T.J. Rogers, NO/AIDS Task Force

I live and work in New Orleans and therefore my experience with municipal wireless has been rather unique. When I returned home after Hurricane Katrina, anywhere with wireless access became my office. I spent many days at a table littered with coffee cups, trying to get work done. I was hardly alone. Every patron in that coffee shop had turned it into a temporary office. Wireless access was everyone's lifeline to keep their business or organization going.

In the months following Katrina, New Orleans implemented a free high-speed wireless network in the downtown area, and last month made the service available citywide. Now that we are no longer operating in survival mode, we have a chance to evaluate how municipal wireless benefits organizations in the city.

The most obvious lesson is that nonprofits can now be more mobile. We can take our programs to streets, venues, and on the road, and still have access to information and online databases without much extra cost to the organization. I work for an AIDS service organization in New Orleans and one of the things municipal wireless allows us to do is streamline our venue-based HIV testing and counseling. We are able to put information from testing sessions directly into the city-wide database, check to see when follow-up appointments are available for those who need them, and overall have more information at our fingertips. All of that essentially boils down to making the process of getting someone into service quicker and more efficient. This same scenario could also be true of voter registration drives, meal delivery programs, and many other services.

Whether your organization is focused on education or the environment or social services, municipal wireless can benefit it. Communicating with its constituents is necessary for every organization, and with municipal wireless your message has the potential to reach more people as more people will have access to the Internet and email. It is also inevitable that Internet hotspots that provide computers will become more prevalent around towns with citywide wireless. Web 2.0 concepts and tools will be more useful and more popular. If anyone can access the Internet, the use of things like MySpace, Flickr, Technorati, Bloglines, and other web based tools will increase. Bookmarks, data, pictures, and more will be online not as a means of convenience and fun but of necessity and everyday work. Nonprofits can harness the power of these free networking tools to promote themselves as well as keep their clients informed.

Municipal wireless has any number of other potential uses for nonprofits, and that potential is increasing exponentially. Google has launched free wireless internet access in Mountain View, CA, and is teaming up with Earthlink to do the same in San Francisco. Google is also working with Alpha Networks to create a Google Talk Wi-Fi phone with access to Gmail. Skype has announced that four phone manufacturers are working to release cell phones that will be pre-loaded with Skype software and able to be used anywhere there is wireless access. I'm sure there are a host of other things I could discover if I just typed "wireless technology" into any search engine. All of this promises the potential for more people to be more connected more of the time. In New Orleans where regular trash pick-up excites us, this seems far away some days. The future is coming, however, and nonprofits would be wise to be ready for it.