Monthly Archives: November 2010

Rural businesses pay more for broadband

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This might not come as a big shock to readers but a recent SBA (Small Business Administration) report indicates that broadband is more expensive in rural areas…

The study, entitled The Impact of Broadband Speed and Price on Small Business, found that when prices are held constant, rural small businesses get less service compared with metro small businesses. When services are held constant, rural small businesses pay higher prices than metro small businesses.

So while it may not be a big shock – the first step to remedying the situation is recognizing that there’s a problem and there were some interesting details…

  • The small business broadband adoption rate has increased to 90% and that number rises to 95% if you remove the businesses that don’t have computers. (Although I think we might want to know more about those businesses without computers!)
  • Almost one-third of businesses surveyed indicated a need for broadband speeds that require greater capacity networks than currently exist in many locations in the United States.
  • Almost half (48%) of rural respondents and more than one-third (37%) of metro respondents report that they are not satisfied with their Internet speed.
  • Only 1.8% of respondents indicate that no broadband option is available to them—but if satellite is excluded as a broadband option (as has been the assumption under the broadband stimulus programs), the percentage of small businesses reporting having no broadband option jumps to 7.7% for rural respondents and 3.5% for metro-area respondents.
  • Overall, respondents pay an average of $110 per month for Internet service, though most pay between $50 and $99 per month.

There’s a big discussion of policy implications, which I think I can nearly sum up as saying that the National Broadband Plan is on track. There was one interesting observation pulled out from a noted study that looks at broadband beyond the US…

“Next Generation Connectivity: A Review of Broadband Internet Transitions and Policy from Around the World” (also called “the Berkman Report”), indicated that:

Our most surprising and significant finding is that “open access” policies—unbundling, bitstream access, collocation requirements, wholesaling, and/or functional separation—are almost universally understood as having played a core role in the first generation transition to broadband in most of the high performing countries; that they now play a core role in planning for the next generation transition; and that the positive impact of such policies is strongly supported by the evidence of the first generation broadband transition.

The report also includes a Minnesota case study. It compares connectivity in Minneapolis with connectivity in Waseca – showing that you can get faster speeds in Minneapolis and you’ll often pay about half the price in Minneapolis as you would in Waseca for comparable service. I’ve included two tables from the report.

Finally – there’s a great table on pages 17-18 of the report that track “Typical Applications and Their Performance for Various Download/Upload Broadband Speeds”. It’s one of the most detailed of such lists I’ve seen. A nice to answer to – what can I do on FTTH that I can’t do on DSL?

Minnesota Broadband Advisory Task Force meeting tomorrow – Nov 17

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The Minnesota Broadband Advisory Task Force is meeting tomorrow at TIES. Below is the agenda. I am planning to attend and will take notes; the public is welcome…

Minnesota Broadband Advisory Task Force
November 17, 2010
TIES Facility
1667 Snelling Avenue North, St. Paul, MN 55108
9:30 am to 3:00 pm

Agenda

1. Welcome

2. Introduction of guests and those on video or teleconference

3. Public remarks

4. Approval of Minutes of October 27, 2010 meeting

5. Work on report draft and additional assignments

6. Report from Connected Nation (Phillip Brown and Brent Atwood)

LUNCH

7. Work on report draft and additional assignments (continued)

8. Next meeting: December 15 (at TIES, decide time and agenda)

9. Adjournment

Notes from the National Rural Telecon Congress

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The National Rural Telecon Congress met last week in Mesa, AZ and the meeting was a very interesting gathering of folks discussing how to promote access and use of broadband in rural communities. I have been involved with the Congress for about 10 years and it was good to renew acquaintances with some of the other old-times. Many of the old-timers are affiliated with either land grant colleges or small non-profits. An infusion of new faces also occurred as the Congress made a strong effort to recruit those engaged with broadband mapping; these are mostly state government officials who shared their introductory language of “I have only been in this job for x months.”

The format of the Congress was very participatory. Over the three days, people could choose to join in on discussions on five topics dealing with converged technology, collaborative engagement, governance, anchor institutions and mapping. I was a subject expert in the collaborative engagement group. Our group was the largest to begin with and grew over the two days of discussion.

Key themes emerged – collaboration and messaging were two that rose to the top. We talked both about infrastructure deployment and building demand/community education.

