At the end of the conference, more important people spoke

about what an incredible success the entire summit had

been and the amazing specificity, promise, and accountability

that were found in the agreed-upon resolutions of the summit.

But the resolutions hadn't really been agreed upon yet or

signed off on, and the women's group and the indigenous

groups both indicated that they had gotten pretty much

nothing from the summit in politely worded statements.

The Tunisian government and people were thanked by each of

several dozen speakers, after which there was dutiful,

lengthy applause. Some people took about half of their

allotted time thanking long lists of people, countries,

and organizations in monotone. It felt like a multi-hour

long Sunday School lesson where they're going through the

"begats" parts of the Old Testament. The part that I think

bugged me was the complete co-opting of the language of

geniune success, cheer, thanks, and so forth, leaving the

words almost definitionally empty. I realized there was

literally absolutely no difference in what these people

would say at a realistically awful and a really wonderful

conference. It would be impossible to distinguish the two

outcomes from the words.

This became most clear in the closing speech of the

Palestinian delgate (who gave his address in English!)

when he tellingly said "All summits are a success." I'd

chalk it up to some kind of Freudian slip, but the guy

was woodenly reading his "heartfelt thanks" from a

prepared script just like everyone else.

There is a Culture of Meetings that is found in governance,

commerce, and in the non-profit sector equally. This

Culture of Meetings says (implicitly and explicitly) that

meetings are an end, not a means. The purpose of a meeting

is fulfilled in the fact that it happened at all, but the

icing on the cake for a meeting (and the true sign of

success of a meeting) is if it caused more meetings to

happen. And it's a sign of honor for a meeting if there

were meetings that proceeded and caused it. If you find

yourself in this mentality, you need to slap yourself,

stop drinking the Kool-Aid, and get back to actually

getting things done, because that's all that really counts

in the end.

There's also a trend towards sponsoring more "photo op"

kind of work than useful work. If you can show ten youths

from around the world talking about IT, or a guy teaching

five others about computer technology in a developing

nation, then that's apparently noteworthy and fundworthy.

But work that's on a more infrastructural level, such as

creating low-cost WiFI antennas or figuring out how to

enable partially-connected high-latency operations like

Freemans' PostMaNet does not tend to find its way into

the limelight or funding queues, because it's funamentally

more geeky than sexy, even if the results end up being

much more powerful, widespread, and longlasting than these

other projects.

I came to an odd conclusion, as well. Important meetings need to be

held in secret to be most effective. Because when powerful people are

trying to make up their minds about something, they should be able to

explore concepts during a brainstorming session that they should not

be held to. Fielding "what if..." scenarios can be very productive and

will find willing participants if only the hypotheticals don't end up

on the front page of the next day's paper. Fundamentally, publicly

visible discussions need to be polite and need to say nothing possibly

of offense or on which one might change one's mind substantially

later. This will mean they'll always be inefficient and

cautious. Radical ideas can't come from them!

As I watched some of the most ostensibly powerful people in the world

address the audience, I was struck by their lack of ability to

actually engage the audience or at least pretend to do something

better than just read a script. What is this, third grade?

Despite all of the enthusiastically-worded (if not so delivered)

speeches, the summit was fundamentally a failure. There failed to be

agreed upon a concrete committment to improve ICT and it was clear

that most of the world leaders speaking had very little idea about

why or how the Internet was doing a good job at improving life on the

planet.

As a sidenote, I was surprised by the near-lack of cell phone

interruptions to the meeting. Almost nobody could be seen talking on

their cell in a room full of thousands. Impressive, but I wasn't able

to think through what the best reason for this might have been.

The Canadian ambassador had a very sly little snip in his concluding

remarks, saying "The hope for a free society is something we share

with Tunisian citizens." Heh. Sometimes political-speak is very

clever. I was duly impressed.

Tunisian identity conflict was also clear in the diversity of groups

that claimed Tunisia as a member. The Saudis thanked Tunisia for their

"traditional Arab hospitality" as the Ghanaians thanked Tunisians for

their "traditional African hospitality". And of course, the bogus

TunisMed conference outside claimed Tunisia as a member of the

Mediterranean states.

Odd side note - nobody applauded the interpreters! Every other group,

nation, or person that was mentioned received applause, but while the

interpreters were mentioned in at least three separate "thank you

lists" they received not a clap for it. This seemed odd to me.

So with all this bitterness and criticism, what do I think the ideal

summit should look like? I think it should be small (to enable

efficient discussion), private, short, and concrete, held by and for

people who are actually getting things done. It should showcase

procesess, cultures, hardware, software, and communications

technologies that are actually effective. Linux LiveCDs, $100 laptops,

WiFi antennas and WiMax solutions, Grameen Bank, VSATs, and SchoolNet

are all great examples of stuff that people should know about. But

it's important to toss everything else so as not to distract. I just

don't buy the talk about the need for full inclusiveness and "engaging

all stakeholders". If everyone on the planet is at the table, the

meeting becomes less efficient, engaging, and concrete.

Cell phone calls are 220 millimes/minute, or just shy of 20 cents/min.