I woke up this morning with thoughts generated by “tuning fork” #2. One of PetalumaNet’s guiding principles that has been quoted often in these blogs – The greatest resource of any community is the collective wisdom, intellect, and creativity of its citizens. Well, what do you know? The community network pioneers, of the 1980s and 1990s, operated on this same principle too.
The names of a couple of these pioneers should be shared in order to let you know that it is people (like you and me) who initiate new ideas, not the tools or technology that are used to bring about change. In order that rural communities not be left out of the CN movement, Frank Odasz in Montana, lead the way and with the guidance of Dave Hughes started the Big Sky Telegraph in 1988. Another project – PEN – the Public Electronic Network for Santa Monica, CA (1989) is close to my heart. I thought PEN stood for Petaluma Electronic Network. It did when we created our community portal site in 1996; but it was later changed to Petaluma Community Network (PCN). Our PEN was designed to demonstrate real social benefits can be produced when citizens have access to community resources, including municipal government. Once, again, for the record: PN volunteers created the first web site for the City of Petaluma and the Argus-Courier in 1996.
Four years prior to the birth of the Petaluma Tech Corps on 9-1-05 (PN’s original name), the first generation of community networks was really getting underway. (There are many virtual community stories that could be mentioned about these earlier years, but space does not permit it. If you are interested in learning more, use your search engine to explore this “pioneering” era. Just enter “Community Networking.”) Bottom line: by the mid-1990s, the Free-Net phenomenon and the Community Networking concept was expanding rapidly. Various models were created all across the country in places like: New Mexico (La Plaza Telecommunity), Cupertino (CityNet), Davis Community Network, Philadelphia (Liberty Net), Virgina (Blacksburg Electronic Village) and North Carolina (Charlotte’s Web), and here in our favorite “river town” PetalumaNet.
Let’s pause for a UBI – useless bit of information. Three weeks after the announcement about Petaluma Tech Corps and its mission of helping our schools “to enhance the teaching-learning process through the use of computer technology,” the Clinton-Gore administration introduced its “National Information Infrastructure” intitiative. When the President, accompanied by the V.P. visited San Francisco, The Press Democrat (9-22-05) reported “President Clinton announced an effort Thursday funded by California-based high technology companies to connect every school in California to the emerging information highway by the end of the school year. (Copy cats! They “stole” our idea for Petaluma City Schools. J )
Seriously, PN supported this initiative and during the 1995-96 school year, it focused on getting ISP accounts (Internet Service Provider) for any school site that wanted one. On October 18th of 1995, one month after being formed, this newly incubated community network organization, sponsored an in-service fair for all K-6 classroom teachers at Grant School. This event was made possible for a “seed money” grant from the Petaluma Educational Foundation.
One final thought in closing, President Clinton’s likened his initiative to a “high-tech barn-raising.” I’m in tune with that analogy. Please stay tuned for more CN tidbits and Tuning Fork thoughts tomorrow.