Esther Dyson Describes the NIIAC

This is the organization Al Gore formed to help formulate policy on how the fed could grow the Internet.

The NIIAC was a well-meaning attempt to collect a diversity of opinion to make sure the emerging "NII" was useful to all Americans, and it probably did more good than I suspected at the time ... The members included the usual suspects: a librarian; a grade school teacher; a communications workers' union official; the head of BMI, a copyright agency; several telecom executives; several "content" people, including a legal publisher and a music-company executive; and old lawyer fried of the Clintons from Arkansas; a state senator and several other local government officials; my old friend John Sculley, former CEO of Apple (and another friend of the Clintons). The co-chairs were Ed McCracken, CEO of Silicon Graphics, and Del Lewis, CEO of National Public Radio. There were a good representation of women and sprinkling of African Americans and ethnic Americans--but no kids, who might have had a lot to teach us. It's amazing that we came to agreement on anything, but we did.