Category Archives: Broadband Summit 2010

How Internet searches impact on regional businesses for UMVRDC

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The librarian in me loves the following story. It hits on so many important aspects of Internet as a great equalizer. The potential is there but in reality, the Internet is a great equalizer (for businesses) when you understand how to use it and when you live in an area where the maps are right. Every business has to worry about brand management – for example in terms of handling a bad review on Yelp – but what do you do when the Google Map is sending people to a location 15 miles away? Google is getting better but a few years ago that could be hours on phone calls and emails – and that assumed you know what to do to correct the problem. (Having made a few of those calls, I can tell you they weren’t always productive.)

Well, an AmeriCorps student at University of Minnesota, Morris is taking on this challenge for Upper Minnesota Valley Regional Development Commission (UMVRDC). It sounds like she may make a difference for businesses in that area – but more than that – that she will use the data she collects to make the case to the big search engines/maps (Google, MapQuest, and Bing) that improvements must be made. Here’s the full story…

University of Minnesota, Morris student Tara Greiman ’11 researches Internet searches impact on regional businesses for UMVRDC

Summary: Interning for the Upper Minnesota Valley Regional Development Commission, Greiman’s work explores the correlation between customers increasingly using Internet searches rather than telephone books for business information and inaccurate or missing business contact information and locations on the Internet.

Morris, Minn., May 5, 201—In fall 2010, a group of University of Minnesota, Morris students attended a statewide Blandin Foundation conference to present their research on broadband usage in rural America. The Upper Minnesota Valley Regional Development Commission (UMVRDC) was impressed with their research and contacted the Center for Small Towns (CST), located on the Morris campus, regarding the possibility of offering one of the students an internship through the Students In Service program. Tara Greiman ’11, Dayton, accepted the internship. Her project is to assess the accuracy of Internet business listings in the five counties UMVRDC covers: Swift, Big Stone, Yellow Medicine, Chippewa, and Lac qui Parle.

Why is this important? Increasingly, people are using the Internet to find plumbers, restaurants, furniture stores, and other services and businesses. Many are using smart phones to search, and as people increasingly forgo landline telephones, they no longer receive phonebooks. So, if businesses want to be “found,” their information on the Internet—listings and map location—needs to be accurate. If it isn’t, they will lose customers and business.

Greiman’s process has been to look up business names, addresses, and associated keywords in three main search engines—Google, MapQuest, and Bing—and check for accuracy. Ben Winchester ’95, research fellow at the University of Minnesota Extension Center for Community Vitality, whose research prompted the project, says that “rural areas have witnessed some difficulties with online mapping services. In some cases, community assets are not present on these maps. In others, they are present, but the locations are wrong. This is especially true for those located along state highways and on rural roads. If towns in rural Minnesota are going to compete, the digital infrastructure needs to be built much in the same way roads and electricity connect our rural areas to the rest of the state.”

Greiman has been exploring 37 different cities throughout the area and has found gaps in identification and location. In the city of Ortonville, for example, 33 percent of businesses are missing from at least one search engine. And the conservative estimate for mistakes is 1.3 per business, with the wrong location and/or wrong business name being the most common errors.

Once all the information has been gathered and assessed, Greiman and UMVRDC members plan to contact the underrepresented businesses to obtain correct information. Greiman says they’re working on stressing to businesses the importance of having an online presence, especially in the context of prospective residents who are looking to move into the area. University of Minnesota Extension, in partnership with UMVRDC, will be offering workshops to local businesses about the importance of a strong and accurate Internet presence.

The final step of the process will be to take all of the information they’ve collected from businesses and send it to the three major search engines. Greiman says that they feel that they’re “more likely to be taken seriously if we send in one big packet than if information trickles in one business at a time.”

UMVRDC’s efforts to correct the business information in their five counties are part of their overall efforts to promote economic development in the region and part of the Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities program. The University of Minnesota Extension and UMVRDC are partnering to offer workshops and other business and technology assistance to area businesses in an effort to promote a stronger, more vibrant regional economy.

Students In Service is an AmeriCorps program that encourages college students to enroll as part-time AmeriCorps members. Coordinated by Minnesota Campus Compact, an organization that promotes civic engagement on college campuses in Minnesota, the program allows interested college students to work in a variety of positions to help better their communities. Qualifying activities include academic and co-curricular service learning, internships with nonprofit organizations, certain kinds of practicum hours, federal- or state-funded community service work study, and most kinds of volunteer work. Students commit to 300 hours of service throughout the year.

