2. August 2008 by Martin Suter.

So the Department of Homeland Security has revealed finally that it has the right to detain a person’s laptop at the border, possibly for months, with no suspicion of wrongdoing. (Washington Post article).

“The policies . . . are truly alarming,” said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who is probing the government’s border search practices. He said he intends to introduce legislation soon that would require reasonable suspicion for border searches, as well as prohibit profiling on race, religion or national origin.”

Senator Feingold is half right.

How do you require reasonable suspicion on the one hand and prohibit profiling on the other?

As a very frequent traveler, I am often shocked at what I see in airports these days. A few weeks ago, as I was putting back on my shoes and belt, I looked over to see an elderly, rotund woman, in tears, as she was being patted down and humiliated in plain view. The TSA employee was patting under her breasts with the back of her hand, looking for what, I have no idea. C’mon…When was the last time a 70 year old fat lady tried to hijack a plane? Or a 45 year old high tech executive father of two? Or a high school student? Or a…

You get the idea.

We live in a world where it is somehow deemed more acceptable to humiliate old fat ladies than it is to say out loud what we all know: radical Islamists are the threat, not my 14 year old son or the old lady next door, or me.

How will the DHS proceed if political correctness is a requirement? Will they have to pull aside and seize an equal number of laptops carried by business people, students and children – analyzing these before returning them months later? At what cost to the taxpayer? At what inconvenience to honest Americans?? And for what?!?

We lack the resources to treat everyone as a potential risk.

Put some wood behind the arrow, but aim it at the bullseye, not at me, not at my kids and not at fat ladies in wheelchairs.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter@iplicensing.net)

Posted in Security | Print | 1 Comment »

1. August 2008 by Martin Suter.

Recently a colleague of mine and I had a fascinating discussion over drinks one night about a concept that Clay Shirky refers to as “cognitive surplus”. He then sent me a link to a speech Clay gave at the Web 2.0 Conference in April of this year, called “Gin, Television, and Social Surplus” (video).

I love reading something that really makes you think, and Shirky nails it. Effectively he describes the cyclical anaesthetization and awakening of Western society, and suggests that we’re in the middle of that cycle currently. I can’t speak to the historical accuracy of his description of the pre-Industrial Revolution gin carts helping everyone in London to dull their senses, but I can totally relate to his modern day example: the sitcom. He refers to Desperate Housewives as “a cognitive heat sink, dissipating thinking…” I love that line!

Obviously, Shirky is a fan of wikis, and uses Wikipedia as a unit of measure for productivity of the collective against which he compares non-productive activity, most notably the watching of television. He estimates that there’s 100 million hours of collective human thought in “all of Wikipedia, the whole project–every page, every edit, every talk page, every line of code, in every language that Wikipedia exists in.” He doesn’t share his calculations, but he seems like a smart guy, so I’ll take that number at its face.

He then cites statistics on the amount of time spent watching TV per year – 200 billion hours in the US alone, or as he equates it to “two thousand Wikipedia projects a year”. Therein lies his “cognitive surplus”. People sitting on their couches as passive recipients of brain candy, rather than being active producers…Doing nothing as opposed to doing something.

Where we diverge is probably in our views on profiting from this cognitive surplus. While he doesn’t come out and say it, my guess is that he believes that society as a whole will benefit from contributions made from this cognitive surplus and the collective sharing of knowledge. That’s a little too warm and fuzzy for me. I’d take a slightly different view. If we were to look at this through an economic lens, then tapping into this cognitive surplus could grow our GDP at Chinese-like rates!

There is not a shortage of time, there’s a shortage of intellectual activity.

That’s my .02 (with much inspiration from Mr. Shirky)!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter@iplicensing.net)

Posted in Web 2.0, Education | Print | 1 Comment »

7. July 2008 by Martin Suter.

A line from a poem, “The New Colossus”, by the nineteenth-century American poet Emma Lazarus, appears on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. It ends with Liberty herself speaking:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

While this may have sufficed as American immigration policy pre-WWI, when a strong back and a desire to work was all that was necessary to build out the nation’s infrastructure, it doesn’t cut it today. And yet, in many ways, these sentiments continue to be reflected by US immigration policy in the 21^st century.

