Matthew Allen

Following my presentations on the ‘top 10′ web 2.0 applications for learning which exist in the real world of the Internet, I have started to develop a model of knowledge networking which allows us to understand how the contemporary web (a better description now that Web 2.0?) serves to enable knowledge networks, and how those networks might exist within the complex digital ecology of the Internet. These ideas are still under development.

In 2009, I argued that learning was a special case of knowledge work and, that as all knowledge work becomes, or tends towards, being knowledge networking, so too learning changes in its character (regardless of whether students and teachers actively engage with such a change). In doing so, I claimed that knowledge work is best understood in quite simple terms (at least initially), as involving the classic input – process – output model which has dominated information sciences and systems research for many years. I don’t doubt that knowledge is far more complex than this model at first suggests (see Allen and Long, 2009). But, the complexity cannot be ‘explained’ by making the model appear more sophisticated, for the complexity comes from the social conditions within which knowledge work occurs. Therefore, superficially, we might as well continue to think in terms of knowledge work being done within the input-process-output circuit, and just remember that every output is an input (and vice versa) and processing is also continuous, influencing how information even comes to be considered as inputs and outputs.

To gain more understanding, however, and to emphasise the way that the Internet promotes distributed and collaborative knowledge work (why it is networking, not just working), I want to now model knowledge networking in the contemporary Internet in slightly different terms, though the relationship to input-process-output should be obvious. I identify four crucial elements which, collectively and interactively, generate the system of knowledge work conducted through and for the web; in doing so, I hope to provide a better way of thinking about the purpose and possible application to elearning of the entire system.

First, we can identify online behaviours and web services that work as information pumps: these pumps draw on the apparently infiinte (though actually limited) reservoirs of information within and around the web and then circulate the information with various degrees of filtering, flavouring, and transformation through many different channels and pipes. Note that information pumping involves both humans and computers. Some examples of the web services that might naturally appear as information pumps can be found at Newsmap, or at Evri; but do not think that it is the ‘sites’ alone that are the pumps. Delicious also serves as an information pump, distributing the work between its users and the systems maintaining the lists of tagged links. Pumps can either be sites that are visited (such as the innovative new instance of Cuil, Cpedia ; or they can be feeds (primarily RSS) from sites, gathered and analysed in various ways and presented to users (see RSS Voyage for an elegant version; and many different variations thereof.

Second, we can observe that many web services entice and require uses to engage in the manipulation, creation, re-expression or other forms of cognition using the service as a partner in these activities. Thus, the second element of knowledge networking online is the existence and use of cognition engines: these engines – fuelled in part by the information pumps – work with users to ‘do’ the knowledge work. There is an incredible variety of cognition engines, from complex and highly structured (Cohere for example), to deceptively open and simple (wikis would serve as these kinds of engines – a current personal favourite is Springnote, with its elegant notebook metaphor). Engines can involve innovative creative activity (making simple movies from text at xtranormal; the delights and frustrations of Prezi) or some traditional cognitive forms – the visualisations that can be made at Manyeyes for example, or mindmapping as at Bubbl.us. Cognition engines can promote reflection, too – like a personal current favourite Betterme

Cognition engines often contain significant affordances for collaboration: yet we can also see that many web services are specifically designed for the kinds of collaborative endeavour, which generates the third key element in the knowledge networking system: social environments. Ranging from loose social networking utilities (Ning), to detailed groupwork systems (Wiggio), but also including real-time interaction channels, such as the simple Tinychat conference room system or more sophisticated systems like Elluminate, these environments establish an array of spaces, mediated by technologies, within which people can act socially in knowledge work.

The fourth and final element discernable within the contemporary web as a knowledge work system is the publication outlet.

