Category: Four pillars

A week or so ago, I learnt that Dell had filed a patent on “cloud computing.” Today, Sam Johnston informs me that Dell’s Notice of Allowance for Cloud Computing has been cancelled. [Thanks, Sam!]. Incidentally, Sam is worth reading. I “discovered” him while digging around on cloud computing issues, and, serendipitously, found that he has recently taken to following jobsworth at twitter. Which is where I tend to hide.]

The entire incident reminds me of “Sunday Sport” headlines during the 1980s. Nestled between Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster, Aliens Turned My Son Into An Olive and Killer Plant Stalks Queen Mum was my favourite: Double Decker Bus Found on Moon, with a crude image of a bus slapped disproportionately on top of a photo of the moon. Why favourite? Because, next issue, they majored with : Double Decker Bus Disappears From Moon. Aided and abetted by removing said crude image of bus from photo of moon.

At dinner a few days ago, I met someone called Brian Shaler. Interesting guy. Interesting blog. Some interesting points of view, such as his sense of discovering this while at the same time knowing it would be true:

And some interesting perspectives. Literally:

He’s going to go places. Again literally. Brian, we shall meet again.

Calcutta used to be called a city of palaces. Surprised?  You shouldn’t be. Not that long ago, Calcutta had views and vistas like the ones below, illustrated by the Daniells:

I love Calcutta. And it’s rare that I meet someone who’s lived there and who doesn’t share that love. Yet, as the city has evolved over the years, even the biased observer would be forced to admit that not everything is perfect.

I’ve had the opportunity to spend time in many great cities over the years; there’s something about them that continues to fascinate me.

The writings of two incredible people, Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander, if anything, served to accentuate and sharpen my interest. I would particularly cite The Death and Life of Great American Cities and A Pattern Language to those who are interested.

For many years now, I’ve wondered what it would feel like to build a great city from scratch. How to make sure it is alive, organic, adaptable, real. Now, thanks to friend Sabeer Bhatia, I have the chance to find out, albeit vicariously.

He thinks big. Very big. He’s taken on an amazing project, Nanocity. Here’s a quote from the web site:

To develop a sustainable city with world class infrastructure and to create an ecosystem for innovation leading to economy, ecology and social cohesion

Go take a look at the site and try and understand the scale of the project. 11,000 acres, the size of Manhattan, between two rivers. A stone’s throw from Delhi.

Sabeer thinks big. And I wish him well.

I like thinking about things. Savouring them as I roll them around my head, tasting them, mulling over them. Ruminating. Masticating.

I like thinking about things in themes. What do I mean? Let’s take an example. A recent Harvard Business Review article asked if we should Invest in the Long Tail. Apparently, research had shown that even in a long-tail world, blockbusters continued to exist and were of significance. Chris Anderson wrote a response pointing out the importance of getting the definitions right, and showed how, in his opinion, the research was consistent with the theory. And a whole conversation started.

Reading all that set me thinking. It made me go back to the oft-quoted Clay Shirky article on Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality, serendipitously referred to a couple of days ago, in a post by Hugh Macleod on, of all things, cloud computing.

And this is what I’m thinking about:

1. In a broadcast age where the power of distribution lay in the hands of a select few, there were blockbusters.

2. In the internet age, where the power of distribution is less narrowly held, there continue to be blockbusters.

3. The blockbusters are different. They come from different motives, give rise to different opportunities, form part of different business models. Let’s call the broadcast blockbusters Type A blockbusters, and the internet blockbusters Type B blockbusters.

4. When the power of distribution is narrowly held, someone else chooses the blockbuster, then uses advertising, availability and proximity to try and self-fulfil the prophecy. Sometimes that succeeds, sometimes not. We all have our Waterworlds to bear.

5. When the power of distribution is democratised, everything changes. Now the blockbuster is about power laws rather than self-fulfilling prophecies.

The moral of the story is this: You could game a Type A blockbuster. You can’t game the Type B blockbuster. [This is what I’m thinking about; this post is as provisional as any other post I write].

You may have noticed that I push back against badly designed DRM and IPR. There are many reasons: I am not in favour of laws that treat everyone like criminals; I do not believe that the internet is primarily a vehicle built for Hollywood to distribute its “content” while protecting itself against “criminals”; I believe that intellectual property legislation is dated, irrelevant, no longer fit for purpose and inherently unusable; I could go on and on.

It’s not just about intellectual property. The same is true when it comes to discussions about the other two “i” words, identity and the internet. For identity also read privacy, for the internet also read net neutrality.

Where all this comes together is in the context of waste. Wasted opportunities, particularly in education, in healthcare and in government, opportunities wasted because people, often ill-informed, make decisions, often ill-judged, that continue to treat the internet as an extension of Hollywood, the music industry and publishers. And, buoyed up with the moral indignation that precedes such actions, and by the self-satisfaction that succeeds them, it is normal and understandable that nanny-state decisions then follow.

Which is why I found what Bill Thompson wrote instructive. Do take a look at a recent post by him in Index on Censorship, headlined Fools Rush in Where Programmers Fear to Tread. I particularly like this bit:

The real danger is not that politicians ask for things that the current network architecture cannot support, but that the network could be changed to make those things possible.

The Web is live, it is two-way, it is writeable. That is what makes it the Web, its interactive participative nature. The value proposition of the web in education, in healthcare and in government relies on this two-way-ness.

The Web is not about broadcast, it is not about access control, it is not about audiences and content. It’s not about Publishing 1.0, or for that matter Publishing 0.0.

If the people who make such decisions insist on using the metaphor of the Information Superhighway, then let us try and stop them from putting cattle grids every 100 yards. Because that is what is happening. Cattle grids that slow us down, make us more vulnerable to attacks from highwaymen.

There is one overarching reason. The waste of it all.