Cook County Fiber To The Home

So what can broadband do for me and our community? Here is a great article explaining in detail why this project is so important to Cook County.

View Why Broadband is Important To Cook County as a PDF

Why Broadband is Important for Cook County

Businesses

The primary economic driver of the County is tourism. CCG Consulting and the County met with a number of businesses and heard from many more during the study process. Following are the problems reported by the tourism businesses in the County, who say that they badly need broadband:

• Many guests have made it clear that they do not wish to stay in hotels, inns and lodges that do not offer broadband. Thus lack of broadband is starting to cost tourist visits to the County;
• The inadequate Internet access available today means that hotels, inns and lodges cannot participate in online registration systems, which is costing them bookings and revenue. Almost all hotels in the country utilize these on-line services, but the broadband available to most hotels and lodges in the County is too slow to allow for participation in these services. This clearly costs bookings for these businesses, meaning fewer tourists and lower revenues.
• The hotels, inns and lodges rely on getting college students for summer help and these students demand broadband access. Lack of broadband is making it hard to get summer help.
• The hotels, inns and lodges need broadband to be able to use video conferencing, which would eliminate many of the numerous long trips needed to conduct business. Each lodge owner has to make dozens of trips each year to conduct business and video conferencing would decrease the number of trips and drastically lower operating costs. Video conferencing would also decrease the trips needed within the County.
• The hotels, inns and lodges need broadband to conduct normal business like purchasing, online banking, etc. We heard many stories of these businesses being unable to do routine things like downloading needed software.

There are numerous stories in the area about the effect of the lack of broadband. Here are a few:

• A local realtor shared a story about a house sale she was about to make recently to doctors from the Mayo Clinic. As discussions progressed they asked about access to broadband. When the realtor said the only access was by satellite the sale fell through. The doctors needed the ability to work remotely at times; something they felt was not possible with satellite internet service.
• Qwest cannot address the needs of key businesses. Cascade Lodge was quoted over $600,000 to install a T1 into their business, located directly on the main Highway 61 corridor. Lutsen Mountain Inn has been told they cannot get a T1 at any price.

All businesses are becoming more and more reliant on broadband. Businesses now need broadband to be successful and competitive. Following are some of the key ways that all businesses in the county want to use broadband to operate their business:

• Transmitting Large Data Files. Companies today need to send massive data files that consist of such things as drawings, blueprints, videos, and other formats that create large files. The very slow data speeds in the County make transmitting large files impossible in many instances. As slow as download speeds are in the County, upload speeds are even slower.
• Redundancy. Companies are so reliant on bandwidth that many of them want redundant paths to the Internet. They want to be able to get services from more than one internet provider to provide reliability when provider networks crash (which they do). Very data intensive companies also seek physical redundancy, meaning they want more than one physical wire path leaving their location to get to the world, to protect from local problems like cable cuts.
• VoIP. Many companies would like to use VoIP as a way to manage long distance costs and to bring uniformity to corporate communications. VoIP is voice called transmitted over the company’s data connections. The poor data speeds in the County make VoIP impractical today.
• Disaster Recovery. Businesses create large amounts of data and they understand that it would be crippling to lose their data. Thus, firms are using disaster recovery techniques to make sure that corporate data is secure in the case of a disaster at any one location in the company. Disaster recovery involves several techniques. Primary is the storing of data in more than one location, usually at least in one spot that is outside of the company. Disaster recovery also involves systems and software that would allow the company to continue working using external servers should they physically lose their hardware from a fire, flood or other disaster.
• Video Conferencing. Because of the ever increasing cost of travel and due to a drive for efficiency, companies are using more and more video conferences. At any given time there can be multiple video conferences emanating from the same location at the same time, requiring significant bandwidth.
• Training. Training is become a constant need for businesses. Training does not involve only new employees, but all employees need to be trained in new processes and procedures. Without broadband, training involves sending the employees to a distant training center. However, with the use of video conferencing and the use of large interactive training programs, companies can train for a few hours per day and get productivity from workers. These new training processes require significant broadband.
• Cloud Computing. Cloud computing is a relative new business model whereby businesses are abandoning servers and computers in favor of using virtual servers located at large, remote and secure locations. Companies have come to realize that operating their own servers and trying to keep up with new computers and software is costly and sometimes dangerous. Almost every company has had major problems when their server was compromised by a virus or when a key computer crashed and destroyed key data. Thus, cloud computing now offers a set of services that make it easy for companies to manage the IT process.