The Center for Small Towns is a community outreach program housed at the University of Minnesota, Morris and serves as a point-of-entry to the resources of the University. Small towns, local units of government, K–12 schools, nonprofit organizations, and other University units are able to utilize the Center’s resources as they work on rural issues or make contributions to rural society. Their mission is to focus the University’s attention and marshal its resources toward assisting Minnesota’s small towns with locally identified issues by creating applied learning opportunities for faculty and students.

Through personal and academic discovery, the University of Minnesota, Morris provides opportunities for students to grow intellectually, engage in community, experience environmental stewardship and celebrate diversity. A renewable and sustainable educational experience, Morris prepares graduates for careers, for advanced degrees, for lifelong learning, for work world flexibility in the future, and for global citizenship. Learn more about Morris at morris.umn.edu or call 888-866-3382.

Storytelling a key to success

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If there are a thousand stories in the naked city – there must be a million on the Internet. Slowly but surely I feel as if I’ve just come to really understand what that means and how powerful those stories can be.

Once upon a time in 2005, Jane Leonard with Minnesota Rural Partners hosted a storytelling contest as part of the annual Minnesota Rural Summit. I was part of the Summit and worked closely with Jane attending preliminary rounds and posting information online. The stated focus on the storytelling was to build connections…

The contest’s goal is to celebrate, through storytelling, the connections between rural and urban people and communities. Many urban residents have strong ties to rural places. Some of those ties remain strong while others have been neglected or forgotten. If we are going to have healthy, vibrant rural communities, then we must find meaningful ways to connect urban and rural resources. Celebrating our rural roots through story is a great way to begin to reconnect and make new connections, too.

It was fun – but I forgot what a visionary Jane is – so I kind of cataloged the experience and moved on. Fast forward to last year and I find myself doing a webinar on Telling a Story with Social Media for the Blandin Foundation as a forerunner to the 2009 Broadband Conference. I’ve worked with businesses and have found that those who can tell their story online – and better yet engage their customers/communities to help tell the story – are most successful online. The Internet can be an amazing advertising tool, but that’s underselling it.

Flash forward again to this year and story is all I’m hearing about. At this year’s Blandin Broadband conference keynote Robert Stephens started out by talking about the importance of stories for communities. He focused on the growing accessibility to any story made available online with the prevalence of smart phones. He pointed out that with a smartphone he has information about any community at his fingertips. The smart (or to draw from a MIRC term, intelligent) communities will have a story and will promote it online if they want to promote themselves to potential visitors and transplants.

His advice was echoed when we heard from the students who spoke about what they look for in a community in which to reside after graduation. The students were clear that they needed jobs – but that money wasn’t the primary focus. They also wanted to live someplace that was interesting – and they research those places online. They are visiting city, county and local government sites for more information – but they are looking for more than stats – they are looking for the story that makes each given communities unique.

I’m sure I will hear many of the same stories this weekend at the Twin Cities Daily Planet Fall Forum: Story Telling and Beyond, New Tools for Participation. Speakers include people who use technology to tell their stories – and the event will be followed by a story slam (contest).

So what does all of this story stuff have to do with broadband? I have been collecting stories of broadband success, which I plan to start posting here this week. I have found that a lot of success has stemmed from the ability to tell your story online. The ability come in two parts – first you must be a skilled storyteller but many folks who are passionate about what they do can tell their story. The second part is having access to post the information – in video, audio, image and text. You can be the best storyteller in the world – but without broadband you’re silenced. You can’t sell your business, you can’t promote your community and you can’t tell your story to legislators.

Virtuwell – remote diagnosis from Health Partners

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Today Health Partners unveils a remote diagnosis service, called Virtuwell, that’s available to Minnesotans. It’s an interactive web site that walks you through a series of questions – from general to specific. The couple of test ailments I tried took 5-10 minutes to get through the questions. Then apparently if you want to submit your responses to a nurse – they will get back to you within 30 minutes with a diagnosis. It costs $40 – but apparently comes with a money back guarantee.

Those of us who attended the Blandin Broadband conference earlier this month might recognize this scenario – Robert Stephens painted a similar picture. As he said, it’s an obvious extension of the Minute Clinic – a great Minnesota innovation.

