Harnessing Advanced Communications in an Era of Convergence

Today I went to a lecture at Michigan State University for their inaugural Distinguished Lecture Series for the 2009/10 academic year.  The lecture was by Dr. Johannes Bauer, Professor of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media at the Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law, Michigan State University.  The title of his talk was Harnessing Advanced Communications in an Era of Convergence.

I was particularly interested in this topic as I assisted in the production of a Convergence Review, a report tabled in Parliament in 2000, during my first position in the National Office for the Information Economy (RIP).

One of Dr Bauer’s research interests is international comparison research.  Different generations of mobile technologies have had different leaders – the first gen was led by the US, second gen was Europe, and third gen was Asia.  It is uncertain who will lead the charge for the next gen of mobile technology.

Historically, government monopolies had run telecommunications.  But since the 1980’s, countries have been looking to remove state ownership and encourage more market forces and the efficiencies and innovation that come from liberalization.  But there are weaknesses with this approach and we are now at a crossroads.  There is a growing sense that the models used in the past do not scale well into the future.  There is now a search for a new balance between the roles of government and of markets/business.  This will involve experimentation with new and innovative approaches, often at a local level with community involvement.

East Asia and Europe have been able to surpass the number of voice access paths of the US after commencing well behind – it’s a success story for them, and not necessarily a disaster for the US.

China now has 55 access paths per 100 inhabitants and India only about 15 – even though back in 1990, both had a similar negligible number of voice access paths.  In 1990, you would have thought that India would have been more successful due to its western style economy.  Yet China’s growth, despite it being state-owned, raises the question whether the forces of government can be used in western countries to improve technology deployment?

He displayed a nice graph from the World Bank (their Information and Communication for Development report 2009) showing that broadband connections provides higher returns to economy than the Internet, then mobile, then fixed lines.  The benefits are even higher in developing economies than developed economies as there are more efficiencies to be gained.  There are social benefits of broadband penetration as well like education, health care, e-government, environmental benefits, public safety and emergency services, community engagement and social networking.

There is a now different paradigm of thinking about the use ICT for economic development.  It’s not just technology centric that sees ICT as critical for economic development based on modernization theory, but one (ICT4D) that is more about the importance of complementary factors like digital literacy, social capital, access to financing – a human-centric and systemic view.

As communities move to adopt even more advanced applications and services, there is a demand for higher speed transmission (including over mobiles) and for this to be more symmetrical (eg for videoconferencing) – and also the need for high quality (eg low latency) such as for video gaming.

There are major challenges in the creation of sustainable business models where organizations try to gain revenue sufficiency, particularly as many business models have high start-up costs.  Another challenge is the need to minimize risks to society like information security and privacy as well as overcoming digital divides.  Because of the Internet’s open infrastructure, we will need to restructure it in order to deal with the threats of malware.

Dr Bauer described the environment as akin to an ICT ecosystem that has three possible areas of state intervention.  These are focused on horizontal regulation (unbundling, access, interoperability), vertical regulation (network neutrality, openness, structural separation, etc) and public policies (tax credits, subsidies, public investment, industrial policy).  Different countries have adopted a mix of approaches:

• US – favour a laissez faire approach with minimal vertical and horizontal regulation
• EU – favours a synergistic approach of comprehensive horizontal regulation and  measured vertical regulation
• Asia – a more interventionist approach with comprehensive and proactive horizontal regulation and measured and proactive vertical regulation

Key points include that any regulatory model needs to be tied to specific national and local conditions.  There is no best policy mix; each has its unique advantages and disadvantages.  But most importantly, the policy choices need to be consistent (not internally conflicting) but with sufficient institutional diversity since no single approach can solve all investment issues. Finally, infrastructure investment needs to be complemented with other measures.

He rightly points out that this regulatory environment is a complex system and we don’t fully understand all the implications of the regulations that are implemented.  Therefore, this makes it critical to monitor and evaluate the policy implementations and to adjust or terminate policies quite quickly.  For example, if a regulator determines to unbundle the network, then there are later issues as to who will invest in new infrastructure resulting in unintended consequences.



