Boileau Communications Management LLC

Next exit: FiberTown

Over the past month, you probably heard or read about (and hopefully nominated Holland for) Google’s “Fiber for Communities” broadband experiment. The whole country went a little crazy; cities renamed themselves, elected officials risked freezing to death, and generally, everybody had a lot of fun.

We were thrilled to have the chance to provide communications support to the Holland Board of Public Works on their “Holland-Google FiberTown Campaign,” which really made a great case for bringing Google to Holland. (You can find more information on Holland’s campaign here.) More exciting than our involvement, though, was the level of community involvement that the Initiative inspired. People from all walks of life contributed in whichever ways they could to raise awareness and to get people excited, including posters, cartoons, and even a nominating party hosted by the New Holland Brewing Company, where eager volunteers helped others with Google’s online nomination form. Everyone who stopped by for help with their nomination was entered in a drawing for a wide variety of prizes, all of which were donated by Holland-area businesses. It was a nice little reminder of one of the reasons Holland is so great: community.

The nomination process ended about a week ago on Friday, March 26th. In the coming months, Google will begin sifting through the applications and plan to announce their selections by the end of the year. And even if Holland isn’t one of the names on Google’s list, one thing is for sure: we’re convinced we should be.