We’re doing something a little different at the conference this year. And I think it’s something that Blandin does best – they’ve convened this great group of folks who are working for better broadband and they put them to work to think (and act!) about what would be a good broadband vision statement for Minnesota. We started by looking at the vision statement the Blandin Broadband Strategy wrote in 2004…

To ensure a high quality of life and a globally competitive future for its citizens, businesses and communities, Minnesota is committed to making the necessary investment to become a world leader in the universal deployment and use of ultra, high-speed next generation broadband.

Then everyone broke up into groups and we hashed out a new version…

All Minnesotans will use world class universal broadband networks that enable us to thrive in our communities and across the globe now and into the future.

Then we hashed out the process for making the vision happening by answer in the following questions in small groups:

• What do we need for networks?
• What tools do we need? (ex: state funding, legislative actions, policies, forums to promote/facilitate collaboration)
• What do we need to do to incent the investment we need?
• What key questions or principles should decision-makers keep in mind?

You can see the high level answers to the questions in the PPT

Or you can see everyone’s compiled answers in this document – which reads a little backwards as we create the document on the fly. (Like reading an email discussion you might want to start from the bottom.)

The process was very collaborative: everyone talk, everyone make it better, a core team compiles and brings it back to the group to make sure we’re still speaking as one voice. The work will continue – and one reaon I’m working hard to get this message out tonight – I invite folks to tweet suggestions (#MNBroadband) – or post them as comments below.