Category Archives: Get Broadband

Renville County Get Broadband Update

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Renville

Here is an update from one of the Blandin Foundation Get Broadband Communities: 

Renville County and the BOLD Community Education hosted a successful eCommerce Class led by U of MN Instructor David Nelson. Held in Olivia, it was well attended and generated broadband networking among local businesses.

Renville is sponsoring Bilingual computer/Internet Classes at the Renville Public Library. Copies of this poster in English and Spanish will be handed out to bilingual families in Renville, Olivia, Danube and Sacred Heart and will be posted in the Renville and Sacred Heart thrift stores. RCW high school students will be given fliers to bring to home and post at local grocery stores and post offices.

Broadband Conferernce: Attendee Intro: Nancy Standfuss

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Nancy StandfussWe thought that it might be fun to hear from some of the Broadband conference attendees who are involved with the Get Broadband communities and I have to give great thanks to Nancy Standfuss for being the first Get Broadband community member to get back to us with an introduction.

I am excited about coming to the Blandin Broadband conference as a Get Broadband Community member. My name is Nancy Standfuss, the Olivia Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director.

I have been active as a steering Committee member for the Renville County get Broadband initiative. Very interested in helping small businesses economic vitality by increasing education, awareness and use of Broadband.

The vitality and strength of our home based businesses life- line will be broadband and its capabilities/ opportunities. Many rural economic forecasters point towards development in broadband services to ensure the capabilities for internet based business development, which will be the future of economic growth in our rural towns, not new buildings and store fronts.

Community Broadband Conference – Ways to Participate

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Communiy BroadbandBlandin’s fall broadband conference (Community Broadband: Making the Right Choices) is about 6 weeks away. It’s designed to help community leaders learn more about getting your community the broadband it needs for the future. There are a couple of ways to particpate:

Pre-Conference Seminar

If you’re planning to come to the conference, we hope you’ll also join us for the Pre-Conference Sesquicentennial Session: Oil lamps to Lasers…Creating Minnesota’s Broadband Future. It’s happening November 7 at 1-4:00 PM, directly before the conference. You can sign up for the pre-conference session when you register for the conference.

Free Webinars

Every is also welcome to join us for our free webinars leading up to the conference. The dates are October 3, 17, and 31. You can join via your computer. You can get the details online. If you’re interested please RSVP to Denise Pfeifer dpfeifer@minnesotaruralpartners.org or 507.828.5559.

Free Exhibitor Space for Nonprofits

And our final bit of conference news … we are looking for exhibitors and we have a great offer for nonprofit exhibitors. They can exhibit for free and each nonprofit registration includes a free attendee registration. The exhibition tables will be in the general conference room so you can watch your table and enjoy the conference. (For-profit exhibition space is $250 and includes 2 attendee registrations. So, that’s a great deal too.)

Monticello City Referendum for the Telephone Exchange PASSED!

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Yesterday the City of Monticello voted on whether or not to construct a citywide fiber optic network that would provide Internet, cable and telephone services.

Well the votes are in – and it passed 1,055 to 354. You can learn more (including a very interesting Q & A on marketing against the referendum) on the Monticello Fiber web site.

Monticello is Voting on Fiber Tomorrow

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The city of Monticello needs 65 percent of voters’ support Tuesday to construct a citywide fiber optic network that would provide Internet, cable and telephone services. You can read all about it on the St Cloud Times Online.

Here’s a little bit of an inside scoop from the August Blandin Foundation eNews:

The City of Monticello has been working on a Fiber to the Premises project over the last year with the goal of creating a City owned enterprise to offer telephone, television and very high speed Internet services. The City Fiber Optics Committee has set a date for a community referendum on the formation of a local telephone exchange that will take place on September 18th. The outcome will be important for determining if the City itself will offer voice services. For more information contact Lynne Dahl Fleming at 763 300 8118, Information and Education, City Fiber Optics Committee, or Milda Hedblom, consultant to the City Fiber Optics Committee, 651 645 5051.

