Saturday, January 21, 2006

Amazon CEO confirms that small towns can achieve success through technology

No suprise here --- Amazon founder Jeff Bezos delivered the keynote this week to a group of entreprenuers in North Dakota says:

"It's getting easier and easier to do amazing things from wherever you happen to be in the world," Bezos said at a press conference. "You can physically be anywhere as you do it, and you can affect the entire world with what you build...."

"This single individual [Shawn Fanning of Napster] completely changed something," Bezos said. "That's the kind of thing people can do anywhere. They can do it in Seattle, they can do it in North Dakota."
This is an important economic development point for small town America: being technologically savvy is essential. Economic Development organizations like the Economic Development and Technology Ventures (EDTV) at Georgia Tech offer programs like TechSmart to help small towns get up to par in technology.

As I often tell my students, when dealing with technology they and I often "don't know what we don't know." It is essential to constantly inquire and to never ever assume that you "know it all." We must continually benchmark and press forward in technology to ensure that we have communities that will foster the creation of Napsters and Amazons in the garages in our small towns.

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