THE LITTLE FALLS EXPERIENCE
The Source of TCR's Conceptual Evolution

CommTech? To the Legislators Seeking Parity The Forces

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In 1994, TCR was invited to speak at a Little Falls community meeting. The school was proposing a $10 million excess levy referendum and the citizens wanted to see how the community could leverage that investment for local development efforts. TCR spoke about its telecommuting and community development strategies after which a number of local leaders inquired about how to proceed. With a recent legislative grant, TCR committed itself to facilitate the process. The group formed a non-profit organization, CommTech (Community Technologies) with membership from all three sectors of the community and from the smaller towns within the Little Falls service area. Over the next two years TCR profiled the region, surveyed the community and developed the Community TeleCenter concept and conducted a feasibility study of the resulting Technology Plan. That study demonstrated that through collaboration and aggregation even a small community could support state of the art technology- WITHOUT SUBSIDY!. Several major corporations from the metro area saw the potential of the project and committed 50% of the funding to build the prototype. Confirmation of the feasibility findings and identification of the 50% community match began by seeking commitments of the various telecom "buyers" to the project.

CommTech sponsored briefings for their legislators and prepared a presentation at the Capitol in St Paul. Local organizations were asked to commit to the concept as the contractual details were beginning to be discussed. With state agencies and publicly funded organizations representing about 40% of the local demand. they were invited to participate. As CommTech examined the tech plan and feasibility report, questions emerged. Misunderstandings among those that had previously not been involved reinforced those who had not been fully committed to the process. The State of Minnesota refused to participate thereby making the economics no longer viable; the project terminated. Some observations:

• the community correctly was concerned about being an "island". Could they obtain the critical mass necessary to support the various applications and programs envisioned by themselves? In retrospect, probably not. This realization led TCR to the concept of the tri-level telecenter concept and the community alliance to achieve critical mass.
• the agencies wanted to maintain their proprietary systems. Although supported by the community and created to serve the community, turf protection was allowed to effectively undermine the project. While it is true that at one time agencies had to technologically protect themselves but just as corporations protect their data, which is transmitted through the public network, so too can government. Absent legislative leadership or a powerful surge from community leaders, future attempts to launch a prototype should not rely upon government collaboration.
• broadening community awareness and support is fundamental. As time consuming as building support and awareness is in divergent communities is, it must be done. Despite the efforts of several local leaders, the task requires time and staffing. Sadly, within a year of the project's end, three of the four top leaders of the concept had left the community.

As a result of this experience the Distributed City Model was developed. A proposal has been developed by which five community TeleCenters would be developed simultaneously along with approximately forty neighborhood TeleCenters and 1 regional telecenter. With a Request-for-Proposal process to select the five trade centers, critical mass could be pre-determined thereby eliminating the state's vetoing role. Obviously the Community Alliance, and common sense, would greatly benefit (as would the state) from the state's participation.

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