Science fiction writer William Gibson once famously said, "The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed."

No place has been living the Internet longer than Blacksburg, Virginia. And that makes it a bellwether for the future of social and mobile media. In 1996, 62% of residents were online when the U.S. was at 8%. Blacksburg had the 1st wired school system, 1st library with free Internet access, 1st online ordering of groceries, 1st online real estate listings and 1st residential broadband.

I return to Blacksburg every five or so years to see what else it can teach us. My approach is something like the documentary film series, "Up!" that followed the lives of 14 people every 7 years, except I’ve been studying and photographing one special community.

And I just returned again.

The digital sidewalk & front porchA digital barn raising

The digital roundaboutDigital old school

Digital water coolers & back fences

The First Internet-wired Town Is Still One to WatchPresented at SxSW 2015 by Phil Buehler

INNOVATORS

OPINION LEADERS

LAGGARDSMAINSTREAM

So why study Blacksburg?

In 1992, writer Geoffrey Moore recognized their was a chasm in the flow in the adoption of innovations as laid out by Everett Rogers in 1962. You just couldn’t get it to the Innovators and magically watch it be adopted by everyone else.

Innovations can cross the chasm faster in Blacksburg – because Blacksburg is somewhere in the future.

So what does a town in the future look like?

And Blacksburg doesn’t really look like this…

…it doesn’t look any different than other small towns.So what makes Blacksburg so different?

It’s a somewhat isolate small town in southwestern Virginia.It has small town values and residents see it as a nice place to raise a family where they can belong to a Community

It’s also the home of Virginia Tech.

It’s where small town values meet tech university inspiration.Wearables, robotics, immersive environments, full body scannersVT’s mission is “Invent the Future.”

ICAT is where the university connect to the community. One event each year is “Tech or Treat” for local kids to be amazed at the tech.It’s run by Ben Knapp.

To see how tech will be adopted, one of the faculty, Scott McCrickard’s, let kids experiment with one of the 100 smart watched Pebble gave the university.

Virginia Tech just opened its $100 million Moss Arts Center near the center of town. While I was there had top 10 NCAA wresting match in a acoustically-perfect concert hall so you could hear every sound. Another example of how the university engages the community – both to be a good community member and to see how tech is adopted.

Blacksburg

United StatesPew Research Center

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

In 1996, two thirds of the town was online when less than 10% of the rest of the United States was connected.

Internet Penetration

Virginia Tech Research

Blacksburg was where an innovative university brought the Internet to a mainstream community, speeding up its adoption by years. It’s where small town meets big tech.

I first went to Blacksburg in 1995 at the suggestion of Donald Norman, the cognitive scientist & writer. He told me something remarkable was going on there.You could tell something was different when you see the URL is on the town hall.So took a group of researchers to live in Blacksburg for a week. We interviewed almost 100 people in depth. The full spectrum of residents and businesses.

Blacksburg Electronic Village was started when Bell Atlantic, VT and Town got together. Virginia Tech saw an opportunity to conduct research. Dial up Internet was only $9 per month. The university created websites for small businesses and taught the residents. Apartment buildings got connected with broadband.

When I arrived, I asked to see the Internet. I was led out into the parking lot – it’s under that fresh asphalt.

When I asked Dennis back in 1995 why he was online, he told me, “The community center schedule was posted online, and I didn’t want to get left behind.” When the mainstream changes course, regular folks will follow.

Some screen snaps of local business websites back then. Not much by today’s standards, but back this was the future.

Blacksburg had the first real estate website in the world.

Blacksburg has a long list of firsts:

• First residential broadband in the world in 1994.• First school system with broadband to every school.• First school system with broadband in every classroom.• First library with free public broadband Internet access.• First business park to offer broadband Internet as an amenity• First local government online.• First online real time chats with elected and appointed officials.

Bogen’s was the first “Cyberbar.”

Gotta love, “Casual with Class!”

Here’s what the world’s first Cyberbar looked like in 1996.

