Design the Future

Many communities may have similar goals and strategies, but each community will have a unique vision of their digital future.

Getting Everyone on the Same Page

The assessment process in the Prepare stage gives you an idea of where your community is now. Getting everyone to understand the value of being a connected community and creating a shared vision and strategies to get there are the next steps.

Here are some things for the To Do list:

  1. Set a date for a community event to learn about being a connected community and decide about becoming one. Be inclusive - every segment of the community should be invited.
  2. Determine how the community will hear about it. Advertise it. Create a 'community buzz.'
  3. Invite a local, regional or state expert to help present at the meeting. This could be someone from a neighboring 'connected community', a state or local educator, someone from an Internet Service Provider or staff from the state broadband office (See a list of state broadband offices at http://www2.ntia.doc.gov/SBDD).
  4. Use these PowerPoint presentations to help show what connected communities are and how businesses, organizations and individuals can benefit. Select from the following PowerPoint presentations, or modify them to create your own:

Then, answer the question "Do we want to be a Connected Community?"

Assuming the answer is yes, move on to design solutions or set a date for a next meeting to design the solutions.