BusinessReport.com

Calling herself “Granny B,” Becky Collins is an Internet entrepreneur selling her homemade pillowcase dresses to anyone in the world who visits her bubbly, pink Web site.

When she started her business, she didn’t know or care about being in the forefront of a movement aimed at bringing this same concept to rural Louisiana and particularly women entrepreneurs. But LSU’s Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute and AgCenter, the Louisiana Cooperative Extension and the Washington, D.C.-based Connected Nation, all have recognized the capacity of broadband, or fast Internet, to bring the world of commerce to every house or business just about anywhere and to just about anyone.

It’s working for Collins, who lives in small rural Homer, a town of barely 5,000 people in Claiborne Parish. She sews her “sweet and simple” dresses from fabric, although they were originally made from vintage pillowcases [and still can be, if a buyer has one] hemmed with wide crochet or lace trim. She works from her 125-year-old ancestral house, every day making possible what was once impossible just a few years ago.

“The Internet is your window on the world,” she says. “I guess I’m just surprised that I could do this sitting here in little Homer and not knowing anything about business or how to go about starting it, and it’s turned out to be this big. I’m not ready for Macy’s, but I can sell this many dresses on the Internet without going anywhere.”

As with every good homespun product, she started making the frocks for her granddaughters, then friends’ daughters and granddaughters, then people encouraged her to sell them on eBay and from there she made the leap to her own Web site. The site stat counter averages up to 3,000 visitors a day. Orders have come from nearly everywhere, including Japan, Canada, England and Italy. Recently, The Oprah Winfrey Show called her about possibly being a guest on a show about women entrepreneurs.

“I left my 23-year nursing job to be Granny B,” she says of becoming a full-time entrepreneur a year ago. “I certainly never expected I’d be doing this. I expected to be buried in Medicare paperwork the rest of my days. I’m flying by the seat of my pants now. We’re figuring it out as we go, but it’s been a blast.”

Collins typically sells 20 dresses a week, but it can be much more [one order was for 200 dresses from an air force base]. Although sales can swing wildly, especially at Easter and Christmas, she happily manages the workload because she says none of this would have happened with a boutique in Homer’s struggling downtown. She’s also learned about target marketing [catering to customers in the South and Gulf Coast states], blogging, presentation, “e-parties” [someone hosts the party by e-mailing friends to shop at the Web site and, if they buy a certain number of dresses, the host gets a free dress], and color schemes that sell.

“If I make anything in pink and green or pink and brown, it will sell,” she says. “You have to stay with the trends. I eat, live, sleep and dream new ideas and patterns.”

This new world of color, texture and originality better matches Collin’s firm resolve to never take life for granted again. After surviving both lung and breast cancer nine years ago, she decided her work has to become more fulfilling.

Collins may be a country girl, but she’s living the e-commerce dream.

LSU AgCenter Agent Dora Ann Hatch says the center is working with Carol Carter, assistant director of LSU’s Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute, to bring Women in Business entrepreneurial workshops and seminars to the rural parishes to share that dream. And next year, the LSU AgCenter, the Economic Development Office and Small Business Development Center plan to offer a statewide program to teach people how to start and sustain their own online businesses.

“In the rural areas, we go into so many towns where the downtown is really a ghost town,” Hatch says. They’re encouraging brick-and-mortar businesses to go online to improve sales and use the store as a warehouse to help keep downtowns viable. In one example, Winfield storeowner Diane Heard took her specialty toy business online, Hatch says. Sales improved, which helped her afford a larger inventory that improved both online and local sales without additional cost.

However, these success stories are limited by broadband gaps in rural Louisiana. Many of them are in low-income or low-population parishes that could especially benefit economically from e-commerce.

“It’s all part of connecting rural areas to the 21st Century,” says James Barnes, director of LSU’s Delta Rural Development Center in Oak Grove. “Without connectivity, the poverty will grow. Populations in rural areas are declining and selling online could help.”

An eBay pilot program is under way at the center, which will be followed by an e-business learning workshop in fall, but it won’t address a major obstacle to making it work. Many of these hopeful rural entrepreneurs lack connectivity and, more importantly, fast Internet. Barnes says they’re encouraged to use places like libraries, schools and extension offices, but a long-term solution is needed. They’ve initiated “Connect Carroll” to map broadband gaps in East and West Carroll parishes this summer. Area officials will be able to use the maps to fill the gaps.

“Different providers have different data on what’s out there,” Barnes says of the challenges of gathering this information. “If they have it, it’s not available to any of us that I can find.”

To his knowledge, only one group called Connected Nation in Washington, D.C., has successfully collected this information and identified technology to provide service. They’ve come to Louisiana twice to discuss options.

Brent Legg, director of the organization’s state and local initiatives, says the Louisiana Public Service Commission has invited him back to discuss a “Connect Louisiana” initiative similar to one they’ve got in states like Kentucky and Ohio.

“I’m hopeful in the next couple of months we’ll have a solid plan on how we may be able to assist,” Legg says.

Paul Coreil, director of the Louisiana Cooperative Extension and vice chancellor of the LSU AgCenter, says the center invited the organization to Louisiana after seeing its success rate in Kentucky. They have also proposed to Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret that the state partner with Connected Nation to make a connectivity plan.

“We just see this as a crucial step for rural development in Louisiana,” Coreil says. “It appears these gaps are in some of the more persistent poverty parishes, and they’re having the most trouble with educational achievement and illiteracy. We still have a lot of them, especially in the Delta.”

But Coreil also says connectivity without education won’t work, and that’s a gap the AgCenter can help fill.

Additionally, there are discussions about reviving the Louisiana Broadband Commission that was derailed by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, says James Field, PSC commissioner District 2. If restored, the public-private entity would work with Connected Nation to bring affordable broadband to rural areas.

The PSC also has asked wireless carriers to provide estimates on what it would cost for them to serve these areas, Field says. The state’s universal fund, dedicated to rural access to services, could help subsidize providers’ infrastructure costs as it did with cellular telephone service. While some have looked to AT&T providing DSL to these areas, its technical limitations has made it cost prohibitive to serve less populated areas. Also, its satellite service has proven too costly for these areas, which can exceed $100 a month.

Field said future rural economic growth relies on finding affordable service.

For the past 10 years, rural Louisiana electric rates have been lower than those in the city, he says. Cooperatives generate coal-generated electricity while investor-owned facilities like CLECO and Entergy use more costly natural gas.

“I’ve always felt like rural Louisiana should be able to take advantage of their lower electricity rates and, if we can get broadband there with those lower rates, it should make it more attractive to draw industry there,” Field says. “As every month and every year goes by it will be more important for rural Louisiana to have broadband and be technologically current with everyone in the world.”