WEBVTT 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:09.000 Speaker 1 Hello, and welcome to this edition of Community and University. 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:17.000 Speaker 1 I'm your host, Jeff Franklin, a research assistant at Michigan State University's Center for Community and Economic Development, specifically in the regional. 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:19.000 Speaker 1 Economic Innovation Department. 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:21.000 Speaker 1 Today I'm joined by Dr. 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:29.000 Speaker 1 John Monberg of the Department of Writing Rhetoric and American Cultures, as well as the Experience Architecture Program at Michigan State. 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:30.000 Speaker 1 How are you today, Dr. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:30.000 Speaker 1 Monberg. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:31.000 Speaker 2 I'm doing well. 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:38.000 Speaker 2 Classic Michigan summer day and a nice time to kind of reflect and think about the big picture and talk to interesting people. 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:43.000 Speaker 1 So you're one of our co-learning authors for the 2019 project year. 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:47.000 Speaker 1 From my understanding, your project revolves around getting to the perspective of the human 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:53.000 Speaker 1 more involved with the more technical field of community and economic development, particularly with smart cities. 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:53.000 Speaker 1 Is this accurate? 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:56.000 Speaker 2 That is accurate, yes. 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:02.000 Speaker 1 Can you talk a little bit about what smart cities are and why a humanitarian framework is so vital to their development? 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:14.000 Speaker 2 So smart city is kind of a big picture narrative for lots of developments in sensors, algorithms, all kinds of information technology developments. 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:25.000 Speaker 2 And we've moved from a kind of big picture story about smart city technology as sort of almost a science fiction capability. 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:34.000 Speaker 2 And now the technologies are proven enough that they're moving out of laboratories and into the world very quickly. 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:48.000 Speaker 2 And there are all kinds of issues from traffic and safety and environmental conditions and economic development that can be improved by the use of smart city technologies. 00:01:48.000 --> 00:02:07.000 Speaker 2 But those improvements will only happen if we really understand community stakeholders' values, the visions they have for the future, what kind of society they'd like to create, and starting from that point of view to drive the technology developments. 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:12.000 Speaker 1 What were some of the surprises you found while you were working on this co-learning plan? 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:25.000 Speaker 2 The biggest surprise was how important the intellectual approaches from the humanities are to solving what's really important about smart city initiatives. 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:35.000 Speaker 2 You can have specialized experts and engineers who can develop algorithms and sensors and improve those on narrow technical features. 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:39.000 Speaker 2 But for cities really to thrive in the future, 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:59.000 Speaker 2 The 3 important things I've really discovered from this project is 1, how do you develop a common vision for the future and cross the traditional silos of traffic departments and economic development and environmental impacts and have those people work together? 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:04.000 Speaker 2 And that becomes even more important when you have different community stakeholders, 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:14.000 Speaker 2 that have very different visions of what kinds of jobs they would like to have, what kind of neighborhoods they'd like to have, the kind of family structure they have. 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:22.000 Speaker 2 And coordinating those two things into a shared vision is important. 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:33.000 Speaker 2 A second thing I've discovered is that there are many techniques that corporations have used to do user research, to understand how their customers think about the world and what they value. 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:45.000 Speaker 2 And cities have been very ambitious lately about using some of those technologies so that they complement traditional community engagement techniques that cities have done. 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:52.000 Speaker 2 And the third thing that is a little bit surprising, but how important ethical issues are. 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:59.000 Speaker 2 Ethical issues around things like data privacy, issues of equity, accountability. 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:17.000 Speaker 2 So having a common vision, understanding community engagement, and understanding the ethical issues are things that academics in the humanities are very good at and have developed over a long time period, sophisticated ways 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:21.000 Speaker 2 of moving forward in those three areas. 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:29.000 Speaker 2 And unfortunately, those academic experts have been in their own kind of ivory tower silo. 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:43.000 Speaker 2 And so one of my central missions is to take that sophisticated academic knowledge and work with a lot of community stakeholders and city managers to understand 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:57.000 Speaker 2 how they make decisions and what kind of information would be usable for them as they try to make their cities more just, more sustainable, more economically creative and vibrant. 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:06.000 Speaker 1 So what sort of obstacles come up often when you're trying to develop these smart cities, especially the humanitarian framework? 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:07.000 Speaker 2 There are a couple issues. 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:11.000 Speaker 2 One that I've noted already is that 00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:14.000 Speaker 2 Cities are organized around traditional silos. 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:19.000 Speaker 2 So traffic engineers look at the world from the perspective of a traffic engineer. 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:23.000 Speaker 2 Economic development people use the traditional tools of economic development. 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:26.000 Speaker 2 Zoning works in a different way. 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:31.000 Speaker 2 And in crossing those very 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:34.000 Speaker 2 strong differences is definitely a challenge. 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:52.000 Speaker 2 Another huge challenge is that now there are hundreds of cities using thousands of smart city projects, doing all kinds of creative and innovative things, and that there's sort of a deluge of information that's very difficult to keep track of. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:54.000 Speaker 2 And I've been trying to kind of 00:05:54.000 --> 00:06:10.000 Speaker 2 coordinate and cluster that knowledge so that I could present it in a way that city managers can find and understand and make use of those techniques in solving the problems that they face. 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:15.000 Speaker 1 Speaking of presenting, what will your presentation at this year's summit cover? 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:19.000 Speaker 2 It will cover the resource that I've just mentioned, right? 