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Hi Folks,<br>
<br>
After spending a lot of time building networks & systems -
including things like military sims & municipal broadband
networks - I find myself trying to organize a community scale
"suburban redevelopment" effort - essentially crowdsourcing an
infrastructure master planning & redevelopment program for a
collection of aging subdivisions.<br>
<br>
I'm trying to build on developments in the crisis response arena,
and the work of folks like the Open Planning Project (and some of my
own work at The Center for Civic Networking) to launch a new
generation of "community networks" and plant the seeds for a wave of
"suburban redevelopment." <br>
<br>
I figure that folks in the OSGEO community are right smack in the
demographic that's ready, willing, and able to roll up our sleeves
and start rebuilding our corners of the world. I ask you to join
me. Or at least take a look at what we're up to.<br>
<br>
Here's a memo I've been distributing, inspired by Licklider's
original memo, kicking off what become the Internet. And take a
look at civic.net - which currently redirects to a kickstarter that
provides some details of what we're up to.<br>
<br>
I look forward to you reactions - and, hopefully, to some of you
getting involved.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
<br>
Miles Fidelman, Chief Engineer, Civic.Net<br>
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<div class="moz-forward-container"> <br>
--- this just went out to a select group of email lists --- also
check out "civic.net" ---<br>
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My Fellow Internet Engineers,<br>
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In 1963, JCR Licklider wrote his famous "Memorandum For
Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer
Network" - calling together what ultimately evolved into the
IETF - and bringing the Internet into existence, largely by
demand pull. <br>
<br>
A few years later, in 1968, he and Bob Taylor wrote "In a
few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively
through a machine than face to face" and Stewart Brand
opened the Whole Earth Catalog with the words, "We are as
gods and might as well get good at it" - and then we
proceeded to wire the world, and build ourselves the
beginnings of a hive of minds. <br>
<br>
Now it's time to put both the net, and what we learned while
building it, to work, rebuilding all of our other
infrastructure.<br>
<br>
Today, I call for a <span style="color: rgb(40, 40, 40);
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!important; float: none;">Community Engineering Task
Force, </span>and community-level <i><b>Engineering
Working Groups </b>- </i>with the goal of launching a
wave of infrastructure overhaul in our communities, from the
ground up, akin to the transformation of campus &
enterprise networks that stemmed from our work, building
& deploying the Internet. <b>And I ask that you join
me in launching <i>Civic.Net, as a network of local
working groups.<br>
<br>
</i></b>--- Background ---<br>
<br>
A little history: In 1992, the net opened to the public,
people started calling for "Electronic Democracy" and
"Electronic Town Halls" - and l left BBN, recruited a few
intrepid souls to launch The Center for Civic Networking,
with the notion of bringing IETF-style "rough consensus
& running code" to bear, as a way to reinvent town
meeting government (thank you to the Boston Computer
Society, and then President Tracy Licklider, Lick's son, for
our initial funding). We ran some experiments - supporting
a series of hybrid town meetings, in Cambridge, on
"sustainability & growth planning" - <br>
and ended up focusing on infrastructure development - the
first high-speed Internet in a public library (courtesy of
Steve Cisler & Apple's Library of Tomorrow Program,
Continental Cablevision, and PSInet - thank you Bill
Schrader). Then the USDA paid us to build one of the first
e-markets, and then came the Telecom Act - and I was off
helping local governments defend their rights-of-way from
rampant construction, and launching municipal broadband
networks. <br>
<br>
Now, I find myself on the Board & Long-Range Capital
Planning committee of an aging condominium complex - as we
struggle to find a model for comprehensive overhaul and
upgrade for our buildings, grounds, utilties - in concert
with our immediate neighbors. 60 years ago, William Levitt
developed the model for building, and financing, suburban
subdivisions - now a lot of our communities are falling
apart, and we face the challenge of "fleet modernization"
for subdivisions of multi-family buildings. And if you
think herding cats to build the Internet was (& remains)
a challenge, just try getting a condo board to think about a
"big dig" in miniature (a "tiny dig"), and motivating lots
of players towards a "Flag Day."<br>
<br>
I've come to believe that following the Internet model,
creating "demand pull" from the edges (owners, residents),
and crowdsourcing, are the only viable way forward, for
rebuilding suburban America, before we see more catastrophic
system failures like Flint MI's water system, North
Andover's exploding gas mains, Miami's Champlain Towers
crumbling into the Atlantic while their board rearranged
deck chairs by the pool. <br>
<br>
And the need is urgent - I've been hearing more and more
horror stories about skyrocketing operations &
maintenance costs, people getting socked by multiplying
condo fees, and of insane assessments to cover major
renovations.<br>
<br>
--- Current Activities ---<br>
<br>
<b>We've launched a fledgling </b><b><i>Community
Engineering Working Group, </i></b><b>here on Nagog
Hill, in Acton, MA</b> - and are busily recruiting
participants from our condo complex, our neighbors, and the
shopping and office park adjacent to us. Our goal is to run
a serious infrastructure planning exercise - the kind that
cities, towns, college campuses, military bases perform -
but that stop at the borders of private developments.
