Selling the Cloud Sublime - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 106

along the road to full convergence between the cloud and those “pipes”
and devices that deliver and display content from the cloud.
From the start, the report resembles those that, in the early days
of the Internet, created mythical visions of a digital sublime (Mosco
2004). We do not just live in a connected world, the cover subtitle tells
us; ours is “hyperconnected.” The preface, written by the chief business
oficer of the WEF, does little to temper the hyperbolic enthusiasm for a
world shaped by information and communication technology (ICT). It
describes the document as a detailed analysis of “the main drivers and
impacts of this ICT-enabled hyperconnected world and contributes to
the work of the World Economic Forum's Hyperconnected World Ini-
tiative, which establishes a holistic means of understanding the systemic
nature of change in a hyperconnected world” (Dutta and Bilbao-Osorio
2012, v). The chairwoman of Huawei chimes in with her iteration on
the theme of digital enthusiasm: “Ubiquitous super-broadband will
make almost everything faster and better while delivering an improved
user experience” (ibid., ix). The echoes of hyperconnectivity continue
through the executive summary, where representatives of both the WEF
and INSEAD mix hyperconnectivity and social transformation to create
a rich stew of technological euphoria: “We live in an environment where
the Internet and its associated services are accessible and immediate,
where people and businesses can communicate with each other instantly,
and where machines are equally interconnected with each other. The
exponential growth of mobile devices, big data, and social media are
all drivers of this process of hyperconnectivity. Consequently, we are
beginning to see fundamental transformations in society” (ibid., xi).
This establishes the model for the document: technology is creating a
hyperconnected world that is, with a few minor disturbances, an unal-
loyed blessing for the world. The only reasonable response of govern-
ments to this inevitable development is to igure out how best to adapt.
Consequently, the report produces a “world readiness framework” whose
primary index measures “the friendliness of a country's market and
regulatory framework in supporting high levels of ICT uptake” (ibid.,
xii). Even before we enter the body of the document, it is clear that we
are entering a mythic universe illed with the reiication of a technology
that drives the world to progress, provided that people igure out how
to properly adjust to its requirements. It is mythic because it tells a story