Get ready … the Internet is about to explode
I just read China Builds a Better Internet (CIO Business Technology Leadership magazine, July 15, 2006) and now wonder how this development will impact communication and communication practices. Particularly since I don’t believe we’ve mastered our use of the current Internet.
In a nutshell, China’s Next Generation Internet (CNGI) will be faster, more secure, and more mobile. CNGI will advance Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) communication standard to increase the “limited resource” — 4.3 billion available addresses of our current IPv4 communication standard — to “a near infinite number” of available IP addresses. The writer describes “infinite” as “enough addresses for every grain of sand on the planet” or “for every person alive to have about 50 octillion unique IP addresses.”
China is leading this charge because the — along with other late-comers to the Internet — have use of only 2 percent of the IPv4 addresses, which means multiple organizations and many people share a single IP address. The number of China’s Internet users is expected to surpass the number of US Internet users by the end of 2006. This is significant because the Internet and IPv4 are considered to be “US-centric,” and the launch of IPv6 and IPv6-compatible applications, services, and hardware. Japan and Korea have indicated involvement in IPv6 initiatives, and (according to the article) the US is reluctant to make the investment at this time.
The article addresses potential financial and operational challenges for businesses, but it doesn’t address the potential impact to business communications. Think about the role that the Internet plays in your communication strategies. Think about loss of functionality or performance because of new IPv6 applications or falling behind on IPv6 compatibility. Think about how you currently manage the world of electronic communications that impact your company or clients’ companies.
We need to pay attention to this issue; help our members understand the issue and potential impact; and lead the profession in adjustment, implementation, and innovation. Some may be thinking “this won’t happen any time soon,” but the article mentions that Microsoft’s Vista operating system enables two IPv6 compatible computers can work on the same Office document without going through a server or other host.
The Internet is about to explode … how will IABC prepare and assist members to stay on top of this development? What role will you play as your company or clients’ companies plan to become IPv6 compatible?
July 20th, 2006 at 5:53 am
I spent decades doing “communications” for “communications” companies.
There’s a huge difference between corproate communications — helping an organization tell its story — and telecommunciations — hardward and software and internet protocols and packet switching and so on and so forth.
I’ve been on the telecom hardward side and the telecom carrier side, and, truth be told, I did not see much purpose then, nor do I see much purspose now, in bombarding communicators of the normal IABC sort (leaving the teckies aside for a few minutes) with acronyms for emerging technology which may or may not turn out to actually work.
And China is over-rated, but that’s a whole other story.
If IABC wants to turns its limited resources to technology, it might start with two projects.
EXTERNALLY — develop and implement an interantional campaign to free web sites from the control of biters and byters and place the control in the hands of professional communicators. Decades past, we did not let the print shop manager control the content of the newsletter; why do communicators let technicians control the content, scheduling, etc., of web sites and other electoniclly based communications?
Full marks to IABC for settingup a system where several people per blog can add content to the various blogs.
Which brings us to the second project…
INTERNALLY IABC could develop an international campaign to drive traffic to the myriad of blogs IABC has created and which get responses from the same dozen people, with new visitors from the other 13, 489, or so, IABC members willing to share they brains few and far between.
Which of the IABC staff is responsible for promting the blogs, internally and externally, anyway?
Maybe this person / persons will jump in here and tell us all about the promotion that has been done in the past, and what is planned for the future, especially in light of the new podcast.
What’s the target audience for this new podcast? 20 percent of IABC members around the world would be about double the attendence at an annual conference. Since annual conferences cost a lot of money and take a lot of time, while podcasts don’t require a pod machine, nor any money, nor anything more than a computer with speakers and an internet connection, is double even too low a target?
TECHNOLOGY THAT MAY MATTER — this week Microsoft and Nortel networks announced some sort of joint venture. Not trusting Nortel at all any more, I wonder… but anyway, among the potential features of a new joint venture is the ability to just click on a telephone number included in an e-mail, and your computer dials that number (just like clicking on a web address takes you to that site) and lets you talk on your telephone.
That feature would be very useful for good PR people and e-mailed news releases. Bad PR people will continue to not have anyone to answer the phones, regardless of how the call is dialed.
That example was in a newspaper story; I’m making the next one up out of my head. Imagine aligning the computer with the telephone so that a web site editor could click on a link in an e-mail, and get a recorded sound clip tied to a news release, so that clip could then be captured and dropped into a web site? Now, there’s useful technology for professional IABC type communicators. PR types use this for better coverage; internal types use this to flesh out, so to speak, their intranets.
SKILL SETS: How many CAFE readers do their own photo editing to place pictures into web sites for their employers, and how many know how to do sound editing so clips with just the good parts of a speech can be added to web sites? (I do the first, and am learning the second.) And how many readers think IABC members should have skills like this? In fact, do IABCers still need to even be writers?
BAK