Education

Broadband can enhance education throughout the community. Citizen’s educational opportunities can be enhanced both in the local school system and through greater access to E-learning models. Distance learning programs may be an enhancement to the educational environment in the schools, but will also provide for continuing education and opportunities for all ages. As pointed out in High-Speed Learning[1], “The greatest and most profound effect of broadband on the learning process, however, could come from equal and affordable access not just to schools, but homes as well.”

Cook County is already a leader in using video conferencing through the Higher Ed program. Students today are already getting degrees in the County without having to move out of the county. However, with better broadband Higher Ed could do much more. Today’s video conferencing connections are of poor quality and often lose connections during classes. Also, the connections are expensive and thus there are only a few connections that can be afforded at one time. With a fiber network Higher Ed could open multiple centers and could even facilitate taking classes from homes using video conferencing.

We think everybody understands how schools can benefit by more bandwidth, and some of these reasons are listed below. However, perhaps the biggest benefit of a County-wide broadband network is that students can get access to all of the school’s resources from their homes. This is a transformational event that will change the way that education is done in the County.

Following are some of the ways that the County believes that improved broadband throughout the community can improve education opportunities:

• Broadband can provide synchronous (real time) and asynchronous (on demand) interaction and collaboration across distances, enhancing access to professional development workshops, degree and certification programs, virtual tours, field trips, special events, etc.
• Broadband will provide an opportunity for improved teacher training and development at a time when funds are being reduced. Video conferencing and Web-casts, both of which require significant network bandwidth, can improve access while reducing travel and training costs.
• Broadband can transform the learning experience for students as it can expose them to a range of exciting and innovative learning content that was previously either inaccessible or unpractical in the narrowband environment. Exposure to new forms of content can have a positive motivational effect and encourage students to want to learn.
• Greater use of data, text, graphics, voice, and video to supplement textbooks and instruction with multimedia formats that tap into the many different learning styles of students and teachers.
• The ability to model or simulate “what-if” scenarios to help students understand difficult concepts.
• Distance Learning, which is the ability to deliver on-line instruction by highly qualified teachers for courses where the number of students is too small or a teacher is not available. Many schools are using distance learning to bring instruction for languages, advanced science and math courses, advanced college placement classes for high school students, etc.
• Provide ‘distance learning to the home’ for students who are sick, injured or otherwise home-bound.
• Deliver new potentialities. Broadband can facilitate new and innovative e-learning opportunities on a wider scale. For example, broadband has been used to enhance modern language learning through conversational language lessons with native speakers in other countries. It has also been utilized to provide school students with access to mathematics experts.
• Widen access to education. Broadband can be used to widen access to educational material and new learning opportunities by using links from schools to the wider communities, such as libraries, museums, theatres and other cultural institutions.
• Broadband can bring learning to everybody in the community by making the same coursework and resources available to the wider community, not just to students.

Health Care

Access to broadband networks can benefit both health care providers and consumers. These benefits can include improved quality of services, reductions in cost, dissemination of health information to the public, reduced time in hospitals and more efficient administration.

A widely quoted study by Robert E. Litan estimated the economic benefits from the use of broadband technologies for Americans who are over 65, or who have disabilities. In the study, Dr. Litan estimated that the net present value of total benefits of broadband for this sub-group will be $927 billion in 2005 dollars over the next 25 years. These benefits include “lower medical costs; delay of institutionalized living; and additional output generated by more seniors and individuals with disabilities in the labor force.”[2] Dr. Litan maintains that broadband technologies will benefit the elderly and disabled through cost savings in medical care, as follows:[3]

The cost savings arise because broadband will facilitate the widespread usage of disease management programs that require constant or “real-time” communication between patients and providers of medical care in a way that would be much less convenient or even impossible in a “dial-up” world (for example, through remote monitoring by health care providers and by two-way communications between patients and health care providers, or “telemedicine”).

Medical monitoring enabled by broadband should also delay (or conceivably eliminate the need for) institutionalized living for some seniors and individuals with disabilities….The VA’s integrated chronic disease monitoring program has produced impressive cost savings, cutting hospital admissions by up to 60 percent.

