6. Community Networks and Local Business Enterprise

Background

While some CN proponents argue that community networks should be focused on non-profit and non-commercial activities, other CNs are merging with their local CityNet sites, chambers of commerce, or other virtual marketplaces. Their goal is to facilitate collaborations not possible through traditional forms of communication, thus aiding small businesses and sparking local economic development, particularly in rural or disadvantaged areas. Still other CN proponents claim that supporting and developing local enterprise is part and parcel of community building akin to "buy local" campaigns.

Some of the ways Community Network sites work to expand markets for local products are by providing various Internet services, along with encouraging networking between entrepreneurs through discussion groups, Internet conferencing, and more traditional face-to-face networking activity. In addition, some CNs create virtual marketplaces and other showcases for product and service promotion.

There are several examples of cooperative relationships between CNs and commercial development networks. For example, the Austin Free-Net and Austin CitySearch have worked together to exchange links, co-sponsor events, and distribute web guides, among other activities. Another example of a cooperative relationship between a CN and a community economic development organization is The Southeastern Ohio Free-Net (SEORF), and the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet). ACEnet, an innovative economic development organization located in Appalachian Ohio has experimented with linking SEORF with regional micro-enterprise groups.

CNs can serve as important niches to assist local economic development networks. Working together, these cooperative programs can provide computer services, training, and market research data, among other services. On a more basic level, telecommunications is the central, though invisible, infrastructure for commerce in the global economy. The information infrastructure provides access to the information used as "raw materials," in many goods and services produced today; it provides access to a production system, access to a distribution system and most importantly, access to markets. This access is central to all economic development. CNs can provide access to that infrastructure for small or low-income firms and entrepreneurs through Internet connections. The Public WebMarket, a virtual business incubator for small firms located in rural areas of four states is dedicated to that strategy. With both TIIAP and W.K. Kellogg Foundation support, ACEnet has been able to design a network architecture on SEORF that links local firms to the Public WebMarket project and to interactive conferencing forums, and to listservs organized and facilitated to build national networking among small firms.

The Public WebMarket (PWM) was designed by ACEnet, the Center for Civic Networking and the Old North End Community Technology Center to link "sense of place," and product and producer. The site encourages Internet users to purchase unique and locally produced products and to meet the producer of those products. Hot links move the view from cultural information about the producer’s community to actual products, creating a type of shopping experience linked to tourism. Consumers can develop a sense of loyalty to a product linked to place and person. Small firms are networked to link database tools to pinpoint and focus their marketing. The PWM is yet to become self-sustaining.

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