In conclusion, then, we can say that the knowledge networking dynamics of the web involve distributed, conjoint action by humans and computers through web services which serve as information pumps, cognition engines, social environments and publication outlets. But, to be clear, it is not the case that each web site we encounter online serves for just one of these dynamic elements. Indeed, most web services include a combination of features which means they serve as all four elements at once, whether closely coupled (as for example in facebook), or more loosely. That said, individual users, as they form and participate in networks of knowledge, traverse several sites, use many services, to carve out from the available opportunities their own particular kinds of knowledge networks. Let me finish by providing two examples: one that is contained largely within a single service; and one that spans several.

Diigo, a bookmarking, collaborative research and web annotation service, is a clear example of how one single website can host services and permit user behaviours that constitute an entire knowledge network. Diigo pumps information (both from the web and within its own system), with a significant degree of filtering and enrichment by users; in the work of organising, analysing and reframing information, it serves as a cognitive engine; yet, since many people are engaged in that task – often in well-defined and purposive groups – it is a social environment as well; finally, the results of this knowledge work can become public, so Diigo serves also as an outlet, with an audience, for publication.

Yet, knowledge work systems can span several services and sites as well. RSS feeds found and managed through Feedmil can push information into a cognition engine involving Listphile: the cognitive work here is to array and manage individual items within a pretermined list form; and, while listphile is itself a social environment, the collaborators using it choose Wiggio as the locus of many of their active collaborative endeavours. Finally, the list – while available in Listphile for public consumption – is pushed to the world as embedded code within a blogging-based website linked to Twitter, using Tumblr. Note that, in this example, the Tumblr site is itself also serving as a cognition engine at times; the listphile service involves collaboration, social action and a degree of publication, but that the specific knowledge network formed emphasises specific uses for these services within the model I am outlining.

Ultimately, the contemporary web demonstrates the fluidity and agility of the so-called Web 2.0 approach – data and human endeavour is no longer necessarily concentrated at specific places and times, in forms that are unique or limited in their re-usability. Within such a web, many forms and examples of knowledge networking, using countless varieties of applications, will occur. But, in general terms, I would argue that all knowledge networking involves the collective activation of the four distinct elements I outline – information pumps, cognition engines, social environments, and publication outlets. Higher education must learn to imagine and build its own knowledge networks that draw on this model, and on the many excellent services for knowledge work available on the web.

One of the consistent themes that has emerged from my ‘roadshow’ of presenting the initial outcomes of my ALTC project on Web 2.0 applications is the need to think through the relationship of learning management systems and Web 2.0 applications, in their thousands, that are freely available. I once described LMS like Blackboard as dead (Teaching and Learning Forum, 2009 presentation) but which I now realise are just moving so slowly it can be hard to tell the difference. I mean by this that there is a lack of agility and responsiveness and innovation in such systems. Now, this view is probably true of Blackboard (despite the promises of change in its latest incarnation); but is it true of Moodle?

Moodle, of course, differs from Blackboard primarily in being an open-source development. Certainly, in its origins, Moodle was meant to embody better a student-centred constructivist approach to learning (side note: Martin Dougiamas was one of the people I worked with in the mid-1990s when first getting into online learning!). By now, however, my sense is that all learning management systems at least aspire to, or have some element of, this approach; we’ve also learned, in 15+ years of web-based online learning, that a constructivist approach probably comes from the teacher’s design of the study program and not the technology itself. So, in thinking about the speed and agility of an LMS, we probably need to focus more on the mode of production for Moodle, and not any inherent features if we are to see it as distinct from, and perhaps better than, Blackboard.

Open-source products are not, I think, better for being ‘free’ (for they are not; one still must support and host them even if they might be somewhat cheaper). No, they are better because, with distributed, local-needs based development and flexible architecture of plug-ins, open-source applications are flexible and adaptable, to a greater degree. They also, potentially, allow universities who use them to shape the product itself instead of fitting in with the architecture of the standard sofware. Thus, I am struck by how my approach to online learning and Web 2.0 (arguing for the complementary use of an LMS and independent sites and services for specific purposes) is challenged by the possibility that Moodle, plus the extent and array of plug-ins could provide the flexibility I seek.