To summarize the benefits of broadband for health care:

• Makes doctors more efficient and allows them to review files, x-rays and other patient material remotely, as needed.
• Telemedicine allows local health facilities to consult real time with experts elsewhere, saving on transporting patients and reducing time for treatment.
• Telemedicine can reduce the length of hospital stays, reducing costs and allowing patients the benefits of being at home.
• Remote monitoring offers the ability for the elderly to live at home for longer, thus drastically reducing costs and improving the quality of life.
• Nurses and doctors can use two-way connections for examining and talking to patients in their homes.

Government

Many governments across the country are using broadband to improve service to constituents. This movement is often referred to as e-government. Following is a list of some of the key ways that other governments are benefitting from broadband.

• Teleworking. Many municipal jobs routinely stretch past 5:00. Employees and constituents benefit greatly if employees have access to all of the government systems at any time from their homes. Allowing full remote access requires more bandwidth for each government IT system, but also more bandwidth at employee homes. With teleworking, managers could have access at home to all data files and systems and ideally would also be able to make and receive VoIP calls using their normal municipal phone numbers from home.
• Video Conferencing. Videoconferencing can greatly reduce the cost of running government. A tremendous amount of time and money is spent traveling to and attending meetings. Cameras have become inexpensive so the only issue to overcome for video conferencing is bandwidth. Teleconferencing improves government by reducing the cost to:

1. Meet with Legislators.
2. Meet with vendors
3. Meet with other government entities
4. Attend meetings from home or from elsewhere within the County.
5. Place video conferencing in the libraries to allow citizens to have job interviews and other important meetings.
6. Conduct interviews with prospective employees.

• Video Surveillance. With ubiquitous fiber, cameras could be put anywhere when needed, even temporarily.
• Communicate Electronically. Certain communications by government require large bandwidth:

1. The ability to send very large files such as maps, blue prints, and data files.
2. The ability to send electronic evidence files to attorneys of pictures, test results, videos and other evidence instead of in hard-copy formats.
3. Video arraignment where prisoners attend court without being transported out of a secure jail setting.

• Make Government Meetings More Accessible to Constituents. Provide live streaming video of council and other important government meetings.

1. Allow replay of meetings afterwards.
2. Make meeting video streams available at library.

• Economic Development.

1. Provide video tours of the County for interested businesses.
2. Provide easier access to mapping and geologic data.
3. Provide easier access to census and other key data.

• Streamline Public Processes.

1. Automate the building permit process.
2. Automate zoning verification.
3. Automate building inspection including allowing floorplans to be electronically sent to field.
4. Automate job applicant testing.
5. Automate citizen payments for various permits and other fees.
6. Automate business and landlord licensing.

• Operational Improvements.

1. Have real-time GPS vehicle tracking.
2. Computer aided dispatch.
3. SCADA monitoring of pools and irrigation systems.

• Improvements at the libraries.

1. More bandwidth.
2. Expand offerings to include streaming videos of story time, author visits, classes, etc.
3. Expand catalog to be accessible by hand held devices.
4. Give public access to City and County data such as GIS.

• Public safety.

1. Real-time cameras in squad cars.
2. Floorplans available real time to firefighters and police.
3. Police officer briefings – officers can meet from their cars.
4. Monitor parolees and probationers.
5. Real time monitoring of firefighter biosigns

• Information Systems.

1. Connection of critical servers to backup sites.
2. Be able to send large data files.

Economic Development

Broadband can bring jobs. The County would like to create more local jobs to improve quality of life for taxpayers and to increase the tax base.

Economic research shows that public infrastructure investment is a powerful driver of business productivity, investment, and economic growth. In addition to basic infrastructure like streets, sewer and water, cities often promote the quality of schools, access to affordable health care and the availability of cultural amenities in their efforts to attract new business.

Two studies, both presented in 2005, provide some answers to the question of the relationship between the availability of broadband and economic vitality. Scholars from MIT – William H. Lehr, Carlos A. Osorio, and Sharon E. Gillett along with Marvin A. Sirbu from Carnegie Mellon University studied the economic impact of broadband using a comparative analysis of availability and use of broadband over time in different geographic areas. Their study yielded two relevant conclusions:

• Broadband access enhances economic growth and performance, and the assumed economic impacts of broadband are real and measurable. Research revealed that between 1998 and 2002, communities in which mass-market broadband became available by December 1999 experienced more rapid growth in employment, number of overall businesses, and in the IT-intensive sectors;
• Wage levels were not significantly impacted by broadband; however, the effects of broadband availability by 1999 can also be observed by higher property values in 2000.

