My friend in the Duke University IT shop sent me a link to  www.thehdweb.com.  I have resisted the idea that I’ll watch television programs on my PC via Slingbox or Apple TV as I spend too much time at my computer already.  However, if the experience would be as I see on this site, I might be interested.  Not for watching CSI or American Idol, but to read newspapers on-line (I’m still a hold-it-in-your-hand reader) or to pursue other sorts of education from my desk.

And did you realize that our country ranks #15 in the world in broadband penetration, a drop of 11 spots between 2001 and 2006?!   Our ratio is 20 households per 100 (just below Japan and 50% less than Denmark or South Korea).  The average South Korean apartment building has 15x the connection speed as a typical American household, for example.

Imagine the commercial capabilities when most US household enjoy inexpensive, broadband access. Meanwhile, we’re a long way from the benefits of www.thehdweb.com.  In a globalized and highly competitive marketplace, we need to accelerate the pace of broadband availability.  cperrien

I grew up in New Orleans where parochial school children enjoyed two entertaining annual holidays:

- the well advertised Mardi Gras, a Tuesday day-off in mid Winter

- the Wednesday after Halloween to celebrate All Saints or All Souls Day

The headlines are occupied by the rise of oil, the fall of the dollar, the kick-off to the presidential race (so far it’s been preseason) and the finale to the sub-prime collapse.  Amidst the dour mainstream news, consider the escalation of the Microsoft vs Google campaign which should influence our own 2008 planning: 

- Microsoft invested $240mm investment in Facebook (1.6% stake) last week and Google countered immediately with an open standards alliance, Open Social, including LinkedIn, Ning, and Orkut (Google’s own social network).  Google does not want Facebook to become the operating system of social networks.  Quick aside: News Corp.’s 2006 100% acquisition of MySpace for $580mm looks brilliant.

Are we blindly returning to Act II of the dot-bom?  I think not and I believe that Social Networking or Community Building as promoted by Facebook and others could be adopted by our own kinds of enterprises to better connect our widely dispersed knowledge bases: employees, customers, partners, supplier in the spirit of ‘What if we knew what we all knew?!’

Right now I have eleven (11) applications opened to manage my work inside and outside of the firewall: email, sms, two types of instant messaging, two browsers, plus the associated tools for calendar, address book, word processing and a mobile phone.  I would value a workspace where I could link all of my activities to ‘connect those who know with those who need to know, regardless of their employer.  I see a Facebook-like model helping me to achieve this.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, is quoted in Monday’s NY Times:  “One of the things to say, very clearly, is that social networks are very real.  If you are of a certain age, you sort of dismiss this as college kids or teenagers.  But this is very real.“  Google closed over $700 today, up 54% YTD.

‘Start small, grow fast, get involved‘ might be a productive way to explore the potential of Social Networking or Innovation Networking in 2008.   No holiday required.

Perrien