Digital access is about discovering value - not Mbs

The big idea at the heart of the Digital Britain interim report is 2mb broadband access for every home in the UK.

I've been thinking about the issues of access a lot recently - mostly prompted by my work as a Trustee at CitizensOnline.org (which I, of course, recommend to you :-). (I should make clear before I go on, the following are my views - not necessarily those of Citizens Online.)

For a start 2mb isn't very much these days. If it was a real (rather than 'as advertised') 2mb that would be a start. My 8mb home connection rarely actually delivers half its claim. (thanks BT).

But that is very much only half of the story. (image courtesy)

Speed of access to the internet is not the same as speed at which something can be broadcast at you via broadband.

Speed of access is - just like all the best things about the internet - about a two-way flow.

The internet is created by us, with us. You are a participant and contributor to it. To access it is therefore to have an equal ability to contribute to it as it is to draw down from it: So 2mb download and upload speed, please.

But the story of access is about more even than this. It is one thing to have connection to the pipe - and a nice fat two-way one at that - it is quite another to get your share of the value.

It's a little like Victorian Government sending a free set of encylopaedias to every home, only to discover only the rich kids benefit - because they know how to read.

It's time to think about the equivalent of teaching people how to read and write. on the web - making their ability to participate and share a core foundation of how the UK as a whole benefits from the digital revolution.

Let me give you a real and personal example. If the very nice people at the Government decide in their wisdom to provide free wifi in the road my dear old mum lives in it she'll get precisely zero value from it. Zip, nada, until such time as someone either gives her an interface to access participatory sites with such ease it's like popping the kettle on. Or until such time as someone invests the time and trouble to show through demonstration the value she could join in.

Access to the value creating power of the network is little to do with access to a particular terminal at a particular speed.

How many people got real value from the early internet; from the dial-up modem internet; from the not-always-available internet - from the bloody-hard-to-use internet? Lots.

Those pioneers didn't need 2mb downloads to join in the value.

We wouldn't have today's internet if they had. They found value inspite of the limitations.

And they told their friends. Their friends joined in and made it bigger and better.

Their friends got value, told their friends etc etc ad infinitum.

Helping others discover the value available through the tools on offer is the crucial and critical thing here.

It's the part the Government should be focusing on with its reports and big ideas.

But it's also the part ALL of us can commit to doing something about.

Sure, you can lobby your MP to put pressure on for the Government to spend more cash on ever fatter pipes.

Or you can just coach one more person in the value you get from being online.

The more of us who make it to the edges - the less those in the centre have control over the big decisions anyway...

Related articles by Zemanta

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• Britons see broadband as 'vital' (news.bbc.co.uk)

Who's afraid of 2009?

There's a lot of doom and gloom among the financial soothsayers. Purpose-less business are being put to the sword.
My (Huntingdon, Cambs) High St Woolworths went last week. Which as far as I can think means the only place left where you could buy a cd on Huntingdon High St is WHSmiths.

And you have to fear for the likes of Smiths in the current climate. Like woolies, it lacks a purpose. For me its become a Christmas shop. I visit it once a year.
If smiths stopped selling CDs there would be no where left on the High St to sell them.

And this illustrates the reality and illusion of fear of 2009: Music is being enjoyed as much, if not more than ever. It isn't music that's at risk in a recession, it is a business model - one which packages up, stacks on racks and locks out co-creation.

The illusion is that all is at risk. The reality is that business models which don't fit the networked world are at risk. (image courtesy)

I spent New Years Eve playing Guitar Hero with friends - a glimpse of how new value gets created in a supply web (the artists get paid for their music, and the coders and game designers and interaction designers etc get paid for their contributions.

£300 of console. £175 of game and equipment. Wild guess: more than you've spent on CDs or downloads in the last year?

And way more fun.

People playing together co-creating an outcome they want. It's what multi-player gaming has always been about.

It's what the business models that need have no fear of 2009 must also be about.

Those that have purpose, those that engage with the power of the network; 2009 - and the future - welcomes them.

Those that persist with the broadcast mindset, with command and control, with centre over edge, those do face a tough 2009 - and no future.

As Christmas 2008 fades into memory, like Scrooge, while there's life, there's still time to change. May the ghosts of Woolworths and Zavvi do the trick.

Best not wait for the ghost of Christmas-Yet-To-Come to show your business to its grave.

Make up your own meaning

A wise man once commented that this blog had become something of a repository of wisdom. Which is nice. Others might see it as the ramblings of a fool. But that's kind of the point.

When I share something on this blog the job is not done. The job is only just beginning. The meaning of whatever you read only means anything to you at the point of perception. You bring to bear the history of you when you read these words. And they transform as you read.

It's a humbling thought. Each phrase, word, conjunction, is the start of an evolutionary process of ideas which grow as a result of the way they are both received (see Recommendation: It's all in the mind - theirs not yours) and the way they are shared (through self-forming adhoc communities of purpose).

We make up our own meaning. (image by andrew couter enright via flickr)
 
A great example at the weekend: I tweeted "PRmageddon - just made up the word." and invited people to find a use... a meaning for it.

Pleased to say Laura Jones was inspired to write a blog post.

Where will PRmageddon take us next?

Faster Future - and your part in its success

Just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has visited, contributed to, linked to or shared this blog and its ideas and conversations in any way. We've done a lot together, and particularly in the last month.
Visitor numbers were up over 150% year-on-year (not the greatest measure, I know) and Technorati has just ranked us at 77,358 among blogs globally - the first time I've spotted fasterfuture in the top 100K!.
So congrats to us all, the community of purpose that is fasterfuture. Blogs may start from one place but they are taken to many, and the thoughts are shaped by many, the value is shared among many.
If fasterfuture is seeing some positive growth - then it is yours to revel in.