So, in a bit of the old college type desire for free food, and in a bit of a need to observe where the real tech innovation may be starting to get traction… momentum, and what may be already causing a buzz in this city, I decided to see a talk about “The State of Technology in Saint Louis.” What I ended up hearing was far from what I expected.
I originally saw this talk linked into the idea of bringing a very interesting tech development group called: TechShop to this area. What I did hear was about a failed digital building boom that went bust with large amounts of high-speed fiber being left “dark” in the region. This city needs to get itself aligned with it’s residendents and light the unused fibers at cut rate prices, it would be about time we entered the high-speed elites in this country.
I will say, there would be a wealth of user data in the world of computing could be at the Municipal’s constituent fingertips, to better understand more citizens, provide a higher quality of life through access to more integrated services. Being an East Coast transplant, many of the things I used to go down the street to get, I can find online if I cannot find them here. There are many other reasons and a plethora of things the web can source. With integrations that WordPress, Google, and many other social media sites, all of which have changed the landscape for communications today.
This “new” access to the web allows for people to get the items that, as a major city dweller for over 20 years can attest, can only be found on the web, and not down the street here in Saint Louis, for example. If it were not for the web, I most definitely would not be here in Saint Louis. With that said, to me, this just spells opportunity.
The idea of creating a pocket of cutting edge technology could only make coming to this city more appealing to bigger businesses while allowing small and medium one’s compete on the national level with access of the caliber that could be available for pennies on the dollar. Problem is, who is going to subsidize their management, how do we get the dark wires, fired up? This is a serious question, and one that I am not sure how to answer. The bar could be raised and new opportunities to develop ideas that will only bring more innovations to this area and the rest of the world.
When listening to the talk, I remember not really understanding the resistance I seemed to see, and the seemingly “old world” entrenched business interests seemingly rooted in the bottom line and not knowing how they could improve the situation and make money, together. While there there are definitely some people who are starting to see it’s importance.
I am a transplant, that originally moved here to be close to everyone in my family, both literally, and figuratively. The internet connects us in ways we have never I would love this city to finally grow up and be proud of the small, eager and robust community of artists and craftsmen in this area. There are some seriously awesome inkling toward seeing this city grow beyond it’s small town feel and join the other metropolises and make a statement about how and why we live in cities. To create a better life for it’s citizens, beyond the bottom line.
So, in closing, seeing some articles like: Last call for gigabit in St. Louis?. It amazes me that these networks just don’t make a password driven system and charge on the nickleware like iTunes does. This city could finally emerge in the national stage as a technology innovating city, why would that be a bad thing? How can that be encouraged? I am still left vexed as to what can be done to encourage people in this area how it would be good for business.
America seems to have a long history of innovations coming from garages and basements of rural homes, we need to find a way to create infrastructure that can help develop, and market these products and put innovation back into the important category.