It's Time ... Let Your Light Shine

Curiously, at the outset, as they wade into the stream and test the waters on what is initially viewed by most as a city IT project, they seem to wing it from an economic development perspective. It may take cities one or two years to investigate the many different aspects of broadband and come to a decision on what to do. While some projects get a lot of press, many leaders tend to do their investigative work in the background until they come to some consensus and take some decisive action. It's as if they don't think they should make public announcements until they've decided that they're serious in their intentions to do something regarding broadband (and are assured that they are going to act on their intentions).

But seriously, what community today does not consider broadband communications as critical to their future? It's not just local area network connectivity either (for instance, a municipal wireless system). Cities need to ensure that they're on the Internet superhighway with a big fat pipe. There's a good analogy here with the transportation system: it's not unlike having not only great streets inside the city, but also good roads to physically connect your city to the state and national highway system and by extension, to other cities. This applies equally, or even more so, to the small cities and towns as it does to bigger cities that get all the press attention.

And right on cue, here's an article confirming my point. See today's Government Technology magazine: Digital Prosperity by Robert D. Atkinson & Andrew S. McKay.

The authors provide significant facts and arguments to show that all around the world, ICT - information and communication technology - is increasingly responsible for a lion's share of economic wealth creation. All the drivers of ICT - the servers, storage, communciation gear - they're all getting better and cheaper, and over time, the cummulative effect is to kick us all into high gear, efficiency wise.

There is no doubt that the IT revolution has enhanced quality of life, from improving health care, to making it easier for children to get better information and learn more, to giving consumers more convenience in their interactions with business and government and making it easier to measure environmental quality. But while these and other benefits are important, perhaps the most important benefit of the IT revolution is its impact on economic growth. The diffusion of information technology and telecommunications hardware, software, and services turns out to be a powerful driver of growth, having an impact on worker productivity three to five times that of non-IT capital (e.g., buildings and machines). In fact, in the United States IT was responsible for two-thirds of total factor growth in productivity between 1995 and 2002 and virtually all of the growth in labor productivity. Atkinson & McKay

So if I'm in an economic development position in a city, why shouldn't I crow about the money I'm investing in IT and communications capacity and my plans? Let the other guys brag about new buildings and factories - odds are, my plans will play out positively. A 21st Century Digital Infrastructure - done rght - is going to pay off in spades and those cities that go about this process of bringing in a metropolitan broadband network in an open, diligent, businesslike fashion have nothing to hide and everything to gain by bringing along their community as they learn, by talking loudly, widely, and long to the outside world about what their new plans will do to make an already great place to live even better.

It's time to speak up and let your light shine. The future is bright for those cities that invest wisely in IT and communications and let the world know about it.