NETWORKS AND COMMUNITY : January 16, 1994 Networks and Community is devoted to encouraging LOCAL resource creation & GLOBAL resource sharing. compiler : Sam Sternberg samsam@vm1.yorku.ca This 2nd report of 1994 is a special edition The regular edition will be posted tomorrow with the usual range of reviews, resources and summaries. ------ WHY CREATE COMMUNITY NETWORKS? --------- Vice President Gore's latest statement on the administration's approach to the NII was made last Monday. Once again it failed to specificly acknowledge the existence of community computing systems. This Monday the first specific mention may appear in the announcement of a proposal for development zones. Since the writers of these speeches are aware of the existence of CIVIC systems, they clearly don't understand their importance. This special issue of the newsletter will focus on a discussion of the costs and a review of the benefits of community computing systems. The ideas expressed are those I have gathered from a wide variety of documents, postings to listserves, and personal experience. Anyone interested in locating and reviewing the available materials can get a guide to sources and an extensive annotated bibliography of material about community based systems on request from: This issue will cover the benefits to Governments, Businesses, Social service groups, and individual citizens. The benefit to individual citizens is the bottom line. Community computing facilities allow individuals access to services and systems without their having to "enroll"in a wide variety of specialized networks. This brief exploration of the economic, cultural, and political consequences of such systems is meant to encourage debate and discussion. I won't discuss the potential technology because what is important is the way its used; and almost all of it is already here; it just isn't cheap...yet. WHY THE SOCIAL CONTEXT MATTERS This year's Nobel prize in economics went to two American scholars. Most of media coverage of their work emphasised the fact that one of these scholars "proved" that slavery was economically viable. Those stories missed the primary importance of the work. For it proves that the social environment defines and supports the economic environment. In the context of the NII this means that America's economic success; and in particular the ability to share that success throughout society, is dependant on the nature of the social environment that supports it. As with all new ideas this one hasn't spread far yet. But its meaning is simple. In mixed economies like the U.S. or Canada, the role of the public in creating a healthy society and a viable economy is not secondary - its primary. Public activities and attitudes enable commerce and entrepreneurship. Its very common to have a "good" business environment and a defective social system. The current situation in Mexico is a fine example. The U.S. does not need to support community computing systems. But, failing to do so will both damage its economic competitiveness and help continue the growing deterioration of its urban culture. Japan, recognizing the importance of universal access, has already set 2015 as the date by which every one of its homes will be connected. Community based knowledge services are the best means to assist the public in ENABLING efficient commerce and effective government as a part of a vibrant and harmonious culture. Community computing will not solve any of America's critical problems. It will make all of them much easier and less expensive to solve. ===================== ECONOMICS ==================== First I will give the economic argument very briefly and then flesh this out below. 1 - government savings from electronic communication could be substantial 2 - the amount saved varies directly with the rates of participation in data type information flows. More participants = more savings. 3 - the force most likely to generate the highest participation rates is a civic network. Simple access to multiple services and information resources provide the attraction that will bring in users. The least cost access will bring the highest participation rates. Free access is needed for special populations. With the highest possible rates of participation - 90% or over The savings to government operations alone, would more than pay all direct costs for building the civic computing system. Even realistic estimates of current savings suggest that investing only 12% of potential savings would fund the development nicely. (numbers provided below) 4 - The benefits to government will be secondary to those received by the governed. The primary benefits will be derived from putting knowledge to work at the highest possible rate of utilization. The multiplier effects of high participation in information access and creation include: A - higher small business survival rates B - higher employment generation C - improved education in traditional schools, at work and at home. D - improved health and welfare through better information access and more efficient resource utilization. E - overall social benefits will include reduced ecological impacts, faster rates of dissemination of best practices, faster rates of invention and operational practice improvement, intensified business and labour competitiveness, and at the same time enhanced social cooperation. f - there will be substantial social costs, including the decline of physical postal service, traditional publishing etc. But all are well worth the price. I believe that only civic networks can squeeze the maximum benefits from this investment in global information technology. They compliment and will encourage all specialty commercial and non commercial networks. THE NUMBERS To use the United States as an example; The current annual expenditure of all level of government exceeds 1.3 trillion dollars. American studies estimate that 3 to 5 % of that amount is spent communicating with the public. Being conservative, 3% amounts to 39 billion dollars per year. Today perhaps 25% of households have computers and could immediately participate in community computing systems if motivated to do so. The potential participation rates for businesses and institutions are much higher - they already are near 100%. If half those household participated next year the potential savings would be 5 billion dollars. They can't participate because the systems aren't in place. There are also very good reasons for not building a system overnight. To take advantage of the learning curve with new systems; its important to build the network over a period of several years. Otherwise it will be