Better Conversations

Before telecom I was heavily into environmental law. I'm starting to serve folks in that area again as there are so many crossovers as more networks become more intelligent. The regulatory overlays b/t climate regulation and other network regulation are significant, interesting and informative.

Very quickly, however, one thing I've noticed in contrast to the FCC is how much work EPA does to reach out & educate - from blogs to multiple email lists (I can very easily monitor US EPA as well as every EPA region in the country). One example is the EPA's law / resources site: http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/. But this is also true at the state level. California Air Resources Board, for example, does an incredible job of pushing information out; they have dozens of list servers that anyone can subscribe to, which gives the the absolute latest information.

As we look toward how to reform FCC and as FCC enters the smart grid and eventually broader climate related conversations, maybe we can look to better examples in other places as pointers to how to improve U.S. regulation of the gear that contributes to networks of human intelligence - AKA telecom. As all networks transform from mostly single purpose and 1-way to multipurpose and mulitway, so too should government networks serve these adaptive evolutionary trends.