Tag Archives: digital

The Normal Diversity – Internet Study lays bare the digital realities

3 Oct

OxIS report cover For 10 years the Oxford Internet Institute has been studying the phenomenon of recent times; watching online activities grow, spreading into all corners of the UK’s economy & government and changing the way we all work, learn and play.

For 10 years they have charted the emergence and fluctuating fortunes of innovative services, new devices that make their usage easier, the gradual growth of better broadband access networks and the shifting demand for digital skills matched to global opportunities.

Now in their 10th year the researchers have concluded that the Internet is normal.

Not only is it normal – no longer in any way a remarkable phenomenon – but it seems, in our diverse attitudes to it, to be comfortingly reflective of the major personality traits of the population.

The 2013 OxIS report maps five distinct cultural groups amongst the 78% of the population who are in some way digitally touched.  These groups range from the wildly enthusiastic (the ‘e-Mersives’) through to those who are distinctly uncomfortable about the Internet (the ‘Adigitals).

OxIS 5 cultures In our generally tolerant island population, 37% of Internet users, the largest single group, are classified as ‘cyber-moderates’ – accepting the benefits but moderate in both their hopes and fears.

The groupings do not, apparently, align with age demographics, life-stages, socio-economic classifications, employment status, or even the long-standing notion of ‘digital natives’ that youngsters born during this era are universally enthusiastic Internet adopters.  Moreover there was no evidence that these Internet Culture classifications were unstable despite a small drop in the proportion of users who believe there is too much immoral material online.

But they also imply a warning for a government pinning hopes for economic recovery rooted in UK on-line success.  The three more-enthusiastic culture groups may not yet have the scale to fuel internationally competitive growth.  It provokes a question – how can ‘Cyber-Moderates’ and ‘Adigitals’ become more engaged, and are we not all constrained by access infrastructures?

Slightly more controversially, and probably counter-intuitively for bloggers and blog-readers, researchers found a distinct cooling of enthusiasm for Social Media.  This effect may however be explained by the research methodology not perhaps moving fast enough to catch the trends towards newer Social Media services – or simply that the noise of the Internet is generated by relatively few very active users and more than balanced by the great and growing weight of ‘Cyber-Moderates’ and ‘Adigitals’.

Observers with a more global perspective such as Robert Bell of the Intelligent Community Forum point out that there are marked differences between the usage patterns of countries and even between different States of the USA.  Although not part of the OxIS work, researchers who probe the diversity of behaviours evident in populations of different countries will be fascinated by the parallels between the widely accepted Five Factor Model of personality traits and the OxIS five cultures of the Internet.  Both Robert Bell and OxIS report co-author Professor William Dutton will be speaking at NextGen 13 at Wembley (October 14th & 15th) and we can expect to hear a great deal more insight into this quite complex study.

Other highlights of that 2-day event include many new topics that one might not expect to hear at a conference (now in its 6th year) that was originally founded to campaign for better broadband infrastructure investment.  Those battles are still being fought, particularly away from urban centres, but the acknowledged pervasiveness of the Internet leads directly to concerns about digital skills, collaborative creativity, the openness of data and the plight of the 20% who, according to OxIS, have not yet encountered the Internet at a time when it has become pervasively normal and an increasingly essential utility.

It’s no great surprise, then to find that the NextGen 13 team has themed this year’s conference ‘Changing Agendas: shifting broadband futures’.  The oft-used term ‘Digital Economy’ becomes redundant now that the pre-qualifier ‘digital’ is no longer a significant differentiator within the entire UK economy.

If folks want to understand the nature and diversity of what it means to be British perhaps they need only to look at our diverse attitudes to the Internet and what it is to be normal?

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NextGen 13 is a 2-day conference and exhibition at Wembley on October 14th and 15th 2013.

For details of the agenda, speakers, exhibitors and registrations please refer to the website.

