“Tell It Like It Is”

Michael E. Brunner, EVP & CEO
National Telecommunications Cooperative Association
NTCA Regional Speech

Tell It Like It Is
Welcome to your regional meeting. I’ll begin by taking you back to ancient Greece, to the city of Athens. There, twenty-five hundred years ago, the concept of civic spirit sprang to life. When a citizen reached voting age, he was required to stand in the public square—before his family and neighbors —and say these words:

“We will strive unceasingly to quicken the public sense of duty. We will make this city greater and more beautiful than it was when we took this oath.”

This sense of duty, I believe, extends to the industry that we serve. There are pressures on rural telecom that can’t be ignored. Today I’m going to ask for your involvement. I’m going to talk about money, phone calls, e-mail and letters. I’ll share what your fellow members are doing to influence the powers-that-be.

Before doing that, let me go over what we’re fighting for:

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Skyline Telephone PowerPoint Presentation
North Carolina

On behalf of Skyline Telephone Membership Corp. (West Jefferson, NC), WriteVentures produced a PowerPoint presentation that utilized past photos, video stills, logos and graphics to commemorate the telephone company's 50th anniversary. The nine-minute presentation made its debut at Skyline's annual meeting on October 6, 2001.

Click here to view a Flash sample of this presentation.

(You will need the Flash plug-in to view this sample.
For the free download, please visit the Macromedia website)

Network News Special Edition Newsletter
Emery Telcom
Orangeville, Utah

“Consider Sue Thompson of East Carbon. She sells fishing lures. These are not just ordinary lures, but hand crafted, wooden lures. Working out of her home, she sells them through her web site, www.easterncedarlures.com.

She launched her web site a year ago, doing research beforehand on web sites, banner exchanges, fishing lure companies, and suppliers. At her web site, she has numerous links with fishing exchange organizations. “They’ve been invaluable,” she says. “The links give me such exposure. They give me an edge I wouldn’t have otherwise—especially living in a small county.”

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“Everything is intertwined: the Internet, computers, televisions, wireless devices, the list goes on. Independent telco technicians—be they involved in the local network, backbone technology, out in the field installing DSL lines, or extending an ISP’s reach—cannot afford to take a myopic view of their world. They need to grasp the big picture. They need to understand converging intelligence.”

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