[GNUz] TUANZ Innovation Award - How about nominating Don?

[John Carter]

Greetings Folk,

The deadline for nominations for the TUANZ (Telecommunications Users
Association of New Zealand)'s Innovation Awards is this Friday 14th July
2006

Whilst Government's "Local Loop Unbundling" promises a rosy and
innovative future without the dead hand of Telecom at the helm....

It is not here yet, and nothing is yet available and nobody even has any
vapourware products based on it yet.

Personally I haven't seen anything as innovative and promising happening
in the NZ Telecommunications arena as Don Gould's Community Wireless
projects.

Partly to give Don a well deserved pat on the back, partly to boost the
media profile of the whole concept, I would like to nominate Don for this
award.

But I need your help...

Firstly some Questions....

1) Does the community feel Don deserves this, or is there
    somebody in the same arena that is more deserving?

2) The deadline is short, do we risk doing the matter an injustice by
    rushing the nomination through in the next few days, or should we queue
    this one for next year?

Secondly, here is my first cut at filling in the nomination form. Where
I have got it wrong please correct, where I have missed something please
decrease my ignorance.

This is a first rapid brain dump draft done in haste with the eye on the
deadline. I gone for "Release Early and Often" rather than "Careful
Craftmanship" on this one!

Lines marked with a '>' are TUANZ text. Unmarked lines are my own.


I propose we use the "TUANZ Initiative of the Year"  Award category,
other categories are available....

https://www.tuanz.org.nz/content/5a5e0624-a330-44b4-9e9f-74669efafb59.html



> For a product, service or application facilitated or enabled by, the
> innovative use of technology in New Zealand, or by a New Zealand company
> overseas. Entries will be rated for the following:

> 30 points * Ground breaking nature of the innovation
> 30 points * level to which achievement is demonstrated
> 20 points * the importance and/or scale of the initiative
> 20 points * future impact of the initiative

> Total - 100 points

The following TUANZ boilerplate suggests that they have an expectation
that this is self-submitted. However if the community nominates Don it
may have more weight. The question is can we get to the point within the
very short space of time to have a group such as Canterbury Linux group
to official nominate him, or must we do this just personally.


> PLEASE COMPLETE THE ENTRY FORM BELOW:
> Name   Please enter your name
Don Gould

> Job title 
What's yer title Don? Chief Community Wireless Nagger?

> Company 
Do you have an umbrella organization for what you are doing?

> Email 
Don Gould <don@bowenvale.co.nz>

> Phone 
???? - Don, could you fill in the ????

> Mobile 
????

> Physical address
  ????

> Postal address (if different from above)
  ????

> ENTRIES WILL BE RATED FOR THE FOLLOWING:
> 30 points * Ground breaking nature of the innovation

> Judges will need to understand how this initiative is likely to change
> the face of telecommunications in NZ in a positive way.

> They will be looking to understand all of the following matters which
> should be addressed in your entry:

> Vision and understanding of what is of value to the telecommunications user
> Clear statement of the intended outcome of the initiative
> - Innovation in delivering this vision
> - Future development path of the initiative
> - How it sets a new standard for others to follow
> Max 300 words 30 points * level to which achievement is demonstrated

"moving from centralized networks built by carriers to decentralized
  services based on smart transmitters and receivers."

Don, I could puts some words here, but that might be putting too many
words into your mouth. Do you have an "Elevator Speech" on the subject?
ie. 300 words on the vision of Community Wireless Networks?

> Judges will be looking for empirical evidence (eg surveys, studies,
> customer statistics). Non-empirical evidence will not be considered.
> These reports may be emailed to awards@tuanz.org.nz PDF format.

Anybody has any material we could use here?


> The extent of the market currently benefiting from the initiative must
> be stated.
> The judges will be looking for evidence that this is an operational
> reality and not a proposed future or partially completed initiative.
> Max 300 words
> 20 points * the importance and/or scale of the initiative
> Judges will be looking to understand how this changes the face of and
> the impact on telecommunications in NZ.

Part of me says, "Delay this until next year when perhaps we can show
greater uptake." Part of me says "This is an opportunity to get community
attention on the promise of Community Networks."

Don, you probably have the best knowledge of what the uptake is at the
moment.


> Judges will be looking for answers to the following questions:
> How does this change the face of telecommunications in NZ?

Community Networks have the potential to change telecommunications
services in the same way as the WWW itself changed the face of
information providers and hence the information content.

The WWW changed content production from a small collection of extremely
large monolithic corporations to a very large number of small, but
extremely diverse content producers.

CN holds the potential to transform the transmission, caching,
availability and nature of data services in the same way.

> What proportion of the telecommunications market is benefiting from
> this initiative?

Currently 0%, but like Open Source Software, it will have an avalanche
effect. The more nodes in the community, the more attractive it becomes.

> Which sectors of the telecommunications market are benefiting from this 
> initiative?
>Max 300 words 20 points * future impact of the initiative

The prime candidates for benefiting from this innovation are
communities...
  * Local "Neighbourhood" communities.
  * Rural hamlets.
  * Business and industry clusters.
  * Special Interest Communities.
  * Regional Development - It has the potential to grow into a citywide
    infrastructure element aimed at encouraging regional growth in hi-tech.

> Judges will be looking for answers to the following questions:
> Is this an initiative that others will follow either out of necessity
> to retain or grow market share or because it is a better way forward?

Community Networks represents true innovation in that it is not
something that consumes existing market share, rather, like the WWW,
represents new opportunities in the areas of
  * Hardware supply
  * Service and Support
  * Long haul / bulk data transport.

> How will it contribute to the governments Digital Strategy goal of
> "top quartile in the OECD"
> Max 300 words

* By lowering barriers to entry,

* By removing centralized utilities as a "central point of failure"
   (just ask Auckland Electricity Users what having a Central Point of
   Failure means to them) :-)

* By changing where the dividing line between the Digital Haves and Have Nots
   if being drawn from
    - where extremely large well fed Telcos can find good
      profits,
    - to where there is a need and will.


======================================================

General Notes to self on first draft....
- Too many gaps.
- Too much unsubstantiated waffle.
- No meaty description of what Don is actually doing.


John Carter                             Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Tait Electronics                        Fax   : (64)(3) 359 4632
PO Box 1645 Christchurch                Email : john.carter@tait.co.nz
New Zealand

Carter's Clarification of Murphy's Law.

"Things only ever go right so that they may go more spectacularly wrong later."

>From this principle, all of life and physics may be deduced.