John Barth, author of Chimera---------------William Irwin Thompson, author of Passages About Earth

Todd Richmond is the Managing Director of the Annenberg Center for Communication, a multi-disciplinary organization at the University of Southern California (USC) that brings together a world-class aggregation of experts in the digital arts.

He was recently appointed by Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn to the newly-formed Los Angeles Broadband Executive Panel (LA BEP), charged with examining "what role broadband technologies can play in accelerating economic development in the city and how Wi-Fi and 'next generation' wireless technologies can be used to retain and attract businesses to Los Angeles"

Establishing the LA BEP, Mayor Hahn said:

"I want Los Angeles to remain at the leading edge of innovation and creativity. We need wireless access to the Internet everywhere in the city—not just in select locations. I believe that Wi-Fi and 'next generation' technologies will help us bridge the digital divide."

Figuring out exactly how to do that will be the volunteer job undertaken by Mr. Richmond and a distinguished group of academics and business people from various segments of the Los Angeles wireless community.

In the second of a series of interviews to be conducted with these busy, hyper-competent, and practical visionaries, Unwired LA spoke today for a bit more than an hour with Todd Richmond about the Mayor's Broadband Executive Panel and the task it now must address: unwiring LA.

You can hear that conversation by clicking here.

This interview with Todd Richmond at the Annenberg Center covered a wide range of topics relating to the unwiring of Los Angeles, and covered them in depth. Among the subjects discussed were: where the money came from that created and supports the Annenberg Center (mostly TV Guide money); how the Annenberg Center fits into the complex landscape and combination of organizations based at the University of Southern California that bring together students, professors, administrators, and members of the business community to explore and shape the digital future; that the members of the BEP are pretty likely to meet for the first time as a group on Monday, November 15, 2004, at a press conference in the press conference room at Los Angeles City Hall; that the deployment of wireless technology on the campus of USC has been "less than perfect"; that law enforcement and local business interests will be important elements in the deliberations of the BEP; that peer-to-peer networks are valuable despite some of the problems they've encountered; that the transformation of the economy and politics through wireless deployment is a question still up for grabs, due to powerful and entrenched interests; that digital literacy is of crucial importance; that educational reform through ubiquitous broadband wireless access is still up for grabs; that how to organize the ownership and management structure of a ubiquitous wireless broadband Internet system for Los Angeles is still up for grabs; that younger people tend, on the whole, to be more digitally literate than older people; that Los Angeles may be transformed into a network of unwired neighborhood communities through ubiquitous telecommuting and the localization of news (or not); that there is a dialectical relationship between the transmission of information in cyberspace and what happens outside of cyberspace; that creating a new platform for expression does not guarantee the production of great art, business, or politics; that community input may become part of the process by which a Master Plan for Unwiring Los Angeles is created (or it may not) and that the conversation continues.

Three brilliant books are referred to during this interview. These were: Snowcrash (1991) by Neal Stephenson; Passages About Earth: An Exploration of the New Planetary Culture (1973), by William Irwin Thompson; and Chimera (1972) by John Barth. Accessing this works, through analog or digital media, will help anyone who does so to reach a fuller understanding of the issues raised in this conversation.