Share What You Learn

So with some confidence, we can assume that there is an IT Director, a Finance Director, a Police Chief, a Fire Department IT guy or gal, a utility department head, a City Manager, or a Mayor in your own city government who has taken an interest in this new way of doing things and pursued an education sometime in the last year or two. But - here is the rub - how widespread is the knowledge of broadband and the awareness of the potential in your city or town? We still have a long way to go to get our city governments to change the way they look at things.

For truly transformative change, we need to teach each other about the possibilities of new technology, and move beyond generalities that have "some day" written all over them, to practical approaches that realistically consider the steps that such change would require.

A first step to enacting change has to be a community dialogue - start hosting meetings or brown bags in your department in order to pool knowledge on new possibilities and discuss potential changes. This is a creativity exercise at first. Stretch your collective brains around the new possibilities.

I'll be attending several regional roadshows sponsored by Cisco in the next few weeks here in Central Texas, where city officials will have a chance to experience first-hand a wireless network and see applications in use. Any number of Cisco Solution Partners will be on hand to talk about how the business of city government can be transformed with mobile applications, and to show attendees a glimpse of the future of providing service to citizens with the latest tools and revised business processes. I'll be there to catch those who are ready to go and help them to get a project started with a MetroNetIQ Starter Kit.

"Anything interesting starts with a conversation." I like this phrase because it represents a deep truth. The first step on the road to change is sharing viewpoints with another on how things are and how things could be better. Solving problems is what we do as human beings. I commend Cisco and participating vendors for starting the conversation. Now its up to city officials and staff to pick up the ball and run with it. I urge all of you readers to start a conversation today and spread the word about the changes on the horizon and the potential to do better for our citizens.