As I said, I tried out the interactive tool (although I did not send my made up responses to a nurse). The questions are straight forward and include pictures, which is nice. So if you think you have the Chicken Pox, you can see what they look like to cross check your own suspicious marks. I like the tools as a busy mom – but the Minneapolis St Paul Business Journal found that corporations like it too…

In announcing the Virtuwell launch, HealthPartners quoted executives at major employers saying they, too, liked the service because it will help workers conveniently handle routine health issues.

“When an employee has a minor medical condition, they want to get better quickly with little inconvenience, the least down time and at the lowest cost,” said Kathy Prondzinski, corporate benefits design director at Andersen Corp.

Final Session: Wrap up – Is the Intelligent Community Framework a Valid Approach?

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The day ended with  business leaders asking – Minnesota Intelligent Communities: Is this a Valid Approach? We had three business leaders ready to answer the question: Bill Blazar from the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, Scott Marquardt from the Southwest Initiative Foundation and Joe Sertich from Northeast Minnesota Higher Education District.

It was a great program to end the day as the connection between education and business had come up several times. Some people asked if we are preparing students adequately for jobs today and tomorrow. Some people ask if we have jobs available for students once they graduate. It’s a challenging dichotomy that’s been highlighted as broadband has allowed both businesses and education to take advantage of remote possibilities.

Bernadine Joselyn provides a nice summary of the final session and the conference in the following video…

Addressing the Broadband Gap: What Works?

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Jack Geller led the session by outlining his recent research on Minnesota rural broadband adoption rates, which put a nice lens on the expertise of the following speakers.

Sam Drong at PCs for People

  • PCs for People is a great program and MIRC partner. We have talked about them before – but I took a few “new”notes.
  • You need a computer to find a job. You need a computer to apply. Chances are you’ll need computer skills to get the job.
  • Recently tried a PCs for Kids program where we worked through the school and ended up getting every family a computer.

Mark Scott, Age for Action & Vital Aging Network

  • There are several aging initiatives but they’re trying to connect local communities with the national resources for folks over 50. They are mobilizing people who are 50 years and older to work, serve, learn and lead.
  • Older folks (65+) are not online. And it’s where we are with the generations. What are the barriers to getting them online? They don’t see the need so education is a key. They have started having regular “surf days” to help introduce folks to the technology.
  • There are some motivators, For example, to sign up for most health programs (such as Medicare) you must sign up online. Another motivator is access to healthcare services online.

Tom Lehmann, Minnesota State Commission on Deaf, Deafblind and Hard of Hearing

  • The online world has been a ubiquitous facet of life. Most of us only notice it when we don’t have it.
  • Addressing the needs of folks with disabilities include appreciating the potential barriers (on your site or other online communication).
  • Addressing education and training.
  • Getting people to comply with regulations – such as closed captioning for campaign ads.
  • Need funding and assistive technologies.

Steven Renderos – Main Street Project

  • We have written on Steven’s work before too. They do a terrific job working to build media justice skills and drawing attention to topics that important – but can be tough to understand.
  • They work with the Rural Voters League. Work with social justice and media justice associations and others. Work to get under represented folks online.
  • Access – it’s a factor of success
  • Knowledge – it’s still new and there are gaps. We find easy technology to get folks started.
  • Empowerment – broadcasting the stories of folks on the margins, such as digital storytelling
  • Cost of access is the biggest barriers – that includes all costs, monthly fees, equipment, hidden fees, repair.
  • Held a public FCC listening session in Minneapolis.

Students want to live in Intelligent Communities

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Back by popular demand, the University of Minnesota-Morris students gave a presentation called – We want to live in Intelligent Communities! They did a great job.

We tried something new with the students’ presentation – we broadcast it live (well live streamed it anyways). I wrote earlier about how we set up the streaming using Ustream – but I’m pleased to report that it worked well and we have an archive.

I think I will soon be able to add the students’ PPT here too. (I want to get everything up from the conference in a timely manner, which means photos and other materials may follow.)

Robert Bell from the Intelligent Community Forum

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Robert Bell was kind enough to share his presentation with us – so I didn’t want to take too many notes – but just wanted to draw out a few things that struck me and capture the questions from attendees.

