CTCNet, NTEN/DC and Rebooting

[Fred]

Hello all,

Kami Griffiths and several good folks met up at the NTEN meeting in DC
and discussed rebuilding the CTCnet bigger and better. I was
especially interested in what the hell happened in that vastly varied
experiment at access? I doubt the wisdom was ever distilled by the
Bush Administration. What DID we find out? Who might know? I did
long range sectoral sustainability research as a CTC Grantee at the
GWU Graduate School of Education. W e took a very long view - and I
DON'T know...Our studies found a real, even fatal, lack of Policy
voice and sector advocacy, based on the erroneous belief that grantees
were barred from advocacy. They are not barred, and need to learn how
to speak up. <Comments?>

At NTEN, It emerged at on session that the BTOP program has ever
intention of helping community technology, but chose to work on the
middle mile projects the industry had ignored. It's an old joke that
federal program executives further their own careers by shoveling
money out the door, and there was some concern that this was akin to
that- but it isn't. Tony Wilhelm, late of the Benton Foundation, the
BTOP Chief, explained that the point was economic stimulus -
immediately. We were fortunate that the Broadband Issue was on their
radar and was plugged into the list. I am now wondering who in
Congress was that astute? Might they hear us about First Mile
efforts? This is not a Blue State issue, it's everyone, and now with
the ITIF Report (http://www.itif.org/publications/ict-and-innovation-
powering-national-economic-growth) we can win the argument that a
nation online is economic development at it's best. (people may recall
the Bush Era argument that PC literacy had nothing to do with
economics "If people want to use the information superhigh way they
don't get a Mercedes." M Powell, Chrmn, FCC)(He drives a Lexus.)

At another session about online advocacy the Fightobesity.org site had
a great grassroots tool called "Put Yourself On The Map" where you
registered and Google showed you other folks in your area with similar
interests, arranged by level of involvement. People who were
interested in leadership were vetted (apparently by self report
questionaire) and allowed to download mailing lists of other folks
working on, for one example School Lunch policies. Peer to peer at
it's best, what?

And how are you?

Fred Fleming
No longer PTEC