Here’s the news from our latest newsletter. It’s mostly a compilation of Minnesota-related stories from the blog in the last month – but sometimes it’s nice to have it compiled.
Three Reports from Blandin Foundation
In October, the Blandin Foundation released three reports on rural Minnesota:
- Rural Pulse http://www.ruralpulse.org is an environmental scan that compares where rural Minnesota is today with rural views ten years ago on the economy, standard of living and jobs.
- MIRC Communities Baseline Study http://tinyurl.com/3x57paj a survey of broadband adoption in rural Minnesota, highlighting the 11 demonstration communities participating in the Blandin’s ARRA-funded project.
- Digital Crossroads: A Community Guide to Broadband Policy http://tinyurl.com/3xkeef3 a comparison of Minnesota and federal broadband policy plans.
Blandin Broadband Conference Highlights
On October 13-14, about 130 attendees gathered for Broadband 2010: Cultivating a Culture of Use. Highlights include a peek at the future with Robert Stephens http://tinyurl.com/394gers, a look at how Intelligent communities get so smart http://tinyurl.com/366baq7, students shared their recipe for livable communities http://tinyurl.com/3abptym, a tech tour of Baxter http://tinyurl.com/358t77a and attendees shared their thoughts on Minnesota broadband recommendations http://tinyurl.com/366t96a and other broadband topics. http://tinyurl.com/37dzldq. Hear the final impressions from Bernadine Joselyn. http://tinyurl.com/35l258p
Minnesota Broadband Advisory Task Force Oct Meeting
The Governor-appointed Broadband Advisory Task Force met in October to solidify the outline for their report due in early 2011. The Task Force shared notes from members, which are akin a very early draft of their report. http://tinyurl.com/32h3vxd
Remote Diagnosis Tool for Minnesotans
Health Partners unveils a remote diagnosis service, called Virtuwell. It involves a series of questions that help assess your health; the responses can be sent to a healthcare professional to be diagnosed by an actual person. http://tinyurl.com/37mo66y
Local Broadband News in MN
Adrian
The Adrian e-pharmacy gets a nod from Colleen Landkamer, state director of USDA Rural Development in Minnesota. http://tinyurl.com/345t5cb
Dakota County
Dakota County makes the ICF Smart21 ranking. http://tinyurl.com/2fjjxkq
Duluth
Duluth continues to promote itself at a perfect match for Google’s Gig Network. http://tinyurl.com/292entm
Grand Marais, Lac qui Parle, Deer River
All three communities were featured in a video created by the Blandin Foundation for the Broadband US TV program: Spurring Adoption and Use of Broadband with Jim Baller. http://tinyurl.com/27jvng3
Lake County
Lake County is running into issues concerning plans for closed meetings for their ARRA-funded fiber network project. http://tinyurl.com/24audfr
Northwest Minnesota
Impact 20/20 formed a task force to examine the state of broadband in the region and establish goals and strategies to address the challenges in developing widespread broadband access in area. http://tinyurl.com/37zw5v5
(Many stories are gathered from local online newspaper. Unfortunately each newspaper has a different policy in regards to archive news and therefore we cannot guarantee access to all articles cited.)
Coleman’s Corner
The ARRA-funded Blandin Project – Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities – has been going well. The MIRC Demonstration Communities are in full swing with their project development efforts. RFPs were posted earlier this fall and now the local MIRC steering committees are busy reviewing and scoring the applications. The communities are finding out that simply scoring the applications and awarding the top projects is not yielding all of the possible benefits that could be derived from all of the project ideas emerging from community organizations. In response, they are taking scalpels to budgets so that more projects can be funded and encouraging similar projects to find ways to collaborate.
Collaboration has also been encouraged internally – especially during the recent Blandin Broadband Conference. MIRC Demo Communities and RDCs (Regional Development Commissions) were invited to a special pre-conference day of collaboration training. Notes on the training are available online http://tinyurl.com/27qv9ag – but one takeaway I found valuable was the characteristics of collaboration identified by our partners:
Collaboration Means:
~ Equal partners.
~ Shared resources.
~ Shared risks and rewards.
~ Partners working together to create something new.
~ Self-motivated partners – not forced.
~ Putting aside individual differences for the greater good.
Keep these characteristics in mind as you bring possible collaborators together in your own community broadband efforts.
Saturday November 6, 2010
Mr. Coleman you and I have spoken on the phone at least twice. I had one of the Aitkin County Commissioners (Mark Wedel) call you as well regarding high speed Internet that would be affordable to all residents in Aitkin County not just the businesses.
It appears however that the only ones who get some kind of rate break is the hospital, school and city offices or just big businesses in this area. What about the little folks?
Just remember Mr. Coleman and Mr. Wedel, at the low end, $30.00 a month is not cheap for those living on fixed incomes, remembering this county of Aitkin has the highest percentage of elderly trying to live on fixed incomes, I believe in the State on MN. When Blandin said in several articles I was able to find by searching the web and archives of this local paper, I am wondering if they really meant what they said.
• Affordable – Ultra high-speed broadband needs to be available at rates we can afford.
A line from their website. Who decides what is affordable for the majority of the poor in this area?
Mr. Coleman I will try to call you again soon. I’ve read what you are trying to do in Dakota County, I’d like to hear more about what Blandin plans to do for Aitkin County in bringing AFFORDABLE HIGH SPEED INTERENT TO EVERYONE, EVEN IN THE RURAL AREA.
I will be copying this and sending it to Mr. Wedel and copies out to concerned citizens like myself.
My phone number is 218-927-2559
Trying to be a voice for the voiceless.
Sincerely,
Georgia J. Johnson
City of Aitkin, Aitkin County
Watching out for us.
Hello Ms. Johnson
I received your comment on the Blandin Blog. Your question about affordability is one of the fundamental questions that we deal with when working with the rural broadband question.
Years ago, when telephones and electricity were making their way into rural areas, the federal government set up mechanisms to ensure that people who lived in rural areas could have electricity and telephone at prices that were similar to city dwellers. So far, we do not have those types of federal programs for broadband. The federal stimulus program provided some funds for broadband, and in Minnesota, Cook, Lake and Lac qui Parle Counties received funds to bring broadband to all of their citizens though they are likely to be paying more than $30 per month for the service so that the counties can pay back their loans and cover expenses. There are significant costs to building and operating broadband networks.
Blandin Foundation provides support to community leaders who are interested in pursuing broadband solutions. The Foundation provided significant leadership support and technical assistance to both Cook and Lac qui Parle Counties that led to their successful efforts to obtain broadband stimulus funding. The Foundation can provide community seminars, facilitate community planning and has a program to help share the cost of detailed community broadband planning.
I encourage you to keep talking with your local elected officials about the importance of broadband to rural communities and residents. If you can find someone to sponsor a meeting of community members, I would be happy to attend and talk about the various alternative paths Aitkin County could take to improve citizen’s access and use of broadband.
I tried to email you at the address listed on the posting, but it bounced back. I welcome your call.
Bill