Boyd 2008 - Context and Opportunity - John Robb

[Rob Paterson]

Here John Robb offers us a context for the change in our world - and the pathways to a better one. His slides are also found on this link

Key is to understand that our world is too big and too connected and too fast to be understood or controlled by the way we think and act today. The financial crisis has caught all the leadership offside - they are all behind and there is not enough money in the "real economy" to cope with the damage done by all the derivatives etc that far exceed the real.

Our world is now so tightly coupled - that a few men in a boat can shut the Straits of Hormuz and take down the world's energy supplies. That such a failure can make a just in time delivery system of food mean that big cities will then have no food in a week or no heat in winter.

Our reliance on tight centralized systems of energy and food supply make us all especially vulnerable.

So if our traditional centralized top down tightly couples system can no longer cope - where is the new value?

John looks to networks - especially those that use the idea of a "Platform" - the web is a large example itself. A set of DNS enabling coupling and focus - where all parties can use the mutual Network effect. Visa International was the early example of such an organizational platform.

Here is Drupal with the masses of parts that make up the ecosystem that is Drupal - where providers and users can exchange positions. Where a central DNA gives the network power.

This is what we will see emerging later in the Boyd Conference when we look to the PEI Bio Alliance and KETC's work on the Mortgage Crisis.

What were the areas that John felt were best to tackle:

* Energy
* Food
* Security
* Finance

Here are John's slides - Download Resilient Communities

The bottom line: We cannot fix the world so that we one we knew can come back! We have to go to a new place - we have to help make where we live viable on its own and we have to connect ouyr place to others

[Lynn Wheeler]

small PEI interconnected/privacy from today:

P.E.I. defends putting mortgage information online
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/cbc/081211/canada/pei_pe_geolinc_privacy

as an aside ... the internal network, ... lots of past posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

used technology from the science center ... lots of past posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#545tech

and was larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until possibly late '85 or early '86. The person responsible for DNS worked at the science center in the early 70s (a decade or so before DNS for the internet).

Some number of value added networks appeared in the 70s & 80s ... but the growing ubiquitous of the internet obsoleted them (although some number attempt to postpone their final demise).