I grabbed one image from the presentation that  outlines the 5 points of the Intelligent Community Forum Framework. We’ve used it in various MIRC presentations. I like it because it’s instructive and simple in nature, yet can encompass a lot of customization and as much complexity as is needed at the community level. Just hearing about the successful communities – you can see that the framework allows of the local personality to shine.

Why do we strive to me intelligent? For our children.

Cleveland Ohio’s recipe: Create a co-op, give them the power to create a telecom and move forward. Provide access and training – especially to low income areas.

Moncton Canada’s recipe: Look at what still works and build on it.

Bristol Virginia’s recipe: Built a FTTH network, lawsuits ensued, but Bristol prevailed. Citizens saved money.

In each community:

  • We know we need to change
  • We’re going to find a few things to change
  • We’re going to focus on the ICF-5-Points

We need to move forward to remain world leaders and it needs to happen at the very local level.

Questions:

How does the edu-bus network work outside technology?

In New Brunswick local businesses developed around the University where students could become graduates with jobs at the local businesses.

How does the ICF work with these communities?

We are not consultants. We feel that work must come from within the community. We are a knowledge resource. We started the Intelligent Community Association.

Can we start saying knowledge citizens instead of knowledge workers? Yes!

What kind of engagement has there been between K12 and programs? We hear from folks that students aren’t ready for higher ed.

In Eindhoven they have used technology and game playing for curriculum. If you can keep it real for kids, they will learn and businesses are glad to help. South Korea provides online tutoring, lectures and more.

Conference attendees tackle broadband topics

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Conference attendees got into groups to tackle topics. I’ve taken notes on the summaries each group gave.

Multi-Community Networks
It’s helpful to have players that are already interested in partnering. You need a champion in each community. Now can be a time to think about who can be your partners/providers?

Digital Inclusion
How can you affect the seniors? The MN Board on Aging has Senior Linkage. PCs for People is another tool. You need to find a champion in the community to focus on inclusion.

Wi-fi areas
All rest areas have wi-fis. It would be great to have a directory of all of the public wi-fis would be nice. It’s not nice to steal wi-fi from the neighbors.

Regional Edu & Healthcare Networks
Both edu and healthcare get some subsidies. We have a good edu system locally. We have the potential to leverage those networks. Maybe the next MN BB Task Force could talk about ways that the State could leverage that network.

Broadband-based Economic Development
That means everything from attracting businesses to attracting tourists. And the focus is no longer on recruiting IT – all businesses need broadband. Broadband is a tool. Investment is the issue. Broadband is necessary, but not sufficient for success.

Making the case for broadband with decision makers
We need a consistent message. This is the third wave of development: electricity -> telephone -> broadband. Helping leaders use broadband helps. You have to do it yourself – but you can’t do it alone.

Telework
What action can communities take to encourage telework? Know who hires teleworkers. Creating support such as co-working facilities.

How do we tap into Middle Mile
Middle mile networks ties communities together; they leverage economies of scale and are designed to connect ISPs.

Seeding Collaboration: Leveraging Broadband Investments

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We heard from three other Minnesota-based, ARRA-funded broadband projects. It was interesting to hear about how those projects are going and what the speakers thought were the approaches or factors that were leading them to success.

One quick reflection is that I’ve already heard a number of people here talk about how the stimulus funding is going to be a game changer – and that for the communities who didn’t get funding it’s important to hear from the folks who did – not necessarily because of the possibility of future funding – because with the federal funding the funded communities can afford to be generous with what they are learned and what seems to be working. So…

Paul Brinkman: from the Northeast Service Cooperative

Leverage was a key to our efforts. How can we leverage what we have with others to get things done? Don’t lead with scarcity. Don’t let metro-focused policy get in the way. Create a rural solution.

Leverage means power – and that’s how we got funding in NE Minnesota

Northeast Service Cooperative – serves education, healthcare, IT and economic development with 915 miles of dark fiber – it’s a fiber to the anchor model. We started with 211 sites; now we have 600+. We have 3 pods of activities: We work with the providers (public-private partnership!), we have our anchor tenants and this project makes our services better!

It all comes down to people – you need great people and great projects. Start with the people you know and trust.

Keith Stubbe – SW Minnesota Broadband Project

Years ago we started our own wireless service – because we had to – not one else was coming into the area.

We weren’t in a position of getting leverage – we were “different” but we had Windomnet nearby.