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Waiting at Wembley for Winners

30 Sep

wembley-imgIt’s always a tense time two weeks before any big conference event.

Right now the build-up to NextGen 13 is no different as the pace and pressure of programming for the conference builds.

The pressure may be even greater – not least because the 2013 themes are different in many ways.  One of the downsides for a conference series that’s enjoyed a long run (it’s the 6th year for this two-day event) is that many of the players must get up to speed with the changing agenda.   The annual conference reflects the topics of its time – not the battles of the past.

It is much easier for the speakers.  Recruiting them involves ensuring that they are relevant and have something new to contribute.  Exhibitors, all no doubt leading busy lives focused on their own rationales, only wake up to new themes at the eleventh hour.  Maybe this annual event provides a time for reflection – a chance to check alignments with market realities?   And delegates?  The regular attendees will once again be shocked that the agenda has shifted and newcomers will be intrigued to find they are not alone in their recent penny-dropping digital discoveries.

Amid the hectic noise of last-minute programme adjustments and choreography there’s one small corner where silence has momentarily settled.   The Digital Challenge jury is out and until 14th October fingers may be crossed but no one will tempt fate by speculating on winners.  Even here, in the Digital Challenge awards, the shifting agenda is apparent.  Three new trophies signal the importance of Skills, Innovation and Open Data – key topics that rise above the basic broadband battles.

The 2013 NextGen focus is not, of course, a secret.  Last December’s paper on ‘Economic Revitalisation’ set the scene.  The conference theme, ‘Changing Agendas: Shifting Broadband Futures’ was proclaimed earlier in the year along with an expansion of five topics that have since informed the final schedule.  And locating the event at Wembley itself carries a massive message about regeneration.  Delegates have options to visit the Stadium, the Arena backstage, local fibred premises and even Brent Council’s new Civic Offices to understand the realities of fully fibred networks and designs for sustainability.

Pulling it all together may be hectic.  Fitting all shades of opinion (and a fair few technologies) onto the platform and into the exhibition will demand another two weeks of patient attention to detail.  And the winners will be found in all those who change their agendas to meet the shifting demands of the UK’s digital economy.

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NextGen 13, October 14th & 15th, at the Wembley Hilton, London, is the UK’s leading event for Next Generation broadband activity

This annual landmark event will build on Digital Scotland 2013 and the Intelligent Cities conference (Leeds) – events also managed by NG Events Ltd.

NextGen 13 provides the focus to take forward the UK’s digital access and application requirements debate. An exhibition and trade show will run alongside the conference.

Registration for Delegates

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And finally – well almost finally – well, just another 38 days to go

5 Sep

Here in the early morning, the sun only just above the horizon, this extraordinary feeling of calm will surely not last – so there’s every reason to gently coax continuing slumber like a dream that you’d rather not let go.  Reality will make itself felt soon enough.

One by one the clamour of action points, promises, the sins of omission, the list of ‘things to do today’, will break through but right now there is space and time to think; to reflect that it’s nearly a month since that last blog note which, in retrospect, signaled the start of frenzied activity.

There are, no doubt, some well-ordered folks whose passage through life proceeds at a carefully moderated pace with commas in all the right places, no excessive use of capital letters or exclamations and with upright thinking always on an even keel.  They must be very boring.  Most of us are blown about by the winds – our progress being the aggregate of umpteen diversions, a touching faith in our navigation, a strong hand on the helm and another glass of red wine.

This current calm descended yesterday mid-day and marked the end of an intense month – perversely that month when so many folk push off for a rest.

It was the month when the short-listed contenders for this year’s Digital Challenge are converted into a complete set of final submissions to the judging panel.  It was the month to confirm the availability and willingness of the judges.  A month to redesign the scoring methodology and contemplate trophy designs.  It was a month of double-checking that the ideas flowing from the contenders would be fully reflected in the emergent agenda for NextGen 13 in October.  And yet this was only a small part of the annual orchestration of speakers, exhibitors, venues, sponsors and the briefs for session leaders – a massive workload (and risk) that falls on the remarkably resilient shoulders of colleagues Marit and Andrew.

