• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Datadoodle

  • Subscribe
  • About Datadoodle and me
  • Feedback
  • Special projects
Home » Three non-technical attributes for “smart”

Three non-technical attributes for “smart”

June 21, 2019 by Ted Cuzzillo

Back in 2010, a French company offered the Easter Island government a massive pyro-gassification machine that generated electricity from garbage. It was to be a gift.

Was it really the kind of gift you’d give a friend? Or was did it come with a hidden agenda?

The would-be gift from the French soon began to look like a trick, a trojan horse. Before long, this trash-burning wonder had little to do with what the local folks needed, recalls Greg Delaune, CEO of UIX Global and the island’s consultant.

The machine would have plenty of fuel during tourist season, when the locals were outnumbered several times over. But come the off season, the brilliant new pyro-gassification would starve. You can’t just switch the thing on and off like a light.

That little problem became clear, says Delaune, when an Italian consultant he worked with arrived to take a look. The Italian’s calculations not only revealed a disastrously irregular flow of trash but also a general lack of support: The French provider had no plan for maintenance, training, or parts. All that would have to come from halfway around the world.

“We realized that this company wanted to come install this thing, take a bunch of pictures of the island, and then walk away,” Delaune said, “The first time anything went wrong, Easter Island would be in trouble.”

Delaune lists a few main attributes any city should have before it considers new technology.

1. A clear, strong agenda among the public and the vendors. The French company’s gift that failed is a dramatic example of disconnected agendas.

2 Open communication with citizens. No city on the path to “smart” should go without a community engagement specialist or a go-to consultant, says Delaune. That’s especially true where public participation in design has become the standard, such as in California.

But the larger the city, the tougher engagement can be. Online planning canvases like Crowdbrite and SeeClickFix can help.

Ultimately, the most critical part of engagement is real, honest engagement. The opposite of such engagement does more harm than good, he says, by confirming an old prejudice that government doesn’t care. Good engagement can open doors to involvement.

3. City staff fully engaged and aware of the community’s needs and what’s next on the horizon. The old, dumb way to manage is still practiced widely among city staff around the world. Delaune said, “Unfortunately, a lot of city workers, especially in planning departments, seem to think their job is to make sure your project doesn’t get through. ‘If I can find something wrong with your application,’ they say, ‘I’ll kick it back to you and I say I did my job and kept the ball out of the goal.'” The opposite of that. City staff informed and empowered how innovation can work for the city.

“A lot that can be done,” says Delaune, “without even changing a lightbulb.”

Related Posts:

  • Tableau, still not boring
    Tableau, still not boring
  • Take data from ethereal to grounded
    Take data from ethereal to grounded
  • Homeless? There’s an app for that
    Homeless? There’s an app for that

Filed Under: BI industry Tagged With: Cities, Greg Delaune, smart cities, UIX Global Leave a Comment

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

smarter cities & data narrative

Two recent “storytelling” tools for public audiences Toucan spoonfeeds data’s insight while Juicebox cultivates data skills

The data-shy among us have two friends in the software business. One a few years old and one new this year. Nashville, Tennessee-based Juice Analytics … [Read More...] about Two recent “storytelling” tools for public audiences Toucan spoonfeeds data’s insight while Juicebox cultivates data skills

...and still more

  • This is Datadoodle
  • Civic tech projects need storytellers
  • Democratic pollster: Hillary campaign’s data malpractice
  • Narrative and analytics: brothers
  • Malcolm Gladwell: why oral data’s different

More Posts from this Category

Copyright © 2022 · eleven40 Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

  • Home
  • About Datadoodle and me
  • 2004 to 2019
  • Contact Ted
  • Subscribe