DAY FOUR—JULY 12
Lake City
We do live in a fantastically beautiful state!
We arrived early in Lake City and followed some industrious (and noisy) hummingbirds to an art gallery whose owner, Russ Brown (a Vietnam era fighter pilot with a Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart), was working on the outer space themed painting sitting on his easel. One entire wall was dedicated to military aircraft and his poetry praising those who served. Serendipity!
We continued to duck in and out of charming art galleries, craft shops, and rain until it was time for an ice cream cone before our meeting with Club 20. The Club is a “coalition of individuals, businesses, tribes, and local governments in Colorado’s 22 western counties.” Staff members from Colorado’s congressional delegation (Senator Bennett, Senator Gardner, Representative Tipton), local/regional elected officials, and economic development advocates engaged in deep discussions on topics like guidelines for enabling opportunity zones, easing regulatory burdens on smaller community banks, and auctioning FCC-controlled spectrum licenses to help fund rural broadband initiatives.
Persistent rain forced cancellation of the planned Lake City walking tour, but the backup plan proved exquisite: a barbecue at the beautiful Vickers Horse River Dude Ranch, one of the oldest family-owned business in Colorado (five generations!). We were invited to grill our own (unregulated—as rare as I wanted) and dig into yummy potato salad and a steaming pot of corn on the cob. The daughter of a Club 20 member baked irresistible desserts, which some of us enjoyed while others sent bottle rockets into near space.
Back to Tomichi Village Inn for a Scrabble rematch — Ali won this time — and chat about the inn’s hospitality student exchange program with the Ukraine. We were on the road back to Frisco early Friday morning with no biking time for Tom (rest day prior to doing the Triple Bypass July 14—and a personal best time by almost an hour). Ali took a time out to wade in an inviting river before returning to a packing day (two-week road trip to Nantucket, MA). During the drive Tom educated us about OODA, which inspired an epiphany moment for me with respect to cyber security and the operational restraints of sole reliance on compliance checkbox approaches, system security plans, and third-party tools. A perfect geek moment.
Day Four Take-Aways
- We may have been posing the wrong question—or just one part of a multi-part question—
to young people who are contemplating educational and career goals. Rather than “What do you want to be when you grow up?” or “What do you want to do when you grow up?” we need to also ask “How do you want to live when you grow up?” - Mindfulness about place matters. How is information about internships, apprenticeships, and other programs being communicated to home school students and their families?
- Who should be involved in articulating opportunity zone rules? How can we ensure that community voices are being heard as Treasury defines program deployment?
- Improved public safety is one of the benefits associated with consistent broadband deployment that is less frequently discussed. Accelerated commerce, telemedicine, remote workplace, and distance learning are the common ones. When looking at divvying up broadband funds among service providers, those committed foremost to delivering desired outcomes to community residents—rather than those committed foremost to delivering desired outcomes to (often out-of-state) shareholders—should receive special attention and incentives. Out-of-state can equate, on a practical basis, to out-of-mind. What ROI metrics are in place and are they the right ones? Are we measuring business impact or public safety impact?
- One telecom providers’ high-cost area may be another’s home base. Investment in fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) becomes more attractive when that investment stays where you live and work.
Day Four Video Wrap—and “CSBR Summer 2018: The Movie”
Barbarous Neologistic (and other) Jargon
OODA = Observe, orient, decide, act. The OODA loop is a model of a System 1 (automatic) thinking approach and incorporates contextual awareness and consistent experiential knowledge. OODA was articulated by USAF Colonel John Boyd, AKA Genghis John and Forty-Second Boyd. The latter moniker was derived from “his standing bet as an instructor pilot that beginning from a position of disadvantage, he could defeat any opposing pilot in air combat maneuvering in less than 40 seconds.”
