Issue Three
Economic TeleDevelopment: It's All About Choice, and Having The Freedom To Choose
Why embark on an Economic TeleDevelopment exercise? What's the point, and why should I care? These are fundamental questions that you should be able to answer, in order to motivate your average local citizen to volunteer and participate in your cause. Yet, it's easy to lose sight of the real or perceived benefits of Economic TeleDevelopment, and thereby forget what's most important. Therefore, consider this as your recruitment message.
Specifically, your community has an opportunity to engage in a telecom infrastructure "enabling change" project that will ensure that all your citizens have the potential to participate in the nascent Global Networked Economy. Once disenfranchised communities and/or citizen clusters can now be offered a participatory role in redefining the probability of their local economic prosperity.
Economic TeleDevelopment is all about positioning your jurisdiction to compete in the evolving world of borderless e-commerce; to attract more than its fair share of communication-centric businesses; to develop an abundant supply of qualified internet-savvy human resources; to establish and maintain a superior family-friendly environment with a quality of life (via telework) that's unsurpassed.
It's all about following a proven track record of leveraging infrastructure (waterways, railways and highways -- and now networks) to drive economic growth; of transforming and evolving the post-industrial work model (from: move the people to the work -- to: move the work to the people); of leaping beyond the myopic theories or structured workflow systems (conveyor belts for white-collar workers) to the realm of creative, interactive and flexible online collaboration systems.
It's not about technology or telecommunication service parameters, or the quintessential telecom service provider spin around "solutions."
It's all about creating a roadmap that takes a state, a region, a town, a community, a single citizen from reacting to the treadmill of life that's been accelerated by the traditional applications of computers and networks -- then showing them a destination at the end of a journey where there's a "smart community" model that enables parents to spend more time with their children; senior citizens to offer guidance to at-risk youth in need; disabled persons to participate in society and experience true independence by working for a wage that they earned by doing stimulating work.
Essentially, it's about peoples lives, positively impacted by the real promise of technology. It's about the inclusion of all your constituent clusters who believe that they have very unique needs; that government may be insensitive to their concerns; that they all should have the same ubiquitous access to essential government services; that they all could have a chance to play an active role by making a living in the Global Networked Economy, if they so choose.
Ultimately, Economic TeleDevelopment is about having a choice, and the freedom that comes with having that choice. That's the substantive benefit, and that's the core message that we need to convey.
David H. Deans
Founder
Economic TeleDevelopment Forum