Freedom to Connect: Preview of F2C08

David Isenberg puts on a great event.

Of course, I'm biased: David's a friend, and we're working together to bring attention to the need for a national broadband strategy. But he still puts on a great event.

Freedom to Connect is a rarity, a conference sprung from one unique mind, bringing together a fascinating mix of known and unknown voices, each with different perspectives on how the Internet and telecommunications have shaped lives and economies. At F2C, you'll find...

. Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, a new book exploring emergent organizing principles.
. Andrew Rasiej, one of the smartest people on digital politics.
. Reed Hundt, ex head of the FCC.
. Rich Miner, who leads Google's Android initiative.
. And a number of people I call friends, including Jim Baller, the country's leading expert on broadband strategy (and also my collaborator); Brad Templeton, chair of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; and Michael Calabrese of the New America Foundation.

And many more.

Unless you've been living under a digital rock, you know that David is the author of the "stupid network" treatise, which maintains the best value comes from pushing intelligence to the edges of a network, and letting the internal fabric move bits as efficiently as possible. David builds from that early thought leadership, and each year explores how we should be thinking differently about our computing and communications infrastructure - not in a dry and academic way, but with a wide range of perspectives and voices.

I highly encourage anyone interested in understanding emerging Internet trends to check out F2C. Looking forward to seeing you there.

gB