TANgents Summer 2004

Rural communities focus on training and education to stimulate demand for broadband

Minnesota Rural Partners (www.minnesotaruralpartners.org), the state's rural development council, has worked to address telecommunications and broadband issues for almost a decade now. Initially the work focused on educating rural leaders about the coming importance of this issue. The work then moved to helping communities assess their local situation and to develop strategies for improving local connectivity. Through these efforts, new technologies and the investments of the private and public sector, most Minnesota communities now enjoy the benefits of broadband connectivity.

While some tech-savvy local businesses, residents and organizations quickly adopted new technologies to become more effective, many others were hesitant to invest in computers, networks, web sites, e-commerce and other technologies. Broadband was not selling in rural Minnesota, at least not to the extent that satisfied telecom providers, economic developers, and community leaders who had expected the new technologies to pay big benefits in terms of new jobs, successful businesses and community vitality.

The Minnesota Rural Broadband Promotion Project was designed to find out what could be done in rural communities to stimulate the demand for broadband services. Nine small communities, populations ranging from 320 - 2300, were selected through a grant review process. Each of these communities had to demonstrate that they had a team in place, including a broadband provider, to work on this project. Each community had to commit both cash ($2500 minimum) and in-kind participation to participate.

Community Technology Advisors Corp. (www.communitytechnologyadvisors.com) was hired to manage the project. Bill Coleman prepared a guidebook, facilitated a videoconference orientation session, met on location with each community to benchmark current technology usage and to help each community to plan their strategies, and has provided ongoing assistance and advice through the project. At the end of the six-month project, he will visit each community to repeat the benchmarking process to check for progress. The project has a web site, list serve and has used videoconferencing to keep people involved.

The project has attracted several sponsors. The Blandin Foundation has provided funding for MRP to implement the project. Onvoy has provided videoconference services. New Horizons Computer Learning Center provided each community with a 30-day period of unlimited online learning for anyone in their community who wanted to try it. The University of Minnesota Extension Service has "Trained a Trainer" in each community in their Access-E curriculum.

Community teams have sponsored training, tech fairs, student-senior citizen exchanges, installed computers in libraries, student contests and demonstrations. They have completed technology assessments for small business, obtained and installed used computers in senior citizen centers and individual residences. Competitive providers have coordinated activities to provide vendor-neutral presentations and assessments. Community education departments have welcomed local partnerships of chambers of commerce and technology providers.

When the project began, community participants were asked how they would like to measure success. In one community, the team all chuckled and said. "When business X gets a computer, we will know that this is working." As of last month, Business X has a computer, a web site, has used E-Bay and attended a seminar on Quick Books!

The project guidebook with lots of good ideas is available for download at www.minnesotaruralpartners.org/broadband. Progress reports from the communities are also available on the site. A revised guidebook will be published after completion of the project.

TANgents, a quarterly publication of Technologies Across Nebraska, is edited and produced by Linda Tempel, University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension, ltempel@unlnotes.unl.edu, and Anne Byers, Nebraska Information Technology Commission, abyers@notes.state.ne.us. Please contact us if you would like to contribute an article or an idea for an article. Comments and suggestions are also welcome.