America is slipping by most meaningful, objective measures: Education, healthcare, productivity, GDP per capita, trade deficits, etc. I was at a private lecture, a couple of years ago, at which Gene Kranz (“Failure is Not An Option”) was the guest speaker. He decried the situation in fairly stark terms by saying that there will not be enough US aerospace engineering graduates to backfill the positions vacated by retiring NASA engineers. How are we going to beat the Chinese to the moon or continue to push the boundaries of exploration with a manned mission to Mars if we can’t fully staff NASA?

The US has many different visa classes. The H1B is an employer-sponsored visa specifically for those positions that require advanced degrees. However, the number of H1Bs available each year is a fraction of the demand, meaning that one’s chances of getting a visa are reduced to a lottery. Companies like Google and Microsoft have been vocal in their view that their ability to fully staff in the US is negatively impacted by the inadequate quota levels of available H1B visas and have gone so far as to open substantial R&D offices in Vancouver, as well as in places like India, China & Russia.

While getting an H1B is a milestone for many professionals, it is limited in terms of time (3 year term, 6 years max), and does not allow for spouses or children to work in the US. Nor is it a path to US citizenship – that path is through a Green Card.

There are essentially two ways to get a coveted Green Card – sponsorship by a family member already resident in the US, or sponsorship by an employer. The family sponsored applicants need not have any advanced skills or education – only a desire to reside in the US and a family member capable of sponsoring them. And while we cling to the belief that it is possible to live the American Dream, the reality is that many of these Green Card holders have neither the education nor the skills necessary to help America improve its competitiveness in a frictionless, flat world.

I speak from personal experience when I say that the path to Green Card for educated professionals is not trivial. Many potential Green Card applicants may also be H1B visa holders, at least the lucky few to have gotten one. The perception continues to be propagated that a Green Card applicant can’t be in the country to fill a position that an American is capable of doing. The first step is for the employer to demonstrate to the Department of Labor that no American meets the minimum qualifications laid out for that position. Not that they are more qualified than the prospective immigrant, simply that they meet the minimum qualifications. This is a very low bar to set and as a result, many highly qualified non-US citizens that want to live, raise their families and pay taxes in the US are not able to do so.

The sad fact is that these jobs are being created elsewhere, as the production of “bits” has very different location requirements than does the production of “atoms”. American leadership in technology and its competitive advantage are evaporating, and what’s unfortunate is that many of the people that could help stop this slide, have been lined up at the door, asking politely to get in.  However, too many are turned away and prevented from doing so.

Immigration needs to be managed, but the pool of potential immigrants is a tremendous resource to be tapped. An enlightened immigration policy would be aligned with a clearly defined set of national priorities. Want to improve competitiveness and GDP? Make it easier for educated professionals to live and work in the country. Let their spouses, many of which are also highly educated, work and contribute as well. And most importantly, so doing will allow their children to be educated, work and stay in the US as well. Professionals are net producers and help to grow the national economy and the tax base not takers.

So continue to let in the tired, poor and huddled masses, but make it easier for those of us that are neither tired, nor poor, but who desire to be productive members of the US economy to stay in the country for more than six years.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter@iplicensing.net

Posted in Immigration, Education, Microsoft, Google | Print | 1 Comment »

16. June 2008 by Martin Suter.

As I was walking to my gate on Sunday at the Orlando airport, I “tuned in” to the broadcast that continuously drones over sound systems in airports across the country. “The Department of Homeland Security Threat Level is Orange”, said the voice.

Just as with the exhortations to “Mind the gap” in the London Tube, the DHS threat level announcements are a ubiquitous part of the aural landscape, so much so that they are simply background noise.

“Why Orange?”, I wondered, “Why not Yellow or Blue, or some other shade of the DHS rainbow?”

It’s hard to know what constitutes an Orange threat level. I imagine that there are different security protocols for TSA employees based on a graded scale, but does John Q Public do anything differently based on whether the official threat level is Orange or Yellow?

