Last week I was in Athens, Greece for the 17th annual Global Forum/Shaping the Future conference, as the organization bills the event. It has been called "the Davos of IT," after the global economic policy summit, held annually in the Swiss village of Davos.
Though the scale is smaller and concerns information and communication technology (ICT) and related fields, the concept is the same--gather serious leaders from all over the world, for an intense and knowledgeable exchange of ideas and meeting of minds.
Led by French IT professionals Sylviane Toporkoff and Sebastien Levy, Global Forum's overall conference theme this year was "COLLABORATIVE CONVERGENCE: Users Empowerment in the Global Digital Economy."
I covered the event for Network World, which published my dispatch on 28 October 2008. You can read my summary of the news and issues here:
"Global Forum highlights digital trust, international broadband competition."
I had been invited to Global Forum give a talk in Session 3: Regulation and Governance Initiatives. I titled my presentation, "Common Sense and Common Carriage: Draining the Network Neutrality Swamp."
My thesis is that broadband access is so important, it needs to use historic and proven principles of common carriage regulation to protect and enhance the rights and responsibilities of end users and broadband providers alike.
It is based on my work at the Center for Information and Communication Sciences at Ball State University, along with my interests in our Digital Policy Institute.
My summary slides, along with all the program, will be posted at Global Forum's website.
This year I was also asked to be a Global Forum Moderator in Session 9, whose theme was "Mobility in a Digital World." The panel featured eight speakers from half a dozen countries. It was an challenging honor, to keep up with them and to keep the panel organization on target and on time. (Beyond doubt, my graduate students give me constant practice in meeting these challenges.)
Information and communication sciences come together as a global field of action. If that's true, then we need to be truly global professionals, with direct or indirect engagement in the field's events and its news, worldwide.
Global Forum is a great place to participate in both.
Competitive strategist Michael Porter claims it's not enough for organizations to add value, they also have to signal value. This is to signal the market and the customer to know what the organizations and their professionals do.
The College of Communication, Information, and Media at Ball State University puts out a weekly internal and external email newsletter for this purpose. Here's an entry on some of my recent professional activity:
JAY GILLETTE SERVES AS PACIFIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS COUNCIL (PTC) RESEARCH PRIZE JUDGEJay Gillette (CICS) this month served as a reviewer and judge in the Pacific Telecommunications Council’s panel for the distinguished Meheroo Jussawalla Research Prize. The winner for Best overall participant research paper for PTC'09, the annual international Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and policy conference, will be announced in Honolulu in January 2009.
The prize honors the legendary East Indian scholar Dr. Meheroo Jussawalla. She overcame political persecution and personal adversity to become a leading figure in Asia-Pacific telecommunications development.
The mission of the international professional society Pacific Telecommunications Council, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, is to foster ICT advancement together with Asia-Pacific and Pan-American professional interchange. Gillette has been a member and officer in PTC since 1995.