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In 1933, when President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt was recruiting former social worker Frances Perkins to be US secretary of labor, he invited her to his Manhattan house to discuss her policy ideas. One of the key items on her agenda was what she described as an “old age” insurance program. Roosevelt encouraged her to study the idea. Two years later the social Social Security Act was legislated by Congress.
Since then, Social Security has stood as one of the bedrocks of the American economy and a vital element of the country’s global competitiveness. Americans can rest assured that if they work hard and play by the rules, they won’t suffer severe privation in old age. It gives every worker a stake in the country’s success.
The Social Security Act was one of the bold strokes by government that helped define America’s place in the world in the 20th century—along with the Marshall Plan, the space program, the Peace Corps and the Internet.
Some people argue that in this era of austerity, government can no longer afford to launch bold new programs aimed at making the world work better. Not so. But it’s true that big projects have to be approached differently. These days, government needs to work collaboratively with businesses, universities and community organizations to get big stuff done. Sometimes this collaboration will take the shape of formal public-private partnerships, like when the US government and IBM teamed up to create the technical infrastructure of the Social Security system; other times not.
On Dec. 8, IBM is convening a conference, US Competitiveness: the Next 100 Years, to generate strategies for rekindling America’s competitiveness in the years ahead. The event will be held at Roosevelt House, where the president and Perkins conducted their fateful meeting. For live blogging from the event, check in between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. on the 8th. Please Tweet to #uscompetes.
What if the United States were a business? How would we size up its financial health and its prospects? Mary Meeker, a partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, earlier this year explored this intriguing idea in a humongous 477-page slide show, called USA Inc., which was later published as a book. She followed up with a more easily digestible YouTube presentation. In both pieces, her analysis is devastating: If the United States were a business, it would be on the road to going out of business.
Meeker’s work is a call to action that should not be ignored. But, what to do? It strikes me that the United States today bears a strong resemblance to IBM in 1993, when the once-mighty company nearly failed, and that IBM’s turnaround offers insights that could help the country get out of this jam.
IBM survived and now thrives again because it radically changed the way it operates. The new IBM has strong financial discipline, invests for the long term and welcomes collaboration with its clients and even with its competitors. It sees globalization as an opportunity, not a threat. It makes decisions based on facts, not emotions. It’s willing to change everything about itself except its core beliefs. And it’s committed to engaging in a continuous process of renewal. If you will, it’s becoming a smarter organization.
In the early 1990s, IBM had a near-death experience. This was a stunning moment in business history because the company had dominated the computer industry practically ever since there was a computer industry. IBM nearly collapsed because its leaders failed to recognize that the mainframe computing model the company had pursued for 40 years was out of date, they were inattentive to clients’ needs and they spent a lot of energy competing amongst themselves.
The parallels with the US today are obvious. The country rose to world dominance based on post-World War II economic advantages, a wealth of natural resources, tremendous military power and a dynamic entrepreneurial spirit. Today, its military and economic strategies are out of date, its natural resources have been depleted, the government isn’t meeting the needs of citizens for jobs and economic opportunities, and many elected leaders are focused primarily on defeating their rivals in elections rather than creating innovative solutions to solve the country’s deep and complex problems.
By Bettina Tratz-Ryan
Analyst
Gartner Inc.
Check out the Gartner blog, where this post was originally published.
Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the Smarter Cities event hosted by IBM in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. My first experience was a visit to Rio’s Operations Center, built by the city and IBM as part of the city’s urbanization strategy to integrate 30 different agencies that manage the city and citizen’s services. IBM has built the first stage of the operations center as an infrastructure platform with the information management capabilities available. Each city has the ability to integrate those capabilities around their specific requirements of process alignment and data integrity. By building this center for Rio, IBM is moving its previously fully customized delivery of the smart city framework into a platform and service solutions model.
The operations center is focused in its core to provide a comprehensive emergency response system, implement crime prevention, detect and handle utility outages and traffic issues, resulting in safety and revitalization of different sections of the city. What I saw was equivalent to Mission Control Center NASA, a large wall full of different control screens, with feeds from over 400 video cameras and other sensors, as well as a map, with infrastructure outages and remediation activities. Operators from the different agencies were monitoring the screens, and based on the different scenarios, applied the appropriate standard operating procedures that determine activities and processes between the different agencies. What was really amazing though was the fact that, at this point, none of the operators really worked with the full capability of the integrated processes and data flows that proactively share and consolidate information between the agencies. Still, the center worked like clockwork.
By Eric Bloom
Research Analyst
Pike Research
Check out the Pike Research blog, where this post was originally published.
At the IBM Smarter Cities forum in Rio de Janeiro last week, I had the chance to go behind the scenes and take a first-hand look at Rio’s smart city project. My main impression is that the project represents one of the purest emerging examples of a smart city project that is simultaneously developing smart solutions on multiple fronts – natural disaster management, public safety, health, utilities, to mention a few – and is starting to achieve a true “system of systems” – nirvana in smart city terms. This level of integration and interoperability across city agencies – and the successes Rio has had so far – bodes well for the smart city opportunity not only in emerging markets but worldwide.
The City of Rio de Janeiro has accomplished this by deploying smart technologies ranging from broad, continental-scale weather tracking down to mobile device-enabled notification systems for potholes and burnt-out streetlights. The centerpiece, of course, is the Rio Operations Center, which features Latin America’s largest screen and dozens of stations that provide visualizations of real-time data feeds. Within the center, 35 city agencies work together to synergize their responses to city events. (One interesting detail is that the operators wear uniforms modeled after NASA that create a sense of camaraderie and homogeneity across the historically separate city agencies, which creates something of a spectacle.)
