City Age’s “The Data Effect” was another amazing opportunity and learning experience for the team at ThoughtWire. It was great to meet the leaders trying to meaningfully change how we think about data and cities at last weeks conference. The conversations on and off stage shed new light on old ideas and opened up perspectives on entirely novel pursuits.
What has become resoundingly clear is that we as stakeholders from government, private sector and academia are at a pivotal moment in history - the awareness, excitement, and fear surrounding data has reached a fever pitch.
This presents three massive opportunities to rethink the role of cities and data in the lives of citizens.
- The inside and outside worlds coming together - convergence of public and private built environments. As people - 87% of your time is spent indoors, so why are smart cities initiatives in large part focused on the outside world? Smart sensors, traffic lights, security measures are certainly innovative initiatives - but can be so much more powerful through connection with the indoors. By partnering with private sector real estate and technology companies - cities can work to bring the two worlds together
- Data as the new infrastructure - if our built environments are being digitized the physical is no longer the only infrastructure - it’s the data generated that adds the most value. Future proofing your asset with the right system that can accommodate changes to your data infrastructure will be paramount. Whether public or private - the added value of data will continue to compound as more initiatives are set into place. It’s not enough to have these data initiatives or sources in place - but actually being able to turn them into improved intelligence or actionable insight.
- Data privacy and security is paramount to protecting citizens just as much as other services offered by cities. With data being generated from a variety of sources, and ownership of this data being ambiguous - it’s important to have the right legal structures and security measures in place to ensure data privacy. A huge part of data security is also including citizens in the conversation and keeping them informed. Who owns their data and how is it being used? What services can they opt-in or opt-out of?
Ultimately - there is so much hype and interest around the power of data. However - it is becoming evident that there is challenges ahead. The right infrastructure needs to be in place to effectively use the data, the public and private sectors must have some convergence, and data security must be an open and clear discussion with all parties involved. This presents massive opportunities for innovative organizations and thought leaders to shape the future with answers to these problems.
We believe Operations Performance Management can help close the gap between what's imagined and whats real today. OPM creates actionable insights from your data, and promotes augmented intelligence in your building.
Our free strategy blueprint for Operations Performance Management is available here.