Jeff Deckman
President, Capability Accelerators, and former chair of the Rhode Island Technology Council
Providence, RI

As a small business owner in Rhode Island, I was encouraged to hear about President Obama’s Jobs Summit. In a previous blog for NextGenWeb, I detailed the integral role broadband has played in how I operate my business. Not only have I experienced these benefits first-hand, I am an independent business advisor and have seen the innovative ways other business owners I advise are using broadband to grow their business and create new jobs.

During this challenging time for our nation’s economy, we are poised for a promising economic transformation made possible by the power of broadband. We have heard the President and other members of his cabinet emphasize the role broadband plays in job creation and I expect it was a central part of the summit discussions among top business and labor leaders inside the White House.

Green job creation, health IT technology that creates jobs and reduces health care costs, expanded educational opportunities to give more people access to job opportunities, broadband is the common denominator making all of this possible. I pay close attention to these developments having served as the chair of the Rhode Island Technology Council. Recent studies have shown that an accelerated broadband push would provide a nationwide economic stimulus of $134 billion while creating 2.4 million new jobs. While all of the competing studies out there in the public domain may come up with different facts and figures, they all show that broadband is a job-creation MVP.

Broadband providers invest significant capital in infrastructure that has positive ramifications throughout the U.S. economy. The public and private sector, elected officials, business and community leaders must all work together to ensure we have the right policies in place that will continue to foster the private investment necessary to help our economy realize the full potential of broadband. It is essential to the future of my business, my state, and our nation’s economic future.

Jeff Deckman, President, Capability Accelerators, and former chair
of the Rhode Island Technology Council
Providence, RI

As an independent business advisor, the ability for me to do business is highly dependent upon my ability to have seamless and robust access to the Internet. Like many other small business owners, I spend a significant amount of time on the road meeting with clients and working to secure new business opportunities. Being able to access the Internet at different locations in between meetings helps increase productivity by eliminating wasted time. With access to the Internet and my laptop, my “office” travels with me during the day. When I am not traveling, I am able to work out of my home, so I can save costs on renting office space.

Broadband has also helped me modernize my business. Knowing that everyone is facing an information overload, I decided to use video to introduce my firm and my products on my website. This capability provides people a reprieve from having to read lengthy documents. They can instead “watch and listen” to a series of introductions. The video applications I use have received positive feedback, and people are constantly telling me my website is “cool” and engaging.

The more our broadband infrastructure is expanded, the more flexibility my business has to expand and modernize. Let’s keep that investment coming, so other small business owners like myself can benefit from the communications infrastructure that makes these economic opportunities possible.