Internet Access and the Correlation to Economics & Creativity

I've just spent a week in Australia & New Zealand. Wonderful places full of incredible sights, boisterous, life-loving people and some of the smartest folks I know. They've successfully blended a life -work balance in a way few others on earth have.

I did notice a disturbing trend however while there however and it speaks to how easily we communicate with each each and collaborate towards a better end result. [I should say in an effort to create full-disclosure here that I am very pro-collaboration].

Getting internet access anywhere in these countries is hard. While there are many access points they're all fenced off. Whereas publicly available internet access is a commitment many progressive urban centers are moving towards, that's not down under. Sunnyvale, California and the City of London in the UK are tow places that today offer complimentary public WiFi, but finding even cheap access to the net is very hard to come by in the primary cities of Australia and New Zealand.

What does it mean ?

It means the economics of access are placed before the benefits of widespread net adoption. This is short-sighted and in these two cases quite concerning you see, as both countries are knowledge economies. They don't have endless natural resources that can be dug from the ground. They are net importers of many basic goods, and their wealth to date has allowed that to happen. With the onset of cheaper offshore manufacturing on their Asian doorstep however, they've transitioned to services-based wealth generation. And they're strangling collaboration and the very life-blood of connectivity. While there are a few places where you can buy & surf (not that surf, matey), these also are the exception rather than the rule.

So my advice to all the world leaders that read this is that you should understand what your countries' future depends upon to be economically healthy, and then put the appropriate tools in place to enable to happen. Anything less is shortsighted.