Introductory Comments by Jay Thorwaldson
On behalf of the members of the Palo Alto Community Network, a home-grown organization better known as PA-ComNet, welcome to a community discussion that will attempt to envision a bit of the future for Palo Alto and surrounding communities as that future relates to uses of electronic communications to enhance our interactions with each other a many levels.
You've heard about the "Electronic Superhighway," the Internet and World Wide Web. What we are interested in is the local equivalent -- the "electronic city streets," which of course connect with the electronic Bayhore Freeways of our time, and the potential for neighborhood networks, or "electronic driveways."
We are at a rare decision point that could determine whether most Palo Altan residents and businesses have optimal access to the next generation of the Internet or are limited or shut out -- by cost or other factors -- from the type of high-speed, powerful communications technology that is literally at our doorsteps.
A second important question is how that technology can, or should, be put to use in a way that is best molded to the needs and uses of individuals and organizations -- as opposed to a type of high-tech Procustean bed in which we are molded to the demands and limitations of the technology.
My name is Jay Thorwaldson, and I am a former journalist -- presently the Director of Public Affairs at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, where we daily wrestle with issues of how best to implement and utilize the new technologies that confront us.
Tonight we have a two-part program. First we will hear from two outstanding futurists who have both thought about and put into action their visions of how best to use technology to meet human-scale, community-level needs. Then we will invite the candidates for the Palo Alto City Council to share with us some of their ideas, concerns, or visions, if you will, on the same topic. Along the way I will ask a few members of the community to share their perceptions or visions with us, and at the end will open the evening up to questions and additional sharing of visions on the overall topic of "Electronic City Streets/Electronic Driveways: Building Community via the Internet."
That is a sweeping topic, one that will touch the lives of all of us.
I will also invite the audience, both here and those watching on television -- thanks to Cable Co-op and the Midpeninsula Public Access Corporation -- to write down their own ideas or visions and send them in for posting on the PA-ComNet website: www.pa-comnet.org. Email is welcome.
Candidates who would like to submit longer vision statements in writing are also welcome to do so.
To frame the evening, I would like to note that we're here (1) to take a glimpse into what *IS* coming in the future insofar as our vision reaches, and (2) to lay out some of the social, political and technological stepping stones that lead from here to there. The overriding message is that it IS possible to get from here to there -- we hope. But if you don't believe it's possible, you won't try.
A strong secondary message is that if we don't, as citizens and communities, take a direct hand in helping shape what is happening, we most likely WILL NOT LIKE what we wind up with -- an Internet filled with spammers (that's electronic "junk mail") with no room for real people, ideas, privacy, freedom or community -- or building new human networks at the neighborhood and organization level.
We've all heard a lot about the "global village." I haven't found it yet. What seems to be happening is NOT that we are moving toward a global village but toward many thousands of little "villages on the globe" -- using the Internet to facilitate *local* communications within communities and neighborhoods and families. We as a people seem to want to use the technology to help us enhance our real-world person-to-person connections and not allow the technology to use us.
The question before us now is how we, as a community, can assure that our "electronic city streets" are available to everyone and that they are not *all* toll roads. We need to explore together how to get to the "electronic driveways" of neighbor-to-neighbor communications and "neighborhoods of interest" even if they are not geographically contiguous.
I would like to make the point that it was a collaborative effort by city officials and community people that resulted in the apparently wise decision to invest in the fiber ring that will enhance competitive services. The fiber ring almost certainly would not have happened if it were the city alone looking at this, or citizens alone looking at it.
We now need, as a community, to bridge the gap between the fiber ring and the homes and businesses (what has been called "the last mile" but what Steve Cisler wisely calls "the first mile")-- and perhaps the collaborative model could again function effectively.
How we approach this, how we frame this, will determine who and how many of our homes and businesses get included or left out of this electronic revolution. We all may need to broaden our thinking, to think "outside the box," and this may mean not thinking about either/or alternative systems but about multiple, parallel access channels -- each fitting the need of different segments at different times -- as the surest way to assure universal access and the free flow of ideas in an open society and democratic system at the local level.
Finally, I would directly invite the candidates and others here or watching to think back just a few years, say four years, and recall how few people knew about or used the Internet, when the World Wide Web didn't really exist functionally. Now, considering the pace of change one can read about in any day's paper or see on the computer shows on TV, think AHEAD to two to four years from now -- when some of the candidates here tonight will still be serving the term to which they will soon be elected.
No one can predict how pervasive, or free, or fairly distributed electronic communications will be -- or how the political system will operate under World Emperor Gates. Those elected to the City Council in November will have a special opportunity, and responsibility, for helping define the future in this area, working in a policy corridor where the virtual rubber meets electronic superhighway *and* the electronic city streets and driveways.
I would like particularly to thank the co-sponsoring organizations listed on your agenda for their public- and future-spirited support of this event.