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.

My reflection is based on the lack of our ability to break through the “armed camp” attitudes of so many people engaged in the telecommunications discussion. Our Sesquicentennial pre-conference event was an attempt to get people to adopt a new perspective based on assuming a new role. I think that it worked pretty well for 90 minutes, but I was hoping for some carry-over as we resumed our real life characters.

Burlington VT is an extremely interesting community example and the audience obviously was captivated by Tim Nulty’s message and style. Burlington’s network offers residential customers a standard top speed of 5 Mbps symmetric. The audience was far less enthusiastic about JoAnne Johnson’s discussion of Frontier Communication’s 6 Mbps download speed.

When I discussed my current work with a community client and their pending recommendations about working aggressively with the incumbent providers to ensure competitive services, my table colleagues were aghast at the lack of vision by the community’s staff and task force. Of course, both of these folks benefit financially when cities decide to pursue their own municipal networks.

I am troubled by our lack of shared statewide perspective. How can we talk about gigabit connectivity when many rural Minnesotans don’t even have DSL or a wireless broadband choice? At the same time, I wonder how our top elected officials can avoid serious discussions about the need to ensure world-class telecom services in our economic centers. How can we move everyone forward?

My final thought goes out to my own profession. Where the heck are the economic developers? I enthusiastically applaud those few who were in attendance and wonder about the rest, especially those from state and regional organizations.