ACMA's RADCOMMS: The Internet of Us
After starting out in the telecommunications industry in 1996, I met a great many people who were nothing short of outstanding! My colleagues at Nortel Networks, the many stakeholders engaged in networks- government, industry, consultants, citizenry through NGOs. The list was very long, always meshed, and always complex. The weekend before my keynote I was contacted by a consultant I had worked with on the Telstra CDMA bid- Noelle Jones. This was completely out of the blue though we had remained in touch some years after I left industry for academia. Seeing Noelle, and so many others was moving. I kept thinking about "time". So many familiar faces, the context blurry about where and when I had come across them, their name, their work... but it took less than 48 hours to bring a mental mind map into some form of coherency. Of course it is telecoms, and of course there is much flux and emerging tech- but the people in the sector are close-knit in Australian circles.
Whether it was perchance a meeting with a once very familiar group of people, or a nomenclature that had been borne in telecoms, I am not quite sure- but my presentation made a huge impact on the audience. Perhaps I verbally "spoke out" what many had been thinking in the industry but had never openly proclaimed. Perhaps people's inner hopes, dreams and fears, were realised in what I had to say- I am not sure- but it was a special 1 hour that perhaps only those of us present could describe.
The truth is that I had spent days working on the presentation, months thinking about it, and years (in fact decades) researching it. For me, personally, it was perhaps the best summary I had ever given in 30 minutes, packed with metaphor, packed with evidence of the here and now of implantables for humans, and packed with "where to next?" with all of this gadgetry.
I thank the kindness of my audience for the feedback they provided- really- I've never received that much one to one feedback. A group of us gathered at the end of day 1 for canapes and drinks and pondered and pondered on what the future held. I knew I was surrounded by very influential stakeholders who had been thinking of some of the questions I had posed in my presentation-- they are real, and the time to address them is now. It is no longer sci-fi in Hollywood movies.
I showed evidence of my claims. Graphic images, detailed videos, cited peer reviewed papers, and allowed the audience to make up their own minds. I tried to stay as objective as possible and simply "state" the goings on of the Internet of Us paradigm. Perhaps, more than "make of it what you will", I deliberately positioned the presentation in the goals of IOT. And dared ask what about an IOU (an Internet of Us). I thank the speakers that proceeded after my keynote-- somehow we all kept coming back to "connectedness" which was a theme of the conference with a focal point on 5G.
So many exceptional presentations. So many. I could hardly keep up with my notetaking. Here are some notables from various organisations. There were some standouts for me, including Kate Foy and Pamela Longstaff, and on day 2, who could go passed Carstens Clemens from Bell Consulting Labs!!
For my presentation materials, powerpoint, audio of the keynote delivered please visit: http://www.katinamichael.com/seminars/2017/11/2/the-internet-of-us-radcomm2017