Lessons From The Intelligent Community Forum Summit

Last week, the Intelligent Community Forum held its annual summit in Toronto.  The underlying theme was “How Intelligent Communities Are Re-Inventing Urban and Rural Planning”, so much of the discussion was about re-invention and innovating.  

In addition to the all-day workshops for large urban jurisdictions and smaller cities/towns/rural areas, all of Friday was devoted to Ideas Day – with a slew of presentations sharing novel approaches to local government and planning.

On Thursday, capping his successful 16 year run as mayor as he retires, Mayor Michael Coleman proudly accepted the award to Columbus, Ohio as the world’s most Intelligent Community this year.

(You can see the full agenda at icfsummit2015.com.  The presentations, including mine, will be available on intelligentcommunity.org in the coming weeks.)

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One of the other highlights of the week was the keynote speech by David Johnston, the Governor General of Canada spoke on June 10th.  Before that, he was the President of the University Of Waterloo, Canada’s premier engineering school.  

Since it was established in the late 1950s, it has become the cradle for a thriving tech innovation community – Blackberry being one if the best known examples. In part, for this reason, he was part of the team in the City of Waterloo who succeeded in being named the most Intelligent Community of the year in 2007.  

He attributed its success to two policies that stand in contrast with the way that many universities try to contain the fruits of innovation within their campuses – thus actually diminishing their innovation.  

The first policy is that the university makes no intellectual property claims on the research done by faculty, researchers or students.   Instead they encourage them to commercialize their research and reap the rewards for themselves and the community.  

The second policy requires coop education of all students.  Each year, every student spends two trimesters in class and one working in a company (for pay) to apply what they’ve learned.  

Finally, it’s worth noting that all of this – the need for innovation, the changes in ways in communities have to plan – is not happening in a vacuum.  

To provide some urgency to these discussions and in case you don’t realize how fast things are changing in what are still the early days of the Internet, Rob McCann, President of ClearCable, gave an interesting presentation on the growth of Internet usage — increasing roughly 50% per year.  (He also made a strong case for the involvement of local government in building out broadband networks, especially in less dense, more rural areas.) 

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© 2015 Norman Jacknis

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Connecticut Dialogue on Public Libraries

I’ve written before about the important work of the Aspen Institute’s project, “Rising to the Challenge: Re-Envisioning Public Libraries.”  (I was a member of their Working Group and am still involved with the project.)

Yesterday, April 13, 2015, Aspen took the Dialogue on the road in a joint all-day meeting at the State Capitol in Connecticut, co-sponsored by the Connecticut State Library.  It was the first such statewide dialogue about the future of libraries.

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It brought together more than 100 elected officials, policymakers, business executives, leaders of civic organizations and those involved professionally and as trustees in libraries.  The diversity of participants was unusual – too often librarians just end up talking to themselves. 

The intent was two-fold:

“To identify strategic opportunities presented by the state’s public libraries in response to the educational, economic, social and technological transformations that are affecting individuals and communities across Connecticut.

“To explore how to leverage the assets of public libraries to build more knowledgeable, healthy and sustainable communities.

Two themes caught my attention during the day.  First, the necessity and value of library networks in a digital world.   Second, the library as a community asset, in building the community that surrounds it and as a platform for people to achieve their economic potential.

The former State Economic Development noted the role of libraries as something that will attract people to a community – in a situation where every community is competing for people.

There was a panel on a fundamental issue, but one that is seldom discussed —Library Alignment with State Priorities in Economic, Workforce and Community Development.  As Aspen noted:

“In addition to providing a platform for learning, public libraries are also hubs for community and workforce development, creativity and innovation.  They provide a variety of technologies, tools and resources; diverse spaces including maker-spaces, STEM learning labs, hacker spaces, innovations centers, co-working and collaboration spaces; and access to mentors and conversations among creative people. Public libraries are well positioned to work with government, businesses and community partners to design and deliver skill development opportunities and promote the development and use of advanced high-speed Internet connectivity.”

Governor Malloy gave the keynote address at lunch, offering the perspective of an elected chief executive:

“With information at the fingertips of everyone wherever they are, the ground is changing under libraries.

"Relevancy is a key issue for libraries.  A future role for libraries has to involve more than those people already involved with libraries. 

In addition to the traditional role of being a place for 6 year olds, libraries are "where you go to get information [and training] and to change your life.  It’s where you prepare for the next career you want or are forced to have.

Creating a new role for libraries, in the face of stagnant or declining local funds, requires more collaboration.   As an example, he pointed to Connecticut’s statewide purchases of e-books.  

During the afternoon, a subset of the leaders were invited for a roundtable discussion on next steps in implementing the ideas of the Aspen report.   (See the picture below.)

Amy Garmer, director of the program, concluded by promising that Aspen plans to continue these statewide efforts, which will involve some of us from the working group.  Maureen Sullivan, past President of the American Library Association, and I will be bringing these ideas next month to the New Hampshire Library Trustees annual meeting.  

If you want to bring this vision of the 21st century library to your state or region, please contact one of us.

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© 2015 Norman Jacknis

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/116382595125/connecticut-dialogue-on-public-libraries]

A Post-Industrial City Built On Broadband

Situated in the center of Metro Vancouver, New Westminster, which was founded more than 150 years ago, is one of the oldest cities in Canada west of Ontario. Like many older cities, its industrial base was hit by hard times beginning in the 1970s.

Now, with the strong support of its newly elected Mayor and City Council, it has set its sights on a government-sponsored fiber network backbone for its future revitalization.   This is, in part, feasible because of its relatively small size, 7 square miles.  It also helps that the city has a publicly owned electric utility which will also run the broadband network.

With the network underway, the Mayor, most of the City Council, many members of the New Westminster’s Intelligent City Advisory Committee and other leaders met, for two days last week, to consider the city’s future in a broadband era and what they will be doing about it.  

The event started with my hour-long keynote, reviewing the trends in the economy, society and technology that any small city must consider as it plans for the future.  I told the participants that the Internet age is giving small cities, like theirs, a new chance to flourish and so I wanted them to think about these big questions:

  • How can a city of fewer than 70,000 stand out in a world of 7,000,000,000 people?
  • How can New Westminster build a high quality of life by intelligently responding to the trends that will affect all of us in the future?
  • How can the people there expand their thinking about their options?

My underlying theme was that broadband, while absolutely necessary, is insufficient by itself.   I showed many examples – even a few videos – from other intelligent communities around the world who have built on the foundation of a broadband network.

(A copy of the slides can be found at http://www.newwestcity.ca/database/files/library/New_Westminster_Keynote.pdf )

I especially emphasized lifelong learning in a knowledge economy, connecting residents to global economic opportunities and services and creating a culture of innovation.  I finished by pointing out how they could use their network to provide delightful new urban experiences for both residents and visitors, which in turn would also inspire people to be more creative.  