However I remain confident that, while the plug-ins make Moodle a richer and more extensive application, the LMS remains a distinct, useful but complementary form of Internet use for learning. The key differences between the approach I and others am taking, in layering Web 2.0 services and sites into our teaching, and LMS-oriented development is that real-world tools and applications have:

• publication possibilities: they are part of online communication, can have audiences and work within a paradigm of ‘quality for others’ to enhance motivation
• real-world context: Web 2.0 services operate in the same environment as everyday and some professional knowledge work, thus increasing the likelihood of transferral of skills from learning to practice
• ease of use: the complex a system gets, the harder it is to maintain and plug-ins don’t necessarily all have the same standards and flexibility that real-world systems do
• suitability for blended learning: not all online learning requires an LMS – Web 2.0 approach designed for these situations.

Here is the first of ten application posts I will make in coming weeks – based on my Web 2.0 presentation. I am going to take each of the 10 apps I am presenting and turn them into a single post, with a cut from my slideshow. Of course, you will only really learn to use these apps by playing with them

xtimeline

This application is xtimeline, which is a public timeline generating system. First of all, it’s creative and clever and has many features which make it work as an example of granular, distributed and collaborative knowledge work. See the slideshow below for more information. I can see this being used as a ‘plugin’ to a normal university unit of study – it’s an equivalent of an LMS (thank god!), it’s a short, snappy app which can be used to make student do some private or public collaborative knowledge work.

Two things I love:

• timelines are a really good example of a knowledge form which contains a ‘whole’ made up of many discrete ‘parts’ which are structurally linked to make that whole is a really good genre for collaborative co-creation of knowledge objects. Imagine 100 people writing a report -arghhh! but 100 people can work in parallel and series to make a timeline very easily. Collaboration depends on the type of knowledge work, not just the inbuilt toold
• xtimeline has many features: but I LOVE the upload / download a .csv file – now that is smart.

Beginning today (April 12) at the University of Adelaide, I will be presenting a ‘show and tell’ on Using Web 2.0 in your teaching: ideas, applications and affordances for enhanced educational outcomes.

I am going to look in detail at the following applications:

• xtimeline – great collaborative timeline tool
• listphile – lists and database tool
• slinkset – ‘open’ social news builder
• posterous – blogging flexibly
• mind42 – mindmapping collaboratively
• quizlet – flashcards are more than you think
• reviewbasics – co-annotation of documents
• springnote – wiki for personal and group use
• knol.google – publish your knowledge
• wiggio – great groupware

These and more are summarised in the handout for this presentation.

Formal abstract
The presentation focuses heavily on the way that a wide array of Web 2.0 / social media applications can be used in higher education, whether in distance or on-campus learning. The presentation will demonstrate the ‘top 10’ innovative applications which exemplify the different ways in which Web 2.0 can make a difference for university learning. Designed to provide practical, usable ideas, the presentation emphasises how the technologies which might be chosen must be understood in terms of their relationship to the content, assessment, outcomes of learning, and the particular context provided by students and the subjects they are studying. The presentation will involve detailed visual display of various applications. It moves beyond general discussion of blogs, wikis and social networking into consideration of unusual and valuable online services and sites which are not well known to educators.

Thanks to Elaine Tay, Tama Leaver and all the people at the 14+ universities who have helped organise this; thanks to the generous support of the ALTC

Digital Education stream, session 3 at Realising our broadband future summit
(Ideas and thoughts, not full blogging)

Recapping: We have already had two sessions on digital education which have focused on the blue-sky possibilities for education because of the coming NBN, and then the reality check – what might get in the way. My general conclusion about these sessions was that there were no big ideas, really, because a lot of what the NBN brings is not NEW, but just scalable and increased reach, enabling everyone to get it. The reality check also indicated that the problem might be the overemphasis on technology, whereas policy and structure and systems are the issue. So what will be the next steps?