The Knowledge Futures Blog Turns 3

Well a lot has happened in those three years.  Back then, I would never have thought that I would now be living in Dubai and that this blog now has 170 posts.  So to both of my readers out there, Happy Birthday to my blog!  We are now out of the terrible 2’s and into the thriving 3’s.

Alternatives to Executive Decision-Making

A number of articles from the latest What’s Emerging  newsletter from Paul at Emergent Futures piqued my interest in the combined topics of decision-making, Powerpoint and creativity.

The first article describes the views of a retired Marine Corps officer who laments the rise in the use of Powerpoint for decision-making by corporate and government leaders.  He claims that the use of powerpoint dumbs down complex topics into simple bullet points, forcing the decision-makers into perusing lots of information of dubious quality to make quick decisions.  Organisations that favour powerpoint breed a culture of having their leaders make more and more and faster decisions which often would be better made at a lower hierarchical level and  which could end up being wrong.  In the past, complex issues would be distilled into briefs that would analyse the topic and provide the decision-maker with time to consider their decision, and offer them the chance to “sleep on it”.

And sleeping on it increases the chance of successfully solving problems as research in this second article finds. Not just any problem but particularly those problems that are new and require creative problem-solving. And not just  sleep but REM sleep is required with the researchers believing that this allows the brain to form new nerve connections without the interference of other thought pathways that occur when we are awake or in non-dream-state sleep.

And so finally, the issue of creativity leads to the last article which explores creative people who Gordon Torr highlights have different biology (they think differently in a less inhibited, more dreamlike and weird manner), different motivation (ideas and expression are more important than money) and different personalities (impulsive, sensitive and ambitious). This is often a totally different character set to that of many senior managers who are often more controlling and target-oriented.

So if we are seeking creative solutions to problems by our decision-makers, many of us are using the wrong instrument.  Managers need to be more receptive to creative solutions and encourage an environment that requires them to make less decisions and focus their attention on the more important decisions.  Can you see your senior manager doing that?

So next time you are asked to prepare a Powerpoint for a decision-making meeting, suggest an alternative tack and prepare a considered two page brief, proffer creative solutions, and let the manager consider the paper well before the meeting. The major problem you are likely to face is if they can make the time to read it before the meeting!

You Get What You Measure

Working in the education space, my interest is piqued by articles such as this one looking at how measures are used for the benefit of the education system, which in this case is to get the best students into the more demanding and higher quality university courses.  But the simple measure, the ENTER score in Victoria, is a blunt instrument.  The article makes the point that students from schools with lower average ENTER scores perform better at university than their counterparts from higher performing secondary schools. Other measures should be used to augment the ENTER score for universities including aptitude tests to determine capabilities, personal essays to demonstrate interest and ambition, and expanded special entry schemes.

Put simply, simple measures are not always effective.  There’s often underlying aspects that mask important variations in the data that need to be uncovered and incorporated to make concrete and longer lasting system improvements.

Progressive Anti-Americans

Lots of various cultural studies have examined the role of the media in forming and informing the social customs of the time. This has evident links with politics and elected leaders attempting to influence debate towards the principles behind their policies. Yet too often this is portrayed in black and white terms, left and right, liberal and labor, democrat and republican, rural and urban, free market versus anti-globalisation.  The world is far more complex than simple dualities.

Which brings me to a look at a recent John Pilger article on anti-americanism.

What is most extraordinary about the United States today is the rejection and defiance, in so many attitudes, of the all-pervasive historical and contemporary propaganda of the “invisible government”. Credible polls have long confirmed that more than two-thirds of Americans hold progressive views. A majority want the government to care for those who cannot care for themselves. They would pay higher taxes to guarantee health care for everyone. They want complete nuclear disarmament; 72 per cent want the US to end its colonial wars; and so on. They are informed, subversive, even “anti-American”.

