Eric Schmidt's summer of public policy
Thursday, July 26, 2007
You (or at least the engineers among you) may have heard about Google's Summer of Code. Based on our CEO's recent schedule, this is looking more and more like Eric Schmidt's Summer of Public Policy.
As more and more public policy issues affect Google and our users, Eric and many of our other senior executives have made an effort to meet more often with policymakers in Washington and around the country to talk about the future of the Internet -- and the individuals it empowers. Loyal blog readers may recall that YouTube's Chad Hurley was here to testify on online video in May and our people operations VP Laszlo Bock testified on immigration in June.
Last weekend, Eric was in Traverse City, Michigan speaking to the annual conference of the National Governors Association. As reported by the Traverse City Record-Eagle, Eric told the governors that "education must evolve to teach students how to research and access information instead of memorizing facts," and lamented that the tremendous teaching resources on the Internet are not being fully used to teach students. Check out the full video of Eric's NGA talk:
On Monday, Eric joined YouTube's Chad Hurley and Steve Chen in Charleston, South Carolina for the first CNN/YouTube presidential debate (which, by the way, was the second most-watched presidential debate so far...in no small part to the revolutionary voter-generated format). Today, Eric showed up on Capitol Hill to meet with a number of Senators and House members, discussing health care, patent reform, immigration, privacy and consumer issues. And next month, Eric will be among the tech policy wonks gathering at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's annual Aspen Summit, where we expect our recent advocacy for spectrum reform will be a big topic of discussion.
This video is very interesting so far - but there's a strange jump in the middle. . . I would have liked to hear what was being said there - and I have to wonder how much is lost.
ReplyDeleteAlso - I turned off my cell phone thinking the GSM interference was coming from it. . . but it seems to be within the video itself! Painful.
Very interesting indeed, but I think the next conference should not end until a solution has been invented to stop the annoying buzzing interference from mobile phones that we hear more and more these days (including throughout this video).
ReplyDeleteBut the topic was quite interesting, worth watching even with the buzzing.
I think the most valuable advice was given in the beginning, in which Eric said to put the Internet first as a communications medium. I hope someone implements a better government tracking system so we can keep our congress and state legislature members under a closer watch...
ReplyDeleteEric Schmidt seems to be mis-informed about the Venezuelan's TV network RCTV. It may be broadcasting on YouTube but it is also available on cable and satellite in Venezuela itself. Only their broadcast license was not renewed.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair Eric is hardly the only one. Red-baiting is back with a vengeance and facts take a back seat.
Interesting vid. The doctor is saying very clearly something to the effect that Google might be ready to 'analyze' the massive data it has about any given person towards a government backed investigation just on the basis of suspicion.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the talk about Google's helping to cut down the outsource-to-India phenomenon made an interesting observation. Indians beware!
Definitely interesting, but then again, so is Chocolate-Rain.com
ReplyDeleteSince working with Eric from 1998-2001 on the PR team at Novell, it's satisfying to see he is still singing the OneNet song more prominently than ever, though with different words. I blogged recently about Eric and his OneNet Novell days at www.pilmerpr.com/blog
ReplyDeleteI enjoy when Eric gives his routine joke about the meetings that they have. With everyone looking at their pda etc.
ReplyDelete