Issue One

Vision Quest: Focusing Community Leaders on Economic TeleDevelopment

Perhaps your local community leadership recently embarked on a "vision of the future" exercise, and maybe you even had the foresight to cover the telecom public policy issue. But, if you're disappointed because the ensuing debate didn't focus on any meaningful transformational issues regarding telecommunications infrastructure investment planning, then realize that you're probably not alone. We hear that it's not uncommon for these community events to conclude without tackling the obvious questions like -- "what are we going to do differently tomorrow, and how are you going to make something relevant happen?"

Instead, we often hear about biased presentations from singular perspectives, and every speaker appears to go home confident that they successfully protected their particular vested interests. However, you can take heart by knowing that there's a better way to get beyond the myopic rhetoric of self-interest, and develop a cohesive strategy to position your community for the future. First, task force leaders should seek out informed advisors who demontrate a sincere appreciation that successful Smart Community action plans are all about constituent applications -- not technology.

In addition, forward-looking municipal leaders understand that telecom infrastructure will ultimately mean much more to their constituents than merely a new revenue source extracted from city taxes applied to communication carriers for access to the local right-of-way. Those community leaders with a broader perspective recognize that encouraging communication carrier investment in all (not just fiber) local telecom infrastructure will have a direct positive impact on ensuring a vibrant community economic development program that increases their citizen "per capita net worth."

Put simply, attracting and retaining communication-centric businesses isn't just a requirement to create new jobs, but it's also a requirement to ensure that wealth creation doesn't take a back seat to population growth (communication-centric businesses are proven to have higher paying jobs, on average).

In 1999, we see municipal leaders shifting their policy focus from telecom "regulatory and oversight" issues to "infrastructure marketing" issues, as local communities develop and evolve their Smart Community action plans. All municipalities will essentially be competing for telecom infrastructure investments, the same way that they have competed for commercial real estate investments in the past. Successfully implemented "Economic TeleDevelopment" strategies will no doubt separate the winners from the losers. And, the future competitive battles to watch will be the U.S. (then, ultimately global) "regional telecom infrastructure positioning" campaigns; not telecom service provider squabbles over local company subscriber market share.

Furthermore, perplexed municipal leaders need to understand that it's alright to be confused, and nobody has all the answers regarding what to do and when to do it -- meaning if developing an Economic TeleDevelopment vision was a mainstreamed discipline, then you could find a government appointed champion in your community. Regardless, it's been proven that local grass-roots public/private partnerships are key to fully realize even the most simple community game plan that includes and engages all interested constituent groups in the infrastructure public policy development process.

As an example, many forward-looking municipalities know intuitively that they must help foster the creation of a "local community Web portal" on the internet, if they are to counter the overwhelming threat of the systematic attack on local retail tax revenue brought about by borderless business models like the Amazon.com phenomenon. It seems that either your community is going to be "leading" with your own community-centric electronic commerce game plan, or you're ultimately going to be "reacting" to someone else's. It may become increasingly impossible to define an intermediate state.

We believe that the time for planning the strategic use of telecom and information technology infrastructure investment is immediately (not later, when your community is forced to resurrect your economic sustainability, and join other more enlightened regions). Therefore, if you are a local subject matter expert on these issues, then recognize that you have a personal responsibility of self-empowerment -- to engage in a collaborative role (as a qualified advisor and consultant) and guide your municipal leaders in embracing the tough decisions that lay ahead of them. Help them to focus on what's relevant, and may I suggest that you do it now before they fall victim to those who are blatantly self-serving.

David H. Deans
Founder
Economic TeleDevelopment Forum