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The second day was devoted to further discussion about the contents of the keynote and a workshop in which the participants broke out into five groups, each on a different subject – education, health, economic development, government services and the network itself.  Each group debated the implications for that subject and came up with projects they will undertake to make use of the new network.

They developed a sophisticated and broad understanding of what they’re getting into with the broadband network.

They clearly understood that high speed Internet made it possible for their residents to overcome large geographic distances and connect to others anywhere on the globe.  But I suggested that, because New Westminster is a small city, they shouldn’t assume that it would be easy for everyone to participate by going downtown.  Even within the city, the Internet can make it easier for residents not to have to travel to participate in public discussions, to get government services, to collaborate on growing their businesses, etc.

I noticed that some people were trying to find an answer that would work for everyone, although the residents of the city had quite varied needs.  (This is somewhat related to another phenomenon you sometimes see in cities trying to figure out their broadband strategy – the search for the one “killer app.”)  So I pointed out to them that the Internet has, instead, renewed our awareness of the long tail – the need for and ability now to deliver many solutions and more personalized service to individual.  There is no longer a requirement for a mass production, one-size-fits-all approach.

At the end of the second day, Mayor Coté said that he realized being an intelligent community is so much more than just laying fiber.  Some of the more technologically savvy in the room offered their own examples and ideas, which is great because these efforts must be led from within the community and not depend on outside experts.

What is often encouraging to people like me is that many participants told me that they felt inspired – yes, that was the word they used – to take on the potential opportunities offered by their new broadband network.

I was also impressed by them.  New Westminster still has much work to do, but they clearly have their act together and have the leadership to get the job done. They will indeed re-create their city for a new century.

© 2015 Norman Jacknis

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Does A Cluster Strategy Work?

The conventional wisdom in economic development calls for growth strategies that are based on clusters of businesses in the same sector.  Here are just a few examples of the many cluster-based economic plans that I’ve come across from one end of the country to the other:

The problem with this conventional wisdom is that it is increasingly unwise.  

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Princeton University Economics Professor Paul Krugman won the 2008 Nobel Prize for his work 20-30 years earlier in identifying the “new economic geography” (the theoretical foundation of the cluster approach).  But in his acceptance speech, he noted changes:

“[Clustering] may describe forces that are waning rather than gathering strength.”

“The data accord with common perception: many of the traditional localizations of industry have declined (think of the Akron rubber industry), and those that have arisen, such as Silicon Valley, don’t seem comparable in scale.”

A European report from 2011 found:

“Business clusters could be less relevant as drivers of innovation than has been commonly assumed. The Stavanger Centre for Innovation Research analysed 1,600 companies with more than 10 employees located in the five largest Norwegian city-regions. Rather than national clusters, international cooperation or global pipelines were identified as the main drivers of innovation.”

For his University of North Carolina Ph.D. thesis research titled, “Cluster Requiem And The Rise Of Cumulative Growth Theory”, Dr. Gary Kunkle tracked the growth and survival of a cohort of more than 300,000 establishments operating in Pennsylvania from 1997-2007.  His findings:

“Industry cluster theory has … an inability to explain economic dispersion and the presence of high-growing firms that thrive in non-clustered industries and locations.”

“Firm characteristics are 10-times more powerful than industry and cluster characteristics, and 50-times more powerful than location characteristics, in explaining and predicting establishment-level growth and survival”

“A sub-set of businesses systematically accumulate a disproportionate share of employment growth. Roughly 1% of establishments created 169% of all net new jobs added in the state over a ten-year period.”

This latter point is one of the reasons that the Economic Gardening movement, led by Chris Gibbons, has arisen as an insurgent force within the economic development world.  It concentrates on the small proportion of enterprises that create the most new jobs.

There is nothing wrong with encouraging any existing local business to grow – again an economic gardening strategy.  But it is foolish to try to build a region’s economic development strategy around a cluster where none exists.  

While many regions try to be more sophisticated in their approach, too often, I’ve heard people say that they have a few web design firms and from that they’re going to invest in building a “high tech cluster”.  Every town has someone who claims to design websites.  Really, that’s not a cluster even in the old industrial era.  And it’s not an effective strategy for economic growth in this era.

The famous economist John Maynard Keynes once said “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”  While some of the economists who developed cluster approaches are not quite defunct yet, the message is the still relevant.

We are in an economy where everyone in the world is connected by information and communications technologies.  For residents of any city or state to flourish economically, they should not be limited to a cluster of business activity which is based on purely local, physical proximity.

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© 2015 Norman Jacknis

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Libraries And Open Government

Last spring I wrote about my participation in a workshop on the role of libraries in open government, led by the Center for Technology in Government (CTG) at the University of Albany and funded by the Institute for Museums and Library Services. 

Last month, CTG released their final project report.  You can get the report from their website, but I want to provide a summary here.

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Overall, CTG’s key finding is straightforward:

“The traditional and important role of public libraries as trusted information intermediaries provides a powerful platform for public libraries to be key facilitators in opening government … Libraries need to work with government partners and other key stakeholders to develop portfolios of programs and services geared toward helping community members access and use information and engage with their governments.”

As someone who has been involved in open government, public technology and libraries, the role of libraries seems obvious to me in at least three ways.

First, libraries are places that almost everyone recognizes as neutral, objective and fair purveyors of information.  The trust in this role of libraries is a valuable asset for any government leader who wants constituents to take seriously his/her pledges of openness.

Second, librarians have the training and experience to help the average person make sense of vast volumes of information.  And the open government initiatives around the US have certainly provided a vast amount of information.  Just making this information available is a bit like trying to open a library by buying a million books and dumping them all into the middle of the floor.  Without the assistance of librarians in these initiatives, the ideals of openness and transparency will not be achieved.

Third, following on the previous point, librarians can do even more than help to organize and make accessible all of this new open government data.  Librarians can also help train the average person to know how to make sense of the information.  They can provide the space and the platform for citizens to collaborate on their use of open data.  For example, John Szabo, the head of the Los Angeles Public Library, has provided a digital forum for people in south Los Angeles to use public land and building data as they consider and debate a major new development project in their neighborhood.

Of course, while giving libraries a key role in open government initiatives can make those initiatives much more successful, library resources are limited.  So it would be useful if part of the budget for open government be devoted to funding the role of librarians.

CTG elaborated on these six recommendations:

“1. Clearly define the role of public libraries in community-focused open government activities.

2. Adopt a focus on the demand side of open government.

3. Adopt a community-wide perspective on open government.

4. Build capability to create and sustain new kinds of partnerships with a wider range of community actors.

5. Build a knowledge base of public library open government initiatives.

6. Fund and carry out a set of pilot projects focused on building new understanding of preferred and best public library open government practices.”

