City getting serious about getting Google 

Posted: 12:12 pm Thu, March 11, 2010
By Robert J. Terry
Daily Record Managing Editor/Online & Special Publications

Baltimore got serious this week in its push to convince technology giant Google to build an ultra-fast broadband network costing hundreds of millions of dollars in the city.

The appointment Thursday of a “Google czar” from the private sector to lead the strategic effort, as well as lining up the support of top business executives and organizations around town, saw to that.

There were other moves that went beyond spreading the word on Twitter and Facebook. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said she would join other city and state officials — including Gov. Martin O’Malley — who have already posted pitches on YouTube. She’s also tasked city agencies with compiling the data necessary to flesh out the request for information, or RFI, that Google is asking for from interested municipalities by March 26.

Fast-growing sports apparel company Under Armour was talked into lending its marketing expertise to the cause. And local organizers are compiling “use cases” for Google on how its network would be leveraged, as well as detailed information on infrastructure assets such as city-owned conduit lines that run beneath the streets.

What this week’s developments underscore is that the trick now going forward is largely strategic. The response to Google’s RFI will need to be crafted in such a way that it highlights both Baltimore’s assets — world-class medical institutions, proximity to the federal government, leading information-intensive research labs such as the Space Telescope Science Institute — while also demonstrating the region’s needs and how such a network could be used for profit, social change, entrepreneurship and innovation.

“Baltimore has a lot of strategic assets that not a lot of cities can lay claim to,” said David Troy, CEO of Roundhouse Technologies and an early leader in organizing the grassroots effort to win Google’s nod.

That’s not to say Baltimore doesn’t face significant challenges. Municipalities around the country have thrown their hat in the ring. Some are hoping to appeal to Google’s technical side: Washington, D.C., for example, has touted its own fiber network loop as a “middle mile” that can easily bring the Mountain View, Calif.-based company’s planned 1 gigabit-per-second fiber to the doorsteps of residents.

Others are taking an approach more focused on generating buzz: Topeka, Kan., renamed itself Google, Kan., for the month of March.

“I don’t believe some of these gimmicky ploys are going to be effective,” said Donald C. Fry, CEO of the Greater Baltimore Committee, which is rounding up business support at the mayor’s request. “Baltimore is a place where we have seen history and innovation intersect.”

Google unveiled plans Feb. 10 to spend hundreds of millions of dollars constructing a network connecting homes and businesses directly to the Internet. Its stated goal is to make Internet access “better and faster for everyone.” That could mean everything from instantly generating three-dimensional medical images over the Web to offering supplemental materials for school students to downloading a movie in five minutes.

Observers also note Google’s push for an “open-access” Web infrastructure and a desire for telecommunications companies such as Verizon Communications and Comcast to upgrade their pipes to move data faster and more efficiently.

Google says its network will deliver Internet speeds on fiber-optic cables more than 100 times faster than the Web access enjoyed by most Americans and will serve anywhere from 50,000 to 500,000 people.

Tom Loveland was introduced by Rawlings-Blake Thursday as Baltimore’s “Google czar.” Loveland, CEO of Mind Over Machines, is perhaps best known for the lobbying and grassroots effort he led that resulted in the 2008 repeal of a state tax on computer services.

His charge between now and March 26, he said, will be lining up business support for the effort and coordinating the overall strategy to win Google’s nod for the network. That will mean working with agencies such as the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development and Neighborhoods.

“It’s a really super-easy ask,” Loveland said of pulling companies such as Under Armour into the mix. “But they need to be asked. We need to show Google that Baltimore’s private citizens, major companies and city government are all in lockstep behind this thing.”

The Google RFI seeks detailed information on demographics, the local regulatory framework, event the weather. It was released in tandem with an op-ed by CEO Eric Schmidt lamenting an “innovation deficit” in the U.S. as the economy continues to slog through the recession. For Loveland, Baltimore is a “tinderbox of innovation.” Google fiber is “the spark.”

For another local tech executive, the exercise reminds him of different large-scale undertaking with multiple stakeholders and game-changing implications.

“It’s almost like we’re competing for the Olympics,” said Joseph Weaver, CEO of Global Design Interactive, an Owings Mills marketing firm. “There’s the same kind of momentum and flow.”