What I learned quickly at this meeting is that the FIND community are a VERY impressive group of researchers who are actively designing what might/could/should be the next Internet. They represent an incredible assembly of ivy league schools, research companies, think tanks and more. Needless to say it was exciting to be there! Unfortunately, my ignorance was pretty vast going in. I collaborated with some real Internet pioneers (e.g. Bob Kahn and David Clark to name two) without even knowing it! Furthermore, the technical nature of a lot of the subject matter was stretching my 1980’s era computer science knowledge and memory to say the least.

The good news is that the FIND group is engaging a wider set of collaborators, and I am honored to be one of the few business/economics types there. In fact, my input helped to add to the design of the “information”-centric design philosophy which has become part of the record for the larger group.

What this amounts to, dear readers, is a whale of an opportunity. We have a seat at the table and a voice in the conversation, now all we have to do is use it! What do you think the Future Internet should do? How should it enable society or business? Let me know, and just maybe we will see your ideas in the Future.

Well, the RIT Entrepreneurship Conference was a big success. Really big, I would say, for our region and our school. Among the many things I heard during the day was about physical things interacting with the Internet. There is a long history of this kind of thinking and ideas. Some highlights:

1999 Kevin Kelly’s New Rules for the New Economy advises “Embrace the Swarm” so that we might all consider how networking EVERYTHING creates a new paradigm

2005 Tim O’Reilly coins the term Web 2.0 to include several ideas. One that gets little mention is Software Above the Level of a Single Device. I usually refer to this when talking about hybrid Mobile/Desktop access, but really it includes ideas of how physical devices get linked into the web. Example is iPod.

2005 (November) Guitar Hero is released for playstation with guitar as interface

2006 (December) Nintendo Wii is released with innovative physical interface

2007 Nintendo Wii is labeled as the market leader of console games by the Financial Times

late 2007/early 2008 WiiFit is released to bring together fitness and gaming

2008 (March I hope) Shenoy and Perotti present at the Internet of Things conference in Zurich