Why not promote Northfield’s pervasiveness of free wi-fi?

Wi-fi sign in Grand Rapids

I spotted this wireless access sign last week when I was in Grand Rapids, MN. It’s on Hwy 169 over the Mississippi River bridge, as you approach the Blandin Foundation offices prior to the intersection with Hwy 2. It points to the Grand Rapids Area Library where there’s free wi-fi. I think it would be helpful to have some similar signs at strategic intersections in Northfield. (continued)

And then a list of Northfield area businesses and organizations with fee wi-fi access (an out-of-date list on Northfield.org) could be posted in the Riverwalk kiosk on the Water St. pedestrian promenade (AKA ‘Sesquicentennial Legacy Plaza’), as well as at other places around town. And the Chamber’s Visiting Northfield website should have the wi-fi listing, too, as well as the NDDC web site.

9 Comments

  1. Tracy Davis said:

    So why don’t “we” (i.e., you) make make the list and keep it updated here, so others can link to it?

    Sometimes if you want to get something done, you have to do it yourself. 🙂 Although as usual your point is well-taken.

    May 4, 2009
  2. Adam Gurno said:

    Hey Griff et al,

    Northfield.org is a community-built and driven site. We are not a small cabal of folks – rather we rely on the contribution and good will of Northfielders to keep the site updated – you know this well.

    If you know of changes that should be made to the Wifi page, the honorable and honest thing to do is to simply tell us rather than make some sort of juvenile tattle-tale post of “I know something you don’t know.” The former is being a good citizen, the latter is being a cowardly blogger.

    I also know that you don’t normally allow posts that contain honest criticisms of you, so I also don’t expect this to be posted on LNG.

    May 4, 2009
  3. Arlen Malecha said:

    Adam / Griff –

    When I first read this article I too wondered why it was important to point out the out-of-date list v. privately e-mailing Northfield.org with information they could use to update their list.

    As far as I can tell LoNoGro and Nfld.org not competing so why not work together to make both sites the best they can be for their viewers?

    Now shake hands and play nice! wink

    May 4, 2009
  4. Patrick Enders said:

    Adam,
    I’m not Griff, or et al., but aren’t you perhaps being a little overly sensitive here? Griff merely incidentally stated a pair of facts: there is a list on Nfld.org, (but) it is out of date. By contrast, Griff has no list at all.

    As for your accusation of censorship, I have read many posts on this site that have been critical of Griff. I’ve probably written one or two. I’ve never seen one removed just for the sake of preserving Griff’s shiny aura. (Though as a general rule, personal attacks on any person have been removed, or revision has been requested.) Maybe you know something I don’t know; maybe not.

    Hope everything is well over on Nfld.org.

    May 4, 2009
  5. Tracy Davis said:

    I can’t speak for Griff, but it sounded to me like his original point was: Organizations whose mission is to promote Northfield should have an interest in advertising the wide availability of free wi-fi in town.

    I’ve never thought of LoGroNo’s mission as promoting Northfield, so it doesn’t really fall under our purview. Probably not Northfield.org’s either.

    May 4, 2009
  6. Adam Gurno said:

    Just a clarification – while I have been associated with Northfield.org in the past, I’m not a member of the board now and haven’t been for 18 months or so.

    It’s a purely independent observation, what I made.

    So here’s the skinny: Griff apparently knew the list was out of date and as others have pointed out, decided to unhelpfully post about it rather than help fix it.

    And we all know that LGN’s mission isn’t to help Northfield – it’s to stir the pot to create pageviews to get Griff paid. People shouldn’t forget that.

    May 4, 2009
  7. Adam Gurno said:

    I can see where I used we when referring to N.org. That was a mistake – old habits die hard.

    May 4, 2009
  8. Griff Wigley said:

    Adam, we can’t resolve our differences via comments here… either over this issue or old ones.

    Tracy, I spoke with Nate White about this issue by phone tonight. (Nate is chair of Northfield Citizens Online Board of Directors, the non-profit that runs Northfield.org). All’s AOK.

    May 4, 2009
  9. Griff Wigley said:

    I see Nate White has updated the N.org wifi page with a note asking for help in updating the page.

    I know of three more restaurants that offer wifi:

    Culver’s
    Perkin’s
    The Ole Cafe

    And GBM now has a website so that can be linked.

    May 4, 2009

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