Telecommunity Services -- Community Assessment
Workbook
The cost of the "Nothing Beats a Good Plan
Workbook" and accompanying disk is $250.
order online now
The purpose of the Telecommunity Community
Assessment Workbook is to explain and structure the
completion of data gathering and technical planning on a
Rural Telecommunity Center for a specific community. The
result of using the Telecommunity Community Assessment
Workbook will be a comprehensive business plan and market
analysis to determine the feasibility of operating a
Telecommunity Center.
Topics covered in the Telecommunity Community Assessment
Workbook include:
- Community's motivation to pursue advanced technology
and telecommunications as an economic development
strategy.
- Background on the community, including: geography,
population, age distribution of the population, business
makeup, and important economic considerations.
- A profile of the community in terms of potential users
of advanced technology.
- Identification of existing technology infrastructure
that might include a description of the local exchange
carrier, cable company, existing computer retailers and other
computer related businesses, existing technology investments
in interactive videoconferencing, Internet services, imaging
technologies, and community networks, and the existing
technology base of local businesses and residential uses of
computers.
- Description of agencies or organizations in the
community who have regional associations. A description of
these associations and whether these associations are
pursuing advanced technologies and/or
telecommunications.
- A profile of the communities in the region identifying
the potential users of advanced technology.
- Identification of other community needs that might be
impacted by the pursuit of advanced technologies (i.e., the
need for a new community library, vacant spaces available on
mainstreet).
- Market analysis of the existing need for interactive
videoconferencing, Internet, imaging, community networks and
other technologies to be supported through a Telecommunity
Center.
- Technical plan that describes how these technologies can
be deployed into the community with special consideration to
those entities who already made investments in pertinent
technologies.
- Identified strategy for implementing the Center with
identified funding strategies.
Once the community has completed the Workbook, they will
have gathered enough pertinent information regarding the
community and the regional relationships to determine whether
the community is willing to support the use of advanced
technologies and telecommunications. The Workbook will have
also assisted in identifying those in the community and/or
region who have begun efforts toward the use of these
technologies and, therefore, would encourage efforts toward
collaboration.
The Telecommunity Community Assessment Workbook has been
designed to capture data from a wide spectrum of potential
users in your community. These users will include schools,
government agencies, healthcare providers, businesses and
individual residents. The collection of this data is also
supported by Rural Health Futures through its
Telecommunity Community Assessment Survey Packet and
the
Telecommunity Residential Phone Survey . When
appropriate, Rural Health Futures is available to
support the use of the Telecommunity Community
Assessment Workbook. In addition to the Workbook, a disk is
included that contains the basic Telecommunity Community
Assessment Plan. Once data has been collected, you'll need
only edit the appropriate files contained on the disk (note:
be sure to request whether you'll need the Microsoft Word 6.0
or WordPerfect 6.0 format).