InformationWeek

August 2, 1999

Influencing The Internet

By Lou Bertin

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he Markle Foundation recently announced it is prepared to donate as much as $100 million of its $187 million endowment over the next five years to finance educational and policy advocacy efforts focusing on the Internet. Big deal, you say? Think again.

First, a few words of background are in order. The Markle Foundation was formed in 1927 with a mission to further "the advancement and diffusion of knowledge for the general good of mankind." The foundation was established in 1927 by John Markle and Mary Markle whose family fortunes were amassed in coal mining and finance. The foundation has been led since early last year by one Zoe Baird, whose resume is overshadowed by the fact that, several years ago, her nomination for attorney general was withdrawn by our sitting president. Baird nonetheless has amassed an impressive record of public-sector and private-sector accomplishments including her stints as corporate counsel at Aetna Inc., as a visiting professor at Yale Law School, and as a member of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

And what does all of this have to do with you? Nothing more, perhaps, than a complete revisitation of the hows, whys, and wherefores of using the Internet as an organization's means of conducting business, staying in touch with its customers and partners, and communicating with its employees. Does that grab your attention?

If the above factors don't, then consider this: The Markle Foundation's efforts will focus on both public policy and private advocacy and investment, a stratagem most notably evidenced by the foundation's decision to form a joint venture with Oxygen Media, a start-up that will develop programming aimed at women that will be presented via traditional media and electronic media. Moreover, above and beyond the joint commitments of Oxygen and the foundation to spend $8.5 million on research, the Markle Foundation will spend an additional $1 million to finance said programming.

What's notable about all this is that it provides a significant jump start to the long-dormant notion of uniting the public sector and the private sector for the common good, in this case by providing a voice for both commercial and non-commercial interests when it comes to policy decisions that will help shape the future of the Internet.

It also revives the notion that private sector representatives exasperated by the doings of the public sector can indeed make a difference if only they are willing to abandon the grouser's comfy perch and actually invest themselves to deal with the grubby business of public policy.

The foundation's and Baird's stated aims are to study how, where, and why the public good can be accommodated on the online medium as it becomes, seemingly, an utterly commercial entity. More tellingly, Ms. Baird, in public statements, added a proviso that gets to the heart of her intent when she said "the forces that are driving the growth of all this won't do that. We have to consciously attend to making that happen."

Why, exactly, should enterprises care about the doings of a little-known if well-heeled, foundation? Because it may be among the first, but surely won't be the last, organizations that will attempt to influence the evolution of what has become the backbone of global commerce. In short, because all of the players involved -- the foundation and its brethren, the administration, the congress, and even the much-beloved IRS -- can and will determine how the online medium will be operated and regulated. Does the Internet contribute even a dollar of cash flow to your company? If so, then you should care. A lot.

What the Markle Foundation is suggesting, none too subtly, is that it's time for the visionaries who have made the Internet the force that it is -- and for representatives of those organizations whose growth is attributable to the existence of the Internet -- to act on their own before action is taken for them. The call comes none too early.

Lou Bertin is an industry consultant. He can be reached at Lou.Bertin@gte.net.