Who are they kidding by including Blue and Green on the scale, even Yellow, for that matter. Does anyone expect that we’ll see a DHS Security Threat Level of Green in this lifetime? What will it take to move the needle on airline safety and security from Orange to Yellow again? And what will that mean to us? Will we get to keep our shoes on or carry full size bottles of water through security checkpoints?

I, for one, would love for security broadcasts to be turned off, except in the event of specific threats, much as is done with Amber Alerts. I know that I’d pay much closer attention if the announcement was meaningful and occasional instead of a constant drone about a meaningless colour gradient.

Aren’t safety and security black & white?

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter@iplicensing.net)

Posted in Security | Print | 6 Comments »

13. June 2008 by Martin Suter.

Unlike many, I won’t profess to know what Jesus would do, the historical record is a little fuzzy on that one. But I’m pretty sure I know what Jefferson would do when it comes to the blatant disregard the Administration has had for the Constitution. For the time being, so does the Supreme Court.

Yesterday’s ruling on habeas corpus for the Guantanamo detainees is a win for Thomas Jefferson. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy declares: “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

Yes.

However, perhaps most troubling is that this most fundamental of issues was decided on a 5-4 vote split along party lines.

It should not come as a shock that the right wing of the court , led by Bush appointees Justices Roberts and Scalia, were dismissive of the Constitution’s relevance and alarmist in their rhetoric. Scalia writes in his opinion that “It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed. The nation will live to regret what the court has done today.”

He went on to say that the decision is not based on legal principles, “but rather an inflated notion of judicial supremacy.”

Chief Justice Roberts was dismissive of habeas corpus as a fundamental element of the Constitution, suggesting that it is “most fundamentally a procedural right.”

You’ve got to be kidding me.

George Bush’s stacking of the Supreme Court will go down as perhaps his most enduring legacy, especially if the balance of power shifts from the Jeffersonian view of the Constitution’s enduring relevance to the Republican view that it may be ignored, overruled at the whim of a President. To have this view supported by 4 out of 9 Justices should have alarm bells ringing. The Judicial Branch is supposed to be the check and balance on the Executive Branch. This time, the system has worked. What about next time? Or the time after that??

It’s not surprising that the two presumptive candidates come down on opposite sides of this issue. Do I even need to say which is which?

The most fundamental principles on which this great country was founded are at risk, and will be more so if the Republicans have the opportunity of appointing one more Justice.

What would Jefferson do?

Vote accordingly!

That’s my .02,

Martin Suter

(martin.suter@iplicensing.net)

Posted in Thomas Jefferson, Supreme Court | Print | 1 Comment »

17. May 2008 by Martin Suter.

To many, outside of industry, standards bodies often appear as an arcane group of eccentrics that spend years debating minutiae. Actually, they appear this way to many of us in the industry as well! However, standards bodies play an critical role in industry, as they drive toward consensus related to supported use case requirements, and technical means of achieving these. While representatives from most companies participate in these meetings, there is an element of democracy contained within the process and overt politicking is severely discouraged.

Many have suggested that the reason the US lagged Europe in wireless deployments and adoption was that there was no unifying technology standard, in contrast to Europe, where GSM was widely adopted as the consensus standard. This enabled seamless roaming across the continent and allowed handset manufacturers to achieve economies of scale more easily.

If you look at the wireless industry holistically, there are two main standards bodies: 3GPP and IEEE. Each will say that they’re very different from the other, with 3GPP focused on cellular standards, while IEEE is focused on a broader range of standards, from wireless personal area networks (WPAN), wireless local area networks (WLAN) to wireless wide area networks (RAN).

Historically, there has perhaps been an acceptable rationale for this bifurcation. The cellular industry was focused on the delivery of voice over legacy circuit switched networks, and used a whole host of air interfaces (time/frequency/code division), each designed to support large numbers of users in very narrow bands of licensed spectrum. The IEEE was focused on the delivery of data across IP networks, and has developed a series of air interfaces based on particular use cases. With the exception of 802.11b, which uses a direct sequence, spread spectrum modulation, every other flavour of 802.11 (i.e. .11a,g,n, etc.), 802.16 (aka WiMAX), 802.20 (aka MBWA) use OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing).