Access and equality are very important issues for education in the imagined future of high-speed connectivity. Education is deeply about social advantage, building opportunity for all. One of the important opportunity factors: teachers are not given the opportunities in the classroom to utilise technologies well. Technologies used outside the classroom (flickr, messenger, etc) work, they work for her, and they are centred on her. Technologies like this used in the classroom are not available, not easily available, or have different kinds of access requirements. (This supports some of my ideas in the LINK project – bring education into the world of the Internet, not bring Internet into classroom).

The next steps appear to emphasise the professional development of, and support for, teachers to become sophisticated users (in part by bringing to the classroom their own tech skills); but, without the reliable excellent access of broadband, this cannot be done scalable and efficiently – training would not work for all, and many would be frustrated.

Some lessons to be learned from ICT and learning in higher education (thanks Tom Cochrane from QUT!):

• Unis made mistakes – they thought ICTs would deinstitutionalise them and change them; and they thought they could monetise content – both wrong
• what worked was the use of technologies to solve existing curricular problems in ways not able to be done without technology – eg simulations
• what also worked was the development of e-research (but bringing with it new problems of lack of literacy for high-quality researchers).

. What are the next steps, based on Cochrane’s reading of the development of ICTs and universities?

1. reformation of curriculum to match changes in other sectors
2. improvement of capability development among academics
3. definition and refinement of new pedagogical applications and tools
4. importance of connectedness with international communities of students
5. tackle the legal and regulatory blockages to education

Wilson, NSW CIO of Education – demonstrates that many important steps are already being taken in terms of systems and technology. He would identify the challenge of “shared vision” parents, admin, teachers etc. He identifies political and moral conflicts of “acceptable use” as a major hurdle. He points to the challenges of media scar reporting and the impact that it has on politicians.

I would, therefore, conclude that one of the infrastructures to be built, along with the pipes, wires, and so on, is the cultural infrastructure of acceptance and curiousity and enthusiasm about the exploration and use of the online environment. Such cultural infrastructure would involve empowerment of students, and the adoption of a more robust libertarian approach which is, indeed, the culture of the net.

The next steps, listening to the speakers, sound quite a lot like jumps over complex hurdles and through difficult obstacle courses.

Realising our Broadband Future
Disclaimer: live-blogging

Smarr, Conroy, Thomas, Tucker and McDonald

Larry Smarr, CITIT
NBN best example of inventing in the future of the country; uses the standard rhetoric: “level playing field”, “global environment”, “citizens competing”; like one of the speakers yesterday (Cole) compares Australia and USA with Australia better. “Have early working prototypes” of the applications; it will take “a lot of working through” to get to the next level. “We are at the end of a long era, the era of copper”. This future-proofs the network. Points to the role AARNET might play, because AARNET is working at 100 x the speed of the NBN.

Stephen Conroy, Min DBCDE
Conroy starts with the selling job. Characterises the critics as those who think we already have broadband, or that the market should just sort it out. Compares them to people who criticised the introduction and expansion electricity networks by government in the 19th and 20th century. Public role of government is to build a platform, onto which the market then builds applications. Refers back to the conference: what day 1 shows is that the future of high-speed broadband is not just downloading movies faster. It’s about education, health and so on. Picks up on the economic benefits; the community benefits etc.

Key message: investing in broadband is about investing in health, education, regional centres, energy efficiency and so on. It will be “Australia’s first national open-access wholesale only..network”. “we remain confident it will work on a commercial basis”. Critics are wrong for just not seeing the vast array of flow-on social and economic benefits. The return on the wholesale network will be more like a utility return, NOT like that of a vertically integrated market. Case is “compelling” and “encompassing” -[new word! encompassing!]. It is very strongly linked to globalisation and international competition, according to Conroy. (Which then is referenced to the 16th location, and 3rd most expensive data from OECD).

