Capitol Comments

Internet2 Still Faces Challenges

By Mary Branham Dusenberry

Thirty-eight states connect in some way to Internet2. But it takes regional optical networks to get them there.

David Jent, associate vice president for networks at Indiana University, said Thursday it’s important for states to be involved in these networks. Jent talked about Internet2 during the Technology Working Group session Thursday.

Internet2 was developed in the late 1990s to provide something that didn’t exist at the time—a dedicated research network for higher education. What’s known as the Internet today actually started as a research and education network—the concept of Internet2—but commercial traffic and the need for advanced capabilities led to the need for a different network.

Broadband Drives the Future

Mark McElroy of Connected Nation showed a picture of a mule pulling cable into a rural eastern Kentucky community. Before the mule was a community that wanted broadband. Behind it was a public-private effort to get that service to them.

“This is digital inclusion in Kentucky,” McElroy said during the technology workshop Friday morning.

Connected Nation began as a public-private partnership in Kentucky and has expanded into several other states as the need to expand broadband technology across the country grows.

3 "A's" driving the economy, and the 1 word killing jobs

Renowned author Daniel Pink is optimistic about the future of the United States and its economy.

But in a speech Monday to Midwestern legislators, he also had a word of warning about their states’ future economies and prosperity.

"One word will obliterate jobs – routine," Pink told attendees at this year’s Midwestern Legislative Conference Annual Meeting.

Workers and policymakers in Michigan and other manufacturing-reliant regions of the Midwest already know what he means. "Routine" jobs in this key economic sector have been lost due to factors such as productivity advances and global-economic pressures.

"The factory floor doesn’t look like it did 40 years ago," Pink said.

And thanks to some other enduring trends – particularly the rise of automation and Asian economies – jobs in other sectors are being threatened and lost as well.

"The same thing is happening with routine work in the white-collar workforce," Pink said.

As result, he believes it is imperative for public policy – from revamping education systems to changing workforce strategies – to reflect this change.

"A different set of abilities matters more, and we haven’t taken that set of abilities seriously enough," said Pink, author of the best-selling "A Whole Mind."

Health-e Connections

State legislatures around the country increasingly are learning how information technology can reshape the future of health care.

But states face numerous obstacles in their efforts to adopt health IT, including determining who pays for it and how the privacy of exchanged information is ensured.

Several states have created electronic health networks and are success stories other states can look to as they face this challenge. To find out more about those programs, as well as the benefits and challenges of health IT, check out Health-e Connections in the May 2007 State News magazine.

What Do You Think?

Staff from The Council of State Governments have researched 10 issues facing state governments and prepared a new report, Trends in America, to be released at the spring meeting in June.

State News magazine will feature the trends in the June issue. We need your input. Why are these issues important to state government? Click on the Trend to make your comments.

• America The Safe and Secure?
• Balance of Power
• Chasing the American Dream
• Critical Infrastructure: Cracks in the Foundation
• Demographic Change
• Economic Transformation
• Educating for Outcomes
• Environmental Gluttony
• Health Care: Paying More, Getting Less
• Tech Revolution