EMFA: T3C2 - Networking Communities Comments

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Networking Communities - Comments and Responses #2
--------------------------------------------------

The following messages are included in this digest:

1. Jennifer Brandon - Community Voice Mail
2. Bruce McComb - Columbia Basin PIN
3. Tom Abeles - Questions About Project TELL
4. Andrew Wenn - Accessing E-mail in Libraries

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 [1]


From: Community Voice Mail <cvm@activevoice.com> 
Subject: Community Networks: Lessons from the Rearguard 

submitted by Jennifer Brandon
Community Technology Institute
Seattle, Washington
206-441-7872
cvm@activevoice.com


QUESTION:  Share your best of lessons and stories of using tech
for socially and beneficial purposes. Is your neighborhood,
school, town, state, or country, one of the most "wired" places
on earth?  Please share your insight into what has made your
area's effort a success.  Overall, what impact are social and
economic "gaps" in connectivity having?

RESPONSE:
Community Technology Institute hails from one of the most 'wired'
places on earth, Seattle, Washington, USA. We work with other
wired communities: Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Detroit,
Houston...to facilitate community ownership of voicemail systems
known as Community Voice Mail, which help thousands of poor and
homeless people who would otherwise be incommunicado. We pride
ourselves for our innovative transfer of available technology
(albeit rearguard technology to this discussion) for social
benefit, and keep our eyes on other projects that could benefit
our users. But what drives our work is not necessarily the
technology but the community network--and not in the wired sense.

Public access projects, community freenets, wiring schools and
libraries-- all require first and foremost well-organized
communities. This means coming to the table, with or without your
bandwidth.  And it means investing a lot of time with likely and
unlikely partners to build a permanent community resource.  

Community Voice Mail programs (currently there are 26 in the US)
start with small steering committees and grow into networks of up
to 200 local social and human service agencies and their clients:
job centers, domestic violence shelters, schools, health clinics,
and more. Fiscal responsibility is usually assumed by a lead
agency; funding is procured from local government, foundations,
and businesses. 

CVM programs grow into active, functioning networks because of
the broad base community buy-in and the program's ease of use. 
Ease of use cannot be overemphasized: we work primarily with a
population that still houses a decent dose of technophobia, (the
social services provider community), and there is little time for
anything that requires in-depth training. CVM programs are
administered by a full-time point person so that case managers
know whom to call for questions, for brush-up training, and for
more voice mail boxes.  

Additionally, Community Voice Mail is decentralized with multiple
points of access across the community.  End users don't need to
"work the system" to get a voice mail box because there are
usually enough to go around: a 16-port system serves up to 2,000
people at once.

If we were to note any gap in our efforts to fully achieve
community connectivity, it would be in the lack of alliance with
a seemingly natural partner, the telecom industry.  Despite
dogged efforts by CVM programs, only one CVM program has
developed such a relationship: San Francisco CVM receives
generous support from Worldcom, formerly MFS Intelnet.  Other
CVMs have been repeatedly turned down in their requests for
industry support.  Instead, telcos have offered their own model,
often giving a handful of homeless shelters in a community
approximately fifty 14-digit voicemail boxes each. This effort
may first be seen as a generous response to the needs of a
community or a model of universal service.  But a critical look
reveals these projects as PR attempts that have nothing to do
with community partnership or access.  Instead, the services are
cumbersome, restrictive, and shortsighted, and ultimately they go
unused.  

Responding to a community's need for connectivity is much more
than creating access.  The technology and its access must be
meaningful, which requires knowing the community's needs,
involving the players in decisions, holding them accountable for
its longevity, and entrusting the service to generous, flexible,
and creative use for different purposes as they arise.

Jennifer Brandon	
Director, Community Technology Institute and the
Community Voice Mail Federation
http://www.cvm.org


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 [2]


From:          REvans@tcfn.org
Subject:       EMFA: T2C3 Community Networking


Bruce McComb
BMcComb@tcfn.org
RECA Foundation
Kennewick, Washington, USA
http://www.tcfn.org

T3Q3
Connecting the last mile of the Information Superhighway is not a
telecommunications issue, it's a people issue.  Bruce McComb
Columbia Basin Public Information Network http://www.tcfn.org

CBPIN was born in 1995 as a result of RECA Foundation efforts to
apply for a NTIA/TIIAP grant. A couple of stories come to mind
about those times three years ago. I met with a citizen's group
in Morrow County (very rural country in eastern Oregon). The 
group consisted of representatives form the county seat, cities
and towns, public library, public schools, business community,
non-profit organizations, and some retired citizens. Their big
complaint was that there was no local Internet presence - they
had to dial a Portland number (long distance) to connect to the
commercial providers (e.g. Prodigy). I asked them to conduct an
on-the-spot survey of existing telecommunications assets. Here's
what we discovered:

- The U.S. Forest Service had a T-1 Internet connection that they
hardly ever used.

