Conclusion

A new set of conditions for healthy growth and adaptation is emerging for 21st century communities. This book has sought to explain what some of these conditions are, and to advise forward-thinking community leaders and stakeholders about how to take advantage of broadband bi-directional telecommunications to assure a better future for all. The high-speed Internet has given individuals, institutions and businesses ways to more efficiently connect and collaborate with one another, locally and globally. With pervasive digital networks in place, the economics of access, innovation and distribution have undergone radical transformation. The costs continue to drop throughout the value chain of products and services. The instruments of digital product, service and content creation that only a century ago were in the hands of governments, and only a decade ago were in the hands of big business, are now in the hands of local entrepreneurs and citizens as well. Anyone with a personal computer can now be a publisher, and anyone with an Internet connection can be a producer, marketer and distributor. Ordinary citizens who once thought of themselves only as consumers of other people’s products can now create their own content and build applications that can be—and are being—sold and adopted globally as well as locally. The democratization of the tools of content and service production and the collaborative networks that make information exchange more efficient and productive allow for more prosperous communities.

Promotion and Relationship Marketing

This chapter introduces the concept of marketing and explores its relevance for networked communities. The specific topics include: • An introduction to relationship marketing; • A review of transactional marketing; • Transactional versus relationship marketing, with Ottawa, Canada, as an example; • Commercial relationships, giving the example of the Digital Harbour, Australia; • Non-commercial relationships such as the Education Development Center; • Global alliances using the examples of the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) and Global Cities Dialogue (GCD); • Measurement and evaluation of marketing efforts.

Strategies for Community Development

The transformational changes brought about by the Internet stimulate the planning of social and economic development in networked communities. This chapter will cover the following topics: • The community and its economic and social development; • The importance of development strategies and theory: ° An introduction to types of strategies and theories ° The influence of ICTs on community development • Strategic planning in a community: ° An outline of strategic planning ° The role of ICTs in the strategic planning process; ° Examples of ICT community development opportunities; • Key success factors in implementing a community development strategy; • Evaluation and measurement of community development. The strategic inclusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) within community development plans can be compared to organisational re-engineering. They both require effort to become more efficient, and novel perspectives are needed to develop new economic values. Within the broad context of the human condition, they both involve understanding what people need and want, how inequities can be bridged, and how to minimise the negative impact of making changes. A lesser approach runs the risk of communities resolving one challenge only to see new problems spring up. As was aptly put by Matthiessen, Schwarz and Find (2006), “[Creation] of wealth in an economy of ideas is derived far less than we imagine from the technological hardware and infrastructure. Rather it is dependent upon the capacity to continually create content or new forms of widely distributed knowledge for which there is a need to invest in human capital throughout the economy” (p. 15). Information technology has acted as an important trigger for the development of business process re-engineering in firms (Attaran, 2004), and ICTs have had a similar impact on communities—they expand the need to keep up with global changes. Innovative use of IT has led many firms to develop ways of more effectively coordinating their activities and at lower costs, thus giving them strategic advantages. Similarly, communities around the world are paying attention to the Internet economy, realising that it is a source of opportunity that also presents many challenges. Firms and communities are often linked; as more businesses participate in work that is network-intensive, local communities have the opportunity to learn how they too can grow and change as a result of being networked, or at least learn to be a supportive ally.

Creating Applications and a Culture of Using

Chapters I to IV have introduced the networked community and described its environment in terms of the Network Society, technology, telecommunication regulations and public policy, and the knowledge workforce. In this chapter, the focus shifts to the content specifics—the telecommunication and software applications found on the broadband networks. The usefulness of these applications can stimulate the creativity of users, leading to a continuum of use, otherwise known as a “culture of use”. The difficulty in benchmarking innovative applications is that they change minute by minute; what is exciting today will probably be common tomorrow. Nevertheless, even established network applications should be considered because they represent innovations that might serve as springboards to next-generation production, making communities more distinctive, competitive, and creative. Several types of worldwide community innovations in applications are described here. This chapter will deal with: • A description of applications and groupings of applications; • An overview of sector-specific applications and some international examples; • A discussion on technology adoption issues that should be considered in developing a culture of use; • Measurement and evaluation approaches.

Leadership and Collaboration

This chapter discusses several basic elements of leadership and collaboration in building networked communities. It includes: • The context for collaborating, that is, the new economy imperative of digital competition; • The continuum of goals in networked communities—from simple communication objectives to more complex economic development objectives; • The structures needed to encourage the widest community collaboration; • The leaders that are needed within organisations and across industries; • The leadership style adapted to the formation and performance phases of networks; • The recruitment and retention of leaders; • Evaluation of the leadership and collaborative environment of the networked community.

Innovation

The global environment has become more turbulent, and innovations in telecommunication and information processing are both part of this turbulence and an adaptive response to it. How can telecommunication infrastructure enable the social and economic development of communities? With diminishing barriers in terms of price, speed and availability, how can individuals and groups in a community become innovators? This chapter will discuss: • The importance of innovation in an ICT-enabled world; • A model of innovation for continuous and discontinuous change; • The nature of innovation—describing the concepts of creativity and invention, and the source of innovation; • The development of a local innovation culture; • Evaluation of the innovation environment.

The Network Society

This book emphasizes the centrality of the human condition—those things that make individuals and communities uniquely human—in our vision of the networked community. It also emphasizes that, to achieve their goals, communities must pay attention to the measurement and evaluation of multiple dimensions. The topics covered in Chapter I include: • The nature of the Network Society; • Communities on the front line of the Network Society; • The change management framework that guides each chapter of this book; • The Intelligent Communities Forum (ICF) and its participating institutions; • Evaluation and measurement as a strategy—measuring with purpose.

Regulation and Policy Reforms

This chapter examines the following ideas on regulation and public policy: • Information societies are enabled by regulations and public policies that support open communications; • Government, business and public sector collaboration is key to establishing policies that lead to economic and social development; • Open source applications, products and collaborative culture are accelerated by adopting universal technical standards; • To be sustained, accessibility to the Internet and keeping it free and open requires some vigilance; • Ways must be devised to assess the local impact of policy and regulations and to provide next steps.

Knowledge Workforce

This chapter focuses on knowledge workers—who they are and what they do, and the impact they have on organisations and communities in the Network Society. As technology-savvy individuals, they have the training to understand and apply telecommunications and electronic media at work, at home and in the community. Because of their ICT skills and potential contributions to innovation and productivity, knowledge workers constitute a critical labour market for networked communities. Training and education institutions can play an important role in ensuring the local supply of ICT skills. To illustrate these points, four networked communities are described: • Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. This suburb of Paris has transformed itself into a preferred location for knowledge workers to live and work; • Mitaka, Japan. Mitaka is a suburb of Tokyo offering exceptional quality of life to its knowledge workers; • Taipei, Taiwan. This is a large city with a CyberCity Plan and an impressive labour force; • Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. This university town has developed an international reputation based on public-private collaboration and entrepreneurship. The chapter ends with suggestions for the measurement and evaluation of a community’s knowledge workforce.

The Technological Basis of Networking

This chapter pursues the following themes: • The extent to which telecommunications technology can serve as a platform for economic and social change; • The role that broadband communication can play in community collaboration and networking; • The specific technologies (networks and terminal devices) and their relative advantages and limitations; • The community applications that offer greater user access and user control; • The adverse and dysfunctional effects that can accompany technological change; • Some ideas about measuring and evaluating outcomes.