I grew up in a small town, at the time the population of the town was like 29,000.  That isn’t really that small some of you might say, you’ve probably gone through towns that only had 500 or 100 people in it.   Which brings me to my point, Small towns are always going to be behind large towns in technology.

Most of us who have worked on computers or even been in the field for some time knows how hard it is to explain to the uneducated why they need to keep their systems up to date.  It gets really hard explaining to companies in small towns why they need to worry about security.   You try to explain this to a company Representative and you see t he glassy eyed stare that tells you they aren’t even listening anymore.

I’ve been debating talking about this post from the Washington Post, Security Fix.  Now the reason I’ve been having trouble is that the article talks about a town that I grew up, I think of this town as a hometown for me.  I remember Hopkinsville, Ky as a great experience, because the teachers at my school was not comfortable with the computer nerds.  Most of the time, I am sure they felt woefully uneducated about computers.

In my experience here are three reasons why Small towns will always be behind in Technology:

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1. Education System — This is where we start, most of us know that it is our education that gives us our community understanding of the problem.   The education of the system of small towns will always be the last to get the newest stuff or the best stuff, in part because of grants from the local Government.  Nothing new there, because small towns can’t raise a lot of money with very few people in terms of taxes.
2. Internet availability — You’ve probably experienced this in your lifetime.  You  go to a city or town and there is not a lot of places for you to get on the internet.  You get to a small town and have only 1 or 2 places you can go to check your email or do business stuff.   We are beginning to become an internet dependent society.  In the way of getting our information from the Internet.
3. Local Government —  This is the most important aspect of why small towns will be behind in technology.  Most Governments in small don’t have the resources to require school systems to incorporate the newest technology or the fastest possible internet speeds.  I love to watch the Show Everwood, it actually speaks some very good truths about small towns.  They aren’t worried about the nation, they are only worried about what is going on Locally.  Until this changes they will never embrace technology like the big city.

Although some of this might of changed in the last few years, I don’t think so because of the report from The Washington post.   Companies in Small towns need to worry about Security.  They need [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]Anti-virus Software and Firewalls,[/intlink] even if it is Dialup they need something to keep them protected.  Remember there are eight levels of security, and you’re the last level!!