Harvey Chess

I recently spent two days in a grant proposal writing workshop with Harvey Chess, of The FTF Group. Harvey is very well known in the non-profit community around California and now I can see why. I gained an appreciation of the granting process that I never had before, partly because I had no particular need of it before. Now however, I’m gearing up to begin work on the Community Access Internet Project and I anticipate that it will be using grant money, hopefully lots of grant money. While trying to absorb as much as possible in two very full days, I became aware of parallels between Harvey’s approach to grant writing and what I have come to know about software and web development projects.

Know the difference between the means and the end

A theme that wove its way throughout the two days was reflective of what you hear quite often in social media circles: Focus outward; the outcome for the people you are trying to serve is more important than the project itself. To paraphrase Chris Brogan in this context, nobody cares about your stupid project. The people who participate and how they will benefit, now that’s something to care about.

If the end-user’s not happy, nobody’s happy

Trying to write a winning proposal without input from those who will participate in the program is like designing an application without talking to the people who will use it. That’s not to say that this is never done; it is, a lot. But it usually means that the project will later need to be rethought.

Avoid circular logic

It’s tempting to propose that the benefit to people participating in the program is that they have participated in the program. Remember that benefits don’t accrue until after the program has been completed and some positive change has taken place in people’s lives.

Your organization is the proposal

This is probably Harvey’s central message and you can just as easily substitute “product” or “service” for “proposal”. What it means is that you have to know what you’re about. Unless an organization understands its mission, it’s goals, its raison d’être, it will not be able to successfully raise money. Understanding, in this case, means achieving consensus around these goals and then getting them down on paper.

Consider the following questions about your program (or product or service) and whether or not your organization can answer them clearly:

• Who are the participants for the project?
• What are the circumstances, situations or challenges that lead us to want to undertake the project?
• What are the consequences (outcomes) of a successful project?
• What will the effects be for project participants and for others in the community?

These are hard questions and I don’t yet know the answers to them in my own case. I also realize that I’m unlikely to be able to answer them by simply sitting down and thinking real hard. It will take working with others in our community to develop an understanding of what we hope to achieve. It’s a daunting task but one that I look forward to pursuing.

Cross posted on gregfalken.com.

The Scottish Executive, in 2001, defined adult literacy as, “The ability to read and write and use numeracy to handle information, to express ideas and opinions, to make decisions and solve problems, as family members, workers, citizens and lifelong learners.”

Pete Ashton writes on his blog ASH-10:

Digital literacy means being able to take digital stuff [and] make new things with it, just as literacy means taking words and making new sentences with them. Literacy is about understanding the rules of a thing so that they can be worked within or broken as applicable. It’s about making the world our own. This is why we teach reading and writing to children, not so that they can fill out forms or write tedious reports, but that they might question and understand the world in which they live in.

So, what should people know in order to be digitally literate? If we’re going to teach it like a class, what is the curriculum? Most importantly, how can we move away from rote learning of “computer skills” towards understanding the “rules of the thing”.

There are no courses like this in my local community college catalog but here are a few I’d like to see:

Web Browsers – History and Development

For many people, the World Wide Web and the Internet are synonymous. The web browser is the software through which we experience the web. In this course, we will learn the purpose of the web browser and its function in the online experience. We will also explore its history, from the early days of Mosaic (the first Internet-connected software to display images inline with text), through the rise of Internet Explorer and Netscape, to today’s modern Firefox and Chrome browsers.

Cloud Computing and the Rise of Online Applications

And once the programs have moved to the cloud, why not move the computers there too? Cloud computing also encompasses the outsourcing of hardware, eliminating the need for a closet full of servers.

The Hyperlink

Hyperlinks subvert hierarchies – David Weinberger

The term hyperlink was coined in 1965 by Ted Nelson, the founder of Project Xanadu, at Harvard University. Nelson hoped to facilitate non-sequential writing, in which the reader could choose their own path through a document. Project Xanadu was largely abandoned by 1989, when the English physicist Sir Tim Berners-Lee wrote a proposal for what would become the World Wide Web, a system of interlinked pages, housed on the Internet and navigated using hyperlinks.

The hyperlink is a radically different way of connecting people to information. In this course, we examine the effects of organizing information in a non-hierarchical system.

Evaluating Online Information

True or false?

SECURITY ALERT: $32,000 worth of UPS uniforms have been purchased over the last 30 days by person(s) unknown. Law enforcement is working on the case however no suspect(s) have been indentified (sic). Subjects may try to gain access by wearing one of these uniforms. If anyone has suspicions about a UPS delivery (i.e., no truck but driver, no UPS identification, etc., contact UPS to verify employment).