One of the goals at the beginning of the conference was to build a best practices toolkit for rural broadband advocates. By the end of the conference, that goal had been modified to develop a tool that would point people to the various existing toolkits. Some of the toolkits identified as best practice were the Blandin Foundation’s and resources created by E-North Carolina and the State of California.

Learn more at www.ruraltelecon.org.

Rick King on how MN can thrive into the future

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Rick King, CTO at Thomson Reuters and former Chair of the Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force, recently had an editorial published in the Grand Forks Herald offering advice for moving Minnesota forward as he points out…

No matter the outcome of the impending recount, Minnesota’s next governor and the newly-elected Legislature will be tasked with spurring our state’s economy within this global context.

Here offers a few suggestions:

  • Invest in R&D.
  • Build our idea infrastructure.
  • Expand transportation to move our greatest product: Our people.

All good suggestions, I thought I’d pull his comment on “idea infrastructure” since broadband is really the key there…

The broadband internet is today’s interstate highway system — a complex network designed to move goods to markets far and wide. It has the potential to connect the state’s businesses, innovations and ideas to markets around the world.

And broadband will foster even greater job growth potential. A recent study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that demand for jobs dependent on broadband access are projected to grow by 25 percent from 2008 to 2018.

With such potential, Minnesota must dedicate itself to becoming a national and global leader in broadband speeds and connectivity. We can’t afford not to.

Notes on World Usability Day events at the University of Minnesota

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On November 11, I went to the Usability Day events at the University of Minnesota. I thought I might be able to glean some tidbits for the MIRC communities – but then I thought that others might be interested in the notes too. I didn’t take notes like I do for policy meetings – but very rough notes that I hope are helpful for anyone who might be developing a community online.

Presentation: “User Centered Design Link Labeling Methods”
• Josh Carroll, Usability Consultant, OIT

This presentation was a comparison of Web-based versus Face-to-face link labeling activities. Or can you glean information organization and labeling tools from traditional in-person searching for online searching?

Here are a few hints for making sure the terms you use in links are the best terms:

  • Links names should ID info they link to
  • Situate the link context so users can infer info
  • Graphics
  • Intuitive info hierarchy
  • Usability testing

Adding Content Description is a help.
Get terminology before you sort info on info-rich sites

He mentioned a site that I found helpful: www.websort.net

Presentation: “Accessible and Usable Documents”
• Phil Kragnes, Computer Accommodations Specialist, OIT

How to work with usbale documents – I thought this session might be most useful for MIRC communities – and maybe anyone looking to posting information that will be shared – especially if you think you will be sharing infrmation with people with visual impairments. I think the video of this presentation is most valuable. I hope it comes through – what you’re hearing on the video is the “speak aloud” softweare that folks with visual impariments migth use to “read” a document. Specifically you’ll see the software hear the blank space surrounding the document title.

The U of M has a resource to help their folks: http://accessibility.umn.edu/ – it lists various document formats, the potentinal accessibility barriers inherent in each format and best practices for overcoming barriers.

I think the key is to remember that anyone with a visual disability will use software that “reads” a document to them. Most oducment software tools (Word et al) has a range of tools that helps you format and organize your documents – using those tools will help to make the document more accessibe. Using the spacebar and hard returns to format a document will make it less accesible.

It takes a little more time – or maybe it takes time to make it a habit to do the right thing – but I hope the video demonstrates howlong it takes speak-aloud software to read a title page that has been created sloppily – by using the hard return to center. (I’m as guilty as anyone on that one.) But I thought that including the video on how spending 30 second in creation can save minutes of reading time if/when someone uses assistive technology to “read” your document might help us be more cognizant of the power of the creation tools.

The speaker noted that improper use of heading tags can be a killer for accessibility. This is an interesting note because I think many web developers use heading tags and style sheets (CSS) as a short cut for formatting – and search engine optimization sort of rewards such use. But the fact that this is a potentnial problem for accessibility, it’s soemthing that will probably change for SEO over time.

Tour of Usability Lab

We got a fun tour of the Walter Library Usability Lab. They do a lot of web site testing because not only can they facilitate focus groups but they can track what you’re looking at on a screen. Someone asked if there were any lessons learned from watching so many web usability tests. The tour guide reminded us that visitors look at other sites more often than they will ever look at yours. How you adhere to or stray from the conventions that others are using (other in general, in your industry, in your part of the world) will determine usability.

