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A fabulous and important event. Much to say about it, but I must cut to the chase, my thoughts about David Weinberger's post on municipal wifi in Philadelphia.

A list:

1) I'm thrilled that David Isenberg decided to assemble this panel, and glad you decided to cover it.

2) Ahem, Dave, I believe there was a female questioner, too.

3) Philly's wifi network, as I heard it, is 135, not 45 square miles. Did I mis-hear? (Genuine question, no challenge implied.)

4) This is a fascinating case wherein the technology can go much farther than human institutions will let it.

5) Philly is not an unregulated, sparsely populated, loosely coupled system; au contraire. Philly is neither new nor small; nothing about this city is simple or straightforward.

This is a big, old (in-USA-terms), post-industrial city where it is hard to make anything like this--something progressive, something hopeful, something that may not be perfect but is a step in the right direction--happen. There are lots and lots of places like this, and lots of people live in them.

6) I applaud any municipality that makes massive, high-speed connectivity broadly available to its citizens. I fully reside in the camp of more, better, faster, cheaper--at least in this arena. Certainly I want that here in Philly.

7) To reiterate, technology is not the obstacle. If we over-focus on our critique of the technology, we have missed the lesson.

8) It strikes me that over the course of history, a vast array of social/political/economic knots, vortices, and other entanglements have been quite effective in derailing innovations that serve the greater good. (I'll spare you the examples; you know them already.)

9)If we want more good stuff to happen, it behooves us to consider this question: What are the social levers that allow innovation to live, even thrive? (F2c is an essential element, one of the themes skillfully woven through the conference).

10) This is why we should be applauding Philadelphia's achievement, and asking the question I asked: how can we help?

technorati tag: f2c
permalink: posted by saraw1 at 4/03/2005 12:34:00 AM