But here, just for this short moment, it is calm.  The Digital Challenge entries are in the hands of the judging panel for the next three weeks.  Weather forecasters predict that this summer sun will end abruptly tomorrow with a 10-degree drop and the onset of autumnal rains.   And with the cold showers of tomorrow’s reality we must shake off this dull sloth and move on.

For those of you who’ve been away on holiday – welcome back.  The countdown to NextGen 13 has begun.  This year’s event will be at Wembley and while we are preparing the pitch, prizes and programme it will be the mix of delegates, speakers, exhibitors and sponsors who will come together to make a great event, ‘Changing Agendas: shifting broadband futures’.

YEEKS – only 38 days?!

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Digital Challenge Awards 2013 – record entry shows sources of economic growth

6 Aug

The UK’s Next Generation Digital Challenge is an annual awards programme that culminates in an award ceremony in October – this year at Wembley during the NextGen conference.

The entries this year are interesting for at least three reasons.  Firstly the Open Nomination phase resulted in more than three times previous entry levels.  Secondly analysis of the entries showed that there were now sufficient entries to justify support for three new categories – in Open Data, Digital Skills and Digital Innovation – in addition to the traditional categories for digital network developments.  Thirdly the entries show an increasing awareness of the value for local communities and the economy of long-term investment in digital infrastructure.

With this higher level of entries, up to six nominations in each category have now been selected  to go forward as Finalists for assessment by an independent judging panel and all of those short-listed will be invited to make brief presentations at NextGen13.

Full story including the short-listed Finalists here

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There’s no smoke but maybe some learning is burning?

21 Jul

learning is burning jpegThere’s muffled murmuring in the background but no loud music, no unexpected truck or post deliveries, no obvious waste or smell and, amazingly, no significant demand on the Bank of Mum & Dad, but surely there is something going on in there.

It’s clearly not a complete secret – judging by footsteps on the stairs and occasional giggles – but she’s not for telling us, leastways not yet.

Ma says she should get more air. ‘Not good to be cooped up in that room all day’.   I’d like more conversation during meals but often now she doesn’t show up and when she does join us we get evasion and ‘you wouldn’t understand’.  Does anyone really need earphones at breakfast?

It’s clearly important, this life-changing stuff but the only way we can help, it seems, is to give the space, not ask annoying questions and make sure we all have even more connectivity.

This trust, this faith we have, this uncertainty is being tested.  Even her ‘what would he know’ older brother, has no clue and has resorted to casting aspersions.  But he’s off to uni in few weeks so, blessed relief; at least we’ll not have to endure that sibling rivalry.

‘Really, you should have a word’.  ‘Why me?‘ Parental Ping-Pong, batting back and forth, is a game for reluctant players.  ‘About what?‘  ‘What if?‘

The small mysteries of the digital revolution can be happening anywhere.  How things can flip from lonely localised passion to global success, how those tiny tweaks can make a huge difference, can never be explained.

Her only guiding rule, it seems, is “Screw it – let’s do it”, or, more forcibly, “Just (F) Do It”, or as we old stagers marvelled back when Net was new, ‘ Innovation Without Permission’.   That ‘so last century’ constraint of seeking permission does not now trouble young digitally liberated minds.

So relax, rejoice in their empowerment.  The world has moved on since some of us threw away the brakes of copper-constrained wires.  There is no going back.  Sit back, enjoy the ride, and hope they make a better job of it than your own tentative last generation efforts.

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If you made any sense of this try ‘Spot the Link‘ at our main editorial website.

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From Nano-dots to Giga-blots

11 Jul

As a follow-up to our earlier note (28th June) on the questions that might be asked by the UK’s Public Accounts Committee when they consider the NAO report on broadband delivery, we’ve spotted another possible mind-mapping connection – the Federation for Small Business report on the value of local procurement.

