“Pay it forward and advance our city”
DCentric
MacBook Air in hyper-privileged Ward 2, where there is almost 100% broadband adoption.
Like Congress Heights on the Rise, Blogger Nicole in DC also has concerns about the digital divide and #DCtweeps, the WaPo social media contest which I posted about earlier today:
…we’re the leaders in this online community whether we choose to be or not. We make a living, feed ourselves and/or our families, and have an offline social network because we’re the best. People listen to what we have to say and are invested in our opinions and our lives. We’re not living up to our responsibilities as leaders through innovation, change, or betterment of our community and our neighbors; instead, we’re participating in meaningless competitions to garner an award from a print publication that does a poor job at covering/reporting the news on social media. Furthermore, we’re squandering the power we do have when we succumb to competitions like this…
Community isn’t about putting ourselves above our friends and neighbors who are left behind.
* Case in point: DC broadband access. While we’re sitting here making a living off the internet, social media marketing, or whatever buzzword philosophy term you coined last month, there are parts of this city that have basically no internet access. The entire city has a broadband adoption rate of just 57% while Wards 1, 2, and 3 have adoption rates of nearly 100%. We’ve put a lot into who we are on the internet and the internet has paid us back. Shouldn’t we now try to pay it forward and advance our city?…
We’ve allowed our leadership to morph into a constant online popularity contest where we vote for coolest nerd or floppiest butterfly instead of recognizing those who have actively sought to change the way our communities function. We’ve lost touch of what we’re supposed to be doing as leaders and I really hope we can find our way soon enough.
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Farewell, DCentric
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Judithclaire