10.3.11 – As patrons browsed the shelves and logged in to the public computers at the Central Library, elsewhere in the building, a cadre of community-minded business professionals discussed how information moving at light speed could change life in Kansas City.

As Joe Cox, president of the Social Media Club of Kansas City, put it, "Google is coming here to build the sandbox and fill it with sand. It’s our job to get the Tonka trucks and build the sandcastles.”

When Google announced that it would choose Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas, to serve as a test market for a new high-speed, fiber optic broadband Internet connection, local groups such as the Social Media Club began uniting the tech community to devise a roadmap for how the city can take advantage of Google Fiber.

Those efforts came to fruition this past Monday, when the Kansas City Public Library hosted the landmark Building a Gigabit City ideation workshop and public forum. In the daylong workshop, the Brainzooming Group led a diverse group of 80 plugged-in locals brainstorming ways Google Fiber can be used in the areas of K-12 schools, higher education, urban and suburban living, libraries, health care, and community activities. At the end of the day, the group presented its results before a crowd of 162 people from the public.

The video below gives a quick peek into what was a truly rich and almost overwhelming day of top-caliber idea generation and communal dialogue.

Check the Library’s online Media Center in a few days for full video of the evening session (full audio is available now).

About the Author

Jason Harper is the web content developer at the Kansas City Public Library. A former journalist, he has been tweeting, Facebooking, blogging, and YouTubing for the Library since 2010.