If you’re involved in government, open data/information, public sector transparency or libraries, it will be worth it for you to read CTG’s report for the rest of the story.

© 2015 Norman Jacknis

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The Intelligent Community Movement In Universities

The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) has been around for more than a dozen years and has developed a large knowledge base about the pre-conditions for creating an intelligent community.  But, over the last year or so, ICF has expanded its reach and enlisted various universities in the effort.

Last month, for example, I was at Walsh University in the heart of what was industrial Ohio.  It has become the first of the academic settings for the intelligent community movement.

I was there as part of Walsh’s 3rd Annual ICF Institute Symposium, whose focus was on “Brain Gain and Innovation: Creating Growth in an Age of Disruption”.  There were a variety of interesting speakers and topics:

  • In different ways and with different perspectives, both Christian Long, Co-Founder, Wonder By Design and Google’s Jaime Casap spoke about schools and cities
  • Alvaro Albuquerque, Chief of Staff to the President, The Brazilian Small Business Agency, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, described their “knowledge squares”
  • Tim Jones, CEO, Artscape Toronto, Ontario spoke about creative place-making in cities

You can see these at http://www.walsh.edu/institute

In my presentation to the new ICF Leadership Academy there, I laid out eight obstacles that people in the countryside often cite as to why their areas are destined for decline.  Then I showed how changes in the economy, society and technology have diminished each of these obstacles and opened up new opportunities for a rural revitalization.  You can see the slides here: http://www.walsh.edu/uploads/116031415201951.pdf

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Related to my presentation is the creation of a second ICF Institute at Mississippi State University.  Its focus will be on rural communities.  For some background, see this report in the Mississippi Business Journal – http://msbusiness.com/blog/2014/10/17/msu-extension-named-intelligent-community-institute/

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There’s also a video describing the focus of this new institute, with Professor Roberto Gallardo and ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysF1MCm2Syw

And finally within the last few weeks, as well, the University of Oulu in Finland announced an ICF project to “examine innovation platforms and innovative approaches” in three of ICF’s top level smart communities worldwide – Taichung, Taiwan, Eindhoven in the Netherlands and Oulu.  See http://www.epressi.com/tiedotteet/telekommunikaatio/oulun-yliopisto-ja-intelligent-community-forum-aloittavat-tutkimusyhteistyon.html  (Google Translate does a passable job with this, if you don’t read Finnish 🙂

I’ll keep you updated as these three universities start to generate more about intelligent communities.

© 2014 Norman Jacknis

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/103553994529/the-intelligent-community-movement-in-universities]

Six Lessons For Mayors – Part 2

[As a reminder from last week, I’ve repeated the introductory paragraphs, but continue on from lesson 4.]

Mayors, governors and other local government leaders are being inundated by all sorts of “experts” telling them how to run a smart city.  Often, the ulterior commercial motivation of these messages is not even well hidden.

Fortunately, in recent years, an objective and disciplined set of academic researchers have stepped up their focus on these questions. 

The Center for Technology in Government (CTG) at the University at Albany has worked with government officials all over the world and studied their efforts to build smarter cities and use technology intelligently.  As recently designated Government Fellow at CTG, I have taken a look at some of their past research and work.

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Here are the last three of six lessons, which stand out to me.  (By the way, it’s worth noting that these also apply in the private sector, although that’s not what CTG studied.  Where it ways government, think company, and where it says citizen, think customer.)

4. Government Staff Can Be Supplemented

Lesson #4 is that cities with successful smart city services did not do this all within their own agencies.

At its simplest, CTG also saw examples where private sector partners in a city who have deep experience operating call centers can be helpful in training government staff for this kind of work.  Volunteer neighborhood liaisons were also used to extend the reach of 311 and related services.

At its simplest, CTG describes examples where private sector partners in a city who have deep experience operating call centers can be helpful in training government staff for this kind of work.  Volunteer neighborhood liaisons were also used to extend the reach of 311 and related services.   Many times governments feel that they must take on all the aspects of an initiative, when many times there are private and non-profit organizations looking to play a role.

5. The Smart City Involves More Than City Government

From the citizens’ viewpoint, smart government services may require sharing data among different government entities.  As difficult as it is to share data within a single government, it gets even more complicated to share between agencies of different governments.  Understanding this complexity is critical to successful IT efforts.

As CTG reports:

“Expecting a great variety of benefits, governments around the world have initiated an increasing number of cross-boundary information sharing (CBIS) initiatives. Collaborating and sharing information in metropolitan areas is different from sharing within organizational hierarchies. Normally, government agencies in metropolitan areas are not subordinated to a single entity and their willingness to collaborate and share information is mainly motivated by common needs and interests.”

“Network organizations are an alternative to hierarchies because they are based on relationships, distributed knowledge, mutual dependency, and norms of reciprocity…  Networks in fact can be an alternative to traditional bureaucratic and hierarchical solutions and e-government information integration can be a good example of that.”

Lesson #5 is that a mayor may succeed faster by facilitating these informal networks of relationships, rather than going through the arduous process of imposing cooperation through legislation and complex legal arrangements.

6. The Single Most Important Player Is The Mayor

CTG’s research all over the world highlights this single most important Lesson #6: the most critical role in the whole smart city ecosystem is that of the mayor, who must provide consistent and visible leadership for a smart city across all agencies under his/her control and those his city interacts with.

CTG observed:

“despite important challenges, information integration initiatives can be implemented with relatively good results if there is enough political support from top government executives. … This work offers insights on how the support of the mayor can significantly influence the implementation of an information integration strategy in at least three different ways: (1) the creation of an adequate institutional framework, (2) the alignment of diverse political interests within the city administration, and (3) the increase of financial resources.” 

“The executive support and political champions help resolve interdepartmental conflicts.”

As with all knowledge, these lessons may seem obvious once presented – but not so predictable before they are presented.  Indeed, it is also clear from the research that not all of these lessons have been heeded in the rush to the smart city movement and the result has been much less than mayors have hoped for.

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© 2014 Norman Jacknis

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Six Lessons For Mayors – Part 1

Mayors, governors and other local government leaders are being inundated by all sorts of “experts” telling them how to run a smart city.  Often, the ulterior commercial motivation of these messages is not even well hidden.

Fortunately, in recent years, an objective and disciplined set of academic researchers have stepped up their focus on these questions. 

The Center for Technology in Government (CTG) at the University at Albany has worked with government officials all over the world and studied their efforts to build smarter cities and use technology intelligently.  As recently designated Government Fellow at CTG, I have taken a look at some of their past research and work.

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Here are the first three of six lessons, which stand out to me.  (By the way, it’s worth noting that these also apply in the private sector, although that’s not what CTG studied.  Where it ways government, think company, and where it says citizen, think customer.)