In the minds of those who think that digital infrastructure is so complex that it can only be addressed by Mega Phone companies, the notion of locally designed and managed network initiatives might seem an unlikely concept.  Fortunately the economic experience elsewhere in Europe and the USA shows otherwise.

Our editorial, ‘ The great dot-joining debate‘, asks whether the FSB’s procurement report will be considered as an ignorable nano-dot or be a broadband Giga-blot when the PAC meets to take ‘expert’ evidence on 17th July.

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Seeing the Value – will the UK Public Accounts Committee make the connections?

28 Jun

WestminsterIn matters of broadband policy many folks would not normally rate the chances of UK Parliamentarians having sufficient awareness to probe government policy to any great depth but in July their Public Accounts Committee will have the benefit of the National Audit Office report on the delivery performance of the Department of Culture Media and Sport – the current policy owner for the UK’s most critical infrastructure development.

The committee can, of course, give witnesses a fully televised hard time for the benefit of the wider public but much will depend on the members’ ability to ask incisive questions.   In their deliberations over the state of broadband policy the PAC will also have the benefit of the Information Economy industry strategy recently launched by the Department for Business (the former owner of broadband infrastructure policy) and, of course, the brilliant independent review of Public Sector Information by Stephan Shakespeare

Hearings of the Public Accounts Committee of the UK Parliament seem an unlikely platform for articulation of radical policy ideas.  The PAC may be regarded as ‘influential’ but in practice government can ignore its reports and the committee has no direct vote on policy issues.  At its best they can capture and deliver views that are of common concern – views and sensitivities that any government might be foolish to dismiss –  and this is why the combination of the NAO, IE and PSI reports is now so powerful.

Centre-right policy across the entire economy is firmly grounded in a view of competitive market efficiency that is so often a misinterpretation of its roots in the USA.    It is true that radical approaches to infrastructure provision in the USA have been routinely opposed in the courts with intensive lobbying from established industry interests.  That however has not prevented 135 municipal FTTP access networks from being deployed and is not deterring many others now in the throes of feasibility studies.  Indeed their regulator, the FCC, is actively encouraging the growth of new entrants to deliver local ‘future-proofed’ Gigabit networks – often in conjunction with local municipal Energy companies.

The reason for this municipal non-conformist economic behaviour is quite simple.  These cities and communities need jobs and economic growth – and someone has rumbled that the global market for the expertise that is engendered is not just huge; it is vastly greater than the growth prospects of an industry dedicated to limiting its own long-term growth in the interests of short-term market gains and value extraction from an outdated analogue infrastructure.

On the other side of the Atlantic the policy view of connectivity is analogous to their recently reframed position on Climate Change.  After years of resistance, after listening attentively to oil and gas lobbyists, realisation has finally dawned that the global market for sustainable energy is real, that climate change is real, and there’s an urgent need to gain qualifying experience if the opportunities are not to be missed.

Which is exactly the point made in the UK’s Information Economy industry strategy.  ‘UK Trade & Industry’ now understands that the global market for smart city management systems is worth around £400bn by 2020 and, if UK firms are to stand any chance of gaining a modest 10% market share, there’s an urgent need to have some sort of credible  qualifying experience.  So far only one UK city has made any real attempt to deploy an ultra-fast city network and, in a classically defensive and litigious response, BT and Virgin Media have opposed that initiative

The PAC may perhaps wonder why the Connected Cities programme is so lacking aspiration and urgency that the public funding is almost entirely ending up with established interests who are not keen to see citizens and enterprise provided with future-proofed fibre access networks.  They might argue the point from the view of Health, Energy, Transport, Environment, Education, Social Services or any departmental position that is now critically dependent on a fully connected digital economy.

They might even question the oddly antique view that the Information Economy is some small but growing sub-sector of UK industry – some clever clogs that do strange digital things – rather than the primary focus for revitalisation and rebalancing across the entire economy.

