DisrupTV!!!!

Had such a blast doing my 2nd DisrupTV* episode with my wonderful friend, Vala Afshar, and Alan Lepofsky (sitting in for Ray Wang).  Talked about mentoring, innovation, thinking & doing!

See the full episode with Jim Cathcart & Bruce Kasanoff here.

Please follow DisrupTV - it's the best grad school for all things relevant to our world today!!! Subscribe to the podcast so you can listen when you can't watch!

*1st DisrupTV here.

Net Neutrality & Failing Business Models

The current fight over Net Neutrality is critical to the openness of the Internet, long supported by some of us that helped make the Internet an every-day utility.  It is also the dying gasps of a very old business model - one between networks and end points/content providers. 

Quick History Lesson: 

• Circa 1990s - a fight was breaking out between the networks (e.g, AT&T) and end-points (e.g, Microsoft) over control of information and intelligence.  AT&T wanted intelligence embedded in the network, in distribution.  Microsoft wanted intelligence embedded in their devices at the end of the "dumb pipes" (the network).  A few of us felt that if both sides kept an Either/Or mentality, the networks would lose, commoditizing themselves through price wars racing to the bottom.  If we took an And/Both approach, the user would have more choices and more capabilities over time.  We know how it turned out - dumb pipes and smart ends. That was 25+ years ago! (Think T-Mobile + Netflix as a way to gain T-Mobile users);
• December 1997 ~ I had an 8 month old son and a paper for the Harvard Kennedy School's Information Infrastructure Project entitled "Internet Settlements Pricing Model and Implications."  Fun reading!  I was part of a team at AT&T, working with other Internet Service Providers (ISPs), to self-govern the Internet - including requiring all of us to move data between ourselves at the speed specified by the packet header (e.g., latency requirements).  If you were making a phone call (yes, we had VOIP in 1997) that crossed networks, it had to be delivered without delay.  This meant that if an AT&T user wanted to connect to cool content on, say, MCI's network, AT&T had to send it through at the required speed; AT&T couldn't throttle down the packets because it was going to MCI.

Fast forward 20 years and deja vu! The challenge in 2017 is the same as in 1997 -  how does a network provide value if it's a 'dumb pipe' - if what adds value is what's at the end? if it's the destination not the journey? If the only way you add value to users and your bottom line (hence shareholders) is to throttle speed based on who owns the content, you have no value proposition and no business model.  In 20+ years, the networks haven't figured out a way to add value (for themselves) without putting gates around their content and only allowing in members.  If they haven't yet, kinda makes you wonder when, or if, they ever will.

Want to Stay Relevant? Mentor!

The transformative stories from the BIF 2017 Summit are up!!  They are all incredible so if asked to choose a few favorites I'd be challenged.  Yup, mine is up too - how by mentoring I'm able to continually learn new things I can use with my clients and stay on my toes by having to think fast, challenge status quo and stay agile.  Here it is!

But there are so so many more you need to see! Like Angela Blanchard's about Hurricane Harvey & the 65 Million (yes! MILLION!) displaced people in our world, Mark Brand on counterintuitive and effective ways to alleviate hunger and poverty, Whitney Johnson's S-Curves in each of us, Alex Osterwalder's honest story of life, family & entrepreneurship, Carl Störmer's journey bringing his mother's art to all of us, and Alan Webber's timely exhortation to us to our citizenship seriously.  And many many more.  Please take the time to watch the videos - they will change how you think, act, and interact... they will transform!