Ann Treacy invited Blandin staff to share any reflections we might have from yesterday’s Community Broadband: Making the Right Choices conference. I decided to pull out the notes I made for my summarizing comments at the very last session of a long and rich day. They are raw… but fresh!
Conversation and discourse are important in and of themselves. I think an important outcome of the day – though it will be hard to track – will be the connections that were made among the over 140 attendees from 8 states and all across Minnesota. Participants came from Big Lake, Bruno and Brainerd, all the way to Winona, Windom and Wilmer. It was a great opportunity to hear directly from folks what’s going on with broadband in their communities. The short answer: a lot!
Keep on message. There is a wide continuum of awareness and use of broadband across the state. While many people and communities have moved on from asking “what is broadband and why should I care?” to “how can we get it?” I think it’s important to continue honing the message about how critical broadband infrastructure is to community economic vitality and quality of life.
Necessity is the mother of… learning. People “get” broadband applications when they have to. Urgency helps. The more we focus our educational efforts on helping people use broadband applications and connectivity to solve a problem they have, do something they want to do, or make their lives better in some concrete way (for example, connecting with a relative serving in Iraq, as Light Speed grant recipient and School Superintendent Peter Hoyer in Hutchinson, MN is doing via high-quality, broadband-enabled video conferencing), the easier it will be for folks to appreciate the importance of broadband for now and the future. Let’s work to match “killer apps” with the audience we’re trying to reach.
Broadband is no longer just a “nice to have” for rural communities. What we heard from educators, health care providers and government officials in particular, is that broadband has become essential infrastructure for them to do their jobs effectively and efficiently. Ann’s got some great notes from the “Community Transformation” sessions. And more stories from the Light Speed and Get Broadband grantees will be available over the coming weeks and months on this blog.
Connecting to place in a global world. Through citizen media, community portals, issue forums, and other efforts to build and manage locally-developed content, broadband can be an important tool for not only connecting rural places to the world, but for building community in community.
No one size fits all. There are lots of paths for “getting broadband” and raising the sophistication of broadband use. Our collective challenge is moving knowledge into practice and sharing what best practices we have. Starting with the end in mind and keeping focused on the goal is important, but so is remaining open to new paths that may open up along the way. Learn as you go. Stay focused, but flexible.
Framing, framing, framing. Thee are lots of ways to talk about how a broadband-enabled society can help us do good, and do well, better. Broadband can be “framed” as a new alternative energy (think of the savings from e-commuting), as a national security solution, and as a resource to address public health threats (like pandemic flu). It’s a way to improve life long learning opportunities and help retain (and attract) youth and the “creative class” to rural places. Broadband is not just for geeks anymore.
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Broadband Conference 2007, FTTH, economic development | 
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Posted by Bill Coleman
I had some incredibly interesting discussions with many of our attendees. I am sure that many of my colleagues left with a question of what it is that I really believe to be the “right” strategy for communities.