The study focused on the use of broadband, not just the availability. The authors recommended that in order to succeed in growing your community’s economic base through mass market of broadband, the goal should be dually focused on the use of the technology as well.

A second study by George S. Ford & Thomas M. Koutsky, an economist and attorney, employed an econometric model to compare economic growth in Lake County, Florida, with other similar Florida counties. In 2001 Lake County began offering private businesses and municipal institutions access to an extensive, publicly owned fiber optic system. After comparing economic growth in Lake County to comparable counties since the introduction of broadband, Lake County was found to have 100% greater growth in economic activity, or twice the rate of comparison counties.

The Lake County study observed that publicly provided broadband infrastructure may better serve the overall community than simply relying on private telecommunications firms. Similarly, other theoretical studies have argued that municipalities invest in broadband infrastructure to serve a diffuse “public purpose” (better educated public, more business opportunities, etc.) that private providers acting alone may ignore since these external benefits cannot be captured as corporate profits.

The Bureau of Economic Advisors estimates that for each $1.00 invested in broadband, the economy benefits nearly $3.00 – but unless a private communications provider can gain the lion’s share of that economic benefit, its incentive will be to under-invest in broadband infrastructure. Economic theory indicates that in the presence of large externalities (costs or benefits of an activity), which broadband internet probably produces, public ownership of resources may be desirable.

Many cities are now focusing on attracting those individuals who start and staff innovative, fast-growing companies. Broadband is one of the basic tools seen as vital to attracting this kind of entrepreneur. In studies by the cities of Seattle, New York and Philadelphia, all conclude that their future economic well-being is tied to providing a robust, affordable broadband infrastructure. In particular, each cites the need to provide broadband, not as a luxury, but as a fundamental part of the city’s infrastructure, much like electricity was at the turn of the 20^th century.

Home Use

Just a few years ago home Internet use consisted of reading emails, gaming and web browsing. However, the advent of real broadband has greatly expanded the way that households are using bandwidth today. One can imagine that in a decade the following list will seem somewhat quaint as households find many more ways to use broadband.

Entertainment

While people still use the Internet to read emails, entertainment has grown to be much more. The most popular use of broadband today is video. Just one web site, YouTube now uses more bandwidth in a day than the entire web of 2000. Video has become ubiquitous on the web and a large number of commercial web pages now include video. As a migration is made to high definition video, the vast climb in bandwidth is expected to continue to grow rapidly. The younger generation has incorporated web video into their lifestyle and on YouTube there are two video’s created and uploaded to the system for every three watched. Regular web users have become content creators.

Online gaming is also becoming a major driver of home bandwidth. Gamers understand bandwidth and are always looking for the fastest upload speeds available. Unfortunately for gamers, DSL and cable modem are skimpy with upload speeds. One of the fastest growing categories of online gaming is known as Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMO). This chart (http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart4.html) shows that by the end of 2008 that over 15 million subscribers are actively subscribed to MMO games. MMO games include such games as World of Warcraft (with 10 million subscribers), Lineage, RuneScape, Final Fantasy, Eve Online, Dofus and many others. MMO games allow huge numbers of games to play simultaneously on gigantic game boards.

Even more millions of gamers play games using the interactive versions of games available on the various game boxes. Some game boxes like the Xbox now also allow simultaneous VoIP conversation among games as part of the gaming bandwidth.

Telework

Broadband enables many people to work wherever they can get broadband. As U.S. jobs continue to shift from manufacturing to information industries, more and more jobs can be done remotely, at least part of the time. Teleworkers are not only those who work full time at home, but increasingly are becoming those who work occasionally from home, or who work from home on weekends.

Teleworkers need bandwidth in order to simulate the environment they have at the office in their home. They want access to the company servers and voice systems to seamlessly be able to work from wherever they are at.

One study shows that commuters drive 53% to 77% percent less on days that they “telecommute” – i.e., work from home using broadband capabilities – than on days when they drive into their offices.[4] Another study estimates that a three-day-a-week telecommuter could save an average of $5,878 a year in commuting costs and would avoid putting 9,060 pounds of pollutants into the environment.[5] Another study estimated that full use of telecommuting opportunities would annually save $3.9 billion in fuel costs and the equivalent of 470,000 in jobs.