1. Systems That Can Share Will Enhance Citizen Service

CTG worked with and studied cities that implemented 311 systems and later rolled out larger service management systems.  While the cost of handling 311 telephone calls, among other reasons, have diminished the number of new telephone-only installations, the 311 experience has provided lessons on the obstacles to providing better service to a city’s residents.

311 systems and other single points of entry for citizen service, even the web, make glaringly clear the lack of integration across government agencies.  Complex technology that is not interoperable only adds to the traditional human problem of bureaucratic silos. 

So Lesson #1 is that the city needs to make sure its computer systems are interoperable – or at least open to sharing data.  Integrating the back end is just as important as providing a citizen interface on the front end.

2. It’s Not Merely About Technology

Having said that, CTG’s research makes Lesson #2 clear: any mayor, who thinks that simply building a system for citizen services is sufficient, will not likely succeed in his/her larger goals of creating a smart city.

As one of their reports states:

“A smart city is not only a technological concept but a socioeconomic development one.  Technology is obviously a necessary condition for a smart city, but citizens’ understanding of the concept is about the development of urban society for the better quality of life. The adoption of up-to-date technologies per se does not guarantee the success of smart city initiatives. Rather, innovation in management style and policy direction makes a city more livable. Success of smart city projects is not determined by technology or technical capital. Success is dependent on leadership and interorganizational coordination. Technology itself does not make any contribution to innovation.”

3. Government Staff Overcome Technological Limitations

Lesson #3 is that, in various ways, government staff (people) can overcome the lack of integration of citizen-facing systems in government.

The 311 experience has illuminated the weaknesses of legacy systems and the frequent situation where the 311 software used by operators is not really connected to the legacy systems that departments use to manage the services they deliver to the public.  So 311 becomes a cover for the disorganization behind the scenes.  In such cases, CTG has found that well trained, qualified human agents can fill the gaps and give the citizen the kind of integrated service which is expected.

[TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK] …

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© 2014 Norman Jacknis

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/101256317797/six-lessons-for-mayors-part-1]

Re-envisioning Public Libraries?

Yesterday, in the stately Trustee Room of the New York Public Library, the Aspen Institute released its report “Rising To The Challenge: Re-envisioning Public Libraries."  It was based on the results of their Dialogue on Public Libraries.  (Full disclosure: I’ve been a member of their Working Group and I even helped out with the draft report a bit, including one of its sidebar stories.)

They also unveiled a new video about this future at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh5E2VConxc

Readers of this blog will not be surprised that I’m clearly in synch with the central foundation of the report that "public libraries [are] at the center of the digital age”, our era.

The project was led by Amy Garmer of Aspen, who also wrote the report and who deserves enormous credit for this work.  As Deborah Jacobs, Director of the Gates Foundation Global Library Initiative said, Amy Garmer is now the most influential non-librarian in the library world. 

She begins the report by setting the stage this way:

“The process of re-envisioning public libraries to maximize their impact reflects:

  • Principles that have always been at the center of the public library’s mission—equity, access, opportunity, openness and participation
  • The library’s capacity to drive opportunity and success in today’s knowledge-based society
  • An emerging model of networked libraries that promotes economies of scale and broadens the library’s resource reach while preserving its local presence

The library’s fundamental people, place and platform assets”

In addition to these points, another strategic, but infrequently stated, point was made in the report – there needs to be a new model for sustainable funding for library services that recognizes and supports their fundamental role in our society and economy.

As part of the event surrounding the report’s release, there was a panel discussion with some more interesting observations:

  • Linda Johnson, CEO of the Brooklyn Public Library, said that we need to understand that libraries are not centers for books but for learning – and centers of enjoyment.
  • Ralph Smith, SVP of the Casey Foundation and Managing Director of its Campaign For Grade Level Reading, said he had learned over time that libraries have a unique combination of “hi tech and hi touch” which is what is required for education these days.
  • Nashville/Davidson County Mayor Dean said that “building libraries is the most popular thing I do.  Demand always outstrips supply.”

Although not directly related to this event, the Atlantic Magazine also had a recent article about the public library of Columbus, Ohio, titled “Not Your Mother’s Library”. 

What immediately stood out were two contrasting word clouds.  First, the words people associated with past libraries, the libraries of their childhood. 

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Then the words they used to describe the library of the future …

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In a more elegant and profound way, the Aspen report expanded on these simple descriptions:

“The Dialogue’s perspective on the 21st-century library builds on the public library’s proven track record in strengthening communities and calls for libraries to be centers of learning, creativity and innovation in the digital age. No longer a nice-to-have amenity, the public library is a key partner in sustaining the educational, economic and civic health of the community during a time of dramatic change. Public libraries inspire learning and empower people of all ages. They promote a better trained and educated workforce. They ensure equitable access and provide important civic space for advancing democracy and the common good. Public libraries are engines of development within their communities.”

Aspen intends to follow up to implement and move the vision forward, so look for these ideas to take root in your city with your help.

Note: The report is at http://as.pn/libraries

© 2014 Norman Jacknis

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The Experience Economy In The Public Sector?

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, the authors of a groundbreaking article in the Harvard Business Review in 1998, followed up in 1999 with their influential book – “The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business A Stage”.  (The book was later updated with a 2011 edition.)

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The original article and book were widely credited with establishing the field of customer experience management and the idea that a successful business relationship involves more than just delivering the goods or services promised. 

As the summary of the original article says:

“In this article, co-authors B. Joseph Pine II and James Gilmore … preview the likely characteristics of the experience economy and the kinds of changes it will force companies to make. First there was agriculture, then manufactured goods, and eventually services. Each change represented a step up in economic value – a way for producers to distinguish their products from increasingly undifferentiated competitive offerings. Now, as services are in their turn becoming commoditized, companies are looking for the next higher value in an economic offering. Leading-edge companies are finding that it lies in staging experiences.

“An experience occurs when a company uses services as the stage – and goods as props – for engaging individuals in a way that creates a memorable event. And while experiences have always been at the heart of the entertainment business, any company stages an experience when it engages customers in a personal, memorable way.”

These memorable moments stick with people and cause them to comment favorably to others.  To help them remember, many companies even provide souvenirs – another form of experience.  When business people think of souvenirs, it is not necessarily something elaborate.  For example, what one business would hand out as a simple receipt a smarter, more experience-oriented business would provide as an elaborate document, perhaps even on thicker parchment-like paper.

The books go into great detail and elaborate these ideas beyond the simple summary I’ve provided here.  It’s worth the time to read.

And the kind of thinking presented by Pine and Gilmore has had a big impact in the business world.  Many of the modern heroes of the economy, such as the late Steve Jobs of Apple, were known for the way they built their success on customer experiences.