Inside, the task falls to condominium boards, property
managers, homeowners associations - groups that function as
local governments & public works departments, without
the know-how, staff, or vendor support to carry out the
job. <br>
<br>
I'm bringing my experience in big-system business
development, and community development, to bear, and <b>seeking</b><b>
help from the broader community.</b> Our goal is to run a
prototype <i>planning & acquisitions </i><i>experiment</i>
- starting with soliciting vendor demonstrations (can you
say "bidders' conference" or "Interop-like trade show &
shownet exercise." The goal is to figure out how to solve
our problems, and finance the exercise - building on our
experience in building the Internet, and more recent
experience in volunteer crisis response (crisis mapping,
fire jumping), grass-roots driven community development
(Community Foundations, Community Development Corporations
& Initiatives, Habitat for Humanity, Burning Man), do it
all "on camera" a la "This Old House" ("This Old
Subdivision"), and develop an ecosystem to support other
communities seeking to replicate our work (think a cross
between the <i>Whole Earth Catalog</i>, the <i>WELL, </i>the
IETF Secretariat, crowdsourcing platforms, and "grand
challenge" exercises).<br>
<br>
--- <b>And We Need Your Help<i> </i></b><i>--- </i><br>
<br>
Right now, I'm an Army of one - as organizer of our local
working group, project engineer, and a cross between John
Postel & the folks at CNRI in supporting an ad hoc
engineering & planning process.<br>
<br>
I've been busily recruiting some advisors & academic
support (an IAB equivalent), and now I'm trying to pull
together a larger base of supporters - an audience for "This
Old Subdivision," collaborators, vendors, sponsors,
organizers & working groups in other communities. <br>
<br>
It's all very amorphous right now - as when Lick first
issued his <i>Memorandum</i> - or when Torvalds posted his
"I'm building a unix clone" news post. I've launched a
Kickstarter - mostly as a focal point from which to launch a
blog, podcast, journal, membership network - and generate
some seed money. [I've been funding this out of my pocket -
but I'm all in - going full time, and hiring some staff, is
beyond my resources. I figure that 2500 "subscribers" or
"members" - at $10/month will go a long way (as would a few
corporate sponsors, a la the IETF or W3C).]<br>
<br>
So... I encourage folks to visit civic.net - which redirects
to <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mfidelman/civicnet-network-we-must-to-fix-our-future"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mfidelman/civicnet-network-we-must-to-fix-our-future</a>
- read about what we're doing, tune in, turn on, sign up,
get on the bus, get with the program. NETWORK WE MUST, if
we hope to survive in this new millenium of ours!<br>
<br>
And... if you're seriously interested - want to get
something going in your community, have a solution to offer
to communities, want to help me make this whole thing
happen, are in a position to get us some press or other
visibility - please contact me directly!<br>
<br>
Miles Fidelman<br>
Civic.Net<br>
<br>
<br>
--
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown</pre>
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