Telecommunications and Information Society Policy Forum

TISP Forum Objectives

• Foster idea exchange on key issues
• Provide a discussion arena for industry, public, and user leaders
• Foster innovative stakeholder ideas
• Support innovative solutions in the telecommunications arena
• Create statewide discussion among key stakeholders
• Engage in assessment of policy effects
• Support greater understanding of new public policy proposals
• Cooperate with related stakeholder organizations
• Provide information on technology trends in the industry
• Create linkages to foster innovative partnerships among stakeholders

The forum partners with a wide range of businesses, organizations, and individuals to bring a regular series of monthly programs into the public arena. From time to time the forum holds longer conferences and cooperates with others to provide programs around the state. The quarterly programs draw a wide-ranging audience including those who represent varied institutional public sectors at the local, country, and state level, the full range of telecommunications service providers and related businesses, the legal and professional community, the nonprofit sector, and a growing number of independent small business stakeholders, among others. The forum is unique in reaching so many different kinds of stakeholders with an interest in the critical issues of telecommunications and information change.

Topics cover a wide range of issues. Key leaders and speakers ensure that the discussions are timely and provocative, and the open, neutral atmosphere of the forum encourages highly useful exchange on important and controversial issues. The forum provides the record showing the over-time development of Minnesota public policy in telecommunications and information issues and its intersection with the play of private sector interests.

Events

Program participants regularly propose TISP Forum topics and reflect prospective public policy and industry developments in technology, as well as the legislative and regulatory arenas. The Forum invites representatives of diverse interests and viewpoints to participate in programs, which are moderated wither by the director or a guest.

Past Programs + Transcripts

• High Tech in Education: Presentation and Roundtable Discussion with Tim Lance, NYSERNet (October 17, 2007)
• Monticello: What Was Done and Next Steps - City of Monticello (MN) Fiber Optics Network Project (October 31, 2007) (Powerpoint)
• The Metro Regional Broadband Task Force: Who We Are and What We Do (December 5, 2007)
• The Imperative Need for Big Broadband: The Future is Now (June 19, 2008)
  • How to Get Going with a Business Plan - CCG Consulting, Inc. (Powerpoint)
  • Networks of Tomorrow: A Matter of Dollars and Sense - Hiawatha Broadband Communications (Powerpoint)
  • The Imperative Need for Big Broadband: The Future is Now - Oppenheimer (Powerpoint)
• Minnesota Telephone Referendum Provision: Change It? Abolish It? Retain It? (February 25, 2009)
• Blandin Foundation Project: An Application for Sustainable Broadband (September 30, 2009)
• Advances in Wireless (November 4, 2009)
• Broadband Innovation in Minnesota Counties (February 10, 2010)
  • Anoka County Broadband Project (Powerpoint)
  • Scott County Broadband (Fiber) Project (Powerpoint)
• Blandin Foundation's BTOP Grant, Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities Project, Explained (May 26, 2010)
• Preview of County-Wide FTTH Projects in Minnesota (February 17, 2011)
  • Seeking Connectivity in the Solitude of Cook County (Powerpoint)
  • Fiber to the Premise Project - Renville/Sibley County (Powerpoint)
• Public Private Broadband Partnerships: How They Work in Practice (May 4, 2011)

About the Director

Milda K. Hedblom is a professor of politics and communications at Augsburg College and a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota, as well as the director of the TISP Forum. Previously, she was an international communications fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In 2002, Hedblom served as executive coordinator of the World Summit on the Information Society, a United Nations Summit, located in Geneva, Switzerland. She has worked extensively in the United States, Europe, and Asia as an expert and consultant on a wide range of telecommunications and information policy issues.

Prof. Hedblom's consulting practice includes a varied list of local, state, national, and international clients in both private and public sectors, covering telecommunications, broadband and Internet issues in community broadband development, entry of new services, private–public network collaboration agreements, consumer and user needs, digital issues in public safety, health care, and education, among others.