00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:43.000 Speaker 2 So what are, I'll create a kind of general roadmap for how smart city technologies are being implemented in Michigan, and then talk through a number of techniques that city managers can use to create a shared vision of the future, use user research to understand community engagement, and wrestle with some of those ethical issues. 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:50.000 Speaker 2 One of the resources I will have will be contacts of cities in Michigan doing smart city projects. 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:59.000 Speaker 2 A second resource will be case studies of cities that have been nationally recognized as leadership in a smart city area. 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:05.000 Speaker 2 And the third area will be a set of national reports that lay out the broad terrain. 00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:08.000 Speaker 2 So these resources 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:17.000 Speaker 2 Won't be able to give a person an in-depth understanding of a smart city project, but they'll be a great starting point to. 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:29.000 Speaker 2 kind of understand broadly what's going on with smart city technologies and then how to move forward and some resources to move forward given that understanding. 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:36.000 Speaker 1 So you keep mentioning some of these smart city technologies and some that might be coming to Michigan specifically. 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:41.000 Speaker 1 Will your presentation cover any of the specific technologies that we might start to see in our communities? 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:45.000 Speaker 1 Can you talk a little bit about what some examples of those might be? 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:48.000 Speaker 2 So yes, I will be talking about some of those. 00:07:48.000 --> 00:08:01.000 Speaker 2 And so some of these include things like smart lighting that in some ways can reduce the energy bills that cities face by using sensors to use lighting more efficiently. 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:05.000 Speaker 2 But if you're going to put in those sensors, you can also move to 5G. 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:07.000 Speaker 2 You can also put in video cameras. 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:08.000 Speaker 2 You can do many things. 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:21.000 Speaker 2 And so lighting turns into not just providing light in a neighborhood, but a way of thinking about safety, thinking about 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:22.000 Speaker 2 vibrant St. 00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:26.000 Speaker 2 life as a way and as a data infrastructure. 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:46.000 Speaker 2 I'll be talking about the Grand Rapids 311 program that creates kind of an open portal to crossing the silos that a citizen traditionally faces and trying to figure out how to negotiate what can be a complex city 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:50.000 Speaker 2 I'll be talking about the 311 program in Grand Rapids. 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:58.000 Speaker 2 So citizens of a community often face a bewildering array of choices when they are trying to solve a problem. 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:05.000 Speaker 2 And these kinds of techniques can create a useful roadmap for citizens to engage with the community. 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:20.000 Speaker 2 And I might talk about some smaller issues like a program in Ann Arbor that uses iPhones to map roads to understand how potholes affect different neighborhoods. 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:32.000 Speaker 2 And using a technology as simple as an iPhone can cut the expense of doing that mapping by 80% or more. 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:33.000 Speaker 2 So we're quickly moving 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:49.000 Speaker 2 from a world where Smart City is a kind of an abstract science fiction label, into a world where there are dozens of little initiatives that can definitely make a city safer, more creative, more vibrant, more inclusive. 00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:54.000 Speaker 2 And we need to have a capacity so city managers can make good decisions along those lines. 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:58.000 Speaker 1 That sounds awesome, but I think where you sold me was on where you said potholes might get better. 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:01.000 Speaker 1 Well, you know how big of a problem that is in Michigan. 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:08.000 Speaker 1 So this is clearly something that really impacts communities directly and individual members of communities. 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:12.000 Speaker 1 How can community members get involved if they can do so? 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:24.000 Speaker 2 One thing is by reaching out to me, and I've been interviewing lots of people face to face and by e-mail, and over time I get a much better sense of what's important to city managers and community members. 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:32.000 Speaker 2 And I've been working on both a blog and a website to synthesize that kind of information. 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:39.000 Speaker 2 And so following me on Twitter, giving me feedback on the report, 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:44.000 Speaker 2 following up on e-mail is something that can have a long-term benefit. 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:48.000 Speaker 1 Would you like to give people your contact information now over the pod? 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:55.000 Speaker 2 So my e-mail is JMONBERG at MSU.edu. 00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:59.000 Speaker 2 My Twitter is at JMONBERG. 00:10:59.000 --> 00:11:04.000 Speaker 2 And the website is Smart City Citizens. 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:08.000 Speaker 1 So how will your project continue after this year's Innovate Michigan Summit? 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:09.000 Speaker 2 Okay. 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:15.000 Speaker 2 We've seen in the Midwest how important that universities can act as a catalyst. 00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:25.000 Speaker 2 Universities can bring lots of different kinds of expertise together and lots of people with different kinds of visions of the future together. 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:34.000 Speaker 2 And Midwestern cities thrive when universities have the capacity to bring those very different kinds of people, visions, and techniques together. 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:48.000 Speaker 2 And so I've been working over the last three years, and I'll continue to work over the next two to three years at least, in creating the capacity for kind of medium-sized cities in the Midwest 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:56.000 Speaker 2 to make use of university expertise as a catalyst for making good decisions about smart city projects. 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:57.000 Speaker 1 This all sounds incredible. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:01.000 Speaker 1 I want to thank you for coming into... 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:02.000 Speaker 1 the CCED today. 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:03.000 Speaker 1 Dr. 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:10.000 Speaker 1 Monberg came in today to help us promote the Innovate Michigan Summit that will be happening Thursday, August 29th. 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:14.000 Speaker 1 If you would like to attend, you can find more information on reicenter.org. 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:19.000 Speaker 1 That is reicenter.org under the events tab. 00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:20.000 Speaker 1 Be sure to register. 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:23.000 Speaker 1 There is a reception at the end. 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:28.000 Speaker 1 There's box lunch during the summit and a lot of really cool 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:34.000 Speaker 1 Presenters, including Doctor Monberg, here, so please think about coming, and we hope to see you there. 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:39.000 Speaker 1 Thanks for listening!