And, while they are rightly focused on public expenditure they might wonder about value for money for expensive public sector networks paid for by the public purse but not, it seems, allowed to be used for the benefit of citizens.

The digital penny may perhaps have dropped in a corner of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills but it is surely the Treasury that needs to understand the risks and true cost to an economy that cannot afford to prop up relics of the past.

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Related Links.

‘Searching for the Centre of the Digital Universe‘

‘Economic Revitalisation‘

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Shaken and Stirred in the digital economy

10 Jun

At the ICF Global Summit in New York this past week – listening to the stories from the world’s top 7 ‘Intelligent Communities’, your correspondent found that enthusiasms were not entirely dampened by New York’s inclement weather.

The full story ‘Shaken and Stirred’ describes a common factor in each of the case studies from these pioneering communities – they first started on their journeys by understanding where they were coming from and the perils of standing still.

 

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Taking Time Out

6 May

Diligent readers may have noticed the silence from this quarter – an unexplained lapse in my efforts to find some gentle humour amongst the stern earnestness of broadband politics and campaigns for regulatory reform.

It is not, I am pleased to report, that comedic prospects have finally run dry.  Benoît Felten’s recent reference to Australian TV’s satirical talent applied to the NBN’s opposition shows that this is evidently not so – even though he despairs at the contrasting lack of creative criticism  amongst European TV shows.

In the UK we would need to go back a very long time indeed to find satirists tackling the strangeness of the digital economy – back in fact to the days of Spitting Image.   Their writing team, scattered as they were in 1984 across the UK, were amongst the early beneficiaries of what was then a curious development – later to be known as email.

This system (the pre-privatized BT’s Telecom Gold) predated the Internet Protocol, did not require PC’s or smart devices and exploited the emergent X25 packet-switched services.  With some rubber cups to capture the telephonic squeaks and whistles for conversion into data travelling at 0.0024 Mb/s, the scripts for those wonderful programmes could be compiled in 3 days – leaving enough time for the puppeteers to perfect their art

Their tribute to this astounding innovation – and alas I do not know of an archive copy – was in the form of a spoof Wagnerian opera complete with a puppet prima donna (with horned helmet) and chorus signing the aria ‘We’ve got an RS232 interface lead’ – the vital connector between screen and modem.  I guess not many viewers understood the reference.

We so often hear that TV comedy is not what it used to be.  Perhaps commissioning editors at the BBC could take note of the efforts down under and apply some creative talent to today’s broadband nonsense in the style of the Guardian’s Ripped off Britons.

But I digress.  The real reason for recent radio silence (and a sense of calm philosophical rumination) is that I have taken time out to drift around in a fine sailboat amongst Ionian Islands.  Normally this would be a great excuse for being entirely cut-off but it seems that every taverna – even in the most unlikely of places – now boasts WiFi.

So, feeling slightly guilty at enjoying the sunshine and deep blues seas, this missive comes to you from Porto Spilia near Spartakhori on the island of Meganisi – and while austere England shivers I will stay awhile basking in the Greek sunshine checking from time to time if anyone is still listening.

‘Normal’ service might be resumed on my return – if I can still find anything to raise the spirits back home.   Meanwhile, for readers in Scotland, don’t forget that the Digital Scotland conference and exhibition with be held in Edinburgh on May 22.

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The Rural Imperative – Dig for a Gigabit-enabled Future

14 Apr

As the UN considers the prospect that by 2050 over 70% of the global population will be working and living in cities, and as policy developers continue to invest in cities to stimulate their economies, the New-York-based Intelligent Community Forum announces its Rural Imperative – a focus on developing smarter rural communities to offset the strains of unbalanced and unsustainable mega-cities.

The economic and creative power of cities cannot be denied but inequalities in digital infrastructure provision are beginning to drive rural communities towards radical moves to build a more-balanced economy.

Full story here

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