Photo by rawpixel.com from PxHere.
Cities have many goals: productivity, cost-savings, lifestyle, and most importantly sustainability. But some cities have the goal of becoming a Smart City/Community/Region/Place. Is that a healthy goal? And how do we know when we get there?
When does smartness begin?
When does a smart city (or smart place or community etc) become smart?.. When it adopts an open data policy? when it has installed a 5G, an IoT network and has a city data platform? when it has a dashboard? Or when it makes it’s first evidence-based, data-driven decision? or solved it’s first customer problem? Perhaps when it’s begun it’s first technology trials? or can show some cool citizen-focused apps?
I contribute to several ISO standards working groups with representatives from around the world. If we asked them, “When does city ‘smartness’ begin?” I’m sure I wouldn’t get a consistent answer… because I think there is a lingering confusion on what it takes to become truly ‘smart’. I believe smartness begins before you draft your first policy or invest in your first data and technology smart trial.
Let me explain why…
Racing a dinghy
When I was a teenager, my father bought our sailing dinghy — a 16’ Corsair, with crew of 3 including the skipper. We were raw beginners but keen to excel, so we raced every weekend during summer. Now a sailing boat has a multitude of control lines attached to it’s sails and spars. The national champion had a complex system of cockpit guides and pulleys that led multiple brightly colour-coded control lines back to fingertips of the skipper. It was pretty impressive stuff. But with only two hands, and a multiple ropes to adjust and cleat (i.e. lock off in position), just operating those controls was a skill in itself that skipper had had to learn.
Fortunately my dad was wise enough to avoid the lure of copying the champ’s tool-kit of controls and focus instead on our real need; learning the science and art of sailing. But others did not. They assumed buying and installing the same tools as the leader was the key to success. After many years when we reached national champion status ourselves, our boat looked very different to that previous champion. It was less impressive to look at but better in many ways. Our cockpit was relatively uncluttered, because through division of labour we had the same controls but ending in different positions around the boat. As it turned out dad was right — copying the leader’s tool kit would have been a wasteful distraction for us.
In sailing, the control lines are the tools to manipulate the sails. In a Smart City/Community/Region/Place [choose your nameing!], the IoT network, the dashboard, the data platform, the data lake, and even the open data and privacy policies, are all tools and enablers for smart city outcomes.
Too often we focus on controls as the objective when they are just a means to an end – that is, correct sail shape for the conditions.
505 racing dinghy website
But many cities and practitioners seem convinced that getting these tools established is the beginning of the Smart City journey. They view these things similar to the way they view essential infrastructure; infrastructure that has to be procured and installed before the journey begins. Their unstated plan is: procure all the tools first (and copy the leaders); then learn how to operate the tools; then learn how to apply them to benefit citizens. Ironically, in this process the citizen involvement comes last, in contrast to our oft-stated desire to put citizens first!
The allure
We find the tools-first allure everywhere we look. We copy our heroes: in tennis we buy their racquet brand; in soccer we buy their boots; in music we buy the same guitar; and in fashion we buy their cars and wear their clothes.
The tool-kit first approach is always alluring and is an enduring powerful force in the mindset of many Smart City enthusiasts and influencers. Buying the tools gives the appearance of real progress. In my sailing example the ship chancellors (the vendors) love the expenditure on brightly coloured, ropes, rope guides and pulleys! Unfortunately tools often are part of the Smart City bling. Vendors and technofans love it. But the real benefits to the city can be problematic.
One regional city in Australia was told they had to install air quality sensors to be a Smart City; a waste of time, since their country air was perfectly clean!
True mastery
In sailing, mastery doesn’t come from having the best tools installed, or even mastering their use, it comes from knowing what needs to be adjusted, when and why. The same is true of Smart Cities.
In sailing, mastery doesn’t come from having the tools installed, or mastering their use, it comes from knowing what needs to be adjusted, when and why.
So the problem is this:
A smart city may have all the trappings of a smart city but not be smart at all.
Mastery begins with a vision of where you want to be (the goal) and a plan to get there. But in Smart Cities the goal should never be “to be a Smart City” but be around excellence in outcomes for citizens.
A tools-driven loop
Ironically, in the domain of smart cities, beginners respond to Smart City problems with more tools:
- Our fragmented solutions don’t interoperate — we need better standards [tools].
- Data isn’t being shared between competitors — we need a data platform [a tool].
