Global Information Summit 2001

February 19 - February 26, 2001

Net Conference Top Page

From: Bruce W. McConnell 2/20/01 3:48

[53] Roles of private sector and governments

[45]Moderator - Masanobu Katoh
1) What we can do as leaders in the private sector?

- Offer Vision. We can paint scenarios where UbNs benefit people in their daily lives.
- Model Values. We can promote ethical computing and business practices by modeling them in our own organizations.
- Build Coalitions. We can organize partnerships with governments and NGOs to tackle the tough issues we have been discussing.

2) What should we recommend that governments do to help address the challenges to the UbNs?

- Convene and Listen. Government alone can bring together all stakeholders on neutral ground, but must do so in a listening frame of mind, without preconceptions about where action by government is needed beyond what the market provides.
- Iterate Proposals. Where it believes action is necessary, government should consult transparently, both formally and informally, with the rest of us to assure that its policy prescriptions serve the greatest good.
- Reinvent Itself. Government must become a model user of UbNs to perform its missions. More significantly, terrestrial governments protect themselves and their citizens from within their land boundaries. In cyberspace, they must learn to cooperate with each other, and must recognize the Internet and transnational private sector organizations as partners, not threats.

From: Don Heath 2/20/01 7:54

[54] Roles of private sector and governments

[48] Ken Lyon
It was only later that commercial services began to dominate but, as a result, actually impeded the penetration of the World Wide Web because people were reluctant to switch due to difficult compatibility issues.

Yes, good point. This "future" universal and ubiquitous network must be fully transparent. That is, it must be an independent medium for communications - only - whatever that purpose may be. Minitel was neither universal nor independent of application - at least not totally. The U&U network of the future must be nothing more than a multi dimensional instrument upon which multi applications may ride.

In conclusion, universal access to high bandwidth communications must be encouraged, but as with evolution, it may be rather difficult to describe its shape and nature during the process.

Perhaps, but it must be an infrastructure that allows multifaceted applications and functions. It is transparent but ubiquitous.

Governments should therefore resist the temptation to regulate infrastructure and services too closely, but seek to encourage beneficial uses and developments in this new medium as they occur... And I know that this will be difficult to do!

From: Moderator - Masanobu Katoh 2/22/01 19:12

[55] Last week, I suggested to focus on...

Thank you very much for your continued interest on the net conference. Last week, I suggested to focus on

(1) What can we do as leaders in the private sector?

(2) What should we recommend that governments do to help address the challenges to the UbNs? [45]

I like to continue these discussions, but if you like, you can also expand your points for instance, (3) what is the ideal relationship between private sector and the governments?

Previously, Prof. Kano pointed out the importance of the privacy issue for Ubiquitous Networks because of the possibility of "pro-active" use of the sensors and network itself. [42] (4) Does Ubiquitous Network create additional roles for governments?

From: Lewis M. Branscomb 2/25/01 0:58

[56] Roles of private sector and governments

I want to reinforce the point made by Ken Lyon [48]. He has a lot more experience than I in supply chain integration, but I ran a project for the US defense department several years ago on this topic.

[James Keller, Evan Smith, and Lewis M. Branscomb] Manufacturing Partnerships in the Digital Environment: Best Practices in CALS Implementations, unpub. Report to DOD CALS office, 1995. See
http://ksgwww.harvard.edu/iip/CALShome.html

We found that the most serious barrier to electronic integration of development and manufacturing was not in software compatibility or function, but was in the institutional problems arising in two companies, both functionally organized, trying to create a virtual enterprise around a single product involving one customer and one supplier.

The lesson for Ubiq.Nets is that many of the applications that might be enabled by such a net, will be slow to arise because of institutional, organizational, even cultural factors. Another example is in medical networks, where progress is inhibeted by the lack of standard medical nomenclature. These are NOT arguments against the UbiqNet idea, only that when setting priorities for investsment, a higher priority for public and private investment may need to be assigned to institutional and content related structures.

From: Georges Fischer 2/26/01 2:22

[57] Roles of private sector and governments

Just a quick comment on Mr. Lyon [48] and Mr Rutkowski's [49] comments. My name is Georges Fischer and I'm in charge with e-developments inside the Paris Chamber of Commerce & Industry; I'm also the chairman of the "Worldchambers Consortium", interconnecting Chambers of commerce worldwide (www.worldchambers.com)

What can be learnt from the Minitel experience is indeed the fact that the most beautiful and exciting tool, when it is new, cannot be used until it is accepted by the users! And to be accepted by the users can be obtained through several ways : mandatory usage and/or education/conviction and/or freedom of adoption
- mandatory : not very nice... but how efficient! This is what was tried with the minitel (electronic directory), even if it was not totally mandatory; this is what can be tried with the Internet (or UNs) for instance through mandatory electronic "C to A" (consumer to administration) relations. But, don't forget one item : if the user does not find a real advantage (cost, user-friendliness, simplicity...), he will oppose it, whether mandatory or not!
- education/conviction : any business student knows that this is the specific marketing problem for products which come too soon to the market (offer driven market). So, it is the most promising approach for the long term, but it is time and resource consuming.
The reason why the Minitel was a success in France (whereas the Belgian minitel was much more efficient) was that France Telecom gave out 5 million free minitels, hence solving the "chicken or egg" marketing issue! Obviously this cannot be done with Internet terminals (or can it?)
- freedom of adoption : again, the Minitel shows that the way users adopted it (sex, games...) was totally different fron the way France Telecom expected things to be (they were expecting mainly professional use). Same thing happened with the Internet : mankind being what it is, no wonder if 50% of the web use is focused on sex! The difference, at least in Europe, is that for the Minitel, private usage lead to a profesional one, whereas for the Internet, it is exactly the contrary.

So, I totally agree with the previous messages : if you choose this third approach, the risk is that you don't know what will eventually emerge. Now, let's look at the bright side : anything would be quite OK as long as it increases familiarity with the tool and its adoption in the every day life.
But, again, let me insist on the fact that no development can be expected if we stick just with the technical achievement. Users have to find it useful, more practical and/or less expansive than the usual way! Here let me disagree a little bit with Mr. Lyon : French users had difficulties to switch from Minitel to Internet also (and maybe mainly) because they didnot see any real cost/service advantage.
So, let's go for UNs, but let's keep only one question in mind, because it is our future customers' question : what's the use of it?

Net Conference Top Page	Previous	Next

For further information contact: The Global Information Summit Secretariat gis@nikkei.co.jp