The Blog of Burgher Jon

Bram has a fantastic post over on the comet on the apparent thoroughness with which Luke is approaching leasing the parking garages.  It’s good to see, its a decision that Pittsburgh will be living with for the rest of its life.  I’m not going to spend a bunch of time going through the details (mostly because I don’t know them), Bram’s your guy for that.  Conceptually though, leasing the parking garages has 3 primary benefits:

1. It ties city revenues to a business model instead of a taxation model.  If parking rates are going to be raised (and the next two points have to do with that), then it should be a corporation that does it.  Corporations have experience in identifying and valuing a market, governments do not.  A corporation will be able to do the appropriate market research to determine which garages and parking areas can sustain what levels of price increase.
2. Raising rates will create fair competition with PAT.  It always amazes me how people seem surprised that PAT does so poorly when bus trips are only half (or so) as cheep as monthly parking passes!  It was not fair to have PAT compete with government subsidized parking rates.  Give both a fair value and then see which one customers prefer.
3. There doesn’t seem to be any other way to fund the pensions.  As far as I’m concerned increasing the funds in the pension fund must happen.  If you don’t think we should lease the parking garages, you better have another solution in your back pocket.  Right now we are in a very dangerous cycle of debt (not unlike someone who lives in a house they can’t afford) because we have this looming debt that we are missing critical things just to make the minimum payments on.

We can argue about the details all day and night, but my temptation is to trust them to people with more time.  I will continue to support the leasing of the garages conceptually, unless someone can challenge those three points.

<soap box>

I am pulling out my soap box to address one of the public policies related to technology, the gap between the computer literate, the not-so-much and the not-at-all.  I’m addressing it right now for two reasons.  First, there have been a number of stories in the news that impact it.  Second, I believe there is a fundamental misconception about what the risk of this gap is.  In case you’re a skimmer, I will call out these articles and the misconception in bold, as I run through my position on the topic.

First, to clear up a little vocabulary. In the case of a technology gap, I’m referring not referring to technology generally, but “publicly useful” technologies.  These are the technologies that are designed to be used by as large an audience as possible.  For an example, email, where everyone who uses it has access to a tool that everyone left behind does not.   For a counter example, Sony Playstation, where those who use it get something from it, but those who don’t aren’t losing anything.  I have found that, generally, discussions of this topic do not draw this very important line.  Not every technology that you do not use puts you at a disadvantage, but SOME DO.

Every time technology advances it leaves a few people behind.  Because the pace of technical innovation is increasing, the pace of people getting left behind has become an area of concern.  I have struggled a little bit to put together a list of innovations that fit in to the category of “publicly useful” technologies.  Here’s what I have so far in order from first to last, feel free to discuss in the comments:

1. Internet connectivity for basic communication
2. Email
3. Using the web for research (What’s the capital of Arkansas?)
4. Using the web for news
5. Broadband/Continuous Internet
6. Real-Time information (sports scores, stock quotes, etc…)
7. Using the web for shopping
8. Smartphone for email
9. Using social media to connect with friends/colleagues
10. Using social media to collaborate
11. Smartphone for real-time information
12. Using the web exclusively for video entertainment

Some of these are not yet universally used, and therefore do not provide much of a disadvantage to those that don’t use them.  However, all of them are on the immediate horizon, certainly by 2020.

I live and work in technology and most of my friends/family/etc… are middle class.  So as I looked at this list, I assumed most of the US was somewhere in the 7-9 range; with as many people above that range as below it.  I was wrong.  However, I saw something the other day that has me quite scared about the technology gap.  The first article in the past couple weeks appeared in Newsweek last week. It says that, according to the FCC, 1/3 of the US population does not have high speed internet.  Not only that, but the FCC has a goal of getting 90% adoption of high-speed internet by 2020.  By deduction of course, 10% of the US won’t have high speed internet in 2020!!!

So we’ve established that there’s a problem.  Your next point is, “But Jonathan, I do 11 or 12 of those things.  I suppose I feel sorry for all of those people that are so far behind, maybe I’ll donate to a charity so they can get better jobs and live fuller lives.  At the end of the day though, this doesn’t really affect me.”  I knew you’d say that, so here comes the fundamental misconception.

You’re wrong, the technology gap affects you very directly.  In fact, it may well affect you more negatively than it affects the people who are computer illiterate.  I’ll say that again, because it bears repeating.  The fact that much of the US (and even more of the world as a whole) uses only 4 of the technologies mentioned above is worse for the computer literate then it is for the people who aren’t computer literate.  I’ll give you three reasons why:

1. The first is an obvious point.  Society is the sum of its parts and the fewer parts that are enabled by the best tools available, the worse off society is.  People who are lagging on technology not only can’t get access to the best tools to be productive (4, 6, 8, 11) but also the means to share the ideas that make them a societal asset (9, 10).   Think how much better the blogosphere and twittershpere would be with them participating.This isn’t just true of individuals either, it’s true of companies and even charities.  There will be companies founded today that will not be as productive or as capable of spreading the word as they should be.  They will be less effective because while they are good at what they’re doing, they are behind on the technology curve.  Anything that creates inequality like that is terrible for a market economy.  Some of these companies will fail in spite of the fact that their idea would have been good for society.
2. The next reason that computer literate people need to be concerned about the technology gap is related to another article that’s been in the news in the last week. An Italian Judge convicted three Google employees over a video of an Italian kid being bullied.  The Google employees didn’t post the video.  In fact, they took it down about 3 hours after it was flagged as inappropriate.  This clearly is the result of a Judge that does not understand the power and necessity of the real-time web.  If the people in power don’t understand technologies 6-12, then they will not protect them.  Want another example from just the last week?  Here’s another link:  The UK is on the verge of creating a privacy law that will basically outlaw public WiFi.
3. The last reason that the computer literate should “mind the gap” is a little bit greedy.  Those of us who rely on numbers 5-12 for our day-to-day lives and business could benefit from some economies of scale.  How much lower would your internet bill  and smartphone price be if the market was 150% of what it is now?

In conclusion, we need to find a way to close the gap in technology.  That’s actually not specific enough; what we need is a way to make sure that the computer illiterate among us get on board without stifling new innovations.  I’ll save it for another day, but I think the key to that will be finding new applications of the current technology that appeal to the portions of the population that are not leveraging these technologies.  I.e. You don’t get senior citizens on twitter by cramming it down their throats, you get senior citizens on twitter by making sure that there is a reason senior citizens would WANT to be on twitter (does AARP have a twitter account?)

</soap box>

Mike Madison asked whether it’s possible for local startups to get local funding and remain local.  He points out that there are many people who still contend that local investors are too conservative.  This stringency of funding puts pressure on companies to move to the funding.   Mike points out that there is another crowd that claims that there is money for quality startups.  Which of these camps is correct?  Who knows, probably a mix of the two.  To my (untrained) eye there is plenty of room for improvement in both the startups and the capital available to them.  It’s one of the reasons I built this blog.

While we’re on the subject of businesses leaving Pittsburgh, what the hell is a “business-recruitment office”?  Jim Russell quotes the Atlanta Journal Constitution as saying that Georgia has “business-recruitment offices” in Pennsylvania and California.  It disturbs me a little that states are coming after our businesses.  I did a Google search and could not locate whether PA engages in this activity.  As I pointed out here, I don’t think it’s the best idea to “go after” established businesses, but it concerns me that other states are coming after ours.

While I use sauerkraut as a way to describe my Sunday hodge-podge posts, I don’t actually like to eat the stuff.  I do however, LOVE to eat kielbasa.  In fact, I just had some great kielbasa yesterday, over Mrs. T’s Pirogies.  Anyways, on to the good stuff.

As I go through the week, I use twitter to send out little updates and links.  I realize that I do this quite a bit and that not all of you have Twitter, so with that in mind I’d like to take Sunday to do sort of a week in review.  I’ve selected the most useful of my tweets from the last week and placed them in to the categories that I use in this blog.

Business

• Interesting stuff from @FredWilson Nature vs Nurture for Entrepreneurs. http://tinyurl.com/yhqyas2

Local Politics

• Great Idea by PUMP to host a forum on running for committee. Too much neglect here. http://tinyurl.com/ykejtyy
• #whereisluke he should be allowed to take a vacation he’s mayor not president. Though being a dick shouldn’t be excused.
• Join Pittsburgh Technology Council’s efforts against the Computer Services Tax http://tinyurl.com/y8lfvst
• Why was Jason Altmire so Hostile When asked to Comment on Buchanan’s Decision to Run? http://tinyurl.com/ycgzsqx

Personal Technology

• Gowalla to release Android App! http://tinyurl.com/yj4xjph
• Ha! PMSBuddy.com tracks (for men) when the women in their life will be… http://tinyurl.com/ykwvfnr

Pittsburgh

• Urban Back Country Skiing in Downtown Pittsburgh via @janepitthttp://tinyurl.com/yhkhvdz
• I wonder why Nakama got $2M in stimulus backed loans? Did they expand? http://tinyurl.com/y86lfbn
• Haha, Microsoft Maps, never tore down 3 Rivers, so it appears IN PNC Park on their map. http://tinyurl.com/ylzrpub

Sports

• You have to watch the colbert interview to the end. Or skip to it.http://tinyurl.com/yfjeusq
• Hanrahan to miss first part of season! Seriously?http://tinyurl.com/ykhj9nc
• Today = Pitchers, Catchers and BASEBALL!
• This just in: America Kicks Ass http://tinyurl.com/yzmf2s3
• The only native Pittsburgher in the olympics, Ryan Malone, scores in the first game! http://tinyurl.com/ylmpppe

Startups

• RT @Fin4Founders: “The venture world is the R&D for the United States, it’s not a good idea to shrink it.” #FoF

Tech News

• RT @msuster “Cloud Computing made sense for our desktop applications it’s … going to make sense for [mobile]  http://tinyurl.com/ykfpj9c
• Twitter just passed 140 employees. Any future employees will have to be shrunk by bit.ly. http://tinyurl.com/s7jff
• Brian Solis – Social Media Optimization is the new SEO  http://tinyurl.com/yckvypb
• Where will profits come from in Geotagging. @cdixon takes a shot.  http://tinyurl.com/s7jff

A friend of mine (and fellow blogger) is preparing to launch a really innovative and exciting website that will be focused on politics.  He wants to start it up in Pittsburgh and a few other cities around the burgh (I’ll keep you posted as features become available).  While he’s a native Burgher he has since migrated away and lost his pulse on the Pittsburgh political scene.  Last week he asked me to put together a list of great political sources that might help him catch up.

As I said when I created the blogroll, I want to keep the blogroll on this blog very limited.  The lack of political blogs should not be misconstrued to imply that I don’t follow a ton of Pittsburgh Political blogs though.  Here’s my list (with comments) that I prepared for my friend:

• Start for sure with 2 Political Junkies:  http://2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com/.  They’ve been at it for YEARS and are known not just locally but nationally too.  Lots of content, liberal tilt.
• Pittsblog 2.0 http://pittsblog.blogspot.com/ is a blog that’s not mostly political.  In fact it rarely talks about politicians, but it frequently talks about policy related ideas.
• Nullspace http://nullspace2.blogspot.com/ similarly rarely focuses on politicians (though he does have a fetish for the vote breakdowns in all the voting districts after every election).  This is my favorite purely Pittsburgh blog (though likely not the most applicable one for you).
• Pittsburgh City Paper is sort of an indy newspaper.  You’ll want to subscribe to their news RSS only probably http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Section?oid=oid:14781&category=oid:14791.
• MET Blogs (Pittsburgh) is not the most frequently posted to blog ever and has a tendency to cover mostly transportation issues.  Transportation issues are very political, though.  This is especially true lately with the city considering selling the parking garages and PAT cutting back routes left and right.
• Reform Pittsburgh Now http://reformpittsburghnow.com/about/ is the blog of RPN which is a PAC started by Councilman Bill Peduto.
• The Angry Drunk Beauraucrat mostly posts “onion” style stories but most are related to Pittsburgh politics or politicians.  http://angrydrunkbureaucrat.blogspot.com/
• The Busman’s Holiday is the blog of Bob Mayo (MSM reporter).  His posts aren’t all political, but when they are they tend to be very well researched and informative.  http://thebusmansholiday.blogspot.com/
• Infinonomyous.  This is a riskier blog, often controversial.  I wouldn’t present this one as news per se, but lots of good rumors and insightful discussion. http://infinonymous.blogspot.com/
• Utterly Opinionated is the blog of Eve Picker, an influential urban architect in Pittsburgh.  She doesn’t post that often but when she does her ideas often have policy implications.  http://www.utterly-opinionated.com/
• The Post-Gazette also has two blogs that are useful for politics:
  • Early Returns has a lot of great political content:  http://community.post-gazette.com/blogs/earlyreturns/default.aspx
  • The Radical Middle:  Chad Herman’s blog title may say radical middle, but it tilts right.  As often as I disagree with him, he is a gifted writer and is frequently good for sparking debate if nothing else.  http://community.post-gazette.com/blogs/radicalmiddle/default.aspx
• Honorable mention to Bram R. who was the best in the business till he hung’em up.  http://pghcomet.blogspot.com/