Presentation: “Listening to Your Data”
• Chris Moellering, Technical Writer, OIT

Steps for better design:

  • Focus Groups
  • Usability Evaluations
  • Web Analytics
  • Surveys
  • Compettive Analysis

I think much of the presentation goes back to the tour guide’s advice of going with conventions. Listen to what people tell you they want – but also watch them. Sometimes people don’t know what they want; sometimes they don’t want to tell you.

Presentation: “Search Engine Optimization (SEO)”
• Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Writing Studies
• Stuart Blessman, Student, Scientific and Technical Communication

OK I didn’t take great notes here because I do SEO a lot – but here are some keys I remember:

  • Social media is a conversation
  • Use terms your audience would use to find you on your site.

Social Media use by Minnesota Elected Officials

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This week Representative Michelle Bachmann celebrated her social media engagement as an example of what she could bring to Republican leadership. Apparently she was speaking on Fox news – but I read about it on The Hill…

Bachmann pointed to her rapidly increasing number of followers on Facebook as evidence of her appeal and said she would like to see other GOP lawmakers reach out to the public in a similar fashion.

“For instance, I would love to see all of our members have at least 100,000 people on their Facebook page. I have 140,000 people, and we’re growing that,” Bachmann said.

“The more we can communicate and have a two-way conversation with the American people, the more we as representatives will stay in touch with what people want us to do in D.C. That can only increase a positive outcome for everyone,” she added.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is perhaps not celebrating his use of social media. He is getting into hot water for Tweets. According to MinnPost…

[Former Secretary of State Mary] Kiffmeyer alleged that his tweets are being posted on his “official” Twitter account, but that’s not correct. They are being posted on his personal account — which does identify him as the secretary of state — but that’s linked to his political campaign site.

It looks a little like a “he said, she said” argument – but interesting to see how social media is being used and with level of success.

Broadband Forum in Crookston

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So who doesn’t have access to broadband? Well according to The Crookston Times, there are 681 residents in Polk County without access. The population of Polk County, according to a July estimate from the US Census is 30,694.

That info was the backdrop for Impact 20/20’s forum in Polk where Jack Geller, a prominent member of the Impact 20/20 Broadband Task Force (former member of the Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force) outlined the group’s goals and strategies:

The goals are fairly straightforward:

All communities in the region with 500 residents or more will have business-grade broadband access of speeds greater than 20/10 (10 Mb download and 10 Mb upload) within five years.

All residents of the region will have access to broadband speeds of 10/5 (10Mb download and 5 Mb upload) within the same time period.

The group advocated Universal Service Funds (USF) as a means to serve even their most remote residents. In fact, again according to the Crookston Times…

Attendees were encouraged to do two things to support the efforts of IMPACT 20/20 and increase the level of broadband service in Northwest Minnesota: 1) join IMPACT 20/20’s Broadband Action Alert mailing list, and 2) tell their legislators to support extending the current Universal Service Fund to include broadband accessibility.

Maybe Americans don’t realize that info is going online

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I got two very interesting articles today from two very different soruces. I want to thank Mike Horwath for the article from Ars Technica – Why don’t Americans want broadband? And I want to thank Ann Higgins for a link to a recent article from Digital Communities – Print Media an Endangered Species.

Ars Technica makes a good point – a recent report from the NTIA and others shows that many people who don’t get broadband don’t because they don’t see the value. Programs such as the Blandin MIRC project are working to help non-users appreciate what they are missing and find ways that broadband can improve their lives. But for many people who aren’t online – value is a big reason.

I wish that Digital Communities’ article provided an answer – that maybe we should want broadband because that’s going to be the only way to get news – but I don’t think it does. However I think it makes the case that maybe we ought to care for people. More and more services – in the public and private sector are moving online – and eventually legacy methods of service, such as paper newspapers will become extinct.

At that point it will cost everyone to continue to serve folks who aren’t on broadband. Government service will be obliged to try to provide ubiquitous services – but it will be costly.

The newspaper have no obligation – but once the newspaper dies – folks will need alternative access to news to remain (or maybe become) active citizens. And if we want active citizens, we will have to make it easy – and that will mean online access.

It seems to make sense to invest in digital inclusion now – both in terms of access and adoption rather than get to a point where we’re paying a premium to reach the reach divide or run the risk of leaving folks behind.

