The City of Minneapolis recently released the results of their Digital Community Survey. The survey is interesting in that you can track some high level stats – but the focus is really on the community/neighborhood perspective.

One quick high level stat – how important is it to you to have computer and Internet access at home?

Take that question and drill down by neighborhood and you can see how the details shine a light on areas that could possibly benefit from digital inclusion programs and/or public awareness campaign:

Now consider if you were looking to relocate to Minneapolis – and this was the one piece of information you had. Which neighborhood would you choose? Or from a more positive perspective, if you were looking to close the digital divide in Minneapolis, where would you start? If you drill down into the survey, you should be able to dissect interest and experience with technology by neighborhood, which would be of even more help when planning a digital literacy program. You would know what folks were using for computers (smartphones, library computers, tablets, nothing?), you’d know what they were already doing (email, text, web) and could build a program to meet those needs and more. It’s a very thorough report. Here’s the summary of findings…

Survey questions captured Minneapolis residents’ opinions and preferences related to technology, as well as their access to computers and the Internet. Overall, residents thought somewhat favorably of technology in Minneapolis, saw computers and the Internet as important, had a computer and Internet access and accessed the Internet regularly (most commonly via a high‐speed connection). Residents generally found help for any computer or Internet issues through a variety of means and participated frequently and comfortably in many basic digital activities, including emailing and using social media. However, meaningful differences were seen across the 11 communities that comprise Minneapolis as well as among different sociodemographic characteristics.

But again I think much of the value (to folks in the city) is in the detail.