Certainly talking about vision can make some uncomfortable. It's sad that the idea of vision is such a cliche in the business environment. There is real power in vision.

I remember the first story about vision that impressed me. President Kennedy had the vision of getting a man to the moon by the end of the decade. He articulated this dream in the early 60s. There is a story about one of the contractors who realized that their mathematical calculations were wrong and that by moving forward the program would fail. The story goes that they admitted to making these mistakes and also offered to withdraw from the project. They were retained, the calculations were reworked and, as we now know, the vision was accomplished. (Of course, some still believe that the whole thing was staged on a set in Burbank.)

Well, what does all of that have to do with UEN? Good question, and the one I was hoping you'd ask.

Today I spent time traveling to rural Utah to discuss installation of Gigabit Ethernet circuits in a certain School District. (I really, really don't want to say which district until we actually get things in place. Call me superstitious.) But here is the point. Providing we get the e-rate funding we applied for, we will be able to complete 9 Ethernet projects over the next 6 months. These projects will bring something in the order of $8 million into the pockets of Utah Telcos while costing the taxpayers of Utah less than a third of that total.

Best of all, these circuits will carry video, data and voice traffic to and from our schools and will prepare those schools, students, and faculty to meet the educational demands for years to come.

We could have accepted the status quo. We could have given up, continued to order T-1 circuits and waited for the economy to get better. Instead, we found a way to get things done. That's the power of vision. It worked for the space program. It is working for UEN and school districts around the state and it will work for us as we take our network to the next level..........
9:44:50 PM    comment []