Job Training and Re-training

Several experts have estimated that the average U.S. worker will now have 4 to 5 different types of jobs during a career. This means that job training and re-training has to become a normal part of any worker’s career. Even today, interactive training videos are among the largest files that are transmitted on the internet. These videos are not simple movies but include an interactive component whereby the student interacts with the information presented and also takes tests. These files can easily be a gigabit or larger and will not be readily available to workers without real broadband. Further, many Internet service providers like the telephone and cable companies are placing monthly limits on the amount of bandwidth a customer can download. The combination of slow data speeds and bandwidth limits is going to limit the ability of many communities to retrain their citizens as they are forced to change jobs over their careers.

Elderly

We are now at a point in our history where the baby boomers are starting to age. The country is going to be faced with a crisis of having millions of elderly and caring for this generation is going to swamp the health care industry.

A number of Internet-based technologies and companies are holding out the possibility that the elderly will be able to stay in their homes longer and not need to be sent to institutions. For example, there are now sophisticated monitoring services available that allow doctors and nurses to examine patients daily at home. These same services allow family members to stay in touch and check in on family members frequently. Some of these monitoring programs can constantly monitor vital signs, can report when an elderly person falls down or falters in any way.

These kinds of services are going to require significant broadband because they involve using constant video surveillance. Further, the medical monitoring requires high quality video and not the grainy sort of videos one sees from much commercial surveillance tapes.

Disabled

The disabled face the same kind of challenges as the elderly and there are starting to be a number of broadband-based services that give a better quality of life to the disabled. Just as with the elderly, these programs start with monitoring and surveillance where needed. However, in many cases broadband is also used to help operate devices that ease the life tasks for the disabled.

Finally, telework has brought the opportunity for many disabled to work from home with a much better lifestyle than with difficult commutes.

Surveillance and Security

The advent of inexpensive video cameras has led to a boom in home surveillance and security. Millions of homes are now operating surveillance cameras that can be accessed from the web so that they can check on their homes when they are absent. These cameras are used not only for general security, but are also being used to watch babysitters and to check on pets and kids.

Video cameras require a significant amount of upload bandwidth since they run a continuous bit stream. Homeowners desire to have video streams with greater clarity, meaning even more bandwidth. As high definition cameras get cheaper, the bandwidth need for cameras will continue to grow.

Device Management

A new phenomenon is the use of bandwidth to manage devices. Homeowners are beginning to connect interactive chips for energy management and are able to control thermostats, hot water heaters, and other energy-using devices to save on energy when they are not at home, and to have the home ready on their return. Security systems also can be made to switch lights on and off at random to make the home look occupied.

Some companies are now marketing smart home devices that go even further and that can be used to turn on the oven, the coffeemaker, the alarm clock or any device connected to the system.

All of these systems are being made easy to use by giving control of the connection to cell phones. This is an industry that is just beginning and one can expect the country to embrace these technologies more as we turn to become a greener nation.

Social Media and Web 2.0

The term “Web 2.0” was coined in 2004 by Dale Dougherty. Web 2.0 has come to mean the way that the younger generation and wired businessmen are using the Internet to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users.

Social media is a terminology developed to describe the way that young people are now using the Internet. One report defines social media as:

. . .the set of technologies, applications, and other elements defining the current stage of evolution of the Internet. The term encompasses the change from a “flat” web model to a highly dynamic mix of rich applications. These latest technologies enable a much higher participatory role for users in the generation of information content and a new level of interactivity of users with information and among themselves, among other features. Social media involves a wide range of technologies and services, including blogs (Blogger, Blogflux, etc.); wikis (Wikipedia, Wikia, Wetpaint, etc); social networking sites (MySpace, facebook.com, gather.com, etc.); video and picture sharing sites (YouTube, Flickr, Google Video, etc.); social bookmarking sites (del.icio.us, Digg, reddit, etc.); chat services (Yahoo!Chat, Skype, Windows Live Messenger, Gmail chat, etc.); virtual worlds (Second Life, Active Worlds, There, etc.); as well as podcasts, forums, and others.[6]