The project is starting next spring and we hope to be done in fall of 2011.

Craig Taylor – University of Minnesota

We had been working with the community in a computer lab for 7 years. We had a vision to leverage more of the University’s resources for community development.

Our primary goals:

It has created 28 jobs – through replicating our model

Training will be provided in many different languages

We are working to create tools that will outlast the 3-year funding

We’ve had challenges

Colonialist approach to broadband adoption won’t work – to be successful all partners must have input

We are developing comprehensive communication strategies

We are also thinking about sustainability now – we don’t want the investment to prove fruitless. We’re working on adoption now – and we’re hoping to open doors. We are trying to develop partnerships – such as with folks who do computer refurbishing. Then once folks get online through training, they can stay online with a computer and broadband at home.

Rural and Urban have to work together – we work together as brother and sister or perish together as fools – a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.

Minnesota Broadband Goals: Making it Happen

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Here are notes from the first session of the day: Minnesota Broadband Goals: Making it Happen

Presentation from Diane Wells: Minnesota Department of Commerce

The Task Force report published last year has 8 recommendations:

  1. Identify a Minimum Level of Service
  2. Identify the Policies and Actions Necessary to Achieve Ubiquitous Broadband
  3. Identify and/or Create Opportunities for Public and Private Sectors to Cooperate to Achieve the Goal of Ubiquitous Broadband
  4. Evaluate Strategies, Financing, and Financial Incentives Used in Other States and Countries to Support Broadband Development
  5. Evaluate Security, Vulnerability, and Redundancy Actions Necessary to Ensure Reliability
  6. Cost Estimate and Financial Strategies
  7. Identify Economic Development Opportunities
  8. Evaluate the Way Broadband Access Can Benefit Organizations and Institutions

What has happened in the last year?

  1. The legislature did adopt the speeds and coverage goals.
  2. The BB Advisory Council was not established by the Legislature but one was appointed by Commissioner Wilson.
  3. Connect MN got ARRA funding to build better maps over the next 5 years.

What’s the purpose of the maps?

  • Check your address
  • Check for accuracy – if you see something that looks strange, please report it
  • Providers can find unserved areas and population density

One byproduct of the stimulus dollars could be a widening gap in haves and have-nots. So it’s important that the haves share what they learn.

In groups – folks discussed the following questions:

What recommendation really caught your eye? [I’m going to capture a couple of answers to the following]

Ubiquity – the speed can come later – we need ubiquity first.

Ubiquity – and the maps can help us gauge where we need help and support the cost analysis

Identify Economic Development opportunities – along with schools; this goal and the ARRA funding should work together. It’s important to have equal access.

Ubiquity & Redundancy- redundancy is especially important if you live north of Duluth and have experience with lost connection. Also we need to understand that federal funding has been the last chance for any communities.

Ubiquity – it’s very Minnesotan. Public-Private partnerships will be important to get there. One sector can’t do it alone – but it also sounds potentially glib.

What recommendation would you like to see state officials focus on first?

The stimulus program made us happy – if it hadn’t come we’d be very glum and that’s not right. We ought to be relying on ourselves – not the feds.

Minimal level of service – if we can get that we can get going.

What actions can we take to ensure that state officials follow through on these recommendations?

Hold their feet to the fire
Find out where we are
Have a one-sheet list of talking points to help us give united messages
Education – promote MIRC

Leadership Training at the Blandin Broadband Conference

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Yesterday I attended leadership training for MIRC partners. There were two great sessions. We had almost 30 attendees. Our first trainer/facilitator was Nehrwr Abdul-Wahd and our focus was Effective Collaboration. Our second speaker was Robert Bell from the Intelligent Community Forum. I took notes that I thought would be helpful to BoB readers…

Effective Collaboration:

What are the elements of collaboration?

  • Equal partners
  • Shared risk/reward/resources
  • Create something new
  • Self motivated (not forced)
  • Greater good (put aside individual differences)

Identifying resources at our disposal:

It’s really easy to miss something you are not looking for. (e.g.: the moonwalking bear)

Community resources available:

  • People
  • Organizations
  • Informal and volunteer associations
  • Cultural resources
  • Natural resources
  • Infrastructure
  • Product and service exports

Of these, what kinds of resources are the hardest to identify and what can we do about it?

