Robert S Tanner

I suppose this post is more of a note to self, but I found at the end of this Multichannel article on current FCC Chairman Kevin Martin a timeline of signficant reforms to the FCC (included below with some editing).

So to follow up on the previous post of today I just finished reading over lunch Phil Weiser's paper, FCC Reform and the Future of Telecommunications Policy that was presented at yesterday's conference on FCC reform.  It is entirely worth reading as it presents a comprehensive review of FCC performance within the existing paradigm of administrative procedures for U.S. government agencies.  I do wish there had been more consideration of how to push through the existing paradigm but clearly that wasn't part of Weiser's focus for the paper.

One paragraph, however, does point out how the FCC (and really any U.S. government agency) could incorporate new approaches and new technology to improve its processes: 

In developing new databases of information, it is not sufficient merely to make them available to the public-the FCC also should enable citizens to manipulate information and use it in creative ways.^[168] At present, unfortunately, the FCC databases are not only difficult to search, but they do not give citizens the opportunity to use that data and make connections between different data sets-say, broadband deployment and job creation. Consequently, the agency has failed to spur what one commentator calls “wikinomics”-i.e., enabling user-generated content.^[169] This trend is just now taking root, as groups of ordinary citizens are combining information related to a variety of topics, ranging from crime rates in Chicago neighborhoods and L.A. communities at risk of fire violations, using technologies like Google Maps to make interesting connections.^[170]

If it was up to me, I'd start with a complete review of the FCC website and more comprehensively, a review of how the FCC uses technology and Internet-enabled services to interact with the public.

UPDATE: Former FCC'er Michael Marcus agrees on the website revamp:

FCC Website
The current FCC website design was created under Chairman Hundt and was well designed for that era. However, it is hopelessly out of date in the contemporary world and almost inaccessible for the real public. While it has a huge amount of information, needless clutter makes it nearly impossible to find anything. For example, EDOCS and ECFS, the 2 separate systems for rulemaking documents, are easy to use if you know the docket number but there is no general system to find docket numbers if you don’t know them or to find comment due dates.On the other hand, FCC is the only commission/board in the whole federal government to list all its commissioners on the top home page, so that information is certainly easy to find!

I'll quibble with the last bit though -- it would be even easier if we had URLs for the commissioners like

http://martin.fcc.gov

http://copps.fcc.gov

I wish I could have made it to the recent Silicon Flatiron-sponsored conference, Reforming the Federal Communications Commission.  The conference was also sponsored by Public Knowledge -- its president, Gigi Sohn, blogged about the conference here.  Nothing in that post of recommendations coming out of the day reads to me as at all controversial.

I really don't post much I guess!

I decided to move the various websites I support for myself, family, friends and organization all over to Drupal.  More efficient for me to maintain one CMS and at this point I can do pretty much anything with Drupal I was doing with Wordpress.  I finally got to moving this site to Drupal, the new host (Media Temple) and trying out a new theme ("look") for it.

I continue to work in the International Bureau of the FCC and I am looking forward to the challenges of 2009.  

I kept up the biking to work pretty well through November, but lost momentum in December and I need to start it up again!  I suppose that's my most immediate New Year's resolution to attend to.

It occurred to me getting back from a summer vacation in Duck, NC this summer that I could ensure a good workout everyday if I could bike to work.  I'm not really sure why I've never been interested in trying this before but I'm glad I had a moment of idea meet personal motivation to do it.  It took me awhile to get prepared (fix bike! get gear, join gym at work, etc, etc) but after a week or so of errands I had everything in place this weekend.

So today was the first day of commuting to work via the bike and I think it went really well.   It's a very nice ride (almost all on a dedicated bike path) with a long stretch along the Potomac River.

One more theme change after upgrading to WordPress 2.5.  I'm quite impressed with this version of WordPress; I've been using this software for sometime now (I can't recall when I switched from MT but it must have been back in 2002?) and this is just about as intuitive as I can imagine blogging code to be. That picture up there in the Author note with me in front of the Sphinx isn't photoshopped! I was in Egypt back in 2005.

Also recently -- I made it to the first day (but not the second) of David Isen's F2C conference in Silver Spring, Maryland.  Isen manages to bring in a very diverse crowd from outside "the beltway" and although it wasn't quite as good as the F2C in 2006, it was still a day well spent.

The sporadic updates continue. It's already March of 2008 so maybe a good time to update this site again.

• I continue to work in the International Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (I moved there in 2006). Since last fall (2007) I have been working as the Deputy Division Chief in the Strategic Analysis and Negotiations Division ("SAND" for short) of the Bureau.
• I thought it was time to give this site a face-lift (I had to upgrade the software to the latest version of WordPress anyhow). This theme is a bit dark but I like the cityscape up top. If you hate it, let me know.
• I've been serving as the Secretary of the local neighborhood civic association. It's a nice way to meet more of our neighbors and better understand the local issues. I've also been building a website for us -- you can visit the beta version here (probably won't spread the word widely about it until May of this year). It runs on the Drupal CMS which I actually know much more about then Wordpress. Drupal does a lot of things really well but it probably has a bit of a steeper learning curve then Wordpress.

I finally got around to reading the alumni magazine from my undergraduate university and it had an article on Jamba Juice - two of its three founders were business school majors at Cal Poly. I don't remember whether I went to the original "Juice Club" they started in San Luis Obispo or not but it was open when I was attending school there. It's hard to believe a chain so large started off in relatively sleepy ol' SLO.

I was a sports reporter and disc jockey at KCPR 91.3 during my years in college. Great fun and I still have fond memories of the whole experience. Apparently they've built new studios for KCPR (in the same building on campus thought) and brought in Weird Al Yankovich to christen the new studios. Weird Al went to the same college I did and also worked at KCPR. He may actually be the school's most famous alumni, but even if he isn't he's certainly the most famous alumni of the radio station. Click read more for a local newscast's report on the ceremony:

A quick update on recent activities:  I caught a good chunk of this year's edition of the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) conference (held at George Mason Law School).  Some interesting papers were presented that I'm still reading my way through. Even more recently I was able to attend an event at the National Archives where Tom Wheeler talked wi