Dear Friends and colleagues:
Hello, I'm Jim Johnson, the US coordinator for the Nikkei Net
Conference. Among other things, I serve as deputy director
for the Global Information Infrastructure Commission, which
is a co-sponsor of this project.
May I join Waichi Sekiguchi and Nikkei in welcoming you to
the first Nikkei sponsored global Net Conference. This is an
experiment in global conversation, and we very much
appreciate your willingness to express you thoughts about
the three topical areas that have been identified: Asia and
the information age; electronic commerce; and the Network
society.
I nominated many of your to particpate because I know you
have some very interesting thoughts which have arisen out of
very important experiences. Your ideas will become the
basis for further discussion at the Nikkei Global Information
Summit on March 10 in Tokyo. And we hope that this
conversation will continue.
As you may know there is a simultaneous conversation
among our Japanese speaking colleagues, and one among
English speakers. If you are bi-lingual we invite you to join in
both.
As a starting point, one of our colleagues, Ernest Wilson of
the University of Maryland has suggested that, 'Experience
in private firms, NGOs and government shows conclusively
that the critical elements to successful use of IT is not the IT,
but the LEADERSHIP, VISION AND THE INSTITUTIONAL
CHANGES necessary to apply the most appropriate
technologies to societal needs.'
What do you think? Are we really facing a global revolution?
Is information technology going to have such a dramatic
impact on our world? Or can this be managed as a
transitional change which becomes absorbed into various
aspects of our lives, like the telephone or television did?
How do we balance the call for LEADERSHIP with the idea
that the NET is a grass roots movement with lots of nodes,
but no apex?
Let's hear from you.
Following is a summary of points discussed in the parallel Japanese Online
Conference.
January 19th to February 4th
Last year's economic slowdown in Asia is likely to seriously delay the
provision of communications infrastructure in many Asian countries.
While the governments of these Asian countries fully understand the
importance of communications infrastructure,
1) there are not enough funds (which situation is exacerbated by the
economic crisis),
2) the load sharing between government and private industry is unclear,
3) even though there are still insufficient telephones and lines, high
speed communication networks such as the Internet need to be developed.
The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications proposed the establishment of
a telecommunications standardisation body for Asia and the Pacific, from
the point of view of creating human networks from the development stage,
and went as far as holding the first meeting in Thailand, in February.
Last year's centralisation of the Internet around big business is a
worrisome trend. Microsoft's attempts to monopolise the whole show are
frightening, and several contributors pointed out that NTT are also feeling
the same. With regard to Japan's strategy, '100% indigenous' doesn't work
anymore. In the more 'open' process, there is a real danger that adhering
too much to purity will have a negative effect.
