your carbon footprint is insignificant- your vote matters

Posted as a comment to Doc Searls 'can life keep up with death'

It doesn't matter if there is an infinite amount of fossil fuel. Burning ancient sunshine for the last 160 years has released sufficient 'sequestered' CO2 to add 15% more than has been in circulation in the air and oceans during the 10,000 years that encompass the 'civilized' era, meaning since agriculture really started.

The move to current sunshine ( including wind and other natural sources) of energy will occur whenever economics make it cheaper than the current version of coal and oil. The 'will' question is will we engage this process to our advantage by shifting the game of subsidies ( including military support of importing oil- a $300 billion a year game without the current wars)?

The opportunity is to make fossil fuel like salt- a cheap commodity we used to go to war over. Will the Henry Ford of clean personal transportation be American? Or more importantly, will he/she headquarter the company in the US? Cheap clean energy solves most of our foreign policy problems in the near term while increasing national security. It will also guarantee economic vitality and leadership for the next century, while being the right thing to do environmentally and set up the world to adapt to the climate changes already committed to.

This November, we will elect a Congress that will answer these questions. The results will be whether we adapt fast and avoid the kind of die back previous civilizations experienced, and the vast suffering related. Will we let those who are rich under the current model, but clearly don't feel rich enough continue to keep their interests above the common good?

Each of the current candidates could be the leader to call for a national program for clean domestically created energy. McCain has been on the Global Warming wagon with Hillary for years. Getting all of them to commit to a thirty year federally funded program to produce the result ( not the technology- let the private sector fight for the federal prize money by producing the result however they might) will promise that the next Congress passes spending bills that will guarantee demand for reinvention of energy building and transportation sectors.

So go make it an issue this election. Make your local, state and national candidates commit to smart aggressive use of the government's power as a consumer, as well as setting the rules for investment and energy.

New age revolution

It is the green age, an age where collaboration is critical to all activity, where building and keeping a team together is more important than any single piece of information or secret, sauce or otherwise.
The society is being reinvented, and brute force application of smarts by groups of integrated whole people will accomplish it.
The end of this transition will be when we not only live well, but do so in a way that makes it possible for everyone else to as well.

legacy reclaimed

Just came back to my old spot. Want to point to some new sports. Will sniff around a bit first....

Civic Snow Ball

Doc says that we should not be rolling rocks uphill, but rather snow balls downhill. So just last week in the midst of a serendipitous morning , a subject came up that poses a tremendous opportunityt.
Namely, modernizing civic financial software. During the meeting with Mayor Blum, Councilman Roger Horton, and my fellow Alliance for Creative Commerce Board member, Kevin Barron, the problems of legacy software, government bureaucracy, and applying network techniques to government all came together in a flash of insight that screamed "open source collaborative project" and huge commercial opportunity.
The basic democratic unit in society is the city. The basic market unit in society is the city. Cities need to get more efficient in their operations to make both the democracy and the market that they are work better. They spend huge amounts keeping legacy systems afloat, providing less than great service. Big companies - the ususal suspects- provide multi million dollar packages to convert and 'update' these systems, at precisely the time when such revenues aren't available.
What is called for is something way better. Something that will make the democracy, the market and the communities transparent, belong to everybody, and encourage participation.
Ok open source world, tell me how to do this. What is the model to remake city financial management?

Whose pimping who?

Doc Searles who has written on "Intention" as oppossed to "Attention" as a function of the economy, was recorded on the same here, for all you too busy to sit and read.

What the current media world lives on is advertising- either selling your eyeballs or trying to reach your eyebalss and get your attention.
Meanwhile in your head, you already have an inkling about what you want, or as Doc says an 'intention".

The key element underlying all the opportunity for media right now, this second, is that people like to buy, but don't like to be sold (thanks J Gitomer).

The net gives us tremendous leverage to say what we want, and to ask people what they want far more efficiently than advertising ever will.

To use this leverage means that first you want to have relationships with customers. Second you are able to service those customers successfully. Then you can be in the business of retaining those you have, and looking for more. The net makes both of these far more efficient.

Certain aspects of the advertising model still apply. You have to be able to fulfill the promise that any communication creates, whether you used saturation bombing, or laser guided bullets.
You have to have targets, and know who you are serving.

You have to be able to hear people when they say "I want".

DRM and Public Safety

Thanks to my correspondent and email friend James for pointing me to "Some Safety and Reliability Questions About DRM" by Victor Yodaiken"
The link is overloaded each time I have looked recently, but here are some highligths-
"We are entering the era of ubiquitous and safety critical computing, but the developers of DRM technologies seem to believe that computers are nothing more than personal entertainment systems for consumers." "DRM is a potentially dangerous and intrusive licensing technology that is being pushed into production before safety and reliability issues have been addressed."
Yodaiken is the creator of RTLinux and President and CEO of FSMLabs, a software development company. He is asking serious questions in which DRM are life and death practicalities, as opposed to ideology or greed.
One of my favorites- "Is it going to be easy for a technician upgrading software on a computer controlling an intensive care unit vent or an airplane communication system to inadvertently install DRM-sensitive software instead of the DRM-free software?"

Debating DRM- What's the point?

Over here, Shelly P is hosting a Debate on DRM, which David Smith had complained never took place.
Well, why should it? Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the dialogue taking place, and certainly there is a lot of intelligence and insight on display. But at the end of the day, none of the speculation is going to matter. The game is outside any lines that might contain it, and it is on.
The players will all act in their own interests. You and me included. Nobody will willingly give up control if they can avoid it, including individuals. Somewhere along the line players with resources will try to use the courts to advance their own interests.
People on all sides will claim superior ideals or values. Maybe even that "God" is on their side. Won't matter. This is one that gets fought long and hard, and lots of winners and losers along the way, and someday there will be a stable market for content licensed for use by anybody and everybody that provides compensation back through the value chain.
Can't say when. Can't say I'll like it, or that it will ever seem trouble free.
So the debate is something happening on the sidelines. To play, create content and decide how you extract value. Or create part of the pipeline, and decide who to be in business with.
If you have electricity in anyway, you probably can't stay out of it. Buy a computer, a tv, or any current handheld player, and you are then part of the game. Somebody give me a guide!