Lessons in Broadband Literacy from the Barbershop

I’ve been going to the same barber for about 12 years now. He’s aware that I work in the tech industry so we always have discussions about gadgets mixed in with the usual sports trash talk and banter about current events that you can only hear at the “shop”.

Recently, I visited the shop with my sons to get a fresh cut.  There was a little wait till it was our turn. During the downtime, I decided to whip out my iPhone (like I do at pretty much any idle moment) and finished watching “Iron Man” on Netflix. When it was my turn in the chair, my barber asked me what I was doing and I proceeded to explain. The more I gave him details about Netflix and it streaming capabilities, the more I could see I was getting the attention of the rest of the shop.

By the time I explained that I could not only watch movies on my computer but on my Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and my Wii, the whole room was hooked. The shop exploded with people talking about how much they spend on renting movies while others talked about how cool it would be to watch the whole season of their favorite show or one of their movies on their favorite devices.

Things had almost quieted down until someone asked me the price. When I told them it was only $8.99 a month the room erupted as if someone hit the game-winning basket. Half of the room was talking about signing up to Netflix and then watching movies on their game consoles, the other half about how they were going to get iPhones so they could watch them anywhere but ALL of them talked about how they were going to get a broadband internet connection setup at home.

As I walked out of the shop, I thought about how the effects of  the digital divide continues to have on the black community. While African Americans are avid users of the mobile web, reliable, high-speed internet access is still lacking. However, the gap is closing. According to The Pew Internet & American Life Project 2010 Home Broadband report, the number of African Americans with broadband in their homes rose from 46% in 2009 to 46%. This is encouraging news because instant access to movies is only one of the myriad of benefits of having broadband access and how no one in the room knew about it. The Internet companies are constantly wishing for a room of new customers that they could introduce their products to. More importantly, they’re looking for people that recognize the immediate value these products bring to their lives. If these two groups got together imagine what products could be created from the data exchange.

My other thought was that this is data the government should be hearing and seeing instead of dwelling on scare tactics about hypothetical problems.  The real problem is there are people who aren’t aware of the transformative power of  broadband and the many ways it can benefit and improve their lives and the lives of their sons and daughters. The lion’s share of people left out of the loop continue to be minorities. The Pew Report also noted that “[b]y a 53%-41% margin, Americans say they do not believe that the spread of affordable broadband should be a major government priority.” Even more interesting was the finding that non-internet users were more likely say that ensuring that everyone had access to a high-speed internet connection should not be a high government priority. The lion’s share of people left out of the loop continue to be minorities.

In the future, I want to see more people make connections like the one I was privy to. I truly hope the government puts its focus in making sure everyone has access to broadband, is educated in its benefits and ensures that the entire nation is digitally literate. Once this is accomplished, there will be more broadband conversations in barbershops everywhere that will hopefully extend into the communities at large.

About the Author
Navarrow Wright is the CTO of Interactive One, Interactive One is a digital and print media company focusing on the African-American and urban market. As CTO Wright is responsible for the technical strategy of all the Interactive One online properties which include Hellobeautiful, The UrbanDaily, NewsOne, Elev8 and BlackPlanet. He is also responsible for the technical management of the Radio One Network’s radio sites Navarrow was formerly the President of Maximum Leverage Solutions ( http://maxlevsolutions.com), An internet technology consulting firm. Wright is the Co-founder of Globalgrind.com with Russell Simmons and The former CTO of BET.com. Navarrow blogs about issues in technology that affect entrepreneurs, minorities and urban youth on his site at http://www.navarrowwright.com
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