MN Broadband Story of Success: Brouwer Berries

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Often I am asked for local broadband adoption stories. I thought I’d start to track some here with (hopefully) weekly articles or videos. Today, I start with Brouwer Berries in Raymond, Minnesota. I heard about them through Jean Spaulding with the Kandiyohi County & Willmar Economic Development Commission. I feel like I should add a disclaimer like ‘results may vary’. Today’s example is of someone (Sarah Brouwer) who used technology to tell her story – but she has a great story, and as you’ll see below, a great voice. I’ve pieced together parts of our e-mail conversation for you.

Brouwer Berries: You-pick and pre-picked strawberries

How have you used technology?

I’ve had a web-site for our little hobby farm for 3 years, and people can sign up for my e-mail alerts. I actually had the web-site created after attending web-site workshops in Willmar sponsored by the Blandin Foundation, and half the site was paid for by a Blandin grant. The web-site is great as a way for people to get directions or info about our farm. People prefer looking the information up to telephoning us. The e-mail alerts are great. People really appreciate hearing about the field conditions, and optimum picking times. I tend to be hesitant about sending out too many e-mails, though, because I don’t want to overwhelm people. This year, however, we started a Facebook Fan page.

How is Facebook working for you?

Unbelievable-that’s all I can say about Facebook! I detest Facebook personally, and am leery of posting anything on my own status since I don’t like the way a comment can be read by so many people, but at an MFVGA (Minnesota Fruits and Vegetable Grower’s Ass’n) convention last January every single marketing workshop I went to said “Your business has to have a Facebook page”. So, I did.

The results were incredible. I’d post that I’d be in a certain town at the side of the road at 3:00 later that day, and the first TEN of my customers would tell me they read it on Facebook. One lady even took me to the side and said “I flew in from Chicago today, and noticed on my laptop that you’d be here, so I haven’t even gone home yet but I’m stopping for your berries, and thank-you for letting me know!”

Other people told me “Sure, post pictures of us on your Page — anything to help your business”.

The crazy part was all the people thanking me. I kid you not– they were thanking me for what I considered advertisement! They had signed up to be notified, and they were happy to have my posts! These are people of all ages — in fact, every week Facebook sends me an “insights” page that breaks down my fans by age and gender. It is so simple, and I haven’t bothered posting anything since the end of the strawberry harvest, but you can bet that next spring I’ll start raving about the coming crop in order to gain more “likes” to my site.

How has having broadband helped?

I access the internet at home on a traditional (but new) computer — I’m a home schooling mom. We got broadband less than a year ago, which really facilitated the Facebook and website management. Before we had it, I didn’t change my strawberry website home page more than once or twice a strawberry season, and I only checked my personal Facebook page once a month because it took so long for pictures to download.

This past strawberry season, with broadband, I was able to update my strawberry website and Facebook nearly daily without a huge time commitment. This was extremely helpful, because it was a very wet spring, which adversely affected our crop. Many people were checking our website and Facebook status to see how wet the field was, and if there were berries available to pick when they had time to come. With all the standing water in our fields, I’m certain that an even larger portion of our crop would have spoiled without the use of technology to draw pickers and purchasers to our field in between rainstorms.

If you have or know if a broadband story of success to share, please send it my way. I will also archive the stories on the Blandin Applications in Action site.

NATOA Supports Full Funding for NTIA

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I want to thank Jodie Miller for the following from NATOA. I mentioned the letter to Bernadine Joselyn who observed…

Blandin Foundation foresaw the need to document impact and so is in the fortunate position of having budgeted adequately for assessment – including baseline and benchmarks for both intelligent rural community indicators and subscription rates. The first baseline report is available.

I think we’ve already reaped benefits from the assessment – hopefully others will find a way be benefit as well…

Good morning NATOA Members,

Concerns have been raised that NTIA may find itself lacking sufficient funds to properly monitor the BTOP program. Without adequate funding, NTIA will not be able to perform grant implementation guidance to BTOP grantees, possibly resulting in lessening the ability of the agency to ensure projects meet program objectives. NATOA, along with NACo, NLC, and the USCM, sent letters to both House and Senate leadership urging that Congress give NTIA the resources it needs to continue its oversight of the BTOP program.

NATOA urges its members, especially those who have received BTOP grants, to contact their Senators and Representatives and ask them to provide the necessary funding and spending flexibility that will permit NTIA to continue its work and ensure a successful completion of this very important program.

Below are links to NATOA’s letters to the Congressional leadership, along with a link to a new report detailing NTIA’s concern about its ability to maintain its grant oversight of the BTOP program.