Assessing the accuracy of information found online is not always easy. This course draws on the journalistic tradition of verifying sources and establishing their trustworthiness. By considering factors such as verifiability, transparency, relevance, bias, clarity and validity, we can evaluate which online sources to believe and which to ignore.

Online Writing

It seems like everyone online suffers from ADOBSO (Attention Deficit Ooh…Bright Shiny Object), so how do we write in a way that captures their interest? This course looks at online comprehension studies to find effective writing styles. We will also practice writing for various online venues including blogs, web pages, Wikipedia, forums, emails and Twitter.

Syndication and Federation

Release your content into the wild using syndication. Share functionality with other online services using federation. This course examines the current state of machine-to-machine communication on the Internet and how users and site operators can leverage these connections. Technologies covered include RSS, oAuth, Facebook Connect, Friend Connect and Google Wave.

Wordle by Doug Belshaw.

Guest post by Sharon Crost, cross-posted on GregFalken.com.

Let’s do a quick thinking exercise: think for a few seconds about the Central Sierra. Do you think of history and the Gold Rush and panning for gold? Or do you think of Yosemite National Park, Bear Valley or Dodge Ridge, tasting wine, jumping frogs, or enjoying the outdoors? Well some of us who have come to the Central Sierra post-Gold Rush think that the Central Sierra is a gorgeous place to work and live and play. It’s so livable in a way, but in a way not at all. Because about 40% of the people who reside in the Central Sierra don’t have access to high speed internet, called “broadband”.

So now let’s think for a few seconds about dial-up internet connection. Do you know, or remember what it’s like to dial up to the internet via modem? Similar to the Gold Rush, you may think of this as ancient history? The internet is now celebrating its 40th birthday, but a significant portion of our Central Sierra community is STILL connecting to the internet in it’s adolescent connection form, via dial-up.

Now think about what it means to peddle on dial-up while your neighbors are racing on the super highway. You can’t participate in everyday applications such as watching videos, downloading files, takes classes via distance learning, manage your health, transact business online or communicate with your family. Surprisingly, while you are peddling on dial-up, your mates in many third world economies are connecting and thriving. Broadband access means economic and job development, telehealth, communication, education, environmental sustainability and a future for youth that want to stay and thrive in rural communities.

Clearly we need ubiquitous access to broadband, and the Central Sierra and many other rural communities are on the losing side of the digital equality access game. So I’m part of a group of crusaders working to reduce the digital divide in rural communities. You can help too. You can help create a new history for rural communities. You’ve already been thinking about the issue for the last few precious seconds and one of the great advantages of ubiquitous broadband is that it gives everyone an equal voice. In fact, Network Sierra’s Community Access project is an excellent example of project planning to assist a community to create and engage in local issues and news and information and entertainment and art, enabled by broadband. Stay tuned to this blog and check out the Central Sierra Connect project or the California Emerging Technologies Fund for more information and to take action.

Oh, and there’s one final thing to think about in this exercise… think about the reality of high-speed connection throughout the Central Sierra, in rural communities as in big cities, everywhere. Communities prospecting for gold on an equal playing field, engaging and thriving. It’s a thought as good as gold.

Sharon Crost is an educator and a consultant mentoring leaders to develop thriving communities. She tweets as mktwow and can be contacted at sharon@socialmediaalive.com

Working with a group of committed people here in Tuolumne County, I have submitted a proposal to the Knight News Challenge. Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Challenge seeks innovations that use new or available technology to distribute content in local communities. There are only three rules:

1. Use digital, open-source technology.
2. Distribute news in the public interest.
3. Test your project in a local community.

A description of the project follows. Please visit the application at the Knight News Challenge and add your comments and rate the project. Changes can be made to the application until the December 15th deadline and I welcome the chance to incorporate your suggestions.

Describe your project (max. 1800 characters)
The Community Access Internet Project (CAIP) provides web-based news and community information to rural areas. It draws on user-generated content and provides community education in the effective use of online media. The goal is nothing less than creating a community of digitally literate consumers and producers.

Should this project be funded, it will initially serve Tuolumne Co., CA (pop. ~50,000), located in the Central Sierras, 120 miles east of San Francisco. The county’s roots are in the gold rush of the 1850s and it has a rich historical character. Economically, the region struggles, with unemployment hovering around 13%.

Like community broadcasting (radio) and public access cable (TV) before it, participation is open to the entire community. However, CAIP goes beyond simply providing media access, by actively pursuing community outreach. CAIP provides classroom instruction and guidance on effective online communication, blogging, audio and video production and legal issues.