A better post office

The Lesson about Crossing the Chasm: Back in 1996, it was clear that the first “killer app” of the Internet would be e-mail – a new form of connecting the community.

24

Like the BBC series “7 UP” and the movie, “Boyhood,” I go back every five years to see what’s changed.

25

So what’s the latest thing?

A nice restaurant opened where Bogen’s once stood. On opening day it was packed because they’re already had a big following via social media.

I spoke to Tina Merritt, a real estate agent.Want to know what’s happening in a small town? Ask a real estate agent, they know everyone’s business..

I first met Tina five years ago – she’d found a unique use for 4 Square – remember them? The talk of SxSW in 2011, fell into Geoffrey Moore’s chasm.But if they’d seen how Blacksburg was using them, perhaps they wouldn’t have.

Tina would check Foursquare to see who was checked in at the pool, then tweet them to see if she could drop her kids off. Talk about a killer app.

At one time, residents would go for a stroll and see friends out on their front porches – an invitation to come up and chat. This is the promise of geo-local apps – the return of the sidewalk and front porch.

Return to the Sidewalk

& Front Porch

Lesson #1Gamification got Foursquare going, connectivity would have kept it going.

What if Foursquare let the town sets up badges to encourage civil discourse & connections - badges for voting, giving blood, where the mayor was so you could find him if you want to talk, going to a town council meeting.

The lesson for smart watches and fitness trackers… make it fun until the community building benefits are apparent.

Back to Blacksburg: I returned in 2015 to see what light it can shed on new innovations. I work with Andrea Kavanaugh, a Virginia Tech professor and the original research director of Blacksburg Electronic Village.

This time I met with the Mayor, the town manager, the President of Virginia Tech, professors, , researchers, students, real estate agents, entrepreneurs, community leaders, senior citizens, shop keepers, and an Uber driver.

One of the first things I noticed was they’d renovated the downtown. But that small-town feel was still everywhere.

They built a pavilion for events and a farmers’ market. Of course, with Virginia Tech there would be solar cells on the roof.

In the summer, everyone is out on the new benches, here in front of their historic Lyric theater, built in the 1930s.

Last time I was here, they’d just finished a complete renovation of the theater.

But now, with an IMAX theater about to open a few miles away near the Interstate highway, there were worries that downtown would lose visitors.

So Blacksburg held a “Digital barn raising,” and raised over $70,000, with most coming through Kickstarter. Current residents gave, but also alumni from Virginia Tech.

I’d expect more communities will be holding more “digital barnraisings”

They were able to install a new digital projector and upgrade the sound system.

And with the local telephone and cable utilities falling behind in providing high-speed service to the town, it was then not surprising that Bob Summers, a local entrepeneur who runs a local startup incubator space, Tech Pad, ran a crowd funding campaign. They raised over $90,000 to put a few gigabit wifi spots downtown last year.

Again, like being shown a paved over trench in 1995 where the Internet lines ran in, it’s sometimes hard to see these changes…But there it was, the Gigabit WIFI router.

They call it “Giggy” and it’s on the corner of Main Street and College Avenue.

A digital barn raising

Lesson #2

We need to contribute to the community. Connect the residents and businesses. Help those who Google and Verizon won’t help.

What else since I was last there? Several people said they put in a traffic circle.Which was funny to me but led me to my next insight.

I met with Lisa Sedlack, who leads the town’s social media monitoring.

Blacksburg has been connected to the community via the Internet for 20 years. It has a tradition of openness and talking to the community. It’s not like politics in Albany with “the 3 men in a room.”

Lisa knew I was coming before I contacted her because she keeps an eye on everything Blacksburg and saw my tweets.

I asked her about the roundabout controversy.

So of course, Blacksburg gave the roundabout its own webpage to keep everyone informed and answer questions. Like if the fire department’s ladder truck could make it around. And allowing residents to answer questions.

