Transportation Infrastructure: Moving America

By Robert McMahon – Transportation experts view the call for dramatic federal government action in response to the economic crisis as an opportunity to overhaul the U.S. system of highways, bridges, railways, and mass transit. In the past, the United States has revamped its transportation infrastructure to build canals, transcontinental railways, and a federal highway system, in each case helping usher in periods of economic growth.

A serious problem is coordination between different forms of transportation, experts say. Congress aligns transportation funding with specific modes like highways, rail, and mass transit.

The failure to achieve such coordination, note Brookings Institution experts Bruce Katz and Robert Puentes, leaves the United States as “one of the few industrialized countries that fails to link aviation, highways, freight rail, mass transit, and passenger rail networks.” more> http://is.gd/nnel49

Related articles

• Travel and transportation, StrategyGroup
• Where Do All The Presidential Candidates Stand on Transportation? (switchboard.nrdc.org)
• Transportation infrastructure – what is he FOR? Dec. 21, 2011 (lettersfromron.wordpress.com)

7 truths about consumerization of IT

By Galen Gruman – Users are no longer ignorant about technology. Many are both passionate and knowledgeable. And consumer-grade tools are more and more capable for business usage — and sometimes even superior than traditional business tools. Whether it’s mobile, cloud, social, or apps, chances are your company’s employees are using “consumer” tools, with both good and bad implications for productivity, responsiveness, governance, and security.

1. You can’t stop it (and shouldn’t want to)
2. Consumerization is really a management issue
3. Device management is a good first step
4. The legal issues around information ownership are unsettled
5. Social networking can’t be forced
6. User experience can’t be shortchanged any more
7. Your competitors are already figuring this out

more> http://tinyurl.com/7t7kpm6

Related articles

• Step-by-step Business Improvement™, StrategyGroup
• Consumer Devices and Platforms vs. IT: A Trend to Watch (ostatic.com)
• #PRin2012: Consumerization of IT Changes PR from the Inside, Out (prsay.prsa.org)
• BYOD movement is forcing IT to adapt (infoworld.com)

SOPA is dead. Are you happy now?

Image @CrunchBase

By Matt Asay – In response to internet technology companies leading a rousing protest against SOPA and PIPA, these bills appear to be doomed to ignominious defeat. Even the co-sponsors of these anti-piracy bills are deserting their legislation, leaving the tech world to cheer its success.

But what kind of success did we achieve?

Former Mozilla CEO John Lilly captured this best, arguing, “What’s extremely discouraging to me right now is that I don’t really see how we [the tech world and the US Congress] can have a nuanced, technically-informed, respectful discussion/debate/conversation/working relationship.”

Instead all we get is the media industries engaging in back room lobbying to get bad bills passed while the tech world shotguns abuse until Congress capitulates. more> http://is.gd/MpiJBL

Related articles

• The Lesson the Tech Community Should Have Learned from SOPA
• The Amazing Discussion That Led to the Wikipedia Blackout
• Rep. Issa fails to gain traction in push for new anti-online piracy legislation, Brendan Sasso, Hill
• Put down the champagne, protesters, it’s not over yet, Iain Thomson, Register
• Colbert and The Daily Show on SOPA and PIPA, comedycentral.com
• SOPA and PIPA = Censorship (Screed #43) (eclaireapense.wordpress.com)

Proof Kodak Was Doomed 14 Years Ago

SLIDE SHOW (26)

By Jeff Reeves – I got a great note from a reader last week. Floyd, who now lives in sunny California but was an employee of Kodak from 1965 to 1991, passed on an article written about the Rochester, N.Y., company’s trouble amid a changing business landscape.

Floyd passed on an article from the Democrat and Chronicle dated Jan. 5, 1998. The headline? “Can Kodak Make Necessary Changes” One excerpt reads, “The solution to Kodak’s problems is deceptively simple, but thwarted by a culture of fear in which management cannot afford the risk of ‘looking bad.’”

“Back in October, 1988, I had submitted an idea to Kodak’s Office of Innovation describing a device wherein one could write with a stylus on an electronic display and that information would be sent to a large screen or a computer monitor. In spite of the fact that the company claimed it was looking for new ideas, this one, after being bounced around, went no place. Of course today, these things are everywhere.” more> http://is.gd/cixC8e

Related articles

• Kodak Files for Bankruptcy as Digital Era Spells End to Film, Dawn McCarty and Beth Jinks, Bloomberg
• Kodak files for bankruptcy, secures lifeline, Reuters/msnbc.com
• Kodak Nose Dives Into Chapter 11 Bankruptcy (iphonesavior.com)

Updates from Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner

CONGRESS WATCH

• Sensenbrenner slams pipeline decision, Bob Hague, Wisconsin Radio Network

Related articles

• Update from Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (theneteconomy.wordpress.com)