Click here for NATOA’s letter to the Senate
Click here for NATOA’s letter to the House
Click here for the New Report

Home Broadband Adoption using 2009 Census Data

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This week the NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration), Economics and Statistics Administration and U.S. Department of Commerce came out with a new study: Exploring the Digital Nation: Home Broadband Internet Adoption in the United States. In the research, they used Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey Internet Use Supplement, a survey of approximately 54,000 households conducted over one week in October 2009.

I’ll try to provide a very abridged abstract on the report by pulling out various nuggets:

How many households are online?

Despite this overall growth in Internet use, it is important to realize that a significant portion of American households (36%) did not have a broadband Internet service at home. Almost one-fourth of American households (23%) did not have any Internet user in 2009.

Who’s online?

Persons with high incomes, those who are younger, Asians and Whites, the more highly-educated, married couples, and the employed tend to have higher rates of broadband use at home.

Who’s not?

Conversely, persons with low incomes, seniors, minorities, the less-educated, non-family households, and the nonemployed tend to lag behind other groups in home broadband use.

Why aren’t people online?

  • Cost
  • No interest
  • No computer
  • No access

I found these numbers and details to be very similar to what Jack Geller (64% of homes had broadband) and Connect Minnesota (72% of Minnesotans – people not households – use broadband at home) has found – at least in terms of Minnesota’s broadband adoption.

But this report went beyond the basics. The tables below show the level of detail.

They tried to look at which characteristics were most pertinent in broadband adoption. There are some obvious difficulties, especially if, like me, you’re focusing on geography – because you’re not comparing apples. The demographic makeup of rural areas tends to be heavier on older folks, lower income so which characteristic is weighted most heavily? Hopefully the table below (from the report) will help show how they assigned weight (if you want the methodology, check out the report and the regression analysis framework – I’ve poste the results):

As you can see the urban-rural gap is assigned 7 percentage points – so all other things being equal, a house in a rural area is 7 percent less likely to have broadband than their urban counterparts.

Duluth jumps in the lake for science?

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I would love for any Minnesota community to be the prized Google Gig community – but I have to give it to Duluth, they are doing an amazing job flaring the flames of hope. Earlier this week they made Minnesota Public Radio with the reasons that Duluth’s Mayor Ness jumped in the lake last winter…

He jumped in the lake back in February — in part to get Google’s attention.

But it might have been more than just a stunt. The computer equipment Google likely needs for an experimental high-speed network generates a lot of heat. And Google is known to look for innovation — particularly of the money saving variety.

“There’s been a great deal of research given right now into how you can use cold water to cool these data centers, in a very natural and environmentally friendly way,” Ness said. “Instead of using massive air conditioners, let’s use the cold water we have so abundantly in Lake Superior.”

Also they listed many good reasons that Google would be crazy not to come to Duluth:

  • Access to affordable energy
  • No earthquakes
  • Reasonably priced sites
  • Quality workforce
  • Proximity to a university, hospital and federally funded broadband project
  • Community creativity

It occurs to me that if that’s a good recipe for Google, it might be a good recipe regardless.

Online Classes for business owners out of MNWest

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As part of their Blandin Foudantion LightSpeed project, Minnesota West Community & Technical College is offering online business classes. They are doing FastTrac New Venture online using the Kaufmann Foundation materials. They are the first group that the Kaufmann Foundation has allowed to do the course online. So that’s a great opportunity. Course topics include the following:

The SBM Core Series includes:

  • Strategic Planning – October 2010 – In Progress
  • Organizing and Understanding your Business Financials – October 2010 – In Progress
  • Marketing, Intro to Marketing your Business – October 2010 – In Progress
  • Intro to Personnel Systems for your Business – January 5, 2011
  • Financial Management – January 4, 2011
  • Marketing II – January 7, 2011

Special Topic Classes

  • Introduction Quickbooks®- First Class Tuesday November 16, 2010
  • Quickbooks® Payroll – First Class December 7, 2010
  • Quickbooks® Online One-on-One – Individually Scheduled. For Appointment call 1-800-658-2330, ext 6827 or 507-825-6827 Email Duane.Krueger@mnwest.edu
  • Marketing Your Business Online – First Class Monday, January 10, 2011
  • Fast Trac® New Venture™ – First Class Monday November 22, 2010

(You can get a full list of classes being offered now and in the future.)