- A regional Emergency Dispatch Center had been funded, built,
and then abandoned because it was relocated to another county.
The building was in tact and had been wired and connected for T-3
Internet access.

- The county seat had an automated telephone system. The group
agreed that it should b eno problem to reallocate a number of
phone lines to be used after hours(e.g. 7pm - 7am) for local
dial-up to a community network.

 A group in Walla Walla (SE Washington State) had been meeting
for nearly a year to work on gaining Internet access for the
community. The composition was much the same as the group in
Morrow County with the addition of the college component. The
group asked the RECA Foundation to come talk about community
networking and how we might work together on the TIIAP grant.
Again the group found there were many existing assets that could
(in theory) be shared as community resources.

The biggest eye-opener was the Army Corps of Engineers. The
manager in charge o ftelecommunications told the group that he
saw no reason why the 100 or so phonelines that were not in use
after hours (e.g. 7pm - 7am) could not be used by a community
network.

So where are these folks today? Morrow County still does not have
a community network and the Walla Walla group dwindled to a few
stakeholders from the college and business community. Walla Walla
now has a commercial Internet provider that has its roots in this
"community" effort but the have-nots they originally pledged to
serve remain have-nots.

 Jean Luker's experience in the Washington County Virginia Public
Schools, "It took a full year to form a coalition of like-minded
schools divisions" to tackle the technology issues in this rural
area of southwestern Virginia. She called it the "classic
potentate problem". Our experience is that "Turf issues will kill
you". In many cases the "last mile" of technology is already in
place - people are the only obstacle in connecting to it.

I have watched the City of Richland here in South Central
Washington spend hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past 5
years "studying" telecommunications issues. They even received a
TIIAP Planning Grant. There has been and continues to be an
emphasis on high-end technology. If they can't have lots of
bandwidth and all the bells and whistles, they just won't do it.
Esther Silver-Parker, President, AT&T Foundation says "Technology
doesn't have to be gee-whiz, it can be simple and basic".

 Keith Fulton, Director of Technology Programs & Policy, National
Urban League emphasized that there is frequently a disconnect 
between receiving grants and the reality of implementation. All 
too often, those receiving grants do not do what they said they 
would do in the grant application. We have certainly seen that 
first hand. My letter to the Kennewick School District prior to 
this Washington, D.C. event points out a local example. My 
follow-up letter after the D.C. trip provides some specific 
detail.

 These are people problems, not technology issues. They are
top-down management, bureaucratic problems. But thinking of the 
bottom-up approachalso brings problems to mind. Frank Odasz, a 
long time community networking advocate, recently reported on 
his experiences in Alaska. He talks of a group of Native 
Americans having

 "Visions of capturing the wisdom of their tribal elders with
multimedia technologies before the elders are gone forever. 
Students were specifically tasked with their responsibility to 
teach how their villages and cultures might learn greater 
self-sufficiency"

But as James Casey notes: "Native American youth can be exposed
to cultural and social issues through the Internet prior to
established traditional timelines. " These are people issues, not
technology problems.

 Ironically, on the way home from this event, two articles in the
airline flight magazines caught my attention. One dealt with the
status of Teledesic's Internet-in-the-Sky which promotes a
"communication network with speeds 2,000 times faster than
today's standard modems" and plans to string a web of 288
communications satellites around the earth by 2002. And Frank
Odasz notes:

"The other week, the first microsatellites were launched for the
Iridium project, one of  several schemes to bring two-way high
speed Internet capability to laptops anywhere on  the globe. At
issue, is where will 15,000 cultures find the collaborative
instructional services appropriate to their cultural context? On
the Yukon, efforts are underway to address this need through
development of vocational youth co-ops ready to offer
peer-mentoring services via Internet, worldwide."