difficult to absorb what is learned. Still, investing - for example - half the potential current annual savings each year - 2 billion for 1994, would rapidly repay itself. While not every dollar currently being spent can be saved; existing studies show that in most cases the amount saved will exceed 50% of those current communication expenditures. PUTTING KNOWLEDGE TO WORK The key to all of this is making the best possible use of our accumulated ( and rapidly growing ) cultural inheritance. The easier it is for someone to find the information or assistance they need precisely when they need it; the more everyone benefits from sharing knowledge resources. Each use of a piece of information will on average multiply the social benefit. Synergy - the increased benefits of bringing separate ideas and activities together - is in turn the reason why making as many services and as much information as possible available from a local community based source is so important. The MULTIPLIER EFFECT will be at work. Economists use the phrase to describe the effect of you spending money with someone else; who in turn spends the money with others. Each transaction spreads the impact. Information works the same way. Sharing it does not make it disappear, it just improves someone else's chance of using it productively. THE MEANS TO BE INFORMED - PARTICIPATION RATES Still, none of this will be realized fully unless everyone has the means to be informed. Illiterates and those with limited reading skills could benefit by the inclusion of single point access to a combination of local phone based information lines and national 800 numbers. Civic networks are appropriate organizations to do this. A combination of 4 factors will help make the participation rates the highest possible. Each coming year will see increased participation and benefits. 1 - several innovative low cost systems ( under $100 dollars ) for home based access to the Internet are about to come to market. These can make the hardware costs affordable for almost all households. 2 - many early users will act on behalf of those currently without access to provide the benefits of access to them. This kind of mutual assistance on the part of individuals is worth encouraging. 3- proposed legislation and advancing technology will lower the cost of network access. Hopefully low cost local lines will also be encouraged by upcoming legislation. 4 - many organizations like libraries, business assistance centers, community centers, and ethnic or cultural organizations want to act as access points for those they serve who are currently without personal access. THOSE WITH THE GREATEST NEED HAVE THE LEAST ACCESS The special needs of the poor, elderly, disabled and immigrants can be met at the least possible cost by using the system of civic networks to lower the expense of service provision. The speed of service provision could go up. The quality should also improve. CONSUMER ORIENTATION Meeting actual as opposed to perceived needs is important. Civic nets are both community controlled and subject to constant redesign by the community. A major problem in social service has been disseminating information about successful programs. Such dissemination occurs rapidly and naturally within the context of civic networks. QUALITY OF SERVICE - MOVING FROM INFORMATION TO ASSISTANCE The presence of civic networks will encourage innovation and improve present services. Most yellow pages list shelters today. But they can't tell you if any spaces are available. An online service makes it easy to coordinate all the shelters in a community and allow a single inquiry to locate the available resources. This example can be multiplied hundreds of times. SOURCES OF INNOVATION & RATE OF INNOVATION Most real innovation comes from small businesses and publicly supported research facilities. The personal computer industry is a perfect example. Many of the pioneers left major companies - after asking to develop their ideas internally and being refused. The sooner such groups have access to the nets the better. At startup every penny counts. Providing new small business with cheap access will only improve their survivability and increase their contributions to both job creation and innovation. Once the money starts coming in they will turn to higher quality commercial services for their access. SOURCES OF EMPLOYMENT With most new employment coming out of the small business sector and a significant amount of unemployment resulting from layoffs at large corporations; its imperative to provide cheap access to to the small business sector. Electronic information is the main source of business information; and much new information is only available electronicly. Even more is available in print only at a later date. But most small businesses currently make no use of such sources because of the cost and difficulty of obtaining access. With the volume of knowledge doubling every decade its vital to the health of the business sector for all participants to have access to electronic information sources. Communets will play a major role in enabling a dynamic private sector by making available publicly subsidized resources for entrepreneurial activity. The U.S. government is displaying global leadership is providing Internet access to publicly funded data collections. Civic nets can also provide access points to commercial data bases. COST OF CITIZEN - GOVERNMENT INTERACTION There will be a great deal of waste and duplication of resources and facilities if every government department and level of government sets out to build its own access facilities and networks. This fact is already driving a great deal of the growth of the Federal Government's Internet activities. The same is true for all other institutions and organizations. The least cost will be incurred when all resources are accessible from a single set of locations. SIMPLIFYING ACCESS - ONE PLACE TO LOOK In the absence of a concerted effort to build a system of community based NII access facilities, There will inevitably be enormous waste. Special networks are needed for education and health and other users. But such networks will themselves benefit from higher usage if there is a general public acceptance and use of community networks. Giving everyone one place to look is the simplest way of expressing the diminished importance of location that results from network access. THE RISE OF THE VIRTUAL ORGANIZATION - DISAPPEARING BOUNDARIES Community based networks are a significant change in the process of human cultural development. They will be recognized as being at least as important as the introduction