/political differences drive NTT for example to behave differently (than say a BT or FT, etc...)?
  • Network Rail: how could vertical integration be worse?

    Seriously, for some pro-vertical-integration common sense you could read this chap: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ford

    I know you won't have time to read him but the point is: separation of infrastructure from consumer service needs to be done well or it's better not done at all. In the case of UK rail it was done about as badly as it could be.

    </railway nerd> :-)
  • even as I was typing that I was thinking...well except for Network Rail... just shows you can't get away with lazy thinking with this audience!

    I don't doubt that their is probably something to the 'do it well or not at all' rule...I'd say:

    half-assed-not-thought-through separation < vertical integration <<< properly executed (even if not perfect) separation

    The skills, key value drivers, metrics, capital structures, etc. of running a service and running a piece of fixed core infrastructure are completely different. And when you mix them together they get completely fucked up. One of the structural disasters that led to the the banks leveraging themselves up to 100 to 1 (and then exploding) was the fact that no (or certainly not enough) distinction was made between capital intensive revenues and capital light revenues. So the game (for savvy bank executives) became not "how do I build the best business / serve my customers?" but "how do I get my hands on as much capital as possible?" (but not equity because that's (Basle) expensive...)

    Throw in a natural monopoly and you are just begging for management (even honest well-intentioned management) to live off the fat of the land (infrastructure, capital.)

    Hey not suggesting this stuff is easy. Many many brilliant people have spent entire careers thinking about this without 'solving' it but when I look at all the various services I consume from day-to-day, there is a very high correlation between effective monopolies/oligopolies and horrendous service/value for money...
  • Two things ... I often reflect on this bounty/dependence (and doubt I could now live without it); and second: no, politicians DON'T get it generally (particularly Senator Stephen Conroy here in Australia). I think even most corporations (who HAVE derived real and obvious benefits from comms technology) don't see the potential for their own employees to have better access from home.
  • Prenez le temps pour aller vite!
blog comments powered by Disqus