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March 25, 2008
FCBA Cyberspace Committee Lunch on the Future of Voice and Video and Communications in an Internet-Enabled World
I wanted to give a heads up to any of you who might be in DC on April 2. I co-chair the Federal Communications Bar Association’s Cyberspace Committee. We are hosting a brown-bag lunch on “the Future of Voice and Video and Communications in an Internet-Enabled World.”
The event is free, and you don’t have to be an FCBA member to come to the lunch, but you do have to RSVP.
My objective (whether or not it is anyone else’s objective connected to the event, I do not know) is to shake things up at least a little in DC, to give the regulators, policymakers and advocates a taste of what is going on in the world outside the Beltway, and to make sure laws and rules and policy are crafted with a full appreciation of the needs of innovators and entrepreneurs to do things that existing laws might not have contemplated.
My hope is that when bring tech and business pioneers to DC, the policymakers get a better sense of our needs, and we get a better understanding of their obligations to the greater public good. When we cross-pollinate the policymakers in DC with cutting-edge technologists and entrepreneurs, we get a better understanding about how technology and policy might evolve in a mutually virtuous cycle. We can’t keep writing laws and regulations in a vacuum, and, by the same token, we can’t keep building new companies without fully appreciating how law, regulations and policy might affect business.
This lunch is just a humble part of a longer dialogue. I’ve tried in the past to bring innovators into the corridors of power. (I’m not sure how many remember the “Peripheral Visionary Summits.”) The discussions are always lively and enlightening. Whether we do any permanent good is anyone’s guess. I hope everyone leaves with a better appreciation of business needs and policy concerns. I’m convinced that we’ve got to persist, to invade DC as often as possible to help shape forward-looking laws and policy.
This Cyberspace lunch is simply designed to expose policy makers to a few ideas and examples about what is going on with voice and video in an Internet-enabled world, and how existing rules are helping or hindering entrepreneurial efforts. I hope to reiterate that the Internet-enabled digital communications future is not about voice alone. It is not about video alone. It is about what happens when both applications, along with the host of other evolving and inter-related applications, are viewed as part of the larger Internet experience. The future of communications is about what happens now that Moore's Law and Metcalfe's Law kick-in and we create a "system" and a new synthetic environment that will change forever the ways in which we all interact.
Here are the details
Federal Communications Bar Association: Cyberspace Practice Committee Brown Bag Lunch
Date/Time: Wednesday, April 2, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.
Location: Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, 2300 N Street, NW
Topic: The Future of Voice and Video and Communications in an Internet-Enabled World
More Info: This lunch will bring together technology, business and policy thought-leaders to consider the future of Internet-delivered voice and video… and whatever other services and applications await us on the horizon.
Moderator: Jonathan Askin, Professor, Brooklyn Law School
Panelists: Shelly Palmer (Managing Partner, Advanced Media Ventures Group; President, The Emmy Awards -- National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY); Lowell Feldman (CEO, Feature Group IP; Adjunct Professor at UT School of Law); John Hane (Pillsbury Winthrop); Craig Walker (Sr. Product Manager, Voice Products at Google)
Again, to RSVP: Click Here
Tags: Internet Communications, Federal Communications Bar Association, VoIP, Jonathan Askin
Internet Video, FCC
Posted by jonathan.askin at March 25, 2008 05:29 PM