of printing. They permit the creation of virtual organizations. These flexible new forms of organization are characterized by the ease with which intellectual resources from any source can be brought to bear on any problem. The first evidence of the power of such virtual organizations can be seen in the extraordinarily rapid development and deployment of the public domain networking tools which characterize the Internet. MAKING THE GLOBAL, LOCAL Anyone participating in the a local community network, potentially has the ability to engage any and all other users of interconnected systems in some shared interest. MAKING THE LOCAL, GLOBAL And anyone outside of a community can tap the resources of that community from any other connected site on the globe. Every business or organization on the Internet is automaticly a multinational business, and at the same time a local business in every community with a connection to the Internet. And every individual is also citizen of the globe in a very direct way. PUBLIC - PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS While I have made an argument for public support of community computing; its just as important to have support from the business community. A non commercial system of community networks is the best support a system of commercial networks can have. It teaches people the benefits of network access. It simplifies their communication with businesses and thereby lowers the cost of doing business. It trains people in the skills needed to utilize electronic media. And it opens the globe to every business. Sophisticated services will benefit from having civic nets carry the burden of introducing the public to the world of global electronic communication and services. People who have a strong need for such services will turn to commercial vendors for superior service and improved access. Supporting civic nets is the cheapest way business can support the development of a market for more sophisticated services. PUBLIC - PUBLIC PARTNERSHIPS Both governmental and non governmental institutions must be encouraged to participate. The so called third sector of non profit organizations constantly suffers from a lack of resources even as it exhibits enormous duplication of services. Access to community networks will help resolve some of those problems. DISTRIBUTED PRODUCTION OF GOODS, SERVICES, AND KNOWLEDGE Manufacturers already recognize that few products today can be made entirely from components made locally. The same is becoming true of services and knowledge. Non local information resources help create efficient and productive local services. DISTRIBUTED UTILIZATION OF GOODS, SERVICES AND KNOWLEDGE Outstanding local services can rapidly grow to serve locations around the globe. Either directly, through franchising, or by imitation. Improvements made anywhere can be shared and have local impacts. INCREASING THE RATE OF PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH All of this has feedback effects. The more local-global interaction; the faster systems evolve and the sooner unneccessary resource usage declines. PARTICIPATION RATES Participation rates really are the key to all of this. PARTICIPATION IN INFORMATION CREATION Good ideas can come from anywhere. Mclelland Iowa is the home of Schola, the planet's most sophisticated global satellite based educational project. PARTICIPATION IN INFORMATION USE Schola is already having an impact in Russia and China, while at the same time, its using Russian and Chinese resource to improve language studies across the U.S. and around the world. VOLUNTARY PARTICIPATION >From a social perspective, the most wonderful aspect of civic networks is their ability to encourage voluntary participation in projects that benefit others. PARTICIPATION IN POLICY DEVELOPMENT AND GOVERNANCE In the long run each of us will benefit substantially from the ability of improvements in governance to be shared. And in our own increased ability to participate in the regulatory and legislative decision making which affects us. DO WE REALLY NEED A NEW SET OF INSTITUTIONS The question still remains. Why do we need to create a separate system of organizations to do this. Why can't the schools or the libraries do the job. For the same reasons public libraries evolved as an institutional system separate from schools. First, fundamentally different organizations need different means of administration and operation. Second, organizational conflicts of purpose and turf protection will negatively impact the development of civic networks if they are simply given to an existing institutional group to run. An example of the kind of resistance to change that can be expected from any existing institution follows. This is from Publisher's Weekly - January 3 1994 BOOKS WHILE U WAIT by Paul hilts, John Mutter, & Sally Taylor The article describes current instances of in-store on demand publishing. It then goes on to speculate. "Imagine what would happen if all bookstores converted to on demand ,..Printing plants wouldn't be necessary. Wholesalers would have no books to stock and distribute. Publisher' Warehouses would not be needed.... A sale would be a sale - returns would no longer exist. Publisher's wouldn't need to tie up money in inventory; paper wouldn't be wasted; freight costs would vanish; a book would never go out of stock or out of print. In addition the new technology could be a boon for independents. With on-demand printing, they could claim to offer as many titles as chain stores offer today. A shop the size of the smallest of today's bookstores could "stock" a million titles. " How receptive is the industry likely to be? A little later the article explains " Proposals to do on demand cd music publishing by IBM and Blockbuster are being met cooly. "Publishers say that this new system could make their current manufacturing and distribution capabilities redundant - perhaps useless." Each of us as citizens has an obligation to ourselves and our neighbors to see the we get the most for our tax dollars. And that means we have to have community based networks. ------------------------------------ NETWORKS and COMMUNITY is a public service of FUTURE DATA; a partnership of researchers and research system designers. Our research resources include all commercial and non commercial nets, along with over 200 cd-rom databases, 50,000 magazines and more than 30 million books. For commercial services contact Gwyneth Store - This newsletter is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN and may be used as you see fit. To contribute items or enquire about this newsletter contact Sam Sternberg .