Civitium's Weblog

Civitium is often asked by our clients the obvious question “what’s next for leading cities.” What is the next great opportunity for cities to innovate; to harness technology for community benefit? If cities succeed in transforming the state of their local broadband markets from closed-and-scarce to open-and-abundant (which is certainly not without its challenges,) then what? Is fiber-to-the home the natural evolution of municipal wireless? Is mobilizing government workforces the holy grail? Will it be machine-to-machine communications and telemetry? Will reducing the digital divide through programs to promote computers, content and training deliver bottom-up economic growth and prosperity? While each of these are critically important trends, and deserving of the attention and investment of local governments, we feel that none are truly transformative … and all of them will once again be assumed. Innovation is a vice, and it continues to compress time.

The generation of consumers (citizens in this context) that cities are responsible for protecting and serving may transform almost overnight, and the expectations and demands they will have for technology will be intense and unprecedented. Consider that a majority of citizens who are just reaching the age to vote have never paid for a home phone. Their phone numbers and email addresses aren’t tied to street addresses and a email servers; but are tied to them. They rely on social networks and build personal relationships in ways that we often have trouble understanding. They communicate within these networks in quick and casual ways, and much more frequently than the prior generation. They view consumer electronics devices - from phones to music players to portable gaming consoles - as fashion statements; as status symbols; as intimate possessions that go beyond even our own attachment to laptops and BlackBerries.

In the case of low-income youths who are often the targets for digital inclusion efforts, it is entirely possible that their first experience with technology will not be a computer, but will be an iPod or a camera-phone, with the computer being viewed as “a peripheral.” The idea that these youths may view technology first on its entertainment value – and on its social networking value – and not on its personal productivity value is once again quite different from prior generations. Nonetheless, many digital inclusion efforts continue to focus on getting a personal computer into the hands of everyone; a chicken in every pot; when a chicken may not be the most effective or even desired fare. It may be that introducing technologies that are naturally appealing to children first, with a bridge to the more “serious” use of technology happening through the education system, is more effective. Who knows.

Will the inevitable wave of new tech-savvy citizens be impressed that wireless connectivity exists within the community? Will they be in awe of the fact that they can pay their water-bill online? Will they be surprised and encouraged to learn that parking meters accept credit card payments? Once again, we can imagine that they will just.. assume. How many more election cycles will occur before technology, broadband and innovation will be platform issues that affect the ballot? This is occurring already in Australia, where an intense battle between competing political parties and the former state-owned incumbent monopoly has elevated national broadband policy to be a top election issue. And looking at websites like techpresident.com, you get a glimpse into how technology may play a part in the 2012 presidential election here in the U.S.

It is our view that the natural evolution of city-involvement in technology – the opportunity to lead - will come from a move upstream from network infrastructure to services infrastructure. At the risk of promoting over-used marketing jargon, the opportunity is with Web 2.0, and how the Web will evolve over time. While Web 2.0 lacks a consistent and agreed-upon definition, it generally refers to the second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and collaborative tagging — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. While many local governments have launched e-Government initiatives, introducing transaction-oriented features to their websites, allowing for electronic filings and payments, automating the interaction between government agencies and citizens, etc., they have generally not kept pace with the innovation happening with the broader Web.

To find an example for how this may manifest itself, we need only to look at the devastating wildfires happening in Southern California on the date of this post. Residents have being using technology in unprecedented ways to create and share information about each fire. In addition to traditional media outlets, residents are sharing information through blogs, photo sharing sites, microblogs such as Twitter, YouTube, Google Maps, RSS feeds and more. This article provides an excellent overview of the various applications and services being used. Flickr users are posting photos of fires; news clips are being uploaded to YouTube; a TV and radio station in San Diego is using Twitter to post short updates and has created a mashup using Google Maps; and of course numerous blogs have been created to share information and communicate updates. All of this demonstrates that, as the saying goes, necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

Watching what’s happening with the California wildfires, I found myself reflecting on John F. Kennedy’s famous quote “Ask not what your country can do for you..” What a wonderful example of how technology can be used to increase the number of resources attacking a community threat, and the quantity and quality of information needed to best respond. Long before the emergence of personal computers, the Internet and cell phones, Kennedy’s remark demonstrated an awareness that government’s resources were inevitably minute when compared to the resources and capabilities of the citizens it served. It is not uncommon for city employees, who are directly responsible for protecting and serving the community, to represent less than 1% of the residents of that community. What if only a fraction of the other 99% could be engaged in a meaningful way? But, our cities are too large and diverse to allow Mayors to call everyone into the town square to collaborate and respond to an issue. Abundant wireless broadband, a robust and interactive service infrastructure and innovative use of technology are the levers that could unlock this potential.

While using these technologies in the face of disaster or during emergency response provides extreme use cases, leading cities will also find relatively straightforward examples in their day-to-day operations. Allowing citizens to upload photos of pot-holes and street light outages to a city-specific version of Flickr; evolving department websites to blogs to allow for better interaction with the community; delivering real-time alerts and updates on issues like lane closures, accidents, etc. using services like Twitter; integrating local traffic management information into mainstream consumer navigation and GIS systems. When the City of Houston set-up computers and networks after Hurricane Katrina to help displaced people from New Orleans find friends and relatives, what was this if not an example of Houston using a form of social-networking to tackle an immense natural disaster and civic challenge? Combine these scenarios in some way with the ad-hoc, community-powered networks (e.g. Meraki and FON) that are being built by citizens themselves, and the opportunities are almost endless.

To the extent that cities like Philadelphia and Corpus Christi were flag bearers for municipal wireless 1.0, it will be fascinating to see which cities take steps to harness Web 2.0 technologies, build new service infrastructures, and enroll “citizens of the future” to better protect and serve. And which come to define the evolution from e-Government to City 2.0.