Data platforms and standards have their place, but in this case experience from other domains (e.g. logistics) tells the real source of those problems lie elsewhere; usually human factors and a lack of a coherent system level co-design process involving customers and stakeholders. We need to engage around shared vision and system blueprints before we select and invest in the tools!
I have spent my the better part of my career in leading R&D organisations both as an innovator of better science and technology devices (tools), and as someone facilitating other innovators to bridge the gap from invention to ‘successful tool in the real-world marketplace’. The latter is often harder to achieve than the former. A tool is never and end in itself but a means to an end; an enabler of a superior customer experience and city outcome. Cool new inventions fail to succeed if they don’t achieve these fundamentals. The same is true of Smart City innovations.
Reasons to not be tools-driven
In summary here is why you don’t want to be tools-driven in your mindset or approach.
- It’s a wasteful distraction. The tools should be selected and driven by the design requirements that match the goals of the city. You need to select the right tool for the job rather than let the limitations of the tools determine your goals for you!
- It’s back-to-front. “Buy or build first and consult citizens and stakeholders later” is doomed to run into problems.
- It equates poorly to being a Smart City. Anyone can purchase and install tools. Most can point to example solutions that use the tools and benefit citizens. But are they being smart?
Signs of ‘smartness’
These are too often missing from Smart Cities:
- A catalogue of the evidence-based (data-driven) decisions you want to make and of the questions you want answered.
- An open data strategy that is linked to a broader, higher data strategy involving ‘club’ data [private within relevant stakeholder ‘clubs’] and private data. Note, for example, that personalised services in future mobility rely on the sharing of more private data.
- An open data strategy that prioritises the data (type and quality) to be made open.
- Policies that match a carefully thought-through eco-system co-design, e.g. policies that match requirements for a level playing field for vendors of services in future mobility; or incentives for industry and citizens to share ‘personal’ data.
- System designs driving tool selection. Designs for various domains (mobility, circular economy etc) that match the agreed vision and goals for its citizens.
- A catalogue of opportunities. Few cities understand the importance of being vision- and opportunity-driven. Opportunities for excellence in customer experience are all around and may not be related to simple problem-solving.
- A catalogue of problems. Cities should never be simply problem-solution driven, simply because this mindset locks them in the past, while a vision-driven approach, that explores opportunities for excellence, can often dissolve the problems of today. Never-the-less you need to catalogue the problems of today in order to track progress and ensure none fall through the gaps.
Know what you want to be
There are five main flavours of Smart Cities. Most cities are a mix. To be ‘Smart’, you need to agree and articulate your mix with your citizens and stakeholders:
- Innovation Hub or Lab. Here the city goal is to be a platform for innovation. Cities with this goal are more likely to adopt a tools-first approach simply because the city goal is to be an enabler and little more, e.g. provide IoT and data platforms to enable others to innovate. Never-the-less for maximum impact smart laboratories in the world of R&D use targeted approaches — focusing on circular ecoonomy, for example. You should too.
- Education Hub. All Smart Cities seek to innovate. It’s a perfect opportunity to involve school children and university students in the process.
- Vision Driven. All Smart Cities should be vision-driven, focusing on ideal end-states and future proofing. The key pillars of future success are Sustainability (Social, Economic, Enviromental), Resilience and Liveability applied to domains such as mobility, circular economy, energy, water etc.
- Problem Driven. Problem solving is always popular because people are willing to pay for pain relief! However it is a problematic paradigm to follow. Smart Cities should be cautious about this paradigm because it engenders a host of new problems including a focus on the past, fragmented solutions, scaling issues, off-base customer engagement and lacks future proofing. A problem-driven paradigm is not as robust as a vision-driven one.
- Challenge Driven. This is a popular approach to focus attention and funding on a practical bigger picture goal. Challenges can vision-driven [robust paradigm] — focusing on a ideal end-state, or problem-driven [problematic paradigm] — focusing on the present or the past.
Note that (1) Innovation Hub can argue for a more tools-focused approach but the others need to be driven by different goals.
Summary:
Show you know what you are doing!
I had a role on a grant application assessment committee for a Federal Government Smart Cities and Suburbs program. The applications that faired poorly indicated an enthusiasm to procure and install Smart City tools but a poor articulation of why! The best applications had a clear idea of what they were doing… what they were trying to achieve and why, and the potential benefits and risks.
Smart City smartness begins before you draft your first policy or invest in your first item of technology or open your first data set to the world!