Building Bridges to the Future

So here in the present, we sit on the shore and wonder what it's like over there, in the future. Our children, the next generation, will get to go across to see what's there, but we won't, not unless the bridge gets built. Technology is one bridge to help us reach the future sooner. Young people who bring innovation and embrace change bring energy to a community and help us reach across the water to the other side. Young people are another bridge to the future. A community can choose to accelerate its progress and bring the future in sooner than it would otherwise come on its own. Few do, however.

The bottom line decision for most cities these days is the need to embrace change, which has always been a constant in our lives, but the changes just moved so much slower in earlier times. Technology has put us all on a treadmill that seems to get turned up another notch with each revolution of the Earth around the Sun. Doesn't it seem that changes happen faster now that the Internet is out there? Think about the pace of your own life over the past ten years.

I believe this constant ratcheting up of the pace of change causes a sense of disempowerment: what can any of us do in the face of such a phenomenon? Well, some of us check out for the night and tune into Reality TV and the like. But city leaders have a responsibility to their constitutents and they can't check out. They have to pay attention and figure out what to do.

And as they ponder, I think they wonder what the impact of these changes will be and how they can build a bridge to the future that will position them with some advantages. We try to imagine the future and make changes now so we're better off - that's what we do with our investments, isn't it? We bet on a future outcome by putting our hard-earned cash in places where we think it will grow fastest.

Personally, I'm betting on the future at this time by paying my kids' private school tuition, which eats up money that would otherwise go into other investments. But I'm not complaining, it's a personal choice I make, because we see those two as our own bridges to the future, and I'm not alone in that assessment.

Wi Fi Mesh, Municipal Wireless, Metropolitan Broadband ... pick the name, they all imply the same thing, which is another bridge to the future. In this new industry, there is currently a fascination with how the technology works and how it will impact our lives, in much the same way that there was a fascination with how electricity worked, or how the Brooklyn Bridge could be built. Initially, the technology was fascinating, but in time, it faded into the woodwork and we began to assume it was there to stay, and that new invention became another tool to accomplish tasks and make our lives better. That's where we are today, as wireless applications start to enter the conversation in a more serious way.

Metropolitan broadband in university towns is a Killer App, because it combines two of the best bridges to the future - youth and technology - and it offers the fastest path for a city looking to get to the other side in a hurry. Efforts in this regard will pay a handsome return on investment, because they will let those early investors see what is on that island called the future, in advance of competing cities and regions, and they will have a head start in this very competitive race we call Economic Development.

Once this wireless broadband network is in place in San Marcos, home of Texas State University, where I've been spending most of my time lately, we'll all get to start using it for new and excting things, and watching that happen will be like looking into the future of the rest of the country and the world. And that, my friends, is what I call a competitive advantage.