A paid core staff manages day to day operations and curates content, such as calendars of events, local news (road closures, snow days, fire information) and news features, including podcasts and videocasts. Featured content may be produced both by the core staff and “graduates” of the instructional programs. Blog space is openly available and public blog entries may be “promoted” to featured status by the core staff.

CAIP partners with other community organizations such as schools, libraries, news organizations, local government, service organizations, chambers of commerce, non-profits, etc.These organizations enhance the capabilities and reach of the project, bringing it to the attention of a broad cross-section of the community.

How will your project improve the way news and information are delivered to geographic communities? (max. 750 characters)
In our community, online information is isolated on numerous sites. CAIP provides technical assistance to the operators of these sites to syndicate their public content, making it available to any web site that wishes to republish it. Syndication will be a significant source of content for CAIP, without requiring any group to give up control of their own information.

The Community Access Internet Project provides a publishing platform for individuals and groups in the community. It provides an alternative source of online news, commentary and entertainment, produced locally and addressing the needs of the community. Because the featured areas of the site are curated, it can develop a reputation as a trustworthy and reliable news source.

How is your idea innovative? (new or different from what already exists) (max. 750 characters)
There are many existing variants of the community publishing platform. We plan to build on the best of these, with an emphasis on syndication and aggregation tools. Simply aggregating existing calendars of events will be an enormous benefit to the community.

The educational and community outreach component of this project makes it especially unique. During the initial planning phase, we will engage with the community to learn what information they want to have available online, tailoring the site to meet these needs. With a successful implementation in Tuolumne County, we hope to bring this model to other small, rural communities around the country.

What experience do you or your organization have to successfully develop this project? (max. 1600 characters)
As the submitter of this proposal, I have over 15 years of web development experience and a strong background in both communications and technology. My company, webdancers, was established in 1995 and has assisted in the development and marketing of hundreds of web sites. This experience however, brings to the table only a subset of the skills necessary to develop the Community Access Internet Project. For the rest, I turn to our community.

Network Sierra is a grassroots organization that includes individuals representing a wide range of community interests. Created in 2006, its goal is to use technology to bring our communities closer together and to maintain our rural character in a 21st century economy. We include technologists, arts organizers, educators, writers, marketers, local government officials and retirees. Network Sierra will serve as the parent body for CAIP. In the initial stages, another non-profit agency will act as Network Sierra’s fiscal agent, however we anticipate that Network Sierra will seek non-profit corporation status.

The Community Access Internet Project will be developed in consultation with a Network Sierra advisory board, which will hire the core staff and oversee the implementation of the programs described above.

Leveraging the skills and dedication available in our community, along with emerging social technology, CAIP gives voice to the many diverse groups in our region, providing them with both the training and a forum to speak clearly to their own communities and beyond.

Photo by Tom Magliery

…opportunity is here too. The county is investigating a possible regional project to build a hi-tech backbone system that would host broadband, cell phone service, and police and fire radio communications. We will evaluate the technology over the next few months and if everything lines up and makes sense, may do a feasibility study and implementation within the next year or so. Such a system could benefit our local economy significantly and help attract new business opportunities.

Notice that the scope of this system goes well beyond providing county-wide broadband Internet service. The Conxx system provides nothing less than a replacement telecommunications system for the county. It also offers the scalability to expand to a multi-county regional system.

Of course, the claims that Conxx makes for their system cannot be taken at face value. If the county decides to proceed, they will need to do their due diligence and research other projects that Conxx has taken on in the past. This will require the dedication of staff resources, although Network Sierra members are more than willing to help with this phase of the project. It is worth noting that the Conxx system is already operating in a rural county in Maryland, that has many similarities to Tuolumne County. Ed Fernandez, of Network Sierra, has been in contact with some of the managers at AllCoNet and they report a mainly positive experience with their system.

If the Board of Supervisors agrees to move forward following the Conxx presentation in June, I believe that the next job of Network Sierra will be to raise the awareness of both the general public and potential stakeholders in a system like Conxx. Having an alternative telco infrastructure is not a trivial change to the status quo. We will need to make every effort to win broad support for this far-reaching project.

Update: Teri reports that there probably won’t be any action until after the Board approves the budget (last Tuesday in June) and the first step will be a Board discussion of economic development goals. This will probably push any Conxx presentation into July.

Commissioner Copps,

I applaud your stance in the attached article. Tuolumne County California just signed a new contract with Comcast to upgrade their service. The County was induced to signed the contract quickly by Comcast as they warned the State would take over the contract negotiations starting 2007. The contract is horrible and will leave 40% without Comcast service including Broadband Internet for 10 years. Part of the contract reads that if Comcast completes their upgrade in three years, the five year contract gets extended another five years. Comcast only has to provide service to neighborhoods with 40 connections per cable mile. This equates to one acre parcels or less in size. That leaves us out that are in two and three acre minimum parcels.