This links with the earlier work of Paul Ray on cultural creatives and progressives in US society; the “moral majority” who are often portrayed as conservative traditionalists but more often than not are informed social progressives. The people who are:

feminist, ecological, anti-globalization, pro-civil-rights, pro-peace, pro-health-care, pro-education, pro-natural/organic and even pro-spiritual movements that together make up the New Progressives.

From a political point of view, who is representing these people? And do they care sufficiently to make concrete changes in their world, to transform their views from personal beliefs to a social movement?

This article from The National has a different take, questioning whether the rise of disaffection in right-wing traditional areas of the US as a result of the GFC, declining standards of living, globalisation concerns with a loss of manufacturing jobs in the heartland, long-running wars and the election of Obama to the US presidency, could lead to a rebirth of nativist sentiment fuelled by shock-jocks and the tabloid press.

From this uncertainty, one thing is certain though.  The future will be decided by how these cultural forces play out rather than by external technological drivers.  Will there be a sufficient groundswell of public support for progressive points of view embracing social responsibility, ecological sustainability and a love of foreign cultures to overcome traditionalist perspectives that promote fear of the unknown?  Whose spin will win?

Senate Independence and Government Control of Information

A great little quote from a report by Harry Evans who has been Clerk of the Australian Senate for at least the last 20 years. Now that is what I call experience!

More than ever before, independence in the legislature depends on the ability to obtain information that governments would rather conceal. Knowledge has always been power, but the management of information has become the key to government. The executive wants the public to receive only the information favourable to it, and strives to manage the release and the presentation of unfavourable information, and to keep much secret. A functioning legislature is essentially an instrument for breaking down that information management in the interest of the public’s ability to judge governments. It is in this role, however imperfectly, that the Senate, with its committee system and its culture of independence, has performed.

I have always appreciated the Upper House in Australia as a legislature of review or as Don Chipp said “to keep the bastards honest”.  As Australia has a very strong executive government that controls the votes of its backbenchers, this is even more important. The role of parliamentary clerks should not be underestimated as they provide senators with assistance and advice in a professional and apolitical manner in the interests of parliamentary oversight and transparency. These checks and balances strengthen the honesty of governance by asking the “inappropriate questions” that the government may wish to not be raised.

In places like Dubai where I currently reside, there is no bicameral system of government or a form of Westminster system.  The checks and balances cannot come from a Senate-type equivalent which raises the profile of both the media and the public service to promote transparency and provide information to the public so that there is greater awareness of local topics of interest.

Neuroscience of Leadership

And continuing on this theme from my last post on brain science and leadership, I read the paper from Rock and Schwartz on the Neuroscience of Leadership.  Some great points, particularly that behaviourism and humanism are overrated management approaches and that the preferred model of leadership is to encourage people to work out the solutions on their own.  This is not just about empowerment but actively working with people’s brains to harness the energy that is created when problems are solved.  Brains are pattern making organs with an innate desire to create novel connections and can undergo significant change in response to new environmental signals.  The paper states that the key is to focus attention on desirable practices and behaviours as then, the brain changes its physiology to meet the new pattern.  Leave the problem behaviours in the past and focus on identifying and creating new behaviours. 

Overcoming resistance to change is easier when the brain goes through the moment of insight when new connections are created.  But that is not all.  Training may yield these insights but the addition of follow-up coaching helps to embed the insights that occurred in the training session into the brain. 

Many old adages came to mind while reading the article.  Practice makes perfect was one.  Be the change you want to see was another.  Definitely “food for thought!”

Neuroleadership View of Insight

Following on from my post on the talk by Prof Ernst Poppel, I was directed by Richard Hames through my Facebook site to look at some of the recent work of Jeff Schwartz and David Rock on the neuroscience of leadership.  I found this other link and it looks very interesting – haven’t read the document as yet.  I particularly like this point about the neuroscience view of insight – one of the important 6 i’s of seeing knowledge. The key with insight is that it occurs after a period of calm often when we are doing something else (being around water helps for its soothing properties) and it unleashes enormous energy. The quote is below.

MM    From time to time, there is that moment when we “get it.” There’s a breakthrough or a flash of insight. It’s a moment when we experience a leap in learning. What can neuroleadership tell us about what is happening?