Yet, the ideas in the Experience Economy have had only a small impact on the public sector and few pubic officials are sensitive to the experience their constituents are having.  This is somewhat surprising for several reasons.

First, as a matter of electoral survival, incumbent office holders want the residents of their community (i.e., the voters) to have favorable memories of the experience of being a citizen.  Indeed, professional campaign consultants have heard stories of public officials who “did everything right” – these politicians did what the public wanted – but were rejected anyway because people were unhappy with the experience of being a citizen in that jurisdiction.

In the broadest sense, this is about making a difference in the lives of citizens – something that drew many officials to public service in the first place.

Second, in a world where people have increasing choices about where they might live or travel to, the experience of being in a city or state will have a big impact on the economy there.  If it’s a positive, memorable experience, more people will want to be there and the economy will grow – as will funding for the government.  If not, bad experiences will lead to worse experiences for those trying to lead a community with declining population and declining revenues.

Although great experiences are not everyday events even in the business world, it is not necessarily that difficult to create these experiences.  Think about the typical interaction between a citizen and the government.  What would it take to turn that into a positive, memorable experience?  Not a lot of money; just an increased sensitivity to the experience from the citizen’s side. 

And public officials might also find that their staff, rather than resisting the changing to make the workplace more fun and memorable, would become more motivated.

I’d like to continue this conversation by elaborating on how the ideas of the Experience Economy can be applied in the public sector.  Let me know if you want to see this and, of course, please share any examples you have of memorable public sector experiences.

© 2014 Norman Jacknis

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/93970296574/the-experience-economy-in-the-public-sector]

Keeping Citizen Engagement Engaging

Starting at the national level with the Obama Administration’s open government initiative in 2009, there have been many attempts at crowdsourcing in various governments and public agencies.  

From his campaign, President Obama realized that we can now scale up collaboration and participation – and create a 21st century version of the old New England Town Meetings that, while not perfect, did a pretty good job of engaging residents.

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Unfortunately many of these efforts have been disappointing in various ways:

  • Fewer people participated than expected.
  • The forum was “hijacked by fringe groups” – this was one criticism of the early Obama open government efforts because decriminalizing Marijuana turned out to be one of the more popular proposals.  (But see my earlier post “Do Good Ideas Bubble Up From The Crowd?”)
  • The site went stale, with early excitement evaporating and participation going to zero.  As an example, see the Texas Red Tape Challenge.
  • Citizens were encouraged to participate and did so, only to find that their ideas were disregarded by public officials, which only increased the frustration among both citizen and officials.

Nevertheless, when they succeed, citizen engagements can satisfy several public purposes.  They are a great way to get help and new ideas, test proposals, understand priorities of voters and educate citizens about the complexities and realities of governing.  Moreover, in response to the general decline in respect for major public, nonprofit and private institutions, crowdsourcing is a way of earning back respect and trust – and convincing a skeptical public that public officials really care.  All of these benefits make it easier for public officials to govern better.

And the successes have provided important lessons.  Most important, like lots of other things, crowdsourcing requires some thought before implementation.  

You won’t get the best results if you take a “just build it and they will come” approach.  At the other extreme, you can bury any government initiative in “analysis paralysis”.   A reasonable balance is to plan how public officials will:

  • Set realistic expectations within their own organization as well as with the public;
  • Target the appropriate audience for the discussion;
  • Set up the topic/question in a clear, unbiased way;
  • Start the conversation with citizens;
  • Figure out how to manage the conversation and keep citizens engaged; and last but not least,  
  • End the engagement in a way that provides a positive experience for citizens and the government.

When these engagements actually engage citizens, they help redefine the relationship between public officials and the people they serve.  And they can provide a core of solid support from the public that any public official would desire – the kind of support that will carry officials through those bad times when they also make mistakes.

More later.

[photo credit: http://community.weber.edu/WeberReads/meeting_21922_md.gif]

© 2014 Norman Jacknis

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/90556112242/keeping-citizen-engagement-engaging]

What Is The Role Of Libraries In Open Government?

Earlier this month, I was invited to participate in a workgroup that focused on and merged two of my strongest interests – libraries and open government.  This workgroup, made up of approximately two dozen leaders of the worlds of libraries, open government and the Internet, was pulled together by the Center for Technology in Government (CTG) of Albany University, as part of a project funded by the Federal Government’s Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS).

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CTG describes the rationale for the project this way:

“State and local governments are exploring new ways to open their governments using technology to engage citizens, increase transparency and accountability. Such efforts provide new opportunities and challenges for public libraries as citizens turn to them for both access to and assistance in their interactions with government … An open government initiative will impact and can be facilitated or impeded by a community’s information ecosystem. Libraries can have a critical influence on an ecosystem and the success of such an initiative.”

The CTG staff will summarize the day and a half of intensive work at a later point.  But I thought I’d share some of my observations from participating in it.

First, while open government, particularly the open data initiatives that have occurred all over the US and elsewhere, is clearly a step forward for transparency, it is not always very useful to the average citizen.  That’s why too often, the data has been used mostly for “gotcha” articles by local news media. 

Typically, the data is put out on the web.  This is akin to setting up a library by buying 10,000 books and dropping them all in a big pile in the middle of the floor.  Librarians have long developed skills in organizing knowledge and, as reference guides, in helping people find what they need.  So the most obvious first role of librarians is to help open data initiatives succeed by applying their professional skills to the data.

Second, libraries can be the place where open government occurs.  This role not only involves making available to citizens the printed and online forms they need to interact with government – or even extending that to enable citizens to have video conversations with government staff who are located many miles away from home.

Libraries can also encourage the discussion of public issues.  Traditionally, libraries have used their meeting spaces for open forums.  More recently and much more interesting is the role the Los Angeles Public Library has played in a community in south Los Angeles.  The local library branch there is hosting Betaville, open source software to enable people to collaborate together to propose urban design solutions for their community.  Betaville is being used for people to do exactly that with respect to a large proposed redevelopment of the Rancho Cienega facility.  The library was the only place where people could come together to do this work, which had the proper technology and also the trust of residents that it is an objective, open facility.

Third, Jamie LaRue, former director of the Douglas County library system, which has been a pioneer in libraries as creators of content, built on that experience to propose an additional role for libraries.  In the face of the demise of many local news outlets, he suggested that this creative role of libraries be extended to becoming the platform for local news.

Finally, while a number of state and local governments have encouraged their local software developers to create apps using open government data, this is clearly not enough.  There are many apps that are needed, but make no sense for private companies that ultimately require profits.  Government cannot abdicate its own technology role.  Recognizing that it can’t do everything, however, government can call on librarians to understand what gaps exist based on what they are asked for by library patrons.

