For over a year I’ve been saying that in mature markets, broadband has become a utility. And in fact it’s been over ten years since I first observed, as the Internet bloomed around us, that the provision of network access itself would ultimately be no more interesting or remarkable – but at the same time no less imperative – than electricity. I finally know I’m right; in a recent editorial no less than The New York Times opined, “Broadband service is no longer a luxury.”

[By the way, someone asked me recently what I thought a recession would do to the pace of growth in communications and media activities in the U.S. Admittedly oversimplifying, I remarked, “In the battle for the unemployed consumer’s bill-paying resources, I’d rather be broadband than HBO.” Premium cable doesn't help you find a job. But seriously, in the face of tightening household resources, the preservation of spend will go to the bundled triple-play offering – clearly providing the consumer with value that prevents them from sacrificing “John Adams” for craigslist.]

Tracking broadband’s ubiquity is the growing presence of digital displays. They pop up in new locations every day: taxis, elevators, malls and more. At Yankee Group’s Mobile Internet World event last fall, Sir Tim Berners-Lee called this phenomenon ‘pixel wallpaper.’

So what do you get when you combine ubiquitous broadband and ubiquitous pixels? If the network has the right intelligence, we’ll get Anywhere Media – experiences that travel with us, manifesting themselves appropriately on the displays and devices around us.

In a discussion hosted recently by The Boston Globe in preparation for the 20th anniversary of their annual Globe 100 listing of Massachusetts businesses, I was asked what trends might power the region’s economic growth over the next 20 years. This one, I believe, is huge — the emergence of threaded media experiences that provide some sort of continuity of consumption for consumers. I used to call it “agile content;” thinking the focus should be on how the content itself learns how to manifest itself appropriately on different devices. But from a content owner’s perspective, there will have to be some emphasis on how to create the integrated experiences that string discrete media encounters into a longer exposure. It will be critical to maintaining media’s value to brands, and it will be a big shift from the job of keeping the 20th-century family from leaving the sofa during the commercial break…

Wondering about the jobs of the future in New England, or anywhere else that the Anywhere Network is emerging? The need for cognitive scientists, creative interactive writers and producers, and design experts will be as big as the shift ahead to Anywhere Media.