What the industry is finally seeing is a degree of convergence, although not yet formally. There is some debate as to which technology becomes the official “4G” standard. There are proponents of 802.16-2005 (Mobile WiMax), which others support the proposed 3GPP 4G standard, LTE (Long Term Evolution).

Notwithstanding this debate, legacy circuit switched voice networks are becoming packet switched, and increasingly capable of supporting significant data traffic. Data networks are increasingly capable of supporting significant voice traffic, with applications like VoIP and VoWLAN. 3GPP standards, such as LTE, are migrating to OFDM and IP.

A debate about which standard is “best”, is largely a waste of time. One could make a strong argument that 802.16 (WiMax) is a better outdoor standard than 802.11 (Wi-Fi), or that its performance exceeds 3G systems today. Yet many remain skeptical as to the widespread adoption of Mobile WiMax. “Best” is not only a function of waveform or data rate. Cost, ubiquity, market timing, industry uptake and standards roadmap all impact the success or failure of a particular technology. At the end of the day, it is too much to expect that a single technology will be “best” in all use cases. Seamless, transparent interoperability is what matters, as both 3GPP and IEEE standards are likely to co-exist and ultimately, complement the other.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter@iplicensing.net)

Posted in Wireless, WiMAX | Print | 1 Comment »

4. April 2008 by Martin Suter.

First, a short story:

"Once upon a time, a technology is announced that generates significant press and industry interest.

There’s a period of over-enthusiasm and unrealistic projections, a flurry of well-publicized activity by technology leaders…some successes, but more failures…The only enterprises making money are conference organizers and magazine publishers.

Because the technology doesn’t live up to its over-inflated expectations, it rapidly becomes unfashionable. Media interest wanes, except for a few cautionary tales.

However, focused experimentation and hard work by an increasingly diverse range of organizations lead to a true understanding of the technology’s applicability, risks and benefits…

Finally, the real-world benefits of the technology are demonstrated and accepted…increasingly stable as the technology enters its 2nd and 3rd generation. The final height of the plateau varies according as to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market…"

How familiar is this story?

___________________

Most of us in technology have seen Gartner’s famous Magic Quadrant. Many of us in start-ups have taken the published version for a particular space, copied it into PowerPoint and inserted our companies in the lower right (Visionaries). The implication is, of course, that by aligning with a larger company with the "Ability to Execute", together we could own the coveted Magic Quadrant.

But another Gartner tool that I find even more compelling is the Gartner Technology Hype Curve. The story above is simply the definitions of each of the 5 steps in the model strung together: Technology Trigger, Peak of Inflated Expectations, Trough of Disillusionment, Slope of Enlightenment and the Plateau of Productivity.

What blows me away is how consistently this cycle reflects reality.

I’ve spent a lot of time in wireless. Intuitively, it is possible to place a given technology somewhere on this curve.

If I say "muni-wireless" today, most people would say "Trough of Disillusionment". Given the media reports of the past 6-12 months, it’s easy to see why. I personally believe that it is now on the ascent and has crossed over to the Slope of Enlightenment, but the public will have to catch up. But if I were to say "WiMAX", what would you think? Certainly at or near the Peak of Inflated Expectations, and inevitably heading for the dreaded Trough ("What do you mean it doesn’t do 70 mbs over 70 miles?!?"). What about LTE? Judging from all of the press and conference hype (see Gartner definition about the only people making money), and it’s easy to see that it’s on the ascent and climbing inexorably towards the Peak of Inflated Expectations. And then there’s 4G. If you read the press, you’d think it was imminent, and there’s not even consensus on what the 4G standard is.

It’s amazing how accurate this model is, and how it can be used to explain market behaviors. Entrepreneurs produce buzzword compliant business plans early on in the lifecycle, and find funding during the hype phase. Money starts to dry up and vendor shakeouts occur during the dark days of the Trough. Management teams and the resolve of Boards are tested, and only the strongest survive. It is a Darwinian process, but those that do, that have differentiated themselves and executed, emerge from the other side as real companies. There is money to be made the old fashioned way, not by hype driven valuations, but by rational, solid business fundamentals and execution for the few and the brave.