“Despite the myth, high-speed broadband is not accessible to all Australians”. Cites telstra exec – 50%+ cannot get 12 Mbs in Australia. Also emphasises the fact that the Internet generates major advantages for regional areas – and yet that is precisely the area of Australia least well-served by current infrastructure (backs up this argument by discussing how Tasmania is poorly served).

Abigail Thomas, ABC
“What difference will the NBN make in our everyday lives?” she asks. “What will ordinary people be doing? How will they get their information? How will they entertain themselves?”. New media bring something new, but build on past media. Uses the analogy of filmmaking – started out as ‘film a performance on a stage’ (new+old); then became something different (new+new). Explores these ‘new things’ via some examples and innovations in new media, showing how media will be very important for the NBN but not media as we know it. Essentially, the presentation makes clear that media will drive NBN takeup but not just movie and TV watching / downloading – more interactive experiences such as multi-story line TV (‘cubic’ TV), multimedia-style presentations of historical documentary (for school research) AND, more importantly, has democratising upload possibilities far in advance of what we see just emerging now. The emphasis here is on user control – eg non-linear, or self-created, or game-style choice oriented, or collaborative online.

Tucker and McDonald
Marketing of homeloans discussion.

Interesting history of Aussie Homeloans interaction with new media for marketing – showing from 1995 through to now. 2002 – company had bad brochureware website (and didn’t even own domain name!) “but it didn’t matter”. 2007 – “awakening” at Aussie to realise how significant the networked digital environment might be. They realised 28% of business coming from online; but only 18% actually completed the website process. So had to have a digital strategy.

Commentary

There’s now a link between the NBN and new (different) ways of working. earlier rhetoric around broadband was similar, but I think there has been a shift now to emphasising that we can’t know what happens next, but that we must change. Climate change is probably the main difference now between this rhetoric and early 2000s

Conroy’s speech is a very finely tuned pitch, not to the audience (one imagines they are already convinced), but to ‘the people’, via the media who will no doubt report it. It identified the criticisms which are most likely to be launched and then answers them. It also makes two significant interventions. First, it emphasises that the return on investment for NBN is utility / wholesale business, and NOT comparable to a retail / vertically inttegrated company (such as telstra). This move implies that there will be cost savings in the lower profits to be made, in the long run. The second intervention, which is apparent yesterday also, is to de-couple the NBN from specific applications and services. Just as the NBN will be a layer-2, non-service foundation, on which the market builds competing and specific applications, so too, the argument FOR the NBN relies now on the claim that the specific applications (health, business, education etc) will come from the market, because of the level-playing field of the wholesale network. This logic is astute, if a little vague, because it completely undercuts the ‘but exactly what is it for?’ counter-arguments. These arguments are still interesting, but they are ruled out of the specific debate about the NBN; the arguments are now emphasising the broader, infrastructural issues.

Thomas, from ABC, presents a sophisticated argument through simple narratives – stories of imaginary characters. Is this what is missing? There has been insufficient imagining of the future from the perspective of the everyday user – too much ‘gee whizzery’ and talk of economics and nation building. Does the argument for NBN need to fill the gap between the political spinspeak and the everyday desires of the audience? How can we create the ‘audience’ for the NBN – that is, the people who invest in it desires and dreams and seek pleasure through their sense of ‘being’ this audience regardless of what they actually?

Contrasting NBN arguments from technologists vs those of Thomas’ media oriented presentation: people are already very familiar with the idea of remote, electronic entertainment and will readily accept and explore new versions and indeed contribute to their creation. however, there is still a strong ‘sense of presence’ around things like health and education (especially children’s education) which makes it a lot harder to convince individuals of the benefits of telepresence in these spheres, even though people happily involve themselves in online transactions like banking. I would argue that media will be the uptake driver for broadband – but, as Thomas says – just not media as we know it

Big reality check: Aussie Home Loans example shows that business (a large business, with a lot of online business – 28%) didn’t realise until 2007 (!!) that online marketing and selling was critical to its business and that old-style websites didn’t work and that the whole strategy needed to change. Even in a business that is entrepreneurial, digital marketing took a while to take off.

