This is what I draw from the announcement that former FCC Chairman Michael Powell is drafting a technology plan for McCain, to be released shortly. The McCain campaign will promote it as an overdue response to the comprehensive technology agenda that Obama unveiled eight months ago. I'm sure they will position long-standing Republican ideas like cutting the capital gains tax and promoting "market forces" to encourage broadband deployment as maverick proposals. What concerns me most is what the McCain plan apparently leaves out: strong views on the crucial issues that Obama's plan covers. Immigration reform and free trade are worthy goals. They aren't a technology agenda.

I like Michael Powell. I really do. He's extremely smart and open-minded, he was a dedicated public servant, and he did some wonderful things at the FCC, especially on spectrum policy. Yet Powell always had a curious blind spot about how FCC decisions affected the world outside the agency. His infamous quip comparing the Digital Divide to the "Mercedes divide" is a good example. Even when he had the policies right (as on requiring "line sharing" for broadband access), he couldn't always get them adopted, because the FCC doesn't operate in a sealed box. It's a component -- an important component -- of the larger policy and political apparatus of the federal government. With the McCain plan, Powell is making the same mistake.

In an interview last week, Powell asserts that issues like Network Neutrality in Obama's agenda are "in the weeds," because "[a] lot of the FCC’s issues aren’t ‘president of the United States’ issues." Nothing could be further from the truth. Reasonable minds can differ over the right policies to preserve the open Internet, promote next-generation broadband, safeguard online privacy, and create a connected digital democracy. Supporters of Obama (like me) can think he made a mistake in his handling of the FISA telecom immunity legislation (as I do). The absolute worst approach is to label these as insignificant technical matters that the President need not address. That's been the mindset, with disastrous results, the past eight years.

As chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, John McCain was exposed to a wide range of tech policy issues. On the other hand, he admits he's "computer illiterate." Ask yourself how you'd feel about working for a corporation where the CEO doesn't know how to use a computer. No matter how smart, someone who can't open a web page, type a letter on a word processor, or compose an email message, is going to be fundamentally out of touch with the daily experience of every member of the knowledge economy.

The only saving grace would be if McCain's technology advisors could overcome his personal ignorance. As I've been saying for a long time, no President can oversee the details of every important issue, so the people around him or her are critical. The roster of Obama's tech advisory group (which I'm proud to be part of) is nothing short of amazing. It includes a shockingly high percentage of the best academics, entrepreneurs, executives, and investors I've encountered during my 15 years in the tech world. And tech-oriented advisors are at the very heart of the campaign. McCain has supporters like Michael Powell and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina who understand these issues, but what's the point if their message is that technology doesn't matter? When the tech-savvy advisors reinforce the "do nothing" instincts of a tech-illiterate leader, the result is, well, what we got with the Bush Administration: the US falling behind other countries on both broadband deployment and competition, individual rights violated because the government hasn't established rules of the road, and the Internet's magnificent innovation engine in jeopardy.

Obama's tech policies aren't perfect, and McCain's wouldn't be all bad. Still, the choice matters. It matters a lot. The cynicism out there, even from those who agree with Obama on the issues, scares me more than anything. People think that politicians can't be trusted to do anything other than reward their cronies and contributors, and they think government's only effect in markets is to screw them up. Does anyone remember how eight years ago we had a trillion-dollar budget surplus, and the rest of the world looked in awe at the economic growth and innovation unleashed by our Internet industry? We can have that again, and much more, but only if we recognize how much technology matters in the global economy of the 21st century. Obama gets it; McCain doesn't.

The call is open to anyone interested. To receive dial-in information, please RSVP by email to openflow@supernova2008.com.

Topics we plan to address on the call will include: What are the key issues around interconnecting social networks, identity systems, and online applications? Is openness always a good thing? How do open networks change business models, as well as processes within companies? What new opportunities emerge in an Open Flow environment?

Tech Policy for the Next Administration
Saturday, April 12th
5:00-6:30pm
Room G65 Huntsman Hall
3730 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA

Speakers:

- Professor Kevin Werbach (Wharton)
- Reed Hundt (former Chairman, FCC)
- Gigi Sohn (founder, Public Knowledge)
- Mark Alexander (Policy Director, Obama for America)

The roundtable will address important topics such as Network Neutrality, Broadband Policy, Media Ownership, Intellectual Property, and Privacy, with extensive audience Q&A.

Non-Penn attendees must send their name to me at kevin@werbach.com by Thursday 4/10 to ensure access to the building through security.

Basically, Predictable Network Solutions makes technology that dynamically re-allocates network latency and throughput on a per-user basis. It works using statistical traffic models, not application-specific deep packet inspection. In theory, that means network operators will no longer have a network management reason to fear P2P traffic, because it won't strain the peak capacity of the network. And also in theory, users and application providers will be free to use the network however they please, with better performance on bandwidth-intensive services like video than they experience today.

So is broadband nirvana around the corner? I'm not sure. It's too early to tell.