  • Getting businesses to the table and trying to figure out what they want. They are busy doing their business.
  • Finding a champion makes a big difference.
  • Critical links is an important concept. Ex: having representatives from the “target” community involved. Bear in mind that representatives from a given (say, minority) community can be a great link, but they also can be a wall.
  • It’s easy to come up with possible organizational partners. Harder categories to address include natural resources; product and service exports. Examples of possible partners in these groups: environmental education; remote sensing technologies.

Session with Robert Bell: Intelligent Community Indicators

Introduction to Intelligent Community Framework
We are interested in models that folks can learn from. We identified the five indicators of intelligent communities by studying best practices.

Broadband: Globalization is really connectivity. That is, globalization is made possible because of connectivity. Connectivity starts with broadband. Broadband is the new infrastructure. It’s as necessary as clean water in your community.

Workforce: Broadband is important because it empowers the knowledge workforce. This means everyone.

Innovation: Innovation is the engine of prosperity today. Communities need to be in the innovation game. Everyone, every community, can be, IF you have broadband.

Digital Inclusion: You need to work at this, or the digitally distant/digitally marginalized will become more so.

Marketing/Advocacy: Intelligent Communities tell their stories well.

This framework describes a virtuous cycle. The characteristics of intelligent community are the same. We are trying to get the engine to turn.

Key factors for success across the entire cycle:

  • Leadership (vision – not necessarily positional or elected)
    • Ask: who can “cast glory” on the project
  • Collaboration

What are your biggest challenges? (Answers from attendees.)

  • The pace of the exclusion that is about to take place. I see that the exclusion here is going to be brutal. If you are not able to do the digital stuff you are just doomed. You won’t be able to be a worker, to get a good job, to access services.
  • I think a lot of us have just coasted along… woe is us, we don’t have the resources, we are going to be stuck with dial up forever. Actually, our participation rates are similar to rural areas when we do have access. Farmers are businessmen, they need to be on line too. So it has been a kick in the pants for those of us in the public sector to realize that we can and need to roll up our sleeves and work to get this done. Just because you are small doesn’t mean that you are not smart.
  • We’re good on the innovation and broadband indicators. We are lacking in digital inclusion efforts and need to focus on addressing knowledge work force and advocacy/marketing. To address workforce we are partnering with University, foundations, industry, local technical college. The real challenge is in middle management.

Community colleges are unsung heroes of this work. Who your friends are is a key indicator of our success at adoption. One of the things I’ve seen work – get champions of the excluded communities to be your ambassadors. Digitally literal older folks talking to digitally uninitiated older folks.

How can we work more effectively with internet providers?

  • Sometimes incumbent providers have little incentive to invest and innovate. That’s just the way it is. The more effective question is: what are you going to do about it? There are a range of possible responses, from controversial to not controversial. Government can build its own communication network. If you do this, you change the conversation. Providers have just lost a big customer, and they know you know how to do what they do. Another community passed zoning regulations that required all new construction. Set up your own non-profit coops to offer your own telecommunication services.
  • What are some ways that other communities are talking about broadband without talking about broadband?

The most important thing to talk about is that it is about your children. Every community wants to be a place where you can raise your children and where their children can stay and find work. That’s a great starting place: do you want your community to be a place where 20 years from now it is still here, and still a great place to live? It’s absolutely about the people. Technology is the easy part.

  • It’s also about change. People are always resistant to change. A phrase: you may not like change, but you’ll like obsolescence even less. Change is going to happen whether we are on board or not. Intelligent Communities have decided to cease their own destiny, rather than let others decide.
  • Advocacy is a particular challenge. Talking about BB as the “new infrastructure,” especially with our elected officials, being of the generation they are, there is a disconnect in terms of their priorities for infrastructure. They tend to focus on roads, sewers, keeping the schools open. There are a lot of hard choices. What’s your best elevator speech for why this?
  • It is the past and the future. You do need septic system and the lights need to stay on. But with lights on and good roads, what have you really done for your community? You need to create the next growth opportunity. You are not going to do that by keeping the roads nice. It is about the future.
  • It’s not about broadband. It is about a quality of life issue. You almost have to make a personal connection with someone before they “get it.” There is a great opportunity for us to use the baby boomer generation to stay in their home longer… those applications.
  • We are not just promoting broadband… we need to be using broadband ourselves. What I am most excited about is learning from• There could be five different elevator speeches. You could lead with any of the innovators…. Innovation, broadband, workforce, etc. They all interconnect.