(Comments and ideas from session at Broadband Summit)

The MCEECDYA Program of reporting, National Assessment Program: Information and Communication Technology Literacy, provides evidence about the literacy of students. The 2008 report, not yet available publicly, shows that students in Years 6 and 10 of Australian schooling are not involved in a lot of “creating, analysing, and transforming” of information via online tools (what I would term cognitive uses of the web) and are primarily interested in using the net for chatting and searching for information. It will be interesting to compare this report (which is clearly in the social media period – 2008) with the previous report, from 2005.

Discussion of research infrastructure: main question – what is the interface with NBN given that the emerging Australian research network is already a lot faster and so on than the NBN? I am wondering if this is relevant to NBN – in the same way thet BHP Billiton builds its specialised network, so too would the Australian research community. It perhaps suggests that we need to be thinking about ‘networks’ not just the NBN.

An excellent presentation of problems in school:
Six key points

• Old models + new tech not solution

• No leveraging of open systems
• Risk management needed (not risk aversion)
• Personalised learning
• Costs are increasing
• importance of gatekeeping

See how the problem set is formed at the intersection of multiple domains of control and expertise – technologists, managers, teachers all work at different angles to the central problem and sometimes don’t have sufficient interaction. (Raju Varanasi – good presentation, from NSW Centre for Learning Innovation). And, the solution to this interaction matter is policy. Infrastructure is not the issue – it is policy.

A summary of the ‘reality check’ on digital education. The reality check is: don’t focus on the technology, think policy, professional development, cultures of use, legal matters AND students themselves. Technology gets in the way, if it is made the centrepiece; it should be invisible.

“the problem with students is that their life and learning will be going down a different [digital network] track” – they will choose this path because it is part of themselves and identity, so if schools don’t change students will not be engaged. (Watson, The Learning Federation)

Education is a very contested zone of debate since it involves the attempt to manage the future very directly by creating the people OF the future (our school students). Visions, hopes and fears get played out through the way people characterise the school system. Moreover, education is one of the remaining obvious places where the experts tend to be derided (teachers vs parents, bureaucrats). It is also a place where control strategies get explored and demanded, principally on the basis of the failure of children to be adult enough.

(This session doesn’t report on speakers directly but provides comments, summaries and ideas)

Realising Our Broadband Future
digital education stream

Very large bandwidth to big school, computers for everyone, digital resources are the focus (Moo, CIO, NT)

Watching a terrible Microsoft glossy promo video: does this company not realise how bad these things look? Sure, it’s a ‘vision’ not reality, but what it assumes is a class infrastructure – 100% middleclass. Plus the sort of ‘perfection’ they imagine for devices and software is, to be honest, just a wee bit farfetdched given M’Soft’s record on such things. Oh wait, maybe this is a glimpse into the 23rd century.

Part of the problem here is that technologists assume (as always) that the technology solves the problems. That the technology is what’s missing to make education better. Equally, there is a kind of rationalist determinism here, too, hidden in the technological determinism: computer science sees the problems as ones of knowledge and information and data, that there is always a rational answer to a human need which will appear, in the modern mode, if only it can be addressed.

Equally, some of the Microsoft hyperbole fails to account for the way teachers have already implemented the underlying pedagogic and other ideas which are apparently ‘allowed’ by technology, without that technology. Clearly, some technologies improve and extend and make easier some pedagogic approaches, but the experimentation comes from the teachers and students in action, from which a technology need emerges.

There continue to be significantly outdated ideas about education from many people, especially senior bureaucrats and technologists. These people imagine education is like it used to be. However education has moved on and some of the problems which the technology is meant to solve have already been solved or are simply not there any more. At the same time, some problems remain – systemic problems caused by time, space, age of children, the nature OF the system. These problems might be better seen as problems of the school system itself – they cause technology to ‘fail’ because technology is not designed for such uses. (NSW CIO of Ed talks about hotswappable computers if it breaks, just have another).

