Anyone who understands that the internet is a platform, social media is fundamentally shifting the way we connect and communicate with one another, and that application and computing functionality is rapidly shifting to the cloud, will instantly appreciate the efforts of a broadband public policy initiative by the non-profit Blandin Foundation in Grand Rapids, Minnesota: Blandin on Broadband.
When I wrote a post analogically comparing what happened to a small Minnesota town bypassed by the railroad in the 1880’s, to the effect of being bypassed by ultra high speed broadband today, (see “The Railroad and Minnesota Broadband“), several people emailed me citing the following passage as the key reason why initiatives like Blandin’s Broadband one are so imperative for Minnesota, and specifically those towns and rural areas that lie outside the metro:
If you buy in to the premise that we’re living in a time of the greatest shift in communication and connection in history driven by the internet — and that the transport of digital bits is as important (if not more so) than the movement of physical goods over the past 100 years or so — it almost goes without saying that location is not only less important today, in many ways it’s irrelevant unless you don’t have access to the internet and fast access at that.
In 2003, Blandin crafted a vision (PDF) for Minnesota ultra high speed broadband “…designed to catalyze broadband investment and use, raise awareness about the value of broadband and encourage public and private investment in rural broadband capacity. Expanding the use of broadband technology increases the potential to retain jobs in rural areas, grows new markets for business, strengthens health care, enhances educational access and improves the quality-of-life” and I had a chance to interview Bill Coleman of Community Technology Advisors Corp. about what they’ve done, achieved, and what’s next…. [Read More…]