Which Intelligent Community indicator gets the most attention in your community?

  • In Benton County it is digital inclusion.
  • Access…. Because without access we can’t think about the other indicators. Thanks to ARRA funding we can now look at other indicators.
  • City of Windom: We’re getting most attention by focusing on knowledge work force and innovation aspects.
  • The projects we anticipate through RFP process will most likely focus on digital inclusion. But as an economic developer, we are leading with innovation. But all of the indicators are inter-connected and inter-related. It all moves forward together. But it makes sense to pick an indicator to be the focal point. With our college we are linking our college to our high school and middle school, using science clubs, for example. We’d like to link the elementary schools, middle schools and high schools to make science labs digital and linked up with one another and across the globe. To allow students to have interactions with the universities. That should help to develop the knowledge work force, and that will facilitate innovation.
  • When we bring in big companies, they usually have 2 questions: 1) where is the skilled work force coming from? and 2) we need access to a major university. I think broadband access is the backbone for addressing both questions.
  • In Worthington we are trying to get our elderly out of their homes, because we have housing shortages. We are building a lot of senior living environments to free up housing stock.
  • Yes – when we say “stay in their home,” we mean stay in the community. That’s where they want to stay.
  • The goal is keeping them as independent as possible.
  • Funding for assisted living is going to go away. You have to be careful in counting on that solution.
  • You need to create an environment to attract/retain workers who can in turn support seniors. Seniors often shop locally.

Are boomers an obstacle?

  • Yes!
  • They do have disproportionate wealth and power.

The advocacy box is in my mind where our charge is. Is that the role of RDCs? Am I right?

  • RDCs can focus within the advocacy role, but helping to match need with resources.
  • We’re seeing a focus on need to increase the number of government services through broadband.
  • We see big barriers for expanding e-government in our area because of the need to avoid violating open meeting laws.
  • Are there data that show what is “acceptable” and what is not “acceptable” broadband?
  • Don’t think of it as a number… ask the question, what do you need it for?
  • What’s fun about this project is that we are building tools that citizens can actually access.
  • Crow Wing County has cut 7 people in the Assessors’ office. They have been able to keep up with their workload because of their adoption of technology.

Robert Stephens on technology adoption – what’s next?

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Last night Robert Stephens, founder of the Geek Squad spoke at the Blandin Broadband conference. He spoke about future applications of broadband – starting with what we can learn from the history of technology. He spoke a lot about handhelds and how technology can help us specialize, customize, be picky and patient. He stressed the importance of telling your story online – especially as a community.

My very early New Year’s resolution after hearing him is to spend at least 4 hours a week learning something new – and for me that means learning a new tech application. I’ve posted much of his presentation online in bite size pieces, so you can watch and see if you are similarly inspired…

Baxter and Pillager as Broadband Leaders

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I’m at the Minnesota Blandin Broadband conference today. I took the guided broadband tour of the area, led by Kevin Larson of Consolidated (CTC) and Tony Mayer of West Central Telephone Association (WCTA). My favorite line as we toured CTC’s facility was – Who would have thought that Baxter and Pillager were such leaders?”

It was fantastic to hear and see that they are. I’m going to tighten up my notes considerably – because it turns out I can’t take notes on a bus but here are some of my highlights…

The area started getting interested in fiber in 2002 and it started with a partnership between first the school district and the local telecommunications company. They recognized that Brained was in a black hole of sorts when it came to broadband. They signed up a few more partners (such as Crow Wing County and a couple of cities) and pursued fiber in the area. RUS funding (USF) has been instrumental in getting fiber to outlying communities. In fact with the financial support, often those areas are easier to reach.

In 2009 CTC worked with the Brainerd Restoration project (a downtown revitalization project) to put fiber into the downtown area. Right now 60 percent of the businesses are on fiber. A business recently moved into the area that needed 50 Mbps. They are moving in soon. It turns out that the bars and restaurants are some of the biggest broadband users thanks to Touch Tunes.

Some questions:

How expensive is FTTH and why?

WTCA has seen that rural access points have cost $10,000. The cost isn’t the fiber itself. It’s the equipment on either end and the upgrade/replacement cost of that equipment.

How do you promote broadband?