For more information, see CTG’s website at http://www.ctg.albany.edu/projects/imls .  They have also posted a concept paper at http://imls.ctg.albany.edu/book/enabling-open-government-all-planning-framework-public-libraries .  If you’d like to participate in the discussion about libraries and open government, you can do that at http://imls.ctg.albany.edu/forums/online-discussion-concept-paper

© 2014 Norman Jacknis

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/86405556739/what-is-the-role-of-libraries-in-open-government]

Moving To A National Digital Library?

In a post last year, http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/66967472797/a-national-future-for-libraries , I discussed the increasing volume of digital text, video and audio, produced by millions more writers and artists than have been supported by the big publishing and media corporations in the past.  These trends have important implications for libraries, especially the need to offer library patrons a national collection and reference to materials located anywhere.  That’s why I titled the post “A National Future For Libraries”.

So it was great that the US Government’s Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS) conducted their “Strategic Priorities 2014” conference with a focus on a National Digital Platform. 

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The meeting, held at the main building of the New York Public Library on Tuesday this week, featured most of the key leaders in the world of libraries and other non-profit cultural and information organizations as you can see below.

Jason Kucsma, ‎Executive Director of the Metropolitan New York Library Council, was one of the speakers – a nice recognition for the innovative work that METRO is doing under his leadership and METRO’s role as the New York State hub for the Digital Public Library of America.  (Note: I’m President of the board, but Jason and the staff of METRO actually do the work.)

It was very encouraging to see these leaders working together with a generally positive frame of mind, trying to figure out how to create and, more important, sustain a national digital library.  There’s clearly lots of work ahead of us – including much more than the usual community of librarians – but this was a good start.

You can see the conference video at http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/imls/140429/.  Since it was a whole day event, I’ve put the agenda below so you can watch particular sections.

Welcome and Framing the Day

Anthony Marx, President and CEO, New York Public Library – @NYPL

Maura Marx, Deputy Director for Libraries, IMLS – @mauramarx / @US_IMLS

Play Flash Video


INFRASTRUCTURE: Examining the Hubs Model

Moderated by:
Jim Neal, VP for Information Services and University Librarian, Columbia University, @columbialib

Panel:
Dan Cohen, Executive Director, Digital Public Library of America – @dancohen / @dpla

Brett Bobley, Chief Information Officer, National Endowment for the Humanities – @brettbobley / @NEH_ODH

Elliott Shore, Executive Director, Association of Research Libraries – @ARLnews

Play Flash Video


CONTENT: Beyond the low hanging fruit: Strategies on Providing Access to Complicated Content

Moderated by
Rachel Frick, Director, Digital Library Federation – @RLFrick / @CLIRDLF

Panel:
Sari Feldman, Executive Director, Cuyahoga County Public Libraries – @Sari_Feldman / @CuyahogaLib

Katherine Skinner, Executive Director, Educopia Institute – @Educopia

Clifford Lynch, Director, Coalition for Networked Information – @CNI_org

Play Flash Video


USE: Challenges and Opportunities to Broad Use of Digital Content

Moderated by:
Susan Hildreth, Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services – @IMLSDirector / @US_IMLS

Panel:
Susan Gibbons, University Librarian, Yale University – @YaleLibrary

Bernie Margolis, New York State Librarian and Assistant Commissioner for Libraries

Play Flash Video


TOOLS: Encouraging Innovation

Moderated by:
Mary Lee Kennedy, Chief Library Officer, New York Public Library – @NYPL

Panel:
Ben Vershbow, Manager, NYPL Labs – @subsublibrary / @NYPL_Labs

Martin Kalfatovic, Associate Director Smithsonian Libraries, Program Director BHL – @UDCMRK / @SILibraries

Tom Scheinfeldt , Associate Professor of Digital Media / Director of Digital Humanities at University of Connecticut – @foundhistory / @UConn

Play Flash Video


ACCESS AT SCALE

Moderated by:
Josh Greenberg, Program Director for Digital Information Technology, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation – @epistemographer / @SloanFoundation

Panel:
MacKenzie Smith, University Librarian, University of California at Davis

Jason Kucsma, ?Executive Director at Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) – @J450NK / @mnylc

Dan Chudnov, Director, Scholarly Technology, George Washington University Libraries – @dchud / @gelmanlibrary

Play Flash Video


SKILLS

Moderated by:
Bob Horton, Associate Deputy Director for Library Services, IMLS – @US_IMLS

Panel:
Nancy McGovern , Head, Curation and Preservation Services, MIT Libraries – @mitlibraries

Jack Martin, Executive Director, Providence Public Library – @provlib

Play Flash Video


CONCLUSION AND CLOSING DISCUSSION

Maura Marx, Susan Hildreth and Bob Horton – @mauramarx, @IMLSDirector / @US_IMLS

Play Flash Video

©2014 Norman Jacknis

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/84466500047/moving-to-a-national-digital-library]

Urban Farming?

Urban farming would seem to be an oxymoron.  Yet, the idea of bringing farming into the heart of urban regions is – pun intended – cropping up everywhere. 

(In this post, I touch upon on a small subset of recent activities on the urban farming front.  If you’re interested, you’ll find lots more urban farming documented on the Internet.)

A couple of weeks ago, a New York Times article “Farm-to-Table Living Takes Root” reported on Agritopia, a neighborhood in Phoenix that focuses on farming. There have been as well reports of other farm-focused urban neighborhoods around the country. 

Lack of available land at street level is also no limitation.  Rooftop farms are being added to the tops of buildings in many cities.  But why just stop with the tops of buildings?

Columbia University Professor Dickson Despommier has been the modern prophet of the vertical farming concept that encourages building agricultural skyscrapers in large cities.  One example – the largest in the USA – is FarmedHere, which last month opened an indoor vertical farm in Chicago.

In a much bolder vision last year, the architect Vincent Callebaut proposed a Dragonfly shaped vertical farm for the south end of New York City’s Roosevelt Island.  (This is, alas, the same location of the future high tech, entrepreneurial campus of Cornell University and Technion Israeli Institute of Technology that former Mayor Bloomberg commissioned to emulate Silicon Valley.  Silicon Valley, in turn, was once filled with orchards, not tech companies.)

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If a real island, like Roosevelt, is not available within the city’s borders, then the answer is to build an artificial island.  The folks at Blue Revolution Hawaii are hoping to do just that in Honolulu and follow in the early footsteps of other cities around the world with farming on artificial islands – see the article “Floating Farms” in this month’s Modern Farmer magazine.

This may seem like some new trend and, in some ways, it is – as it reflects the ways that the Internet is opening up possibilities for people. 

But it is not completely new.  My favorite examples come from New York City, yes, New York City.  In the Queens section, John Bowne High School with a special focus on agriculture – and the program has been around since the end of World War I, originally in the old Newtown High School.  Even in Manhattan, George Washington High School in the north end of the island has a chapter of the Future Farmers of America. 

