Thursday, July 14, 2005
Isenberg, Berkman Fellow
It's on the Berkman website, so it must be official; I'm a fellow of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society for Academic Year 2005-2006. My project will be "Freedom to Connect." I'm tempted to link it to the F2C: Freedom to Connect conference I produced in March, but I don't want to lock the project in too tightly just yet.
Note to Berkman webkeepers: I intend to be at Berkman every week, so "non-resident" might not be as accurate a description of me as, say, Barlow or Seltzer. Is there a category between "resident" and "non-resident"?
Some of the topics I want to explore include:
0. Why "Freedom to Connect" is important, and threats to said freedom
1. Roots of first amendment, enlightenment, roots of "freedom" concept
2. How technology is tied to speech -- esp., printing press, telephone system, postal service -- I don't think I want to get into issues like Betamax, Grokster, intellectual property, DRM, etc., unless communication issues supersede content issues in important ways.
3. How affordability is tied to speech and, more generally, democracy, (how affordability changes things), including history of the industrial revolution, and Benkler's notion of low capital intensivity.
4. History of common carriage -- what is this concept, how did it arise, who were its enemies in history, and why is it under attack now?
5. Interfaces, modularity, competition, connection -- work of Carliss Baldwin, popularized by Clayton Christensen, indicates that as technology matures and clean interfaces between modules emerge, important aspects of business change, new competitors and new areas of growth emerge. Does the process ever reverse? That is, do once-clean interfaces ever become dirty, encumbered, to serve the interests of incumbents? Can that happen as a field grows, or is this a sequel of contraction?
I am just beginning to get my mind around all this -- I would like to have a fairly deliberate year. If you, gentle blog reader, have comments, suggestions, criticisms, additional topics to add to this list -- and especially good readings and good people to talk to -- on the above topics, I would be grateful for comments, indeed, for your participation in my Fellowship Year.
[Note: I'll be the other Isenberg at Harvard this year. My younger brother Daniel, from the deeper end of the family gene pool, is a Senior Lecturer at the B-School, where he's teaching International Entrepreneurship. He knows a bit about the topic, having been one for a couple decades.]
Note to Berkman webkeepers: I intend to be at Berkman every week, so "non-resident" might not be as accurate a description of me as, say, Barlow or Seltzer. Is there a category between "resident" and "non-resident"?
Some of the topics I want to explore include:
0. Why "Freedom to Connect" is important, and threats to said freedom
1. Roots of first amendment, enlightenment, roots of "freedom" concept
2. How technology is tied to speech -- esp., printing press, telephone system, postal service -- I don't think I want to get into issues like Betamax, Grokster, intellectual property, DRM, etc., unless communication issues supersede content issues in important ways.
3. How affordability is tied to speech and, more generally, democracy, (how affordability changes things), including history of the industrial revolution, and Benkler's notion of low capital intensivity.
4. History of common carriage -- what is this concept, how did it arise, who were its enemies in history, and why is it under attack now?
5. Interfaces, modularity, competition, connection -- work of Carliss Baldwin, popularized by Clayton Christensen, indicates that as technology matures and clean interfaces between modules emerge, important aspects of business change, new competitors and new areas of growth emerge. Does the process ever reverse? That is, do once-clean interfaces ever become dirty, encumbered, to serve the interests of incumbents? Can that happen as a field grows, or is this a sequel of contraction?
I am just beginning to get my mind around all this -- I would like to have a fairly deliberate year. If you, gentle blog reader, have comments, suggestions, criticisms, additional topics to add to this list -- and especially good readings and good people to talk to -- on the above topics, I would be grateful for comments, indeed, for your participation in my Fellowship Year.
[Note: I'll be the other Isenberg at Harvard this year. My younger brother Daniel, from the deeper end of the family gene pool, is a Senior Lecturer at the B-School, where he's teaching International Entrepreneurship. He knows a bit about the topic, having been one for a couple decades.]
Comments:
Congrats. If you don't already know him, look up a charming and brilliant guy called Tony Oettinger while you are in Cambridge. He runs PIRP (www.pirp.harvard.edu), right across the quad from Berkman. Tell him I sent you!
-Ben Tanen
-Ben Tanen
# posted by 
: 7/14/2005 9:44 AM
: 7/14/2005 9:44 AM
Hello Mr. Isenberg,
This is good to hear. I hope you use your new public position to prevent the Federal Government from owning all digital communications systems up to our fenceposts. It is absolutely critical for our counrtry that someone offers up an argument against this. Enjoy!
-Anonymous Congratulatory Guy
This is good to hear. I hope you use your new public position to prevent the Federal Government from owning all digital communications systems up to our fenceposts. It is absolutely critical for our counrtry that someone offers up an argument against this. Enjoy!
-Anonymous Congratulatory Guy
# posted by : 7/14/2005 7:17 PM
: 7/14/2005 7:17 PM
I'm delighted Berkman is sponsoring such an intriguing and far-reaching project as yours--welcome to Cambridge!
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