It’s easy to buy into the hype - it’s always about the "next greater thing". WiMax is better than outdoor Wi-Fi…Who needs WiMAX with 3G…4G’s coming…And so on. But is WiMAX really better than Wi-Fi? Does it matter? LTE’s at least five years out, and we have iPhones today. What can we do to empower users today with wireless broadband connectivity? It ain’t EDGE, it ain’t WiMAX, and it won’t be LTE for a long time yet.

It’s important to recognise hype for what it is. Outdoor Wi-Fi is on the Slope of Enlightenment and its second coming. Embrace it.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter
(martin.suter@iplicensing.net)

Posted in Wireless, WiMAX | Print | 2 Comments »

22. March 2008 by Martin Suter.

Yesterday, I started reading Susan Jacoby’s new book, "The Age of American Unreason". Many of the statistics she cites have been cited elsewhere, but it was her aggregation of these, and the discussion of the implications, that I have found sobering. This has led me to ponder whether America has any chance of remaining the greatest country in the world, or whether any forward motion is strictly a function of momentum from previous generations’ effort, or perhaps through the sheer strength of a very small subset of society. I would wager that to these "Atlases", the US is getting very heavy indeed.

The examples Jacoby uses provide quantitative measures that reinforce what I (we?) see manifested on a daily basis but all too often choose to ignore:

"Nearly two-thirds of Americans want creationism…to be taught alongside evolution in public schools. Fewer than half of Americans-48 percent, accept any form of evolution, even guided by God, and just 26 percent accept Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Fully 42 percent say that all living beings, including humans, have existed in their present form since the beginning of time." (1)

In another section, she points out that, in a 1998 survey by researchers from the University of Texas, "one out of four public school biology teachers believes that humans and dinosaurs inhabited the earth simultaneously." (2)

This can’t be a shock to anyone who watched the early Republican debates, where fully 7 out of 11 candidates came out as Christian fundamentalists, falling over each other in their attempts to prove their religiosity exceeded that of their opponents. Not intelligence, not competence or experience, but how strongly they believed that the Bible was the inerrant word of god was their primary qualification for running for President of the United States.

How have we allowed this to happen? How have we become so intellectually neutered so as to allow "political correctness" to supersede intellectual debate and discourse?

In his song, "None of Us Are Free", Solomon Burke sings "If you don’t say it’s wrong, then that says it’s right". The intellectuals of this country have been the silent minority, and as a result, are equally complicit in the sorry state of US society today.

In Atlas Shrugged, the intellectuals of the world went on strike, removing themselves, their capital and their productive capabilities from society and physically relocating to a world of their own. Today, it is not just the exodus of intellectual horsepower, but capital flows and competitive advantage as well that threaten this country. In an information/knowledge based world, how is it possible for the US to be competitive with such a pervasive, systemic abdication of reason? And perhaps more importantly, what are the prospects to pull out of this dive?

As in Atlas Shrugged, the US is being held aloft by a disproportionate few - intellectuals, engineers, entrepreneurs. In a flat world, where ideas, capital and people can move with relatively little friction, it will not be surprising if these few "shrug". Wouldn’t you?

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter
(martin.suter@iplicensing.net)

(1) "Public Divided on Origins of Life, August 30, 2005, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

(2) George E. Webb, The Evolution Controversy in America (Lexington, KT, 1994), p.254

Posted in Objectivism, Ayn Rand, Education | Print | 2 Comments »

19. March 2008 by Martin Suter.

In Ulysses, Tennyson wrote, "I am a part of all that I’ve met". As I drove back today from Anne Lummis’ funeral, I began to fully understand what a profound statement this truly is.

I didn’t know Anne, having only met her briefly at a few social occasions with her husband, Gordon. But I had the privilege today of seeing how many friends came out to pay their respects, and to hear the tributes to her during the eulogies by her husband, and their three children.

One of the descriptions of Anne’s life that stuck with me today was that "She wrote her own book." This is something that we all get to do, and how it reads is entirely up to each of us.

