Yesterday Bernadine Joselyn and I presented at the Connecting Entrepreneurial Communities conference about how to convince community members to invest in broadband. We gave a similar presentation at the Fall Broadband conference but the timing seems even better now as communities are working to provide public support to match provider investment in MN broadband grant applications. 

We helped people recognize that a household with broadband sees an economic benefits of $1,850 – which helps a household decide that $20/month or $100/year investment via tax is a good investment.

We were also able to listen to the keynote Amanda Brinkeman, host of Deluxe’s hit HULU series Small Business Revolution. She spoke about the importance of sharing stories to life local businesses – especially using social media. 

That message was reinforced in the second presentation – Growing Entrepreneurial Communities by Pam Bishop and Chris Schad. The comment I really enjoyed from the session was “everyone has a side hustle” and the recognition that with broadband we can turn that sideline into a business.