So the graduates of these schools won’t have to leave New York City to become farmers, even in the densest urban area in America.

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/80777085555/urban-farming]

National Association of Counties Innovation Summit

As the first Senior Fellow of the National Association of Counties (NACo), I had the privilege to be part of their recently concluded five-day Legislative Conference in Washington, DC.

It was also an opportunity for me to introduce to the counties the Rural Imperative of the Intelligent Community Forum.  Since I blogged about the need for a new connected countryside a couple of weeks ago, ICF announced my new role, which you can read about at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/02/prweb11614027.htm.   There’s also a brief video that I did at http://youtu.be/d0fD6rguvwQ.

For three days, there was a special focus on technology and more interesting presentations than I can summarize here.  Sometime next week, you will be able to see video of Saturday’s Innovation and Technology Summit at NACo.org.

Here are some of my observations:

  • The VP of the Maui Economic Development described their strategy.  I cheered when she said that, notwithstanding the traditional incentives and approaches of economic development, the most important thing is to “grow your own”.  She went on to describe how they are focused on workforce development and all kinds of creative, only-in-Hawaii learning opportunities.  But much of that targeted children.  In an economy where adults need to keep refreshing their skills and knowledge until well past what you used to be retirement age, adults also need access to learning opportunities.
  • The Directors of the Health and Human Services Departments of both Montgomery County, Maryland and San Diego County, California both focused on outcomes.  This too is an important step forward beyond the usual output measures that have dominated performance data in government.  Montgomery County also puts as much emphasis on social return on investment as on pure financial return on investment.
  • One other part of the San Diego presentation caught my attention: that counties need to lead the “higher levels” of government.  In the face of Federal government dysfunction for the last several years, most local and state governments have taken the approach of go ahead without waiting for the Feds to take action.  So we’ve seen much more innovation at the sub-national level than at the national level.  Now it seems that some sub-national governments are actively upending the pyramid of power and hoping to guide the Federal government to a more innovative posture.
  • There was a keynote speech by a White House staffer on open data and much discussion of open data on various panels.  Rich Leadbeater of ESRI rightly pointed out that “open data is not an end in itself.  It’s what you do with it.”  This is a refreshing attitude since too many governments seem to spend a lot of time congratulating themselves for making the data available on the Internet and leaving things at that. 
  • Some governments have encouraged private companies to develop apps with this data.  Curiously, those governments have not usually embedded the apps into their own systems so these companies are left on their own to get citizens to know about them.  Worse, too many government think that asking private companies to create these apps absolves them of their own responsibility.  The reality is that not all the applications that are needed or can be developed with open data will generate the revenue a private company seeks, but those apps are still useful for the public too have.  The only way they will be created is if the government does the development itself or pays for the app to be developed.  Considering that the costs of software development have gone down considerably over the past decade, this is not something that can easily be dismissed as out of budget.

In my end-of-day review and commentary on the sessions, I offered my reaction to the data being put out on the web – “TMI, TLK”.  Too much information, too little knowledge.  Governments should recognize that they and their constituents have to start working together to make sense of all that data and use it to make improvements in policies and programs. 

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/78650683108/national-association-of-counties-innovation-summit]

Where Is Telecommuting Going?

Where Is Telecommuting Going?

Who & What Is Tech For In The Inner City?

The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) was created twenty years ago by the famed strategy professor at Harvard Business School Professor, Michael Porter.  ICIC focuses on economic development strategies for inner cities.  Their stated mission is “to drive economic prosperity in America’s inner cities through private sector investment to create jobs, income and wealth for local residents”.  

As part of their What Works For Cities series, last Thursday, ICIC held a webinar for about two hundred attendees on “How inner cities can increase the impact of technology clusters”.  On behalf of the Intelligent Community Forum, I was one of the invited speakers.

ICIC wanted to address three questions:

  1. What can city governments do to create technology-based economies in inner cities?
  2. How can cities ensure that inner city residents have access to technology so that they are prepared, skilled, and able to participate in a tech-based economy?
  3. What is a local governments’ role in building the capacity of innovative businesses so that they create jobs for inner city residents? What policies have worked?

So I took this as an opportunity to discuss technology-based economic growth from a global perspective, based on my own experience and that of the hundreds of cities and regions who have been identified as intelligent communities by the Intelligent Community Forum over the last fifteen years. My focus was especially on innovation and inclusion.

There were two underlying themes in my presentation.

First, technology-based economic development should not mean solely creating software and other tech companies.  Partly that is because good social policy doesn’t just replace current poor inner city residents with newcomers who are programmers and web designers. 

Helping existing residents learn programming is a key part of the story that the two New York City public officials presented during the webinar.  NYC’s focus is to fulfill the demand for programmers, web designers and engineers from among those who have been unemployed – recognizing that in the tech industry, aptitude is more important than degrees, an important consideration for inner city residents.

I’d add that there are a variety of places and ways that people can learn programming from the Internet, including the well-known Code Academy.   In his recent post “Can Tech Help Inner City Poverty?” Michael Mandel reviewed the generally positive results of these programs.

But the world needs more than just programmers, as was well discussed in a recent NPR report, “Computers Are The Future, But Does Everyone Need To Code?”.

A successful technology-based economy strategy for inner city residents should also help non-programmers and low-tech businesses benefit from being connected digitally to the greater opportunities of the global economy.

Second, in this century with its digital, knowledge-based global economy, innovation is the key to competitive success.  I described several ways that cities can be an example of innovation and facilitate innovation among their residents, including, or perhaps especially, among inner city residents.

While the full presentation will be on the ICIC website later, here is a summary of the various aspects of the strategy that I presented.  The 21st century city:

  • connects residents to the global economic opportunities
  • connects residents to open innovation
  • provides a platform for lifelong learning for residents
  • has a culture of innovation
  • creates places that inspire residents to innovate

© 2014 Norman Jacknis

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/75049511867/who-what-is-tech-for-in-the-inner-city]

Large County Innovation Summit

The National Association of Counties’ Large Urban County Caucus – LUCC, as it is known – represents the largest counties in the country, where a significant percentage of Americans live.   LUCC held its 2013 County Innovation Symposium in New York City last week from Wednesday through Friday. 

(I was invited in my new role as the first Senior NACo Fellow.)

Although Thursday’s schedule included sessions on health care, criminal justice and resilience, the meeting on the other two days focused on economic development.  Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program and co-author of the recent book, “The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy” kicked off Friday morning.

He and other panelists noted the evolving role of counties and NACo itself, as the old suburban vs. urban disputes are overtaken by important socio-economic trends. 

First, there is an increased understanding and recognition among public officials now of the metropolitan, really regional, nature of economies.  The old game of providing incentives to companies to move within a metropolitan area, resulting in no new jobs in the region, is wearing thin.

