Urban Broadband Users in Minnesota

Bill Coleman just sent me this link called "Advice for the Broadband Task Force."  Great stuff and worth the six minutes it takes to run.  I just watched it while on vacation here in New Brunswick.  The rain of hurricane Kyle is drumming on the roof of my RV.  Marcie just put her rain gear on and took a walk, saying "hey, I've never been in a hurricane before."  Today I'm a rural broadband user too.  The Blackberry that's tethered to my computer is doing an ok job, but I couldn't upload a 60k file attached to email earlier today -- so Bell Canada's got a ways to go.

Bill's put together a great video.  Enjoy -- and let me know what you think in the comments.  Do rural users have the same issues that you urban users do?  Perhaps we're all rural users (like I am now) sometimes?

What a silly thing.  Much as we'd like to use the Internet to do our work as a task force, we probably won't.  Why?  Because it appears that the Minnesota open meeting law prohibits us from using most of the capability of the Internet (email, chat, forums, instant messaging, etc. etc. etc.) to talk amongst ourselves (and you).

The law is designed to prohibit secret meetings.  The interpretation we're getting is that using Internet tools between meetings is, in essence, a continuous ongoing secret meeting.  Wait a few weeks and then check out the tortured language that will show up on our official website.   You can talk to each other, you can talk to us, one of us can respond to you, but we can't respond to each other.

It's outside our charter to get this fixed.  But it needs fixing.  Meanwhile, it's quite quaint.  I feel like I'm back in the 50's again.

The task force is starting to get under way.  Our next 3 meetings are devoted to getting edumacated.  So here's a thread for you to post links to articles along those lines.

Here's one I just came across on Digg, to get you started -- The 50 most significant moments of Internet history

The comments have a bunch of other things that the author missed.  I'm an infrastructure geek, so I'm not quite as interested in the application stuff that this article describes.  But it covered a lot of ground nonetheless.

So what are your favorite links that describe;

• Where have we been?
• Where are we now?
• Where we are going?

Post 'em in the comments peepul.

Huh.  We're not meeting at Thomson/Reuters this Friday -- note the new location;

Friday, September 19th, 2008
9:30 am to 3:00 pm
State Office Building
Room #5
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Saint Paul, MN 55155

Please note that you will all be responsible to pay for parking and purchase your own beverages and lunch while attending the meeting.  Lunch and beverages can be purchased in the Transportation building right next door, or feel free to bring your own.

Hi gang,

Not a lot of posting going on here yet -- 'cause there isn't a lot going on yet.  But we're meeting again this Friday, and you're welcome to join us (as you always are).  Here's the scoop on the meeting.

Friday, September 19, 2008

9:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Thomson Reuters

D4 - Special Events Room
610 Opperman Drive
Eagan, MN 55123

Note -- new location.

State Office Building
Room #5
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Saint Paul, MN 55155

Agenda -- CLICK HERE