nptech – Looking Forward

July 24, 2013

Is County Innovation An Oxymoron?

Last Friday, the National Association of Counties held an Innovation Summit as part of their annual meeting in Ft. Worth. I was asked to give the keynote speech on what local government leaders can do to encourage innovation in their counties, but I also attended the other discussions.

As I listened, in the back of my mind were recent articles about the increasingly important role local government can play – in the face of a dysfunctional Federal government and the global connectivity that enables local governments to work together and provide better services.

So the first question is whether these county governments can step up to the challenge, or as the title of this post puts it: Is County Innovation An Oxymoron?

While certainly not all of them are innovating, it is striking how many are. Because so little is reported about local government innovation and there is not an active peer network among these innovators once they leave their annual meeting, the counties often don’t know what each has done. That, of course, limits the spread of these innovations.

But that will change. The counties are about to create a peer-to-peer online community, thanks to Bert Jarreau, NACo’s Chief Innovation Officer.

Moreover, the cost of computer technology and networks is going down and becoming more widespread, which is great for counties with smaller budgets, who want to innovate, but have felt they didn’t have the money and staff skills to do so.

With “cloud computing”, where all kinds of software, hardware resources and data is available on the Internet, these counties don’t need to buy their own expensive equipment or hire large numbers if IT experts. Instead, they can pay for what they use.

With many of their employees already owning smart phones and tablets, these counties can get access to mobile apps. Since people have already figured out how to use apps on these devices, training is simple. And software in the app market often costs dramatically less than traditional software.

With videoconferencing, social media and other collaboration tools, it is also possible for these county innovators to support and help each other at any time.

These three big trends – widespread technology, cloud computing and mobile devices – may seem familiar to those in the IT industry. But the reality is that this combination is relatively recent and still maturing.

All in all, however, this adds up to an unprecedented potential for innovation in local government. It just needs the right platform and the people who will act as a catalyst for that potential to be realized.

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/56332602351/is-county-innovation-an-oxymoron]

June 26, 2013

US Mayors Pump It Up?

Along with Mayor Bill Finch of Bridgeport, Connecticut, I made a fun presentation at the annual meeting of the US Conference of Mayors. More about that, but some background first.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been working with the Council on Metro Economies and The New American City of the US Conference of Mayors on a future-oriented, 21st century strategy for economic growth.

This project recognizes the increasing proportion of Americans who will earn their living by providing digital products and services, on the one hand, and the increasing availability of high quality, casual video communications and collaboration on the other hand.

Together these lead to some significant changes in the character of the economy and of cities. (See my presentation at the ICF Institute for more about these changes – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlNxLmIQ4O8.)

In the early stages, the strategy focused on ideas for mayors as they respond to these changes on behalf of the residents of their cities. More recently, with USCM staff, we’ve started to create pilot demonstrations of these ideas.

Recognizing that these changes in the economy enable many people to make a living almost anywhere, one part of the strategy is to provide a high quality of life, a “WOW” experience, that’s unique to a city so people come and stay there. The by-product of this experience is that it can also inspire residents to innovate – a key factor in economic growth.

With the Internet everywhere across a city, blending the physical and the virtual can create new WOW experiences. The presentation showed various examples that included displays and projections on walls and other physical structures, on a controlled mist from Long Island Sound, etc.

Bridgeport is a good example of a city that can benefit from this – an older industrial city of 150,000 that is cut by an interstate highway. It has locations and structures that wouldn’t normally be considered attractive, but offer great potential in a blended virtual/physical world.

Consider this smokestack that is the first sign of Bridgeport that drivers see on Interstate 95.

Why not make it a video screen?

This blending of the virtual and physical makes it possible to show what’s happening in real-time in another part of town or from another time in the same place.

Consider the multi-modal transit center that people see when they arrive by train, bus, ferry or even a car. It certainly could be more welcoming.

Each summer, there is a big music festival in Bridgeport – the Gathering of the Vibes. My last example showed how this wall could be transformed so it presents one of the star acts, Elvis Costello.

The song he’s singing, “Pump It Up”, is also the message to mayors and what they can now do with what used to be dreary places.

I left the mayors with this final thought: this is not primarily about something artistic or a way of getting advertising or even promoting big events. In a fundamental way, this is how cities need to think about urban design in this century.

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/53929055163/us-mayors-pump-it-up]

June 19, 2013

How To Be The Most Intelligent Community In The World?

One of the questions I was asked about the awards given by the Intelligent Community Forum is what does it take to become an intelligent community. I’ll try to summarize what I’ve learned from participating in the ICF as a keynoter, juror and (before Cisco) a leader of a Top 7 community.

Among the few hundred communities that apply in this contest, it is clear the first step is make sure the community has sufficient broadband. Almost all of the things that intelligent communities can do for and with their residents depend upon that connectivity in one way or the other.

Second, high-speed connectivity is not enough to stand out in this global competition. The next question is what a community does with the technology. Is it transforming:

The way that residents interact with their government?
How residents – from pre-kindergarteners to seniors – are educated?
How well the physical aspects of the community are managed?
How residents are kept healthy and safe?
The local economy and the income opportunities for residents?

… Just to name some of the evidence that ICF is looking for.

Third, an intelligent community is reflected in the collaboration of all parts of the community. Is everyone getting the benefit of the technology? Are they working together to build a better future?

Fourth, there is an intangible, but important, element: the culture of the community. Is there a sense that the culture of the community encourages innovation and encourages the sophisticated use of the technology that they have invested in?

Fifth, ICF looks for progress. Many of the communities, who have been in the Top 7 and have won the top spot, did not win the first time they applied. But over the course of a couple or more years, they showed continued commitment to making themselves intelligent communities and they showed great progress.

None of these five factors should be all that surprising. Of course, as we’ve seen, succeeding at each of these takes a community effort and leadership that is both visionary and effective.

Here is the list of the Top 7:

Taichung City was selected as the winner.

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/53358099312/how-to-be-the-most-intelligent-community-in-the-world]

April 24, 2013

What Is WATPA?

http://wdfh.org/audio/ifrt/gg-2013-03-18.mp3

WATPA is the Westchester Alliance for Telecommunications and Public Access, now just twenty years old. Although it functions as the regional Internet society, it was set up a time that many people had not heard of the Internet, so we ended up with what now seems to be a much more complicated name.

I was a co-founder of WATPA and have been its chairman, so a few weeks ago WDFH radio station interviewed me about the history and role of the non-profit group.

As they summarized it:

Norm Jacknis from the Westchester Alliance for Telecommunications and Public Access (WATPA) discusses how his volunteer group helps nonprofits in the area with their internet needs. WATPA also advises municipalities on cable TV and Internet-related issues and public policy.

The interview tells the story. You can hear it at http://wdfh.org/audio/ifrt/gg-2013-03-18.mp3

Aside from the services and hopefully creative approaches to using the Internet, there is a key lesson that applies to any part of the country (or world): It does not take a lot of money or an army of volunteers to get a lot done, particularly for those groups – non-profits – that don’t have resources of their own.

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/48773451788/what-is-watpa]