Get Broadband at the Renville County Fair

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The Get Broadband Community in Renville made a big splash at the county fair. There was a Get Broadband booth that featured:

  • Two Renville Co. 4-H Horse Clinics videocasts
  • Videocasts created by students prior to the Fair
  • A digital camera that the 4-H and FFA participants could check out to videocast events and display them at the Broadband booth for public viewing
  • Wireless High Speed Internet connection
  • And they gave away a free door prize (Vivitar Vivicam 5388 /5.0 Megapixels/ 3X optical Zoom/ 11 MB built in memory) to one lucky fair visitor

Thanks to Annie Tepfer for sharing the info and chairing the booth below:

Renville County Fair

Renville County Fair

Get Broadband Update – Five Small Towns 9/07

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Thanks to Donna Rae for the following update on Five Small Towns’ Get Broadband Project:

The Small Town Get Broadband for Business project has just completed developing a powerpoint that can be delivered to a steering committee comprised of technical assistance providers, community leaders and entrepreneurs which in turn will address the overall goal of increasing the availability of quality technical assistance to the NW Region through the use of Broadband Technologies.

Six areas are explored through the powerpoint on the use broadband-based technology. These areas are:

  1. Basic Resources for Business
  2. Tools for Business Planning
  3. Market Analysis (research) for Business
  4. Tools for Financial Management for business and personal finance
  5. Tools for Human Resources
  6. Learning to Do Business (online education)

In addition, seven “bookmark” handouts were developed to accompany the presentation. The use of these “bookmarks” are to inform participants of the resources available in each of the areas and to be used for distribution with technical assistance providers, community leaders and entrepreneurs.

Renville County

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I just recieved an update from Annie Tepfer in Renville County. Most of the updates I receive go into the monthly Blandin eNews. I wanted to incldue this one here too – to add a link to the Renville County Messenger mentioned below.

from Annie

The Renville County “Get Broadband” Update was recently featured on page 3 of the County Newsletter that is mailed to every household in the County. I have had quite a few interested residents and business conversations arising from the mailing.

Two eCommerce Classes have been scheduled for this fall hosted in the cities of Fairfax, GFW campus and one in Olivia, BOLD Campus. The classes are offered in collaboration with the Community Ed. in each school district. The Schools are very excited about having a new class to offer the area residents.Currently there is no classes available in the area addressing eCommerce. David Nelson, Extension Educator from the University of Minnesota will lead a 2.5 hour class on how the Internet can be the new “tool” for your business and your home. We are very happy that the Fairfax EDA has become a partner in the “Get Broadband” Program and has donated finacially to the project which is then matched 1:1 by the Blandin Foundation.Offering the eCommerce Class in Fairfax was one of the goals for their city.

We are preparing for the Renville County Fair Booth with demonstrations from the students, FFA and 4-H video casts. Fair participants will be able to check out a Video Camera from the “Get Broadband” Booth to make a video cast of their project during the project judging, interview with owner and judge and award or placing recieved. We will be showing these videocasts at the Renville Co.Fair “Get Broadband” Booth during the Fair Aug. 15-17 in Bird Island.

Closing Broadband Divide

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The Pew Internet & American Life folks just released new commentary, Why It Will Be Hard to Close the Broadband Divide. It talks about how we in the US have reached a plateau in broadband adoption.

Some quick facts they point out:Get BroadbandGet Broadband

  • 47% of US adults have broadband at home
  • 29 % of US adults don’t use the Internet
  • Non-Internet users are older and poorer (average age 59, 25% have income less than $20,000)
  • 15% of US adults have dialup
  • 29% of dialup users have broadband access at home

Get Broadband

So, the question is how can we get more people using broadband? Pew suggests that “to reach the underserved, policymakers might consider more aggressive and targeted outreach efforts that educate hard-to-reach populations about the benefits of online connectivity. “ They mention a few federal programs that used to help but are now unfunded, the libraries, and the nonprofit sector.

