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Working the crowd at IGF 2007
November 14,
2007
By Connie Book, Associate Professor and Associate
Dean of Communications, Elon University
 Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil -
One of our missions while in Rio de Janeiro at
the 2007 Internet Governance Forum is to conduct a
survey of conference attendees’ opinions about
the future of internet policy. The project is part of
the University’s partnership with Pew Internet
and American Life Project, Imagining the Internet. The
Imagining the Internet project began with a simple idea
to catalog predictions being made in the early days of
the internet as to how it would change our world. Today
the project is web-based and catalogs thousands of
predictions from internet visionaries to the average
person. Director of the project, Janna Anderson, works
hard to keep the site active, interesting and creative.
The survey collected on the ground in Rio was her
brainchild and kept us busy the last few days.
Rather than imagining the Internet, imagine this
scenario: four researchers, trying to convince
conference attendees from 100 plus countries, speaking
oodles of languages, to participate in an online study
for 10-15 minutes in exchange for a T-shirt. If you
have that picture in your head, you can imagine some of
the fun we encountered over the last few days.
First, there was Abelardo Vieira Calvalcante Filho.
That’s his full name and I jokingly called him
“Abe” when he introduced himself to me. A
former Brazilian navy man, he now works for the
Brazilian government as a technical assistant in the
department of information and communication. He was
friendly, an easy guy to get engaged in the study. I
walked him over to the computer and he selected to do
the study in Spanish. Elon Spanish Center director,
Sylvia Munoz, had helped translate the study into
Spanish and Honduran student David Lagos had proofed it
for us. We also had the survey in French thanks to Elon
MBA student, Vincent Denis and faculty member Remi
Lanzoni as a proof. Although we would soon realize that
three languages barely scratched the surface of
possibilities.
“Abe” worked away and I went off to engage
more folks to take the study. Suddenly from over by the
computers I heard someone calling,
“Houston…we have a problem.” Abe was
stuck on how to move the survey forward. I chuckled and
asked where he had heard the phrase. “American TV
of course,” he said.
Then there were the two women from the Internet
Society of China. They selected to take the study in
English, but I could tell they were nervous about their
ability. Almost an hour a later, they came back to the
table having completed the online questions. I asked
how it had gone, “That was hard, much
concentration,” one of the women said as she
rubbed her temple. “Very hard,” said the
other women with the same exhausted look. When you
think about what the two women had just accomplished, a
highly technical assessment of their position on the
internet and its future policies in a foreign language,
the task is really quite formidable.
 One man I ushered over to the
computer to take the study humbly apologized,
“I’m sorry, I speak five languages, but I
can only write two.” I reassured him that he far
surpassed me - I speak only one language and, I
told him, I often have some difficulty writing that
one.
Surprising to us all was the world’s deference
to the English language. The world’s deference to
America. We live in a great democracy in the United
States. Hearing the stories this week of countries that
struggle with the basics of electricity and water,
reminded me of my good fortune. Even in Brazil, where
life is very good, the middle class is surrounded by
shanty towns of poverty and violence that challenges
the quality of life here.
Likewise, people from the African countries involved
in IGF participated in our study and added detailed
comments on the survey. You could see the serious
attention they were paying to issues raised at this
conference – the stakes are higher for them. They
are working hard on issues of digital inclusion and
connectivity in their homelands. African stakeholders
participate in the conference in a way that reminds us
all of the privilege we have of reliable broadband in
the United States.
The postmaster of Tunisia took our study, and with him
was one of Tunisia’s broadband providers.
“How much does high speed internet service cost
per month in Tunisia?” I asked. “About
$19.99, but in our country it takes just 7-10 days to
have it installed…much better than in
America.” He said it with such pride that I
didn’t have the heart to break it to him that we
don't have that kind of waiting period on broadband
service.
Ricardo Romeo (no lie on that name) made his way over
to the table too. He was traveling with a group of
Indian men from New Delhi, acting as their interpreter
and guide while they traveled to Brazil. He said he
couldn’t take the study, but he wanted to be sure
to invite all of the Elon students on the trip to an
evening on the town Wednesday night before they left
Brazil. The young women politely declined.
Lots of characters, internet actors as they say here,
that took time out of the conference busyness to
include their voice in our collection of ideas about
the future of internet policy. Now that we have
collected the data, our task will be to analyze it and
issue a report. Fifty-two respondents left their
business cards in 29 languages, representing 43
countries. All want a copy of the final report, which
unfortunately will be available in only one
language—English.
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