So I'm writing this in the Admirals Club in D.C. as I wait to take a flight to Chicago to connect to London.  Originally, I was on the red eye to Heathrow from JFK last night and hoped to post from there.  And while Queens would never make my "must travel to" summer list, I was pretty bummed to learn my flight was cancelled when I went to check-in for the 8:40 PM to NY.

That said, it feels good to be back flying American.  Sitting amongst fellow early morning frequent fliers, I'm reminded of my old days at Board Member; specifically, 2002 - 2005.  Those were the years I racked up a ton of miles flying back-and-forth from New York City to London as part of a joint venture with The Economist Group.  In fact, it was that type of business travel that put my miles flown at 1,000,000+ on this airlines... so cheers to Joan + the rest of the great crew I worked with (most of whom are still there) for giving me the chance to make those trips and represent our interests!

While I should start thinking about finding a bite for breakfast, I hatched a writing plan in the cab to DCA last night that I'm committing to.  As it stands, I'm going to make time to check in from the following locations:

• Tuesday = London (or the EuroStar up to Brussels)
• Wednesday = Brussels
• Thursday = Brussels
• Friday = JFK/New  York

As always, I'll try to post design, technology or innovatione-insired content.  Of course, I reserve the right to go off the reservation + share something that inspires my good, fun and/or creative side!

To provide a bit of context as to why I'm sitting here + not taking the metro over to Bethesda this morning, I'm heading over to a conference in Brussels that draws a global audience of regulators, economists and technologists -- all keen to manage scarce spectrum resources.  Computech is one of the big sponsors of the conference, and we have one of our practice leads speaking on market and technology developments.  So the middle part of the week, I'll will be busy promoting our firm's expertise + connecting with peers and telecom regulators from around the world.  (*If you're interested to learn more about the subject, I'll be blogging + tweeting for Computech while I'm there learning and networking).

Prior to that fun, I'm in London tomorrow to meet with a handful of potential partners as well as with Ofcom (a peer to the FCC here in the U.S.).  Sadly, I'm missing the meeting I had scheduled for this afternoon at Botanist in Sloane Square.  Some of you know it as the restaurant that inspired my brother + my summer bar in Nantucket.  Guess I'll have to wait until my next trip over to stop in.

Alright, flight boards in a few minutes and I'm hungry -- so I'll sign off.  But before I do, a request.  If you've been to Brussels + have any suggestions for places to go, things to see between work obligations, I'd love to hear.  Drop me a comment below.  And bonus points if  you can ID the inspiration for today's title.  Here's a hint: think Sunday morning television.

I'll be the first to admit that spectrum management is a bit of an interesting topic to post on DCSpring21.  After all, I'm neither an academician nor a regulator.  And it doesn't necessarily build off my last post about the way people think about changing the world.  Maybe its recent conversations with outstanding auction theorists like Stanford's Paul Milgrom or the prep work I'm deep in for a spectrum conference over in Brussels in a few weeks...  Regardless, as a systems/design thinker with experience communicating the technology implications for managing spectrum resources in business (not geek) speak, I'm inspired to write a few sentences today.

Over the last few weeks, I've had my hands full with a number of spectrum-related opportunities at Computech.  Be it interest from the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries (Ofcom) to a new supply agreement to provide spectrum auction services to Industry Canada, an RFP from Ireland's Commission for Communications Regulation to a handful of our auction team working in Mexico City with COFETEL, it seems like my days have been filled to capacity with talk of managing, allocating and regulating this scarce, valuable resource that cannot be seen or felt.

Spectrum Holdings in the 700MHz band range (c/o the FCC's Spectrum Dashboard)

Heeding the advice of my good friend Tien Wong, I've focused more of my personal time on better understanding telecommunication-related issues that are impacted by such governmental interests.  Tien, the CEO of the VC firm Opus8, suggested that my last five years running business development at our firm, coupled with Computech's 16 years of IT-related support at the FCC, affords me a rather interesting perspective on how technology + the telecommunications "industry"intersect (*by which I mean regulators & industry alike).  As my recent posts show, my technical interests trend towards deep data analytics; conceptually, this matches up nicely with our firm's expertise with spectrum management.  Indeed, the balancing act that so many countries' regulatory bodies need to strike continues to play out on the global stage (and yes, we're happy to play a supporting role).  Just as with agile data management, the key for most telecommunication authorities centers around real-time knowledge of spectrum demand, use and oversight.

So, over the next few weeks, I'm going to shift my writing focus from Big Data, data-driven dashboards and data analytics to the technical implications of managing a spectrum lifecycle.  Being that I'm heading up to Ottawa on Tuesday for their annual 20/20 Spectrum conference -- and to Brussels in June for the annual European Spectrum Management conference -- what better time (or place) to start sharing my observations than now on DCSpring21.  While I can't promise specific topics, my travel schedule does provide some general direction.  Due up this week: my observations from Canada based on perspectives shared by senior spectrum, radio and telecommunications officials from around the world.