I would like to know what it will take before local government is able and willing to provide citizens with the same access to information, personal accounts and preferences and service requests, information-sharing, “user” communities for troubleshooting and social connections that any decent business routinely provides to its customers online today.
What it takes is a polity and citizenry willing to make the necessary investments in local, regional, and state government democracy, communications and transparency. US Local governments generally lack the wherewithal to develop such democratically motivated transparencies.
On the other hand, for the individual who is motivated and able, US government, other than nat security, at all levels is surprisingly open and accessible, more than most other post-indus nation governments worldwide and certainly more so than most private sector entities.
Does anyone know of any municipal wiki’s that have been developed that would could visit? It might be good to see how such a tool has been implemented and what it would take to do the same here in RI.
The innovation economy will be best fueled by entrepreneurs of all sizes and points of view are working to solve our major social and environmental problems like making water, closing the gap between rich and poor, making things smaller and smaller, with no ecological footprint. So we need: ecological entrepreneurs, urban entrepreneurs, technology entrepreneurs, design-minded entrepreneurs and so on. These are the folks that will lead innovation.
Entrepreneurs are market rule breakers and rule makers. They change the game. The live in Shumpeters world of creative destruction, which is the foundation for innovation.
A hidden resource in the innovation revolution are imigrant entrpreneurs who are naturally creative.
Business models are radical…companies distributed geographically tied together by technology. Horizontal companies. Networked businesses. Companies driven by legacy or by thinking like cathedral builders.
What can OSHEAN do to use its access to technology to further the RI and Southeastern NE entrepreneurial revolution?
The Knowledge and Innovation Economy will evolve in a way no one can accurately predict. However, we can and must influence it along the way by engaging in processes and employing new paradigms that are in response the the “New World ReOrdering” process that technology is driving.
Technology provides access to IMMENSE amounts of data and information sources. Technology enables UNPRECEDENTED connectivity of both human and information resources and allows for the instaneous bi-directional transmission of visual, audible and digital information across the globe instaneously.
These are both foundational components that are necessary to create the environment for more creative and faster innovation to occur and for people’s knowledge to become enhanced more quickly via the expedited experiences and access to superior levels of information which technology allows them to have.
However, without clear human to human connections being maintained both via technology AND skin and bone, face to face actual engagement the process of innovation will not be what it could be. Neither will people’s actual knowledge be enhanced and increased as it could be.
The temptation is to make Technology our God and place it above the human to human engagement. The challenge is how to domesticate technology without taming it or stifling it and to insure that it works for us.
I am always amazed at the amount of money companies spend on Information Systems and Information Officers. All of which are very important. But information that is not absorbed and refined into knowledge and seamlessly distributed amongst the humans who will use it to innovate never achieves its true potential to positively impact the multiple bottom lines we need to be concerned about.
So while we have done a tremendous job of capturing, accessing and sourcing information for us to be a highly functioning knowledge based economy that innovates as naturally as it breathes there must be new organizational designs which focus on keeping the interpersonal connections in place which allow information to be disseminated, knowledge to be shared, creativity to be fostered, ideas to be freely offered and the culture to be one that recognizes that nothing is more powerful or magical than the human spirit, human creativity and the engaged person.
Remember, at the end of the day all the information in the world being completely interconnected via “uncloggagle” networks dont mean squat unless there are humans on the other side who can take it and make magic with it.
That is going to require some really cool paradigm shifts and some fascinating new organizational designs that once again value the human potential above the dollar or the data.
A few weeks ago, IBM announced that it will be closing its office in Middletown. IBM is not laying anyone off. Half of their workforce was already working from home, the other half were preparing to do so. With broadband, vpn’s, and powerful pcs the paradigm has shifted. High gas prices for commuting and high costs of heating and cooling and maintaining a structure simply to hold employees who are interacting with phones, keyboards, and mice help to drive the shift. IBM really led the big centralized computer age. Obviously they see the next step as a vast distributed network.
As part of the ultimate RI-WINs implementation, I have been playing around with the concept of a “Neighbor Net”. The Neighbor Net strategy would provide RI commnunities and civic insitutions with affordable wireless broadband access to local community, and locally gnerated, information. By enabling a large number of people to affordably access local community information, communities will be incentized nad otivated to develop the content. The Neighbor Net concept gives everyone in the the community – residents, institutions, and businesses a common link through which their inidividual interests can be funneled to constituencies and clients. A Neighbor Net will encourage each civic institution to develop collaborative programs using RI-WINs to deliver information and services throughout RI. Individual programs can focus on each group’s area of expertise, its core clientele, and its employees. This cooperation would enable a Neighbor Net to leverage the efforts of cooperating organizations, reinforcing their core programs and maximizing the desire for all RI citizens to access it.
