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Business Rule 1: Working at Home and Doing it Right

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What I Do for a Living

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I no longer work in an office. It’s been years. Now my desk is glass. It sits in my living room in Chicago behind a Chinese rice paper screen. Out the windows behind me is Lake Michigan and, in the wee hours when I have a chance, I can look at the water and think about what I’ll write next.

My office is the Internet. It’s inside my computer and inside yours. It’s open 24/7. My friends will attest that I’m almost here. I like it when you stop by or interrupt. It’s kind of lonely when no one’s around.

When folks ask me what I do every day, I say I write about thinking, and writing, and strategy. They usually get what I mean by that. But what I really do is try to share what I’ve learned and have fun while I’m doing it. It’s a rule of business and of life —

If you’re not having fun, you’re not doing it right.

What work did you do that was fun today?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

You might have heard of my new service for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and folks who are forging a path of their own. I’m calling it PVM, the Perfect Virtual Manager. We all need Managers. It’s perfect because you get to decide your manager’s job description. What could more perfect than that?

Net Neutrality 11-02–2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Net Neutrality: Doc Searls : Saying What and How

I’ll cop to giving more weight to the future than to the present (because I prefer growth and dynamism over stasis). And to having a personal agenda: wanting the Net to be more than gravy on telephony or cable TV from the local duopoly. In both cases I want the marketplace to be free and open and not your-choice-of-silo.

How do we get that? I think we need something other than a choice between carrier regulation and carrier protectionism, which is how the two sides seem to line up right now.

As for evidence of harm, I’d cite the carrier’s asymmetrical bandwidth provisioning (not to mention port blockages) and tendentious arguments — “It’s what the market wants” — when the market has no other choice. The Net needs to enable and support production as well as consumption. It needs to support and not just prevent (or make difficult) new business in small and home offices. To name just two pro-market moves.

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 11-01-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Everything on IP

All telephone communications will become IP based Jeff Pulver, Jeff Pulver Blog, October 23, 2006, quoted from Jeff Pulver: All telephone communications will become IP based By Randy Howard, Barbados Advocate, Mon Oct 23 2006

I don’t know what’s more remarkable: that someone clearly says what is the case, or that a newspaper got it right.
Then there’s the corollary: dropping long distance rates incented telcos to abrogate net neutrality, so that they can get their monopoly back without having to come up with new value added services to make money.

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 10-30-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Don’t nix net neutrality

. . . Last year, a Supreme Court ruling and Federal Communications Commission decision declared that the Internet does not fall under existing communication service laws, putting Internet regulation in legal limbo. Since then, cable and telephone companies have been discussing how to profit from this decision. One of their ideas is to create a “multitiered” Internet.
That sound you’re hearing is the death knell of equality, or net neutrality, on the Web. Net neutrality means that after paying for service, everyone can access the Internet as fast as their connection will allow, without artificial handicaps from the Internet provider. . . .

This would give a huge advantage to content providers with deep financial resources, and make it unlikely for upstart ones like Youtube.com to succeed.

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 10-29-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

The Truth Behind America’s Digital Decline

With every passing month, the United States falls further behind the global leaders in broadband Internet access thanks to a combination of market and policy failures. Our markets lack the competition to bring lower prices, higher speeds, and universal access. Our policies lack the imagination and potency to create real change. Meanwhile, Americans pay more money for less service than a dozen other nations. A third of U.S households are still stuck with dial-up, and another third lack Internet access of any kind. Our broadband problem is becoming a crisis.

Yet major telecommunications legislation now moving through Congress lacks a comprehensive vision for how to bring multiple competitive broadband providers to each market offering truly high-capacity connections at affordable prices.

[. . .]

To make matters worse, the Federal Communications Commission seems content to ignore the broadband problem and pretend we are moving forward. While the FCC is crowing about an uptick in 1 megabit per second (Mbps) DSL connections, Japanese consumers are paying the same price for 100 Mbps. How long can we afford to be 100 times slower than the rest of the world?

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 10-28-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

No Room for Neutrality on Net Neutrality

. . . What’s really going on is cable and telecommunications companies want to kill net neutrality so that they can charge content providers for preferred access to their customers.

As Craigslist founder Craig Newmark once described it (via Cory Doctorow’s memory of the comment):

“Imagine if you tried to order a pizza and the phone company said, “AT&T’s preferred pizza vendor is Domino’s. Press one to connect to Domino’s now. If you would still like to order from your neighborhood pizzeria, please hold for three minutes while Domino’s guaranteed orders are placed.”

Personally, I’d like to pick my own pizza vendor. And search engine

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE