SSA: A Case Study In Web-Based Civics: Katrina and Recovery 2.0

This disucssion was quite interesting and I wish there had been more time for it.  It was lively and entertaining.  David Weinberger covered the session in more detail than I. 

I noted that if we want to talk about emergency response systems then we have to talk about the digital divide, municipal networks, the internet as a utility, the telecom rewrite act, etc.  The general consensus from the speakers seemed to be that we should focus on major metropolitan areas first ... seems to me that we'll just be making the divide wider if we take that approach.  That being said, I guess I can't imagine that we could get any traction at a national policy level if we can't make progress on the digital divide ... not to mention the potential ignorance regarding implications for the use of technology in society among policy makers in DC today (assuming the reports from the speakers are true). 

They talked briefly about matching making services provided to help facilitate recovery too. 

Folks interested in this topic might be interested in podcasts we did with Mike Roberts, former CEO of ICANN, George Loftus, Lev Gonick, Ken Spelke, John Lawson, and Doug Van Houweling, president and CEO of Internet2. 

On a related note, John McNutt's coverage of the topic last month is worth a read.