Schooling has to include, for many good social reasons, the collocation of people into places at specific times. This should not be forgotten. But the Internet, when fast enough and wide enough, enables those locations to connect to other locations in a manner that allows distributed activities to solve scale and reach problems (Hagen, CIO, Qld Education). “Build the damn thing and get out of the way”.

Certain issues, like health and education, are framed by political debate to demand attention to equity and equality of access and opportunity, especially where they relate to the spatial location of users etc. From some perspectives, innovation almost demands inequality – it has to be leading edge and thus mostly unaccessible, not usable or apparently not relevant to the majority. From the teachers’ perspective – the innovation comes from below and thus the system’s insistence on equity impedes.

I also reflect on the way education is seen as being in a problematic state – falling behind some presumed state of required competence in, learning through and exploitation of digital connectivity. Asking if broadband infrastructure can solve this, or similar, doesn’t really ask the right question. The problems is as much caused by the ‘transitional state’ we all live in – caught between pre-digital and digital worlds; our awareness of this transitional state is as much the cause of ‘the problem’ as problems themselves. This does not mean we need do nothing: but first we need to recognise what the real problems are.

Realising our broadband future
Disclaimer: Liveblogging

Second session of the 2009 Australian Govermment summit on broadband, http://broadbandfuture.gov.au, featuring Craig Mundie (Microsoft), Vint Cerf and David King (Google), Samantha Hannah-Rankin (Auspost), Nick Gruen (Gov 2.0).

Mundie, Microsoft

Broadband access is not simply about infrastructure but also inspiring social and economic innovations. Discusses the way devices are going to change and become embedded in our everyday life, through user interfaces involving gestures, facial signals and so on – “entirely new relationship between computers and people… pervasive and intuitive system that works on your behalf”. [A relatively underwhelming piece of gee-whizzery]

Vint Cerf, Google and Father of Internet

Investment in NBN needs to be carefully managed – not just edge connectivity, but more impact at core and the backhaul. Cerf emphasises the importance of end-to-end principle and the requirement to avoid constraints within the system once a person gets access. Cerf calls it “permissionless innovation”. Also bear in mind that we need to help people to see why they should use the new ideas which might flow, potentially, from the new infrastructure. Cerf comments on the lack of competition within the USA – Australia’s approach is “quite stunning” in separating the network from the services. “new kinds of competitive applications” can emerge without constraints. Cerf notes that high-speed widespread networks enable Australia to connect economically much more easily with the rest of the world, not just within Australia. Ponders that there might be multiple and different fibres passing or near premises. Cerf sees this as a benefit, not a problem.

David King, Google (You Tube)
Why talk about YouTube in this kind of forum? Great case study of what more bandwidth can do. YT is good for culture and politics, media and moneymaking. Note the importance of link to other technologies – cameras are cheaper now, easier.

YT is growing steadily. Example of business link: marketing of music via videos. But, more than that, YT creates new business – people want to put music into their OWN videos and the originator of the music shares in the revenue when this happens, as well as adverts to sell. Example: home film maker puts short demo up on YT, ends up getting major studio contract to turn demo into real film.

Reach: – global audience like no other platform (eg Sarah Boyle 300 million views = #1 on album charts)
Rights: – scalable, automated, choice-laden system for video management (inlcluding archive of video!)
Research: – people can understand who and when and where people watch videos. (e.g. Mr Bean popular in Saudi Arabia, discovered this via YT)
Revenue: – 38% of media consumed online, 9% of ad revenue

Hannah-Rankin, Australia Post
AusPost view – NBN establishes capacity for digital services the same as traditional postal analog services (security, confidence, etc of communication). Need to establish familiarity among consumers and services so they know why and how to use NBN. Auspost is about equality of access.. everyone can use it; trying to bring a similar apporoach into the future via the NBN.

