London tweet up

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Read more! I will be in London next week. You know this is rare!!
This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



My original plans have changed, and I would very much like to meet up with a few people if possible whilst in the Big Smoke. There are a slightly astounding number of 300+ regular readers of this blog. Would you like to meet each other?

Come out of lurk mode, suggest a venue, and point us all in the right direction.

Big Society, newly lit fibre communities, next generation, etc. Hell, you can even talk about the BT pension fund if you wish!!

I'll just do as I'm told by y'all.....;o) Just tell me where.
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Speed kills

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Read more! Or rather lack of it, and it is killing the UK.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.comTweet

Along with the Chattanooga announcement, I now hear that the next round of RUS funding in the USA includes a project very close to my heart - the USA version of what we would propose here given half a chance. This is not some tiny network, but a joined up thinking, economies of scale proposal that allows multiple rural communities to build a network without telco involvement, owned by the communities it serves, and built with the future IN PLACE. i.e without substantial upgrade paths (and hence further investment) to achieve what it needs to today AND tomorrow.

For anyone who has managed to get a ticket for this weekend, the two panels you MUST NOT MISS are at 11.40am and 16.30. That is when you will hear about very similar proposals to those which are making some of us go "W00t" tonight - the Digital Parish Pump, Mr Forde etc. And then there's the two colloquia on either side of the conference which will allow substantial JFDI opportunities for those who want to hear something different from the same old same old talking.

I will add one final thing. (Like you would expect any less of me!) This conference has the choice of becoming a Do It conference or a Talk About It Again conference. For all of you who plan to come and attempt to pull the wool over people's eyes from the platform, you are in the land of sheep farmers. We can shear to clear people's vision, and we will. We also know how to deal with slurry - be warned. And we can use technology. Including pigeons.


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Herding cats into the NGA 'pen'

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Last night, sitting in the Conservative Technology Forum meeting in the House of Commons, it finally dawned on me what a task we really have in front of us. I thought dealing with my neighbours and community was difficult... (oof, you really don't want to know!)

But it's actually far worse!

I've been in the House before so although it was nice not to have jetlag this time from Dave Isenberg's WTF conference, it wasn't "much different' from walking through my own house. (Must replace the marble busts on the stairs though...[photo])

However, what is becoming ever more obvious is the need to 'corrale' people into a situation where they collaborate and co-operate. Working for just your business' shareholders, or for a particular party win, or for the gain of xyz community is no longer the way to play. Not even if you play a winning card that seems to meet all odds. Because, on the whole, to date, every single winning hand has been played with a poker face in an attempt to win for 'your side'.

We have to go beyond sides. Beyond loyalties. Beyond shareholder interest. Beyond personal agendas and party politics. It's bigger. It can sometimes start far smaller eg a community of 12 houses, but it needs to be about making it right, nationally beneficial. It is about the ENdGAme.

What we are trying to do is FAR, FAR bigger than those 'personal' interests, be they corporate, community or even seemingly national when played politically.

What we are trying to do is free something which will allow, possibly untethered to start with, an opportunity to access an unrivalled resource - human creativity and imagination. Innovation. Ingenuity. Inspiration. All of those will unleash far more social economic wealth than anything else we have on the books. That, in itself, unleashes our most recent god - Money - that can be counted and "relied upon", AHEM, as a judge of value.

I know, as much as anyone how scary that is, though, and what it could unleash if you allow people to do what they are capable of. Hell, I have twins. 2 to 1 is not a good algorithm in a power struggle over the washing up, for instance! But when it comes to making things happen....hmm, then you are talking. Harness the power for the common good...and we have a clean house, a village with a cycle powered recycling trailer, real endeavours planned and executed by real people. We are going places then.

I will be writing about my thoughts on this decade shortly. This is the first in which I have been here the entire time fighting the same problem (Please, please, let it be the last!). But I know, from those I was with last night in London, and to whom I am eternally grateful to not just those but many others for their continued presence in this world I live in, (and their freely given experience, support etc - you do know who you are TY) that there is an 'oldgen' who are helping the 'newgen' deliver the 'nextgen'.

I can't make you speak out in public, but I can hope you might. I have spoken to so many of you in private and know you are not mute!

End of the Noughties.....what do you feel is up and coming for the Teenies, and where do you see your contribution being to the next generation of telecoms?

Are we herding cats? Or is there hope in the telecoms industry? Please, share your views here and if you know someone who remembers the Thatcherite days of 84 and "no TV thru BT" or who has a vision for 2012 that comes from their experience, please, come and share here so we stop re-inventing the wheel.

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