PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD
PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD Smart, linked-up utility grids may be what is needed for an electric power grid where power is derived from sources ranging from big coal plants to the wind mill attached to your roof.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (you can get the first three paragraphs for free, which is all you really need) outlined a plan for utilities to link up and use smarter technology to act as a utility middleman between power producers and power users. You can read the comment section in the WSJ article to get the full range of opinion—from those claiming it is the only sensible solution to it being a secret government cabal—but the grid in the United States has been hampered by, of all things, its reliability. The smarter grid technology hopes to improve that reliability while also adapting to a new energy producer paradigm.
I’ll start off my list of 10 technology exchanges we need now with the smart grid. Despite the doomsayers, I think the U.S. energy industry would be better off being able to match consumption and production in a real-time marketplace. The energy utility model got me thinking about what other technology exchanges would also improve economy and country by connecting supply and demand in real time.
1. Electrical consumption. Enough said on that, but it is No. 1 on my list.
Now for some fun.
2. Software licenses. Software licensing is one of the great mysteries of the information technology world. The licenses, written by vendors, give those vendor all the rights and the user all the liabilities. Entire companies have been created that attempt to bring sanity to software licenses. How about a license exchange? Your company is locked into one of those crazy license schemes for 1,000 users of an application suite, but you only have 100 users of a tiny slice of the suite. Why not be able to put those licenses on an eBay-type auction?
3. Data center capacity. If you thought software licensing is a black science, you should try sizing your data center for your computing needs. Again, there is currently a lot of money being spent and new companies being formed to help you provision and build capacity on the fly. But say, like just about every other tech manager, you overprovision your data center to stay on the safe side of getting fired. Why not be able to put that excess capacity into a data center marketplace? Sort of like your own smaller version of hosted capacity.
4. Computing. Companies like the World Computing Grid are seeking users to donate unused computing capacity to solve social problems. This is a great idea. But how about an idea where you can make some money from that capacity? How about a business world computing grid where users can bid bucks for unused capacity?
5. Networks. You have a cable or fiber connection at your home and a wireless network, and so do all your neighbors. Most of that time, you don’t come near reaching capacity or the number of users that can run off your connection. Remember FON, which was designed for consumers to share wireless connections? That does not seem to have caught on. How about an exchange where as an exchange member you can securely and without disruption link in to any other wireless exchange member’s connection? Instead of 20 people paying $15 for wireless service at an airport, how about those 20 sharing the connection?
6. Cell phone minutes. This may go away as more cell phone companies adopt an all-you-can-eat plan, but right now lots of cell phone accounts are based on minutes of usage. Sure, you can roll those minutes over to the next month, but that hardly solves the problem. What you need is a cell phone minute exchange where you can sell your unused minutes (you did pay for those minutes already, correct?) to the have-nots. Here is an example from Kenya where cell phone minutes are used as currency.
7. IT equipment. There is still no effective exchange where used IT equipment can be bought and sold. While there are lots of problems inherent in buying used systems, the tragedy remains of used systems more than capable of running Ubuntu, etc., but going instead to the shredder. On a much smaller scale, here is how Dartmouth College runs an exchange.
The next couple exchanges leave the IT realm.
8. Medical insurance. I’m avoiding the entire health care debate here, but why can’t families with policy options (in my case, my company offers health care, but I use the plan offered to my wife in her position as a school teacher) offer up one of those redundant policies on a health care exchange?
9. Dental insurance. See suggestion 8. Same idea.
10. The Big Buying Co-op. Co-ops offer the possibility for like-minded people to buy in bulk and either save a few bucks or use those saved bucks to support causes they believe in. The Internet offers the capability for those like-minded people to be geographically dispersed yet tied together in a digital exchange. I’m wondering when this will happen.
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