Duane Krueger was kind enough to send me the information on the upcoming classes and to answer a few questions for me about how the classes have been going…

We did experience some issues with our audio during our classes this fall. We had to switch from Web-Ex this year to Adobe Connect. The bandwidth issue, or should I say the lack of bandwidth issue, really caused problems with our online classes. We tried to go with microphones and speakers for all participants, including instructors. Adobe Connect, and I assume many other software programs like it, was only usable if no student was able to talk. Our classes are built on interaction between student and instructor as well as between student and student. We recently switched to a PGI system in Adobe Connect that enables us to have clear audio between instructors and students. PGI is a phone system that costs us 6 cents a minute per participant. So a class that has eight, 1 hour sessions with 15 participants costs us $432.00. Let’s just say our program budgets are being stretched.

It helps make the point that while it’s important that anchor institutions have ultra-fast broadband, residents need adequate bandwidth as well. Also for folks who have broadband, here’s an opportunity to use it.

$5 million awards for innovative projects that use digital technology

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Some folks may already be working on this – but I saw this on a list and thought I’d pass it on…

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is running a grant competition called the Knight News Challenge, which awards up to $5 million for innovative projects that use digital technology to transform the way communities send, receive and make use of news and information.

More info here: http://newschallenge.org. The site includes application information, as well as details about past winners.

This year’s application deadline is December 1. The News Challenge is looking for applications in four categories: mobile, authenticity, sustainability and community. All projects must make use of digital technology to distribute news in the public interest.

To apply, submit a brief pitch to http://newschallenge.org. If the reviewers like it, you’ll be asked to submit a full proposal.

If you have questions you can a) reference the FAQ: http://www.newschallenge.org/frequently-asked-questions ; b) participate in a live chat with Knight Foundation representatives on November 12 at noon Eastern time.

Good luck!!

Storytelling a key to success

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If there are a thousand stories in the naked city – there must be a million on the Internet. Slowly but surely I feel as if I’ve just come to really understand what that means and how powerful those stories can be.

Once upon a time in 2005, Jane Leonard with Minnesota Rural Partners hosted a storytelling contest as part of the annual Minnesota Rural Summit. I was part of the Summit and worked closely with Jane attending preliminary rounds and posting information online. The stated focus on the storytelling was to build connections…

The contest’s goal is to celebrate, through storytelling, the connections between rural and urban people and communities. Many urban residents have strong ties to rural places. Some of those ties remain strong while others have been neglected or forgotten. If we are going to have healthy, vibrant rural communities, then we must find meaningful ways to connect urban and rural resources. Celebrating our rural roots through story is a great way to begin to reconnect and make new connections, too.

It was fun – but I forgot what a visionary Jane is – so I kind of cataloged the experience and moved on. Fast forward to last year and I find myself doing a webinar on Telling a Story with Social Media for the Blandin Foundation as a forerunner to the 2009 Broadband Conference. I’ve worked with businesses and have found that those who can tell their story online – and better yet engage their customers/communities to help tell the story – are most successful online. The Internet can be an amazing advertising tool, but that’s underselling it.

Flash forward again to this year and story is all I’m hearing about. At this year’s Blandin Broadband conference keynote Robert Stephens started out by talking about the importance of stories for communities. He focused on the growing accessibility to any story made available online with the prevalence of smart phones. He pointed out that with a smartphone he has information about any community at his fingertips. The smart (or to draw from a MIRC term, intelligent) communities will have a story and will promote it online if they want to promote themselves to potential visitors and transplants.

His advice was echoed when we heard from the students who spoke about what they look for in a community in which to reside after graduation. The students were clear that they needed jobs – but that money wasn’t the primary focus. They also wanted to live someplace that was interesting – and they research those places online. They are visiting city, county and local government sites for more information – but they are looking for more than stats – they are looking for the story that makes each given communities unique.

I’m sure I will hear many of the same stories this weekend at the Twin Cities Daily Planet Fall Forum: Story Telling and Beyond, New Tools for Participation. Speakers include people who use technology to tell their stories – and the event will be followed by a story slam (contest).

So what does all of this story stuff have to do with broadband? I have been collecting stories of broadband success, which I plan to start posting here this week. I have found that a lot of success has stemmed from the ability to tell your story online. The ability come in two parts – first you must be a skilled storyteller but many folks who are passionate about what they do can tell their story. The second part is having access to post the information – in video, audio, image and text. You can be the best storyteller in the world – but without broadband you’re silenced. You can’t sell your business, you can’t promote your community and you can’t tell your story to legislators.