The Web 2.0 is changing the way that most people use the Internet. In the first generation of the Internet, large companies created websites that posted static information. Participation in the web mostly consisted of filling in forms when asking for information or ordering something from the web. However, the Web 2.0 has become a very different place both for individual users and for companies. Following are some of the latest ways that the Web is changing:

• Content Creation. Millions of people now routinely create web content in the form of uploading videos, writing blogs, creating podcasts, editing and adding to wikis.
• Combining Web Applications. The web is getting more powerful as users and companies find ways to combine web applications. For example, almost any database can be overlaid on Google maps – a list of French restaurants, people who donated to a political cause, members of a club – to create useful visual data that is very different than the raw maps or the raw databases.
• Personalized News – Users can use web bots and RSS feeds to keep track of news that matters to them. Web bots are tools that will search for articles related to specific topics. RSS feeds allow users to get an automatic update any time a web site of interest changes.
• Data Mining. Companies like Amazon.com and eBay save data from customer web searches and make suggestions of things that could be of interest to them. More and more companies are mining data to try to reach out to individuals. There is a big move towards individually aimed advertising where firms will only advertise to those they think would be interesting in their products.
• Architecture of Participation. This is a fancy way of saying that as new websites gain recognition and users, word of mouth quickly drives new users to the website. This explains how new web applications and sites can explode to millions of users in a relatively short period of time.

As the web moves towards greater and greater collaboration and interactivity, the amount of bandwidth needed increases.

Some Specific Ideas for Cook County

While applying for the stimulus grant the County found some specific applications of broadband that would improve life in the County. These ideas have all surfaced in the last few months and one would expect over the next decade that many more improvements in County services would result from broadband.

• Arrowhead Electric Cooperative – Is interested in using broadband to deploy smart grid technologies. Smart Grid technology is the next generation energy management systems that allow consumers to have much more control over their energy usage.
• The Schools – Would take advantage of broadband by working with the County to develop a technology curriculum in the schools that will focus on creating Public Service Announcements, local advertising, and community service programming content.
• Grand Portage Tribal Council – will partner with the county to access video end-points throughout the county to provide easier access to participation in cross-government collaborative efforts.
• Cook County Higher Education (CCHE) – As described above, CCHE would use broadband to expand the availability of college courses. Classes are offered only by video conferencing and the new network will allow for many more classrooms including Nursing and Anishanabe language classes.
• The United States Forest Service Seagull Guard Station is a critical access facility during forest fires in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Broadband would allow for better communication to monitor forest fires. And other emergencies.
• WTIP - the region's only local radio station would partner with the broadband network to enhance their ability to reach more listeners by providing co-location facilities, power backup, and increased bandwidth to their audio streaming servers.
• The Blandin Foundation has offered funding to the County to move the use of broadband technology forward rapidly and broadly. Projects will be launched to address digital inclusion, create and support knowledge workers, stimulate innovative use of technology in business and government, and to create a culture of broadband technology use through marketing and advocacy.
• Sawtooth Mountain Clinic, which lacks full-time IT support staff, would partner with the County to become an anchor tenant on the new network and utilize County IT expertise to extend their electronic medical records system to satellite locations 30 & 45 miles away.

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[1] Fulton, Katherine. (2006). “High-Speed Learning: How Broadband Is Changing The Educational Landscape”. LastMile. March, 2006. www.lastmileonline.com/previous-issues/3-06_coverstory.htm. (High Speed Learning)

[2] Litan, Robert E. (2006). “Broadband for Seniors and Disabled”. Broadband Properties. Online, http://www.broadbandproperties.com/2006issues/feb06issues/Litan%20-%20Health%20and%20Medicine.pdf. (Broadband For Seniors).

[3] Ibid.

[4]“Walls and Safirova, “A Review of the Literature on Telecommuting and Its Implications for Vehicle Travel and Emissions”p 19 http://www.rff.org/Documents/RFF-DP-04-44.pdf

[5] Grant Gross, “Survey: More Government Workers Can Telecommute,” InfoWorld, (February 19, 2008), http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/02/19/More-government-workers-can-telecommute_1.html

[6] Victor Cid and Laura Bartlett, “Government Outreach in Social Media and Virtual Worlds,” in USA Services Intergovernmental Newsletter (Fall 2007), http://www.gsa.gov/gsa/cm_attachments/GSA_DOCUMENT/USA_Services_Newsletter_Fall-07_R2-vA11_0Z5RDZ-i34K-pR.pdf