DR      There are some great studies now on insight. We know that insight occurs when the brain goes quiet for a moment. We know that insight is a very important moment in the brain; it packs an energetic punch, and represents possible long term changes in circuitry. Often we get an insight moment at surprising times, when we’re doing other things. That’s because the part of the brain we use actively, can drown out the signals from the rest of the brain. We know that anxiety decreases the likelihood of insight, and happiness and positive affect generally increases the chance of insight.

MM    How would this affect how we work with or teach others?

DR      In so many ways! For example when we start to value insight as the moment at the heart of change, we start to create ways of facilitating it. The great thing about the energy of insight, which is partly adrenaline, is that it drives people to take action. Insight engages people, it makes people get up out of their chairs literally, and want to drive change. This is one important lesson from the science: insight is not helpful to long-term change, it’s central to long-term change. But each person needs to have his or her own insight, not just to listen to the leader’s insight.

Case Study on the Need for Regulation

I’ve been following the discussion in Melbourne over the last few years with the rise of McMansion suburbs featuring large household buildings.  Being the owner of a fairly modest 14,500 square foot home, I found it difficult to understand why it was necessary to have 4 bathrooms in a house for only a couple of people.  During some futures workshops, one issue that kept reappearing was a potential backlash from people who have these places but not the funds to afford energy costs in heating and cooling as well as limited access to available public transport.  A related issue was the forecast of a relative increase in upgrading and retro-fitting existing households over building new ones.

And so it was interesting to see this release from the American Institute of Architects showing that there is a renewed interest in smaller house sizes and upgrading existing homes to make more use of the available area.  Partly this is due to belt-tightening by residents but also an enhanced interest in environmental issues and reducing energy costs.

This raises the issue of the need for regulation, especiallyin the good times, and the potential failings of letting market forces rule alone.  In this case, having regulations that required households to improve their energy efficiency preceded the demand of residents for these measures.  Of course, this also needs to be balanced with the removal of older regulations that are at odds with community sentiment.

Brain Science and Identity

On 1 July 2009, Professor Ernst Poppel gave a presentation at my workplace  titled “Who am I – who are we?  A brain science view towards identity”.  Professor Poppel is a brain researcher, Chair of the Board of Directors at the Center for Human Science, and Director of the Institute for Medical Psychology, University of Munich.

Ernst opened with the statement that brain science is interesting and he certainly made it so.  He stated that the brain is continuously thinking without conscious control.  Rather than the phrase “I think”, we should consider it as “It thinks”.  Hence, when you get an insight of sudden understanding, the brain has actually already been thinking about it for a while beforehand.  This part of tacit knowledge (right hemisphere, implicit, intuitive) is like a giant ocean compared with just small islands of explicit knowledge of the words that are represented primarily through the left hemisphere.

Half of the human brain is dedicated to visual analysis and only 40% dedicated to decision-making and self-monitoring.  Each of the brain’s 100 billion neuron cells is a separate entity that interacts with others.  There are three kinds of brain cells

• 500 million receptors that sense the external world.  We need to be modest about how selective to the world out there.  For example, we are blind outside light frequencies of certain band. 
• We have motor neurons that serve as the output from the brain and help us talk and act. 
• In between is the great intermediate net and within this,
  • Every nerve cell sends info out to 10000 others, and receives information from 10000 others in a process of divergence and convergence.
  • The brain always acts in a mechanism for complexity reduction based on the normal process of cellular excitation and inhibition.  Many brain diseases are caused by an imbalance in excitation and inhibition.
  • There is only a maximum of four steps before information from one cell connects with any other brain cell.  There is no independence of brain cells but there is very high interconnectivity.  Every mental act is embedded within an emotional part of the brain.

Connections between brain cells are not predetermined.  There is no one who speaks another language without an accent if they learn that beyond 10 years age.  To be truly bilingual or tringual, you need to study the language in early years using native speakers – similar for imprinting movement.  The matrix of the brain is fixed in that first 10 years which underlies the importance of being embedded in a culture.  Early learning is critical to cultural identity as it becomes a structure of the brain.  Other areas of the world are imprinted in a different way.

