Can you have Smart Cities without Smart Citizens?

For the last couple of weeks I have been engaged in smart cities investigation, interviews and understanding the landscape. While I keep abreast of this developing and over crowded market, we have a focused team in this area that requested my input on investigations and defined strategies.

Enjoyment in these exercises is the interviewing and learning. It was clear that many of the initiatives we seen in the industrial sector apply to here but differently in smart cities. So in a visit to Singapore I had the opportunity spend time with a number of “city authorities” involved in their smart city vision.

The head of the Urban Planning   made some very interesting comments, around what a Smart City is! Too often we read about the efficiencies of smart devices, and management of energy across a city, the transparency across a city to systems.

But he raised the point that a “smart city requires smart citizens, and smart service workers”, this took my interest as the concept aligned with my thoughts on empowerment. On digging deeper he broke up his thoughts into:

• Workers: Workers being the people who work in different jobs in the city, but use the services of the city to get to and from work, and to execute their job each day.

• Service Workers: These are the people who provide the services to keep the city running, from bus drivers, to city clerks, to maintenance electricians, to firemen, and the other 1000s of job roles in the city.
• Citizens These are the above and everyone else enjoying and living in the city, no matter if they in the park, at a concert, at a football game, shopping, or out to dinner, or just living at home. All the time they using services of the city.

In my discussions with the planning authority, and then with one of the universities, and others it became clear that they faced a similar problem we have in Industry, but on different scale and angle with the empowerment of people, and processes. In order to change the culture for them to use the services of the city in a more efficient way, and allow people more enjoyment time.  Remembering that the average age in most cities is going up, and we do not have transition of population, but yet we require an “operational change in culture” in the way they use their city services.

When discussing this concept I was reminded of a concept of the modern wealthy: “today’s wealthy been wealthy in enjoyment time, not necessary money.”   A reflection on our current times where we are always connected, always working, and not disconnecting and really enjoying. The modern wealthy have learnt how to execute work effectively while maximizing their time to enjoy.

This came up in a conversation in Singapore around “smart work” when asked the answer related to “worker” category of person above. To the way they need to change the way they work from being able to work anywhere, not a new concept called “activity based” work. He went on to talk about a worker not wasting time in travel, or in a train, but to use that time effectively, giving increased output, and giving back time to enjoyment.

The real area that caught my interest and debates were around the “changing of the culture” in all the citizens in the city to use services efficiently and turnoff lights, use less water, change habits. Like we have changed over the last 20 years to wear seat belts naturally in the car, how can we evolve the way people operate their house, their work environment, and their enjoyment environment.

I reflected on how my family’s culture had changed when we lived our yacht for ten years, both in California and travelling, as the boat is a small micro grid for power generation storage and usage, and we make our water from seawater or capture water. But we set the boat up with LED lights, and taps that force turn off, installed efficient shower heads, and on goes the list. My sons turnoff lights; they watch the power; it becomes a core part of daily KPIs, similar to weather.

When discussing this required cultural change the real concept of “smart Citizens” came into play. It was not just about the app on my phone to understand how to order taxi’s or understand the transport system. Tt was also about the applications that embed best living practices on how to operate the house, etc. So that through the natural use of these applications in the house, on the phone, etc. the user inherently executes the best-operational practice and increases efficiency. As that operational practice in tuned and improved, the embedded procedure is updated and effecting 1000s, to millions of people, without them realizing, but with significant impact to cities use of services and therefore improved efficiency.

This discussion does not take away from much of the focus today in smart cities around empowering the “service worker” and the associated services provided to citizens to attract them to live in the city. How a smart city will make these “service workers” situationally aware of conditions in the city not as they happen, but in the future detecting conditions from historical patterns bringing awareness of situations before they occur.

A “smart City” is about the city systems, services status, and capability being intelligent, and empowering right decisions faster to bring service satisfaction higher in the city. But all of this must happen while significantly reducing the impact on the environment, with goals of 50% reduction in energy usage and carbon footprint from cities by 2030, if not more, not counting waste and water usage. A lot more than just the systems must change, or the efficiency of the services and people are operating them. The way in which we as citizens go about daily life must change, so we enjoy more, but execute in the most efficient and natural way to increase the efficiency of the city.

It is certainly an interesting opportunity, but draws on many parallels whit the “operational Transformation” in the industrial space, and merging of concepts can only help accelerate the transformation in both landscapes.