Second, the global nature of the economy implies that regions are now competing with each other, not localities.  And only a regional scale can generate the funds necessary to compete on a global basis.

Third, the demographic differences that used to separate suburban and urban areas are diminishing.  The two are beginning to look a lot alike.  Brookings’ research indicates that today there are more poor people in suburbs than in cities. 

Along with this discussion of economic strategy, there was a strong interest in encouraging innovation and in learning how to get good innovations to diffuse quickly.  This interest is one reason why NACo has appointed Dr. Bert Jarreau as its first Chief Innovation Officer.

With that in mind, the group went to visit Google’s New York labs.  (It is interesting to see Google’s entry into the sub-national arena over the last year or so, as more traditional IT companies have withdrawn somewhat from this market.)

A predictable big hit was the demonstration of Google Glass and a discussion of Glass apps, called GlassWare, that might be of value in the public sector.

There were also presentations of two applications that were extensions of Google’s search and other tools.  One was for integrated predictive policing, with heavy use of video cams (both public and private) and unstructured, narrative data.  Similarly, Macomb County, MI (population 900,000) showed how it uses a search tool, called SuperIndex, for text and images of land records.  The latter, by the way, is financially self-supporting.

By the end of the meeting, NACo LUCC decided they will make this innovation symposium an annual event.  It is often these kinds of unexpected, under-the-radar, developments that surprise people later.  County governments has not had a reputation for innovation, but keep your eyes open for what develops with this group.

©2013 Norman Jacknis

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/70392255080/large-county-innovation-summit]

A National Future For Libraries?

The second and final meeting of the Aspen Institute workgroup on the future of libraries was held last week.

[What follows does not necessarily represent views of anyone else there or even the discussion that took place.  These are purely my reflections when the meeting was over and continue what I started in a previous post.  I also apologize in advance for the length of this post.]

The question that kept crossing my mind is simple: given the obvious trends in the library world and, more broadly, the world of knowledge, is some form of national network of library services inevitable?

When books were physical items primarily produced by established book publishers, the local library was the place local residents needed to go to get access to those books (assuming they couldn’t afford to buy everything they wanted to read).

There are still many printed books in local libraries around the country.  We are, after all, in a transitional period and we can expect to see some printed books lasting long after almost everyone will be reading digitally – 2050? 

But books are changing.  It’s not just that there are digital versions of printed books.  Self-published books and co-created texts already are more numerous than traditionally published books, even including e-books.  With so much digital content, produced by so many different sources, the purely local collections in a local library can easily be outmatched in both quantity and quality. 

The Digital Public Library of America is one important response to this accelerating condition.  Indeed, DPLA is as much the future of libraries as anything on the horizon right now.  DPLA doesn’t centralize all of the digital collections, but it makes them available to everyone.  It uses local library resources (and regional consortia) to collect and organize digital content created locally, but it lets that content escape the constraints of the physical building in which they have been stored.

Another sign of the times is the use of virtual reference librarians.  These were first established to share the load of patron requests especially at odd hours. 

However, the potential of a network of reference librarians is much greater than that.  Consider the deep knowledge that a reference librarian in one part of the country can have about some subject – say Hellenic pottery as an example.  Why shouldn’t she or he get the reference questions that come up about that subject no matter where the patron is?  Can the reference desk in the local library match this knowledge?  Of course not.  Is it possible that the reference librarian locally happens to be that expert in a subject? Of course.  Why not let her specialize?

In a future world where most content will be digital, a national network of reference librarians would provide patrons with the best possible service and pointers to the best places to find the content they are searching for.

DPLA and specialized virtual reference librarians are just two significant ways that library services are no longer limited to the local library building.

So, if not as the collector of printed books or the location for an all knowing reference librarian sitting at a desk there, what will be the purpose of local library buildings in the decades ahead? 

Already we see the library building being used as a meeting place.  Even more exciting, many libraries are becoming centers for create content and culture in various ways – offering Maker Spaces (with 3D printers), poetry rooms, video/audio studios, etc.

Consider also that the national digital collection that is being pioneered by DPLA will need much more manpower to become useful than DPLA and its hubs can provide.  The local library building can be one place where the staff can help with the task of tagging/classifying and otherwise making sense of all the new content produced by others.

The local library can also be the outreach center to get volunteers to help with this enormous task and thus be the local chapters of a national pool of librarians and colleagues.

As with any other sea change, the shift to a national library network will not come without strife.  The most obvious trouble is that libraries have been inherently local institutions supported by local taxes.  There is currently a very small amount of Federal money devoted to library services, mostly in the form of a fraction of the e-rate program.

As library services become not merely local, but an interstate concern, the Federal government or some other national organization is going to have to step up funding for the national institutions that will make those services work.

***

The Aspen Institute has also been involved in projects about citizenship so it worth remembering that our founding fathers strongly supported libraries as the cornerstone of an educated citizenry, which they thought, in turn, was essential for democratic government to survive. 

Our national leaders today don’t explicitly share that understanding and seem to find it easier to deal with a less engaged citizenry.  Perhaps the nationalization of libraries will make it easier for American citizens all over the country to gain the knowledge necessary to play their proper role in our democracy and thereby improve the way that our national government functions.  Now there’s a long term goal!

© 2013 Norman Jacknis

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/66967472797/a-national-future-for-libraries]

New Uses For Subway Spaces?

Well over a year ago, I began working with executives at the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to help them envision the future of their facilities.  Traditionally, subway and train stations were considered to be nothing more than places where people got on and off trains.

That was obvious.  Not so obvious is that the MTA is the largest owner of enclosed public space in New York City and that space had the potential to be so much more than passages to trains.

Practical considerations – barely having enough money to run the trains well – meant that the MTA needed to tie in this vision with some revenue.  The MTA gets a small percentage of its total budget by selling advertising space and renting the few locations that were appropriate for retail stores. 

But many of its spaces were long corridors, funny corners, big open areas and the like – which couldn’t work as a traditional store.  In those spaces, however, it is possible to insert a digital retail experience, which would be both a pleasant surprise in the subway halls and a source of revenue where none was possible before.

And, with considerable planning, a partnership of companies that combined digital advertising and technology and an enthusiasm for innovation at the highest levels of the MTA, last week the idea came to life.

In the Bryant Park station at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street, riders came upon a digital shopping experience – a first in the New York subways.  As pictured below, in the Intelligent Color Experience by L’Oréal Paris, one panel consists of a virtual mirror that sees what the woman is wearing and her own skin tones.  Then she gets suggestions on what cosmetics to select and, of course, she can buy the products with a swipe of a credit card.

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For more articles on this experiment, see:

© 2013 Norman Jacknis

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/66372336558/new-uses-for-subway-spaces]