INTERVIEW:
Question 1
What exactly is the Virtual Center for Communities of the Future?
Answer
The Virtual Center concept of the Communities of the Future revolves around the idea that
no one group or organization can solve the complex problems that we find in communities
any more, and that we need a web of inter-cooperating groups and centers that focus on
particular facets of the problem. In Blacksburg we are putting together the New Democracy
Center which is going to focus on new ways of using technology in solving local government
problems and create new ways to solve civic problems. Other groups in the Communities of
the Future are going to be looking at processes in working with people, the digital
economy, and other issues related to 21st Century challenges.
Question 2
Are you satisfied with the existing communication technologies and with current trends, or
do you think we should ask for something different from the perspective of the evolution
of communities?
Answer
I think that from a technological viewpoint what we are using today is really awful. Both
the software and hardware that most people are asked to use is really poorly manufactured,
not well suited to the task, particularly civic networking and local governments, and is
often not even well suited for common office tasks. I think in the future we as consumers
really ought to be asking for better software and less expensive computers. In terms of
local governments, most of the things that are available commercially don't work well at
all. Part of what we are going to be doing in the New Democracy Center and the communities
of the future is trying to look at what kind of tools we need to facilitate civic
networking and to look at issues of local government centers in a network world.
Question 3
There are those who foresee that virtual communities will substitute geocommunities and
that communication via the Internet will replace face-to-face communication. What is your
opinion?
Answer
I think a lot of people worry about that, but we haven't seen that in Blacksburg at all,
in fact we have seen just the opposite. When people get on the network, their web of
social contacts increases, they go out more, they get more involved with the community. I
think what is most interesting about the future is that we are going to see virtual
communities right on top of physical communities, and so I am not worried at all about
this idea that we are going to become alienated and never talk to each other. We are not
going to sit in our basements in the dark and stare at computer screens, and grow little
antennas on our heads. In fact, we are still going to be going out to coffee houses, to
public meetings, and we are probably going to be more involved in civic activities than we
were before we got on the Net.
Question 4
What kind of effect on democracy may IT and communication technologies have in the future?
Answer
I think what you see when you begin to get a critical mass of people on the network in the
community is that there are more opportunities for people to get engaged in problems, more
opportunities to hear more points of view. When you understand what people are talking
about, and their view of the problem, and you have access to better information, the
potential is there to begin to solve problems in new ways that we haven't been able to do
before. I think we also have the potential to work together better; the network makes it
easier to tell stories and, when you know the stories of your neighbors, and you know the
stories of other groups in your community better, you are more likely to reach a
consensus. Being able to hear many points of view, and to reach a consensus and say,
"This is what we need to do to solve this problem in the community" is good for
the community and for democracy.
Question 5
Do you think that participation through networks will really empower the ordinary citizen?
Answer
I think that we have already seen that in Blacksburg and in many communities, many places
all over the world. People get on the Net and begin telling stories, often about very
simple things, but things that are important in their own life. What the network is doing
is eliminating the need to filter information through a third party. I don't think the
popular media is going to go away; we are still going to need news reporters and
television and radio and newspapers and magazines, but we are going to have this new way
of disseminating information. The growth of the web already demonstrates this: when people
have this new capability to tell stories, directly, to a few people, to a hundred people,
or to a million people, they do that, and they like it, and strange and wonderful things
happen. We cannot predict how they are going to use it or what stories they are going to
tell, but I am pretty confident that that kind of activity is going to increase.
Question 6
Do you think that everybody is going to have access to virtual communities in the future,
or will some be excluded?
Answer
In the United States we talk about the issue of the haves and the have nots, so I think it
is a very serious issue. I think the way to address it is not necessarily through
government subsidies, or programs of public works, but to think about a new kind of what I
call "global computer", computers that cost perhaps a hundred dollars, software
which costs 25 cents. And we should not be making and selling millions of them but
billions of them. We know that we can do this, we have the technology today, if we build
enough computers and sell enough software, to reduce the costs by any order of magnitude.
Everybody on the planet should have a computer and a network connection, and I think that
is technologically and economically feasible to do that in the next five to ten years.
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