the Digital Town Hall

Our youngest and brightest need access to the open Internet to thrive. If we provide access to Internet to every American we could see an exciting new generation of innovators.

As a professional in the field of online marketing and PR for small businesses, I repeat this sentiment to every one of my solopreneurial, entrepreneurial and non-profit clients: "The Internet has made it possible for one person’s good idea to blossom into a movement of millions."

More and more individuals and small businesses are realizing the rewards of using internet technology to promote their services, products or cause; develop and strengthen relationships globally; and gain an abundance of buyers, clients, supporters and mentors.

Seth Godin describes dozens of everyday people who are leading "tribes" connected by the Internet. In his book, "Tribes," Godin writes, "Now the Internet has eliminated the barriers of geography, cost and time. All those blogs and social networking sites are helping existing tribes get bigger and enabling new tribes to be born -- groups of ten or ten million who care about their iPhones, or a political campaign, or a new way to fight global warming. Who is going to lead all these tribes? The Web can do amazing things, but it can't provide leadership."

A perfect example of leading people using internet innovation, in my opinion (no, this is not an infommercial) is the iLearning Global website learning portal and its founders, Mr. Brian Tracy and other personal development leaders. They have created a high quality video subscription service that is extremely innovative and allows its subscribers to earn a living for sharing the technology.

Godin's Squidoo community website similarly shares its innovation freely while sharing the fruit! Always free, Squidoo raises big money for charity and gives its community of contributors the opportunity to earn money too.

In my own small business, I share my expertise and teach people to use free or low cost internet innovations everyday. Websites, blogs, twitter, and facebook are in my everyday vocabulary, so I couldn't agree more with Mr. Goldin, "(Leadership) has to come from individuals - people just like you (and me) who have a passion about something. Anyone who wants to make a difference now has the tools at her fingertips."

We are all leaders, we are all followers! The challenge now is to make innovation accessible to everyone because, simply, everyone should be given the same opportunity to lead a tribe or follow the leader of our own choice!

The technology exist to provide broadband access to everyone in the country, that currently has electricity running to their homes. We woulld need to get involved in this from the grass roots because the industry and the ISPs seem to be dragging their feet on this but I'd be willing to pay for the upgrades.

I would be willing to pay for converting my homes meter to one that could handle these connects but I would like the commons (people) to own these routes so that all homes could have always on access to the Web.

I would recommend creating a system similar to the US post office, every home that receives electricity would be default have access to this infrustructure.

In remote Spring Creek, residents are trying to revive their town by building a community center that offers a computer lab and space for local businesses. But longtime resident Layten Davis says their attempts are futile without high-speed Internet.