So when the community is connected, not just the citizens but the government, the local organizations… with transparency and trust and consent

46

Exit digital roundabouts

Lesson #3

The only way to keep from getting stuck in the roundabout of social-media enabled politics in a small town is transparency. Moving beyond “the media” and directly engaging with people. Giving them a forum, for good & bad.

I also chatted with Jeremy Hart, a real estate agent who I’d first met five years ago.

Five years ago, Jeremy had been the center of some epic battles on Foursquare for mayor of the Easy Chair coffee shop. He was also all over twitter, his blog and Facebook. “My work & life are social.”

So I asked him, “What’s the latest thing?”

Jeremy said he was now sending handwritten notes. Now that everyone uses social media to stay in touch, it’s an even more personal way for him to stay out.

And recent Virginia Tech grad Stephan Sabo has noticed and founded a company that makes kiosks where you can customize greeting cards. I saw the first one in a local health food store, which let him place it there because he was a Virginia Tech “Hokie” and peole in the town are receptive to new ideas from the university.

Card Isle saw an opening when Hallmark’s original patents opened up. Hallmark’s kiosks fell into the chasm as printing technology was too expensive at the time and printed cards weren’t yet threatened by e-greeting cards.

But Stephan saw that paper had become more meaningful, especially because of handwriting. Plus Card Isle works with local artists to make locally relevant cards, which you just can’t get from Kansas City, where Hallmark is based. They also learned from international students at Virginia Tech that there was a market for cards in other languages.

They’re now thinking of enhancements to increase usage, like a Tinder-like sorter the kiosk knows what style of card you like.

Digital Old School

Lesson #4Cross the chasm by finding where new innovations and their convenience have caused something meaningful to be lost.

I’m going to close by talking about Yik Yak, the hyper-local gossip app that that has generated a lot of controversy because its anonymity has led some to use it for bullying and racism.

It has immediacy. “Yaks” disappear after a few hours, so if you check, you will miss something. You can only see Yaks in your local area, and they’re sorted by the most “up” votes. But they only stay up for a few hours. To control somewhat for abuse, users can vote them up or down, and if a yak gets a negative 5 score, the yak is deleted immediately.

Mostly colleges now, following the Facebook playbook of launching in communities with unique needs. It will undoubtedly expand.

Virginia Tech’s President Sands is a big Twitter user, but not a fan of Yik Yak. He says it can be funny with trash talk about rival university UVA, strong winds on the drill field or the line at Qdoba.

He said accountability for your words is key to building a strong community, unless there’s a strong reason, like fear for your safety.

Is Yik Yak going to fall into the chasm like Foursquare and Ello. Remember Ello? Google trends report shows how they fell into the chasm.

I’m going to take a bit of a contrarian prediction here and say there’s something important going on with Yik Yak. They’re evolving. Twitter did. E-bay did. Facebook did. They focus on college kids now, but if they morph to mainstream needs for local relevancy, they stand a chance.

Something is going on with Yik Yak. In a college town, they’ve already got thousands of regular users - an engaged community.

While I was in Blacksburg, this joke about a police search for a speeding driver who abandoned his car got 571 up votes in less than an hour on a Tuesday night at 1am. Virginia Tech parking is notorious for finding every illegally parked car.

57

Meet Hunter Morgan – What a great name and beard! He’s a Virginia Tech student that runs the Friday tech lab at the local senior citizens center.

I asked him about Yik Yak – he said some were curious, but they just see college talk, so it’s not relevant to them. Now if there were just a channel for for seniors…

You you’ll know you’re crossing the chasm whenever the geeks meet the geezers

The new water cooler or back fence

Lesson #5So as of early 2015, the jury is still out on Yik Yak. Perhaps they’ll make it if they can tap into people’s need to stay connected and become the new water cooler or back fence.

To end my talk, I’d guess that if there were a separate channel or stream on Yik Yak for SxSW attendees, its immediacy would make it more of a force. Just as students at Virginia Tech Yak during lectures – it’s the new passing notes - attendees might Yak instead of tweet during SxSW presentations.