The notion of complexity reduction means that every human being must have prejudices.  This trap of the human mind causes stereotypes.  While we simplify in respect to intercultural communication, we need to take care that we must not simplify too much.

 He showed a number of images that trick the brain.  Some such as the Necker Cube cannot be flicked between their states at a frequency less than half a second due to the brain’s conscious construction latency.  Similarly, with various eye exercises, an image is constructed in the eye which is superimposed on the image in the brain, tricking us into seeing something that is not actually there (although it was there).   Likewise, colours are constructions of the brain.  The brain constantly checks and rechecks what is going on out there, what is going on out there every two or three seconds.

Our brain is always testing itself against how it makes sense of the world.  The brain’s representation of the world is an active construction of world outside and determined by our hypotheses of the world out there.  Rather than there being a straight connection between stimuli and responses, the stimulus is a function of our hypothesis (what we deign to perceive) and our reaction is a function of the stimulus.  We always have hypothesis testing going on.  Importantly, there is a short temporal window of just 2 or 3 seconds in which we make decisions.  Likewise, with music, our brain activates more with music run at a three second tempo.  In all domains, there is this temporal stage which is 2 or 3 seconds – this is a basic machinery of our brains.

We create a memory of our own past – our episodic memory.  For example, if we recollect a memory of ourselves as 10 years old, we will get a picture in our minds that will be place based and it has a strong emotion attached to it (which helps with the imprinting).  We see ourselves in the image of our old memory system as a third person.  This is a basic mechanism to construct our own personal identity; to double yourself.  With Alzheimer’s the problem is not so much losing memory as losing one’s sense of identity.

The picture we recollect may not be an accurate representation of reality but one that fits in with our own personal life history and makes it consistent.  We define ourselves when we duplicate ourselves meaning that there are two kinds of reality; our reflection of world and our interpretation of that reflection. All brains function according to this identity principle.

We define personal identity in both personal autonomy as well as belongingness.  These are complementary and underlie the importance of empathic relationships in communication to the construction of identity.

Some other points from his presentation:

• Our circadian rhythms are such that we should not teach between 12 and 3 pm as these are meant to be periods of rest. 
• Patients who have suffered strokes often need to practice and learn each day in order to function.  Some people are late learners.  Best protection against dementia is to keep your brain active. 
• One third of entire health budgets come from diseases of brain (Alzheimers, Parkinson, etc).  In Europe, this is 100 billion Euro per year and is the fastest growing health market.
• We need to develop improved Human Machine Interfaces to use technology better. 
• His own research is completely globalised and interdisciplinary. 

I found this presentation quite enlightening, particularly around the notion that brains constantly think beyond what we are consciously aware.  I knew about self-monitoring of body functions but the insight for me was around active thinking beyond consciousness.  This helps me understand where insights come from;  those moments when you suddenly realize something new and now I know that your brain has actually thought of it before you have!  Also, the whole notion around how we recall long term memory in pictures was informative and how that needs to be consistent with our own story. 

Professor Poppel’s presentation got me to go back to my book of Steven Pinker – How the Mind Works.  Note that Pinker talks about the mind rather than the brain.  Pinker mentions that understanding is a complex interaction between (1) genes, (2) brain anatomy, (3) its biochemical state, (4) family upbringing and (5) treatment by society and (6) external stimuli that impact on the person. 

But Prof Poppel does not just consider brains but also the mind.  In answering questions, he spoke eloquently about how brain science links with philosophy and psychology. 

Also, Pinker adds that the human brain uses at least four major formats of representation; Visual, phonological (a string of syllables which we use for short term memory), grammatical (nouns, verbs, etc in arrangements) and mentalese which is the language of thought of conceptual knowledge that captures the gist of a concept and also embraces story structures.   These match quite closely with those of Poppel but the addition of the conceptual knowledge and mentalese is critical to including narrative as an important representative element, particularly for longer term memory.