Bob, what a fantastic idea! The town meeting goes virtual. On a philosophical level, a very powerful concept … turning the whole “the Internet is eroding real-life communities” thing on its head and using the Internet to BUILD community where it has already eroded due to other factors. And on a practical level … WOW. There are a million applications, from disaster planning to education to health care information to creating positive community dialogue about key issues. Very good thinking. I hope you can make it happen.
Bob, consider using the public libraries as a “gateway” to your idea. Providing free access to information is already the essential part of the library’s mission and in many Rhode Island communities the public library serves as a community center.
The Knowledge Innovation Economy began in earnest in 1987 with a roundtable sponsored by Digital Equipment Corporation and the Technology Transfer Society with an analysis of the innovation process contrasting the ‘intellectual ‘capital wealth’ against, our then formidable competitor – Japan. Over two decades later, we have observed various companies and countries embracing the concept of ‘The Innovation SuperHighway’ – most recently Japan – http://dndi.jp/shutyu2/innov-english/furukawa-e1.html. China has used it as a cornerstone of their economic development strategy; and India is following suit. We have been studying hundreds of these innovation infrastructures that we call Knowledge Innovation Zones (KIZ) – http://www.inthekzone.com – that take the form of knowledge cities, internet villages, innovation nations, or economic corridors across states and even countries. The ‘new order’ is now a function of knowledge, innovation, and international collaboration. There is evidence of the Knowledge Innovation Grid (or Mesh) forming to integrate all aspects of the Knowledge-based Economy, Society and Infrastructure. We call it the Triple Knowledge lens (TKL). Maybe OSHEAN can view the RI and Southeastern NE entrepreneurial community a ‘zone of innovation’?
I would like to know what it will take before local government is able and willing to provide citizens with the same access to information, personal accounts and preferences and service requests, information-sharing, “user” communities for troubleshooting and social connections that any decent business routinely provides to its customers online today.
What it takes is a polity and citizenry willing to make the necessary investments in local, regional, and state government democracy, communications and transparency. US Local governments generally lack the wherewithal to develop such democratically motivated transparencies.
On the other hand, for the individual who is motivated and able, US government, other than nat security, at all levels is surprisingly open and accessible, more than most other post-indus nation governments worldwide and certainly more so than most private sector entities.
Two words: municipal wiki
Does anyone know of any municipal wiki’s that have been developed that would could visit? It might be good to see how such a tool has been implemented and what it would take to do the same here in RI.
The innovation economy will be best fueled by entrepreneurs of all sizes and points of view are working to solve our major social and environmental problems like making water, closing the gap between rich and poor, making things smaller and smaller, with no ecological footprint. So we need: ecological entrepreneurs, urban entrepreneurs, technology entrepreneurs, design-minded entrepreneurs and so on. These are the folks that will lead innovation.
Entrepreneurs are market rule breakers and rule makers. They change the game. The live in Shumpeters world of creative destruction, which is the foundation for innovation.
A hidden resource in the innovation revolution are imigrant entrpreneurs who are naturally creative.
Business models are radical…companies distributed geographically tied together by technology. Horizontal companies. Networked businesses. Companies driven by legacy or by thinking like cathedral builders.
What can OSHEAN do to use its access to technology to further the RI and Southeastern NE entrepreneurial revolution?
The Knowledge and Innovation Economy will evolve in a way no one can accurately predict. However, we can and must influence it along the way by engaging in processes and employing new paradigms that are in response the the “New World ReOrdering” process that technology is driving.
Technology provides access to IMMENSE amounts of data and information sources. Technology enables UNPRECEDENTED connectivity of both human and information resources and allows for the instaneous bi-directional transmission of visual, audible and digital information across the globe instaneously.
These are both foundational components that are necessary to create the environment for more creative and faster innovation to occur and for people’s knowledge to become enhanced more quickly via the expedited experiences and access to superior levels of information which technology allows them to have.
