I’m doing something a little different today. I’m at the Growth & Justice Thriving by Design conference. The goal of the conference is to finesse a plan for the future to hand to Governor Walz. The process started last summer when 100 or more people from around Minnesota gather to talk about shared problems, shared goals and potential solutions.
We started the day talking about equity blueprint problem statements:
- Human Potential (green)
- Economic Development (blue)
- Physical Infrastructure (red)
- Environment & Natural Resources (yellow)
- Democracy & Civic Engagement (white dot)
Each problem was then divided into sub-statements – including broadband as a sub-statement under Physical Infrastructure. Attendees had an opportunity to create connections among the statements. It was done visually so that you placed a colored dot (representing the statements above) next to the sub-statement that connected with it. It sounds confusing and I may have more to report tomorrow when the conference continues but for now I think it’s interesting to see that broadband was a magnet for many attendees. I was one of the top draws.
Often broadband is a big topic. However, most assume it is important or at worst,, don’t know where to put the topic.