Let's assume the technology works as advertised, and this tiny British startup (or someone else taking a similar approach) succeeds in getting it deployed widely on major broadband networks. Network operators will still have choices in how they manage traffic and pricing. They will still have incentives to bundle their access service with content and applications, or to offer exclusive deals to preferred providers. If you think such arrangements are dangerous, better broadband congestion management won't prevent them. It would, however, make clear tthat the deals are about revenue opportunities, not traffic engineering. A network operator that wants to exercise tight control over applications and content will see Predictable Network Solutions' solutions as tools to help achieve that end.

The big lesson here is that technology doesn't stand still. Network neutrality became a concern partly because application-specific traffic management became feasible. As network management technology develops, it's likely to reshape the debate yet again.

I'd love to get your feedback on my Ten Challenges for the Network Age.

In the paper, I describe two views on telecom and Internet infrastructure: the Monist and Dualist perspectives. The Monists, including most network operators, see the infrastructure as the linchpin of the communications ecosystem, which must be managed and supported above all else. The Dualists, including most Internet-based service providers, see the infrastructure as simply a means to reach the applications, content, and communications on top of the network, which are the source of real value.

The Dualist view is ultimately the superior one. However, it has problems as well, namely that it tends to ignore the real problems of funding the essential network infrastructure. The paper goes into all this in more detail, and offers thoughts on what a reformulated "modular" telecom industry could look like.

There's currently a waiting list for the discussion portion of the evening (hosted by Jerry Michalski and Jeremiah Owyang), but we've still got room for the reception, starting at 6:30pm. It will be held at Wharton West, 101 Howard Street, 5th Floor.

If you're interested in attending, please use the registration page, and check out the Facebook group as well.

For those of you in those states, be sure to make your voice heard. And if you're a Democrat, I strongly urge you to vote for Barack Obama.

Obama is an extraordinary leader. He's smart, he has good judgment, and he's tough. But more than that, he's an inspiration. Wouldn't it be nice, for a change, to have a President who symbolizes everything we want this country to be? And who can motivate great people to work to put his policies into effect?

I've had the great pleasure of being part of Obama's advisory committee on technology issues. Almost every tech policy expert I most respect is part of the group. Which should tell you something -- especially since many of them, including myself, worked in the Clinton Administration. Obama's technology plan, the most detailed and sophisticated of any candidate's, is a reflection of that tremendous expertise. And it's a reflection of a candidate who gets it.

Beyond the specifics, though, it should be clear to everyone that Obama is the candidate of change in this election. Those of us who grew up with computers, and take the Internet for granted, understand in our bones that this is a new world. You don't embrace a new world by re-fighting the battles of the past. I think Hillary Clinton would be an excellent President, and there is much I respect in John McCain. But neither would energize the country or the world in the way Obama could. You can be cynical about politics, or you can appreciate, even with your eyes wide open, that sometimes leaders can still do extraordinary things. It's not about the length of the resume, but about talent, vision, and timing.

Steve Jobs once recruited Pepsi CEO John Sculley to run Apple by asking him, "Do you want to spend your life selling sugar water... or do you want to change the world?"

I want to change the world. I'm confident that Barack Obama does too. And you know what? He just might.

This is our chance.

Some of the highlights so far include Clay Shirky's delightful provocation on the value of love, presentations from our 12 Connected Innovator startups (and an additional fake company we threw in for fun!), and the intense debate between David Weinberger and Andrew Keen over the Internet's impact on culture.

With a little help (thanks, Liz!) and some trial-and-error, I think I've discovered and resolved the two biggest problems. The first was causing my Internet connection through my cable modem to run with glacial slowness. It turned out to be the Mac client for Mozy, an online backup service that was too slow to be usable in any event. Uninstalling that (which took some doing) returned the network connection to normal speed.

The bigger culprit which was Spotlight, the indexing and search technology built into OSX 10.4. I move my computer every couple days between home office and work office locations. I have external hard drives at both offices, which I use for backup. Whenever I connected my machine, Spotlight was trying to re-index the external hard drives. The fact that they are mirrors of my laptop hard drive probably exacerbated the problem, since Spotlight saw lots of duplicate files. A simple preference change in Spotlight to stop indexing these drives made my machine's performance improve dramatically.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that things continue to work well. It would be nice to have a laptop that I don't have to restart constantly, and curse at frequently. That was, after all, one reason I switched back to the Mac two years ago.

In case you're curious, the article is about how the Supreme Court uses dictionaries in statutory interpretation, and the implications for its jurisprudence. It was great fun to write.

One consequence is that I'm rarely able to blog before and during the conference. Hence, the absence of posts here. But please check out the Supernova Conversation Hub, where you'll find lots of great content related to the conference, from me and others!

Next week, San Francisco. We had to close the registration list for the SF mixer after only a couple days, but please put your name on the waiting list, as we're trying to free up more space.

The challenge with Supernova has always been that the event itself puts a group of people in a room for three days, but the ideas it sparks extend much further in time, space, and participants. The Conversation Hub is a way to facilitate that broader virtual conversation. At its heart is a group blog featuring commentary from me, Supernova speakers, and a hand-picked group of thoughtful commentators.

Please subscribe to the RSS feed to receive automated updates. Vsit the Conversation Hub site to comment on the blog, access a growing library of podcast interviews, and take advantage of other discussion resources around the conference themes.