 The other article was on the phenomenal success of the Simon
DeBartolo Group, largest developer and manager of commercial 
real estate in the world. Earlier this year the group announced 
plans to provide free dial-up Internet service and public access 
kiosks in some of it's retail shopping mall areas. Their long 
range plan is to do this in all of their locations.

Connecting the last mile of the Information Superhighway is not a
telecommunications issue, it's a people issue.

For more information on the RECA Foundation see
http://www.tcfn.org The Columbia Free-Net  see
http://www.ctcnet.org/review The Columbia Basin Public
Information Network see http://www.tcfn.org/cbpin Columbia
Regional Assistive Technology Center Grant Request
http://www.tcfn.org


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 [3]

Date sent:        Mon, 11 May 1998 19:08:14 -0500
From:             tom abeles <tabeles@tmn.com>
Subject:          Re: EMFA: T3E2 -
Telecommunications for Learning - Birenbaum

E-Mail for All wrote:
> 
> - - E-Mail for All - - - EMFA-EVENT - - - Universal Access - -
>       http://www.iaginteractive.com/emfa - Details Below
> 
> Theme:  Networking Communities - Essay 2
> Author: Helen Birenbaum, Executive Director CUNY Graduate
> School
>         The Stanton/Heiskell Center for Public Policy in
>         Telecommunications and Information Systems
> E-mail: hbirenba@broadway.gc.cuny.edu

-----------------------------

Helen has posted some rather substantial "conclusions" regarding
the results of project TELL.  There are several questions that
need to be asked:

1) what was the cost per student for the achievements which were
realized and, given those funds and the human resources that were
committed, could they have been used more effectively in a
different model

2) Would intervention at a very early age- project headstart, for
example, with a little alternation, yielded the same or great
results across the board recallying that 0-3 are the crucial
intervention years and the years which set the base for the
future

3) Is the project sustainable once the special funding is
removed? If not, how is the model to be perpetuated?

4) achievement at one level is important. But what we are seeing
in many areas is that the use of technology has increased the gap
between the haves and the disenfranchised. Does this study give
hope that this differential can be avoided. if so, how can it be
done without extraordinary intervention or how can it be
sustained in a competitive environment of the free market and
access to resources.

5) Earl Shorris has written an excellent book, New American
Blues, and an article in Harpers based on his teaching of a group
of the severely disenfranchised in NYC- druggies, criminals and
homeless. What he taught was a hard nosed course in Philsophy.
These folks, for transit fare came through rain and sleet to
attend these deep courses given by some of the elite. Shorris'
conclusion? You guessed it. For these folks to compete they need
to understand the humanities. but this was a face-toface course.
His work is worth a read. The issue here, for this discussion is
that it is the quallity of the experience, the quality of the
instruction and the content which are critical, perhaps more than
the delivery systems be they overheads or asynchronous
conferencing.

we know that the internet technologies are like the 6-gun, the 
US's wild west "great equalizer"- NOT

I am interested in your thoughts on the "hard questions".

cheers


tom abeles


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 [4]

Date sent:        Mon, 11 May 1998 21:57:08 -0400 (EDT)
Subject:          UAC Comments

Full Name: Andrew Wenn
E-Mail: AndrewWenn@vut.edu.au 
Comments: 

I am currently undertaking some research for 
a Phd looking at the use of internet in 
libraries here is Victoria Australia. One of 
the preliminary results of this research is 
that at State Library in our capital city 
Melbourne the free internet access points 
are being used at least 80% of the time by 
"backpackers" that is tourists, generally 
from overseas, who are travelling on the 
cheap. 

This has been quite a suprise to many of the 
staff who considered the library to be a 
source of "knowledge". And for many of them, 
knowledge does not come from using email to 
keep in touch with home or people you have 
met on your travels.
 
In many ways the library has helped to build 
quite a  thriving community as its policy is 
that it will not help people use email but 
says why not ask the other users at the desk 
where the terminals are located. This of 
course happens and helps to break the ice 
for many of the users who may then exchange 
email addresses which are used to contact 
others whilst on their travels. The internet 
and its free email providers such as 
Hotmail, Yahoo mail etc have become the new 
poste restante of the modern 
telecommunications age. 


end


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