Greensboro Is Talking

In an opinion letter to the News-Record today, Luke Shaver of Greensboro says:

I would like to have faster Internet, but I would rather not have potholes all over our city and not have my classes at Page High School torn apart by budget cuts. The idea behind this is nice, but the timing is anything but right. Greensboro needs to address its current problems before thinking about investments in a project about whose logistics or costs we really have no idea.

I disagree. The timing for such a project couldn’t be more right.  Unemployment is high and the city is still trying to reposition itself as something other than a textile manufacturer.  Setting all the personal/residential benefits of faster internet aside, the potential the Google Fiber proposal presents to the city is nothing short of mind-boggling.  Not only in the short term job creation benefits of the project itself, but for the long haul in terms of the city positioning itself as technology-friendly with the ability to attract businesses of types that probably haven’t even been thought of yet.

I would wager that no other project the city has done (in recent history) or is doing now has more potential to provide a long-term, sustainable impact on the local economy than bringing a high speed data network to town.

Just think Mr. Shaver,  if high speed were available now, your classes in school might actually be enhanced rather than “torn apart by budget cuts” and when you do get out of school, perhaps you might just be able to telecommute to your job-which-doesn’t-exist-yet instead of having to “dodge potholes”.  Wouldn’t that be great?

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There is chatter in the local blogoshere that the eerie quite we have heard from Action Greensboro in regards to “Operation Google” is related to negative comments about their participation in the efforts from the local bloggers. If that was the case solely we would not have a Center City Park or a Baseball stadium in Downtown.

I have been informed it is because a Council Member requested that they step back. If this is true it is disturbing that one person presumes to speak and make decisions for a majority of the Council and what might be in the best interest of our community.

It that is what happened it makes one wonder who has that much clout and what their motivations might have been?

Were they political, personal or did they have some kind of hidden business agenda?

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Ed Cone clarifies his thoughts on re-Action Greensboro’s participation in the bring Google to GSO effort here and updates us on the City’s centralized website approach. A centralize place that the City promotes to share its efforts on the Google Initiative is a great idea.

A thought they might want to consider is to not make it Google-centric but instead make it about High Speed Internet.

That way win or lose on Google we can have something that continues to expand the community input on the positive impact High Speed Internet can have on our quality of life, our business community and the education opportunities we offer our children.

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When you watch this video from a Grand Rapids, Michigan news cast dated Feb 18, 2010 and compare it to our City-sponsored public meeting February 24,  it makes you wonder if everything we are doing around here is just regurgitating someone else’s  news.

Then you visit the Grand Rapids Facebook page and compare it to ours and you see that they have 4 times the “fans” as we have.  Wow…if this is one of the ways of identifying community support then the ‘Community Social Media Support Index’ points to us getting our butts kicked folks. This is tough to swallow when you compare Grand Rapids, MI City Data to Greensboro, NC City Data. They have 50,000 fewer people in their population base then we do!

Greensboro is spiraling into that familiar dizzy spin of getting lost in itself while the world passes it by. We need quit looking just at ourselves and start looking at the competition, also.

What distinguishes us from them?

If we really want this, how and when do we get serious about competing?

If we don’t get serious, everything from this point on, where Google Fiber is concerned, will be just “going through the motions”.

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Google fiber fever fire is spreading through the grassroots plains of our community.  It was evident in the passions shown at the recent open forum held by the City of Greensboro. Glaringly missing was Action GSO.

Why?

We hope politics weren’t involved. If so, that would be a bummer at a time when we need to set Politics, egos, prejudices, vendettas etc etc aside and identify what needs to be done to accomplish the mission. We need to leverage  collaborative community spirit and communication tools to identify what needs to be done and who needs to do what to bring high speed fiber internet to Greensboro. We have a start-an interested party. Lets get them what they need. Lets get the pie in the oven..we can fight over slices later.

What is nice by doing this RFI we compile cost/benefits data for a RFP to cover our bases .

Roch is dead on it when he says what’s missing around here are the voices of the heavy hitters.

Right now the future is filled with great big beautiful “ifs”, one day the past will be also. Lets not let it ever be written that what “if” we had thrown more at these possibilities.

To that end we need to pull Action Greensboro back to the table as a player and put them on the front lines ASAP. There is NO other entity in this community better positioned to wave their wand and easily mobilize our Foundations, NGA’s, businesses etc etc.

They also have spent the last 5 years cataloging the Creative Industry and the Capital that our Community possesses. Lets make sure those assets show up in the value proposition when it comes to our suitor demonstrating their preference. Keep in mind its this industry that will be the very fuel that will flood through the proposed pipes.

The reality is that Facebookin’, YouTubing and blogging our butts off wont be enough to bring Google here. The City, Residents, groups and organizations need to compile and submit the RFI.  We need to rally every corner of our community and get them connecting with the possibilities. There are still a lot of voices that have not been heard. For example, if one looks at the Facebook page, the wall of faces is pretty white.

This is a big, Never-Ending-Story kind of Story for all of us and we all need to be a part of it. Its the kind of story we want our kids to be a part of. Lets write the first Chapter together.

Let’s look at getting the City,  Action Greensboro and everyone back to the table and map this out yesterday.

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