We have marketing departments now – which we didn’t have 7 years ago. We offer specials deals, which are generally met, at least in the short term, with any competitors. There is usually a percentage of customers who will always go with the cheapest option. That’s hard.

We also provide educational opportunities. We offer basic computer training and more. We have found that age and snowbird status has been the biggest determinant in broadband take rate. But older folks do attend training so there’s hope for broadband adoption. We have seen a decline in seasonal users (snowbirds) in the past few years. While we’re not certain why – it seems have if the improvements in cell coverage and cell phones may play a role.

So when it comes to competitors – we have them. All of the services we provide (voice, video, data) can be provided by someone else.

Cooperative Network Services (CNS) is an association of co-op telecommunications companies. They have built a fiber ring in west central Minnesota and are working on a connection to Minneapolis. One goal of CNS is protect themselves from mergers in the industry. As network providers they work together but there are a lot of mergers and acquisitions in the industry that have an impact on their connectivity. CNS helps politically strengthen the technical networks.

Finally we heard from a Range Printing who has been able to reach new markets with their improved broadband. About a quarter of their business actually comes out of California and they have clients from as far as Ireland.

So that’s it in a nutshell. Folks had great questions – from infrastructure to policy to adoption. Gets me excited for tomorrow!

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Live streaming part of the Blandin Conference

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We’re trying an experiment with the Broadband conference this week. We’re going to live stream one presentation. Here are the details for folks who might want to check in:

What: University of Minnesota – Morris presentation: “We want to live in Intelligent Communities!”
Where: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mn-broadband-conference
When: Thursday Oct 14. 2:05-2:35 (CST)

So please tune in. If you have an account with Ustream you can post questions. I don’t know if we will be able to manage accessing questions on site.(You don’t need an account to view/listen to the session.) As I said, this is an experiment but I’m optimistic that it will go well.

For folks who might be interested I’ll say just a little about our experience and costs of setting this up so far. I signed up for a free account at Ustream. I set up “my show” by entering details. We’re tested with me broadcasting a sample show from my office in St Paul and Becky LaPlant acting as my reviewer in Grand Rapids. We decided to get a better quality mic and we’re going to try using the webcams we have – because we know with our material that most folks will be interested in audio more than video. I suspect that is usually the case. We know there is broadband at the conference, which we will need.

So we have a couple of hours of staff time sunk into this and a mic, which cost less than $200.

I’ll post a comment after the conference to let folks know how this goes. It seems like a fairly cheap and easy way to broadcast programming to a community. Costs would rise if you knew you were going to have an audience of any size. (I don’t know how much traffic Ustream can handle) but once you built up an audience it might be easier to rationalize a larger budget.

8 Tele-worker promotion ideas

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Today I attended MTA’s Telework seminar. It provided a foundation on which to build some local or statewide efforts by MTA members. I could see a number of economic developers wanting to join in a collaborative effort. As I listened to the presentation, I came up with some ideas that might help get a local teleworker program started in a community.

  1. Survey non-homestead property owners for business owners and flexible workers for teleworking promotion opportunities.
  2. Create a space for co-working to host teleworking residents and visitors; provide bandwidth, professional networking and tech support.
  3. Offer and promote advanced services to your teleworker customers – data back-up, IT support.
  4. Open provider networks (within exchanges or groups of exchanges) to very high speed networking to connect collaborating creative home-workers. (For example, within all Federated or CTC exchanges, thereby avoiding off-network transport).
  5. Harvest statewide remote worker job openings from the DEED database or Monster.com on an ongoing basis and promote these opportunities to local job seekers.
  6. Implement joint marketing efforts by local telcos and economic development authorities to Twin Cities and very large regional center companies about capabilities of rural telecommunications and workforce. Bring metro companies to rural regions for job fairs. Host them in nice places!
  7. Create a local fact sheet on local telecommunications capabilities that job seekers can take to job interviews to show telework capabilities. Distribute from local workforce centers through job counselors and on display racks.
  8. Work with DEED to create a telework class offered at Workforce Centers.

Telework is a great focus for local telcos and EDA folks – because we share the same goal – rural economic vitality. Blandin also shares this goal and there will be plenty of opportunity for telcos and EDA folks to talk further at the Blandin Broadband Conference next week (Oct 13-14) IN Baxter. We have left time and space for attendees to pick up these types of ideas and run.