Those who know me, would attest that I am proud of my accomplishments. But when all is said and done, those closest to us - our family, friends, colleagues will gather in a room to remember us. No one in that room will care that "He was a great business development guy…He exceeded quota…He signed big deals", etc. It’s not what we’ve done, but who we are and how we’ve lived our life that matters to those closest to us at the end of the day.

We make choices in our actions and interactions every single day, consciously or subconsciously. We choose to act rationally or irrationally, with integrity or not, with compassion or not. When we become that "part" of those that we meet along the way, what "part" of them will we become? If we strive to leave the best parts of ourselves when we cross paths with people, the world will be a better place for our having passed through it.

By all accounts, Anne Lummis left only the good parts with all whom she met, and, as a result, the world is, indeed, a better place.

We could all aspire to as much in our own lives.

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

12. March 2008 by Martin Suter.

I find it fascinating that many market disruptions are not technological, but rather business models enabled by technology. What happens when there are no barriers to entry? What happens in a world with no friction? What happens when customers can interact directly with sellers?

Dell shook up the PC industry by first selling direct to end-users. Google has gone from a Search engine to the dominant force in advertising, and along the way has figured out how to do "free" very well. eBay brought the garage sale to the world. And finally, recording artists are realising that there’s money to be made selling direct to your fan base, without compromising your artistic integrity.

Nine Inch Nails just released a collection of 36 songs, called "Ghosts I-IV". MSNBC.com suggests that "2008 may go down in history as the beginning of the end for the recording industry." I beg to differ. It’s been like watching death by 1000 cuts in slow motion. 2008 is hopefully the year where the final nail is hammered into the coffin, a nine inch nail.

Where did it all go wrong for the music industry?

Record companies are licensing companies. What is a "record deal", if not a license granting rights to an artist’s intellectual property to a record company along with the rights to make or have made physical product, the rights to distribute and sell this IP in return for a royalty rate paid to the creator of the IP. For decades, they held the keys to the kingdom. Barriers to entry were high…Studio time, production and mixing equipment, analog master tapes were expensive, manufacturing, promotion to radio stations, and distribution channels…The studios had a wonderfully integrated system, but it was a closed system. The only way that an artist could get a record on somebody’s turntable was to play within the system, by their rules.

Video may have killed the radio star, but digital is what killed record companies.

The shift from analog/vinyl to digital was the first nail in their coffin. Cheap, ubiquitous broadband was another nail. Napster got people used to downloading content and not having a physical instantiation of the music (i.e. a CD) and was another nail. MySpace and other social networking sites facilitated the viral promotion of artists; another nail. YouTube further helped them distribute music videos and concert footage; another nail (This one in MTV). Apple bundled GarageBand with the MAC, enabling anyone to produce decent quality music quickly and cheaply; yet another nail. iTunes and the iPod gave us a means of storing and cataloguing our music, eliminating the need for a home stereo system or physical form factors; another nail. iTunes gave us a means of purchasing music that no longer required a trip to the mall; the eighth nail in the coffin.

And in the past year, major artists like Radiohead and now Nine Inch Nails selling direct to their fans. Hopefully, the ninth and final nail.

In his book, The Long Tail, Chris Anderson articulates how in a world without friction (i.e. the Internet), even those with the most arcane tastes, can find something they want, growing the overall size of the market. He posits that there is more money to be made across the entire breadth of the market, as opposed to a narrow, deep market as the music industry used to be.

The music industry isn’t dead, record companies and MTV are.

But have we, as consumers, ended up winning or losing in this deal? I would suggest that we’ve won big-time.

Trent Reznor, from NIN comments on Ghosts I-IV: "The end result is a wildly varied body of music that we’re able to present to the world in ways the confines of a major record label would never have allowed…"

The probability of my selecting a Nine Inch Nails CD and paying $15.95 to see whether I liked it or not would have been pretty small. Or Radiohead for that matter.

But give me a chance to experience and experiment with new tastes in a low-risk way, and I’m all over it. Does it get any better?

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter@iplicensing.net)

Posted in Music, Disruptive Technology, Internet, Licensing | Print | No Comments »