H-R claims we move from massification from customisation, classic link of postmodernity and IT as the sequel to modernity.

[H-R utilises standard language re interoperability, unlocking potential value, confidence, synergy and so on: this is part of the problem. The language of 'IT implementation' is not the language of politics, culture or real business, even though we depend ON that language]

“Compelling consumer-centric solutions”

Gruen

Simple definition of Web 1.0 – email and website (point to point) – vs Web 2.0 – multi-channel and networks. Emphasises that Web 2.0 is NOT fancy technology. What broadband brings is “higher speeds and ubiquity”. What is Web 2.0? “I’s about culture change” (Draws on O’Reilly).

See The Government 2.0 Taskforce reports at : http://gov2.net.au/

• Collaborate
• Improvise
• Share
• Play
• users build value
• be modular
• Build for value, monetise later

- this stuff makes government VERY nervous.

Before 2000, Gruen says as an economist, that he thought governments built public goods. But, in Web 2.0, the private sector builds public goods [well, you might say THAT about the internet!]. So government needs to catch up to this approach.

“Organisation without organisations”

“low-cost social formations”

“low-cost experimentation and startup”

“turbocharge the market for reputation”

Key point – identity needs to be STABLE. We don’t need to know WHO you are, we need to know you are the same person you were before and will be in future. And, once we start to get identity stable, online, then reputation can be built, attached to identity

A final key point from Gruen re Government 2.0 work: it’s about data, of which we have masses, visualised in new ways, leading to understanding, acceptance and so on. I would add that the visualisation and management of data involves the need for lots of bandwidth – which further provides an reason for NBN not previously or commonly discussed.

Brad Wearn, CIO BHP
Presents case study on BHP Billiton’s use of broadband comms within their massive Pilbara operation. Straightforward discussion of infrastructure re railroad control system. Like a mini version of NBN since it includes fixed and mobile.

Commentary

An array of presentations, all of which appear to be part-advertisement for the the business behind them, part advertisement for the possibilities of broadband, and show a diversity of ways of addressing the possible audience. Microsoft: a smoke and mirros performance that owes more to science fiction than the realities of social change; YouTube: a presentation that embodies why YT is successful – clear and precise and in the language of the audience; Australia Post: presentation laden with biz-speak from the IT sector which, fundamentally, is a plea for relevance from a threatened organisation…or is that too harsh?

Gruen is such a literate and capable analyst of and proponent of Web 2.0 and its relationship with governance. His linking of the economics of public goods to the development of Web 2.0 style architectures and systems (the private is the public, reversing the way that the public tried to become private) is critical to grasping the entry of the internet into mainstream. Many internet commentators have been saying for years that the internet is explicable as privately created and owned public goods; now this idea enters the mainstream. He also is fearless to utilise the government’s own failings (eg in copyright of goivernment documentation) to demonstrate the change needed.

It is often difficult to extract from the presentations the precise reason why they speak to the need for NBN, except insofar as the NBN achieves some other aspects of Internet accessibility rather than the obvious one of speed. In fact, they are starting to suggest to me that the emphasis on speed is irrelevant – it’s about access, first of all; it’s about reliability and soiphistication in the infrastructure; it’s about competition to drive services, not supply of access; it’s about the transition to the ‘ubiquitous utility’ model. Sure, speed matters in relation to some aspects, but there are deeper cultural matters here.

Should we also be considering the diversity of uses as including fundamentally different things? There is a strong move at the moment to try and aggregate many kinds of use (games, business services, ehealth etc) into a single whole – similar to the claim of the entirety of “social computing” in recent EU report – to claim the need for NBN. But, realistically, we know the Internet is now like a road system with 100s of lanes, moving in concert but sometimes not interconnected – it’s not a single superhighway but a dense twisted set of layers and tunnels and so on. From a technical perspective, no problem with aggregated; from a selling / managing perspective – we need multiple messages to different kinds of users. (Comment sparked by Wearn’s comment re latency).