However, without clear human to human connections being maintained both via technology AND skin and bone, face to face actual engagement the process of innovation will not be what it could be. Neither will people’s actual knowledge be enhanced and increased as it could be.
The temptation is to make Technology our God and place it above the human to human engagement. The challenge is how to domesticate technology without taming it or stifling it and to insure that it works for us.
I am always amazed at the amount of money companies spend on Information Systems and Information Officers. All of which are very important. But information that is not absorbed and refined into knowledge and seamlessly distributed amongst the humans who will use it to innovate never achieves its true potential to positively impact the multiple bottom lines we need to be concerned about.
So while we have done a tremendous job of capturing, accessing and sourcing information for us to be a highly functioning knowledge based economy that innovates as naturally as it breathes there must be new organizational designs which focus on keeping the interpersonal connections in place which allow information to be disseminated, knowledge to be shared, creativity to be fostered, ideas to be freely offered and the culture to be one that recognizes that nothing is more powerful or magical than the human spirit, human creativity and the engaged person.
Remember, at the end of the day all the information in the world being completely interconnected via “uncloggagle” networks dont mean squat unless there are humans on the other side who can take it and make magic with it.
That is going to require some really cool paradigm shifts and some fascinating new organizational designs that once again value the human potential above the dollar or the data.
A few weeks ago, IBM announced that it will be closing its office in Middletown. IBM is not laying anyone off. Half of their workforce was already working from home, the other half were preparing to do so. With broadband, vpn’s, and powerful pcs the paradigm has shifted. High gas prices for commuting and high costs of heating and cooling and maintaining a structure simply to hold employees who are interacting with phones, keyboards, and mice help to drive the shift. IBM really led the big centralized computer age. Obviously they see the next step as a vast distributed network.
As part of the ultimate RI-WINs implementation, I have been playing around with the concept of a “Neighbor Net”. The Neighbor Net strategy would provide RI commnunities and civic insitutions with affordable wireless broadband access to local community, and locally gnerated, information. By enabling a large number of people to affordably access local community information, communities will be incentized nad otivated to develop the content. The Neighbor Net concept gives everyone in the the community – residents, institutions, and businesses a common link through which their inidividual interests can be funneled to constituencies and clients. A Neighbor Net will encourage each civic institution to develop collaborative programs using RI-WINs to deliver information and services throughout RI. Individual programs can focus on each group’s area of expertise, its core clientele, and its employees. This cooperation would enable a Neighbor Net to leverage the efforts of cooperating organizations, reinforcing their core programs and maximizing the desire for all RI citizens to access it.
What do you think of the idea?
Bob, what a fantastic idea! The town meeting goes virtual. On a philosophical level, a very powerful concept … turning the whole “the Internet is eroding real-life communities” thing on its head and using the Internet to BUILD community where it has already eroded due to other factors. And on a practical level … WOW. There are a million applications, from disaster planning to education to health care information to creating positive community dialogue about key issues. Very good thinking. I hope you can make it happen.
Bob, consider using the public libraries as a “gateway” to your idea. Providing free access to information is already the essential part of the library’s mission and in many Rhode Island communities the public library serves as a community center.
Here’s some interesting info re: “cyber-intra-neighborhood communication”:
http://www.outside.in/news/bloggiest_neighborhoods.php
The Knowledge Innovation Economy began in earnest in 1987 with a roundtable sponsored by Digital Equipment Corporation and the Technology Transfer Society with an analysis of the innovation process contrasting the ‘intellectual ‘capital wealth’ against, our then formidable competitor – Japan. Over two decades later, we have observed various companies and countries embracing the concept of ‘The Innovation SuperHighway’ – most recently Japan – http://dndi.jp/shutyu2/innov-english/furukawa-e1.html. China has used it as a cornerstone of their economic development strategy; and India is following suit. We have been studying hundreds of these innovation infrastructures that we call Knowledge Innovation Zones (KIZ) – http://www.inthekzone.com – that take the form of knowledge cities, internet villages, innovation nations, or economic corridors across states and even countries. The ‘new order’ is now a function of knowledge, innovation, and international collaboration. There is evidence of the Knowledge Innovation Grid (or Mesh) forming to integrate all aspects of the Knowledge-based Economy, Society and Infrastructure. We call it the Triple Knowledge lens (TKL). Maybe OSHEAN can view the RI and Southeastern NE entrepreneurial community a ‘zone of innovation’?