AT&T has completed all DSL expansion in our rural county and at least 40% of the homes do not have access to wireline Internet. At&T’s answer is for us to sign up with the satellite provider WildBlue.

How can the United States get out of this mess? It is hurting the economy. Young adults want Broadband access even when they go on vacation now. Tourism in rural counties will be hurt in the future as they cannot provide this service in remote areas.

Bob Ingalls

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/07/AR2006110701230.html

His personal reply was marked Not Public: For Internal Use Only, so I will paraphrase his reply.

He thanked me for taking the time to get in touch. Commissioner Copps believes the way we’ll get out of this is to develop a national strategy, a real commitment, to get broadband out to everybody. He suggested that broadband be funded under the Universal Service Fund, but there are other ways, too. He did not state what the other ways are. He further stated that the important thing is to make the commitment to this important infrastructure. He also believes that Broadband is the central infrastructure-building challenge of our time.

While it is encouraging that we have an enlightened FCC Commissioner, there are four other FCC Commissioners and if Commissioner Copps can’t get anything done we are going to have to do it ourselves.

I had an action item from our first Network Sierra meeting to talk to Greg Applegate regarding the Comcast contract. Greg referred me to Marian Jackson (Government Affairs) of Comcast.

Marian told me that after Comcast upgrades their network, they will be offering Internet and telephone service. The key word is AFTER the upgrade as their current network does not have the capacity.

She also stated that they do stick to their 40 connections per cable mile. Their standard is that they have to cover the cost of installation in 60 months or the customer can pay for the cost for the connection. She estimated to get Comcast cable into Lambert Lake Estates would cost $100,000.

Bob notes that at such a cost, it is highly unlikely that a subdivision such as Lambert Lake Estates will be served. He has also forwarded this information to the Board of Supervisors.

Map 1 (437 KB PDF): http://www.networksierra.org/pdf/cell_tower_1.pdf
Map 2 (409 KB PDF): http://www.networksierra.org/pdf/cell_tower_2.pdf

After a quick perusal I noted two significant things:

It calls for an update completion date in five years.

It obligates service to be provided where there are a minimum of 40 connections per cable mile. Connections not meeting the 40 minimum can still be made at Comcast‘s option. This probably exludes most of the rural areas and high end subdivisions like Curtis Creek, Lambert Lake Estates, Ridgewood, Whispering Woods, etc.. Consider that a square parcel of 300 by 300 feet is just over two acres. Assuming connections on both sides of a road this equates to about 35 connections and does not take into account the miles of cable that are needed just to get to the development. (Most of the lots in the above mentioned developments probably have footage well in excess of 400 feet.)

Document link (1295 KB PDF): http://www.networksierra.org/pdf/agree-comcast.pdf

Good morning. My name is Greg Falken. I’m a partner in webdancers, a web development company in Twain Harte. I’m also a member of an ad hoc group of citizens called Network Sierra, who are advocating for broadband Internet access in all parts of Tuolumne County.

I don’t think I need to go into the many benefits to business that broadband Internet access provides, because I know that this information has been brought to you many times before. In the context of business development however, I would point out that few businesses would even consider establishing themselves in Tuolumne County without access to broadband. And for businesses that are already here, lack of broadband access makes them less competitive. As you know, our broadband coverage is spotty and there is currently no publicly available plan to bring this critical service to all parts of the county.

I’d like to tell you about another county, similar to ours, that has looked forward and taken action.

Henry County, Ohio is a rural county in the Northwest corner of the state, in an area once known as The Great Black Swamp. They have a population of about 30,000 and a median household income of $44,200 a year. Henry County’s telephone company is currently spending over $6 million dollars in funding from the USDA Rural Development Broadband Access and Telecommunications Program to build a broadband system known as Fiber To the Home. These folks in Ohio will soon have access to the Internet at speeds more than 1000 times faster than DSL or cable can provide. They are thinking for the future. They are investing in technology that will allow them to connect with the rest of the world, where in many countries DSL-type speeds have simply been leapfrogged. This is the difference between running a business using computers, or on pocket calculators.

Would the technology that’s being installed today in rural Ohio be viable here in Tuolumne County? I really don’t know the answer to that. I do, however, have a suggestion for finding out. This Board should create a County Commission for Communication Technologies. This commission would have the mandate to research, recommend and implement broadband access throughout the County. There are smart, willing people available today to serve on such a commission and many sources of funding available to pay for it. I ask you to give this your serious consideration.

Thank you.