I had two thoughts as I read the paper. First, I was pretty proud of the work that the Blandin Foundation has done to promote broadband in local, rural communities through the Get Broadband project. (I hope that’s not too braggy – but I’m only a small part so I feel like I can say it.) I have been involved with lots of Internet/broadband outreach programs. Get Broadband is unique because they give each community the time, tools, and funding to create a unique program that will meet their unique needs. So, New Ulm trains retailers, Mankato creates an online business support tool, Moose Lake creates a public safety net, several other communities install WiFi hot spots, and more. I have been lucky enough this summer to get more involved with some of the community projects and I can see how the education is going to pay off for the attendees, the community (often economy), and broadband adoption. I truly believe that the Internet will make your life better so I love that people are getting a chance and the encouragement to experience that.
My second thought maybe we need to let some people live their lives offline.

New Ulm E-Commerce Training

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote about visiting New Ulm to talk about some training that we were doing as part of their Get Broadband project. Well, I’m now on my third trip to New Ulm – we have one week of training done and two more to go. I thought I’d send a quick update.

First – New Ulm is the best. The people have been great, the town is friendly, and they always put me up at this amazing bed and breakfast.

Second – the training is going really well. New Ulm Telecom is graciously hosting a make shift computer lab. Skillings, another local web development firm, has also donated some computers to the lab.

So although created out of great generosity – the lab is not exactly cutting edge – but that’s been OK. We have been doing 3 classes:

Build a Web Site

Market Your Web

Sell Online

My favorite question so far has been – where is the “at sign”. But everyone has been really open to learn – and quite a few web sites were published. I got an email over the weekend from one participant with a link to her finished site.

I have been very impressed. The classes sold out in record time, so we’ve added more and really I think people are picking up practical e-commerce skills that they are using right away.

Get Broadband Businesses in Todd County

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Last week I got to visit Todd County. Alex Weego at the Todd County Development Corporation invited me and Jan Hepola from Minnesota Technology to Todd County to talk to a few companies about how web-based technology might help themgrow their business. This post is long but I wanted to share what we learned about tech challenges that businesses in rural Minnesota are facing. Continue reading →

New Ulm’s Tech Tuesdays for Retailers

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New UlmYesterday I was in New Ulm for a Chamber of Commerce meeting set up to promote their upcoming Tech Tuesday training. Yours truly is the trainer for the event and I’m really excited. (The Blandin Foundation is supporting the training through their Get Broadband program.)

Sheila Howk, New Ulm Retail Economic Development Coordinator, sent me a brief summer of the meeting:

We had a great turn out this morning! We had over 50 people who attended, and over 30 people who signed up for courses. Some feedback that I have heard already is the training that we have planned is short and too the point, exactly what we need. I also had people that were unable to attend the breakfast that would like to go to the classes.

But I also wanted to add my own notes. Continue reading →

Moose Lake Web Site Unveiled

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The Arrowhead Leader recently ran an article about the unveiling of the new Moose Lake web site.

Bill Carlson, Community Broadband Coordinator, said, “We want this web site to be the first stop for people wanting to find out more about Moose Lake.”

The web site include a directory of area businesses, updates on community events and news, e-government info such as city ordinances and city minutes, and information about the area.

But the neatest features are the email and text messages alerts. Community members can sign up to get alerts related to a number of topics – including emergency alerts.

Get BroadbandThe plan is not necessarily to use it for incidents such as tornado warnings but for topics such as missing persons.

The City of Moose Lake is a Get Broadband community, which means they received funding from the Blandin Foundation for the project. They are also applying for FEMA grant for equipment such as laptops for each emergency vehicle.

June eNews is Online

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Sorry folks – I should have posted this yesterday.

 The June eNews is now online. It includes updates from the Get Broadband communities, Coleman’s Corner, an article on WiMax and more…

Renville County West Students’ Videocast

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The Renville Get Broadband community students have created a fun videocast of their welding class. Thanks to Annie Tepfer for sending it to me.