It was an honor and wonderful experience to join several colleagues from around the country to brainstorm ideas to bring mobile applications to city and community operations.

Reality set in early as we came to understand the magnitude of mobile application and social media adoption world-wide.  ESRI and ICMA have partnered to bridge the programmers and local government practitioners to a common understanding and language.   We hope to get a solid handle on the trend that is enveloping our society, and perhaps even get ahead of this shift and how the business of government and fabric of communities is evolving.

A WARNING FROM OUR IT DEPARTMENT

Early on in our process we shared the stories of warning and concern many of us received from our IT department personnel, dreading that we would be spoiled in the ESRI candy store.  While amusing, my observation is that this is a very serious and important factor.  As a City Manager of a small city (16,000) there is no question that we lack the resources to rapidly deploy complex technology, let alone innovate.  I believe this kind of development process that combines innovative thinking and application development can serve to level the playing field of small and large organizations.  This opportunity, however, only delivers if the design is scalable and ease of use and administration is simple.

IS MORE LESS OR IS MORE MORE?

Time and again we emphasized increasing expectations of citizens with diminishing resources.   This theme cut across size, geography and demographic differences of our communities.  My reaction is that this reality is so universal to as to nearly be dismissed.  I say dismissed because it does describe our reality but it is not useful in developing strategy any more than does our recognition of gravity.  Democracy and representative democracy will eventually balance supply and demand in each community.  It may happen in fits and spurts, but it will adjust.  The public gets what the public deserves and decides to fund.  Good management always helps.

So circling back to my reflections on the whiteboarding experience, I would not necessarily join my colleagues in placing such a high priority to the applications of technology and mobile data that do not increase citizen demand.  I agree with prioritizing technology and applications that leverage existing resources and increase our efficiency, but I think we need to develop and implement exciting and surprising ways to improve engagement with and between members of our community. 

We are not measured exclusively with one-another or how our local government may have evolved from 10 years before.  We are competing with telecom providers, auto makers, shopping malls and our doctors to capture the expectations of our citizens.  They like to use technology.  Citizens enjoy it, and those of us who don’t continue to apply it for their use stand out.  Worse, being slow to invent surprising and delightful technology applications contradicts our chosen mantle as “leaders at the core of communities.”

FUTURE CITIZENS

Generational tendencies seem to allow a window for experimentation.  Generation X will tolerate some discomfort in favor of interesting.  Experience is more important than possessions, and reality for the approaching leadership generation is that we may well be living in world with fewer resources and wealth than those before.  So, I expect we will be given some latitude to figure out a different way of building and managing community, one which is in the palm of the hand and relies on active citizen participation and contribution.  The vending machine model still has it’s baby-boomer champions who probably do place a greater demand on us to solve their problems.  However, I hope the ICMA membership in partnership with ESRI will move forward with the expectation that a rapidly growing citizenry have smartphones poised ready to help.

NOW GET GOING

I hope some simple, basic and universal applications can be quickly developed and rolled out. We should aim to get a large portion of ICMA members using at least one app quickly.  At the same time, I hope there are some good “gee wiz” apps that continue to be rolled out that do demonstrate potential for citizen participation in problem-solving and engagement.  City Managers ARE innovators and problem-solvers.  We will see new ways to apply technology and adapt private sector innovation to public sector use.  The brainstorming that occurred at the ESRI event showed how quickly we were able to think of applications.  By connecting those ideas with the great capacity of ESRI Code Experts we may well create a forward-spiral of invention, application and inspiration that results in a leap in local government service.

Thank you again for the opportunity to participate.  Of course I will continue to stay involved and interested as the project and this topic evolves!