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By Jennifer Bélissent
Analyst
Forrester Research
Last week, I attended IBM’s Smarter City Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the fourth in a series of global events highlighting the opportunities for cities to improve their systems, and themselves as a “system of systems.” This event felt different from the previous summit I had attended in Shanghai. Obvious political and cultural differences aside (not to dismiss them as they were significant), the big difference I observed here was that the sessions were more real. And, I don’t mean that as a slight on the Shanghai event. In Shanghai, the focus was on creating the blueprints for smart cities. In Rio, we had moved from blueprints to proof points. (Yes, you can quote that… it is mine.) Mayors from cities across Latin America and some from even farther came to share their experiences.
For example, representatives from Singapore, London and Lima shared the challenges and successes of implementing new transportation initiatives. Singapore deals with a growing population on an island, meaning there is no opportunity for sprawl and therefore “private cars are no longer an option.” As a result, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) has a goal that 70% of all circulation or “daily trips” will be by public transport. They are almost there. The strategy was twofold. LTA makes it really expensive to drive a private car: cars are taxed at 120% and the ownership license distributed via auction was $60,000 in the latest round. Not to mention the congestion-based tolling system when you actually do use your car. On the other hand, LTA has improved the experience of public transportation through an integrate transport system, predictive arrival times, and notification of arrivals among other things.
Continued on the Forrester blog, where this post was originally published.
Posted by
Steve Hamm in
- Analytics
- business analytics
- Education
- Government Services
- new intelligence
- optimization
- Smart Grids
- Smarter Buildings
- Smarter Cities
- Smarter Energy
- Smarter Food
- Smarter Healthcare
- Smarter Industries
- Smarter Planet
- Smarter Systems
- Smarter Transportation
- Smarter Utilities
- Smarter Water
- Smarter Water Management
- sustainability
Rio De Janeiro is a bustling metropolis in a booming country–and, increasingly, an example of how government and business leaders can cooperate to make cities work better. Join the live blog today for a second day of coverage of speeches, panels and hallway discussions.
Update:
Here’s Ginni Rometty, IBM’s senior vice president for Sales, Marketing and Strategy (and IBM’s next CEO) talking about how to build a smarter city.
Posted by
Steve Hamm in
- Analytics
- business analytics
- Government Services
- Inventions
- Leadership
- new intelligence
- Smarter Buildings
- Smarter Cities
- Smarter Industries
- Smarter Planet
- Smarter Public Safety
- Smarter Systems
- Smarter Traffic
- Smarter Transportation
- Smarter Utilities
- Smarter Water
- Smarter Water Management
- Smarter Work
- sustainability
- urban planning
Rio De Janeiro is a bustling metropolis in a booming country–and, increasingly, an example of how government and business leaders can cooperate to make cities work better. Join the live blog today and tomorrow for coverage of speeches, panels and hallway discussions.
Here’s Sam Palmisano’s speech:
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By Elly Keinan
General Manager
IBM Latin America
(Editor’s note: Keinan will be one of the hosts of IBM’s two-day Smarter Cities conference in Rio de Janeiro this week. Follow live blogging from the event on Nov. 9 and Nov. 10.)
A year and a half ago, torrential rains in Rio de Janeiro caused floods and landslides that brought much of the city to a standstill and killed more than 100 residents. Eleven inches of rain beat down in a 24-hour period. In a city with a history of tropical rainstorms and flooding, Brazilians demanded to know why the authorities were not better prepared.
Rio’s mayor, Eduardo Paes, vowed that such a disaster would not happen again. He moved decisively to bolster the city’s defenses against weather-related disruptions. Today, the city has a new state-of-the art intelligent operations center where managers monitor dozen of screens for data concerning weather, traffic, police, medical services, and other city departments on a real-time basis and anticipate looming problems—putting defenses in place to diminish their impact.
The mayor’s actions demonstrate convincingly how bold leaders can harness the power of sophisticated technologies to transform the way a city operates—and make life better for their constituents. The technology underpinning the Rio Operations Center, which was set up by IBM consultants and software architects, has matured since the center went live almost a year ago. Now, this kind of management system is becoming available to cities of all sizes—including via a cloud computing offering, which makes it faster to deploy.
These advances represent an important moment in the evolution of cities.
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By Marie-Anne (Kui) Kinyanjui
IBM external relations, Kenya
What seems like a random question was actually a something that was being asked this week by leaders from government and business that attended the Smarter Cities Roundtable in Nairobi this week. Stakeholders from the Kenyan government, private sector and civil society gathered to identify Nairobi’s most significant challenges in order to frame discussion on technology could ease the city’s transitional growth.
In the next 20 years, Nairobi’s population – already the largest on the East coast of Africa – is set to exceed that of these three mega cities in coming years. The Kenyan capital’s population will balloon by 65 per cent over the next decade to stand at between 8-10 million, presenting a unique challenge to a city that is already struggling under to accommodate the needs of its residents. The main challenges are transportation, utilities, safety and security and urban planning.
So as leaders from government and business look for best practice from other cities for how have tackled their urban challenges, the examples of Rio, London and Singapore are actually more relevant than we might have suspected.
