Editor’s note: the following was originally posted on John’s blog.

Time for the annual pilgrimage to Austin for South By Southwest. I’ve been on panels before but, with zero disrespect to previous co-panelists, the one I have currently lined up is going to be really freaking good, maybe the best ever. Here’s detail.

Tuesday, March 16
11:00 AM
Room 9ABC
Austin Convention Center

[Add to my.sxsw.com or sitby.us.]

The panel is a great cross-section of perspective on networked urbanism. We got non-profit, academia, start-up, city government, and faceless mega-corporation (me).

Ben Berkowitz runs SeeClickFix.com, a tool that allows communities to report non-emergency issues to those responsible for the public space. This app has changed the conversation around civic engagement and prompted a number of municipalities to rethink their 311 strategy. Also, NPR likes it.

Assaf Biderman is the Assistant Director of the SENSEable City Lab at MIT. The work from the lab itself is amazing (flying LED robots, trash-tracking, city bikes that are also environmental sensors!), but it also approaches art, having been featured at the Venice Bienalle, Centre Pompidou, and Ars Electronica. Also, he’s the suavest panel member.

Dustin Haisler is the CIO and Administrative Judge for the City of Manor, Texas. Words can’t do justice to the amazingness that is Dustin. But a link might. He’s just completely rewritten the rules of city governance and engagement. Also, he’s younger than you.

Jen Masengarb is an Education Specialist at the Chicago Architecture Foundation where she educates the public about cities and the built environment. Jen gets what it takes to translate the urban world for its citizens and is a template for how we might do so in our second cities of data. Also, she’s the femalest member of the panel.

And then, me, of course. I’m just stewarding the awesome above.

We’re going to tackle three question areas, broadly.

1. What is the physically-built urban environment’s relationship to the digital environment that is being built atop it? Put another way, is there a mandate for information architects to be thinking as critically about cities as they do about websites?
2. What is the design imperative: how do we train the makers of today to think about the city as a platform?
3. What is the role of citizens in this design? This is different than focus groups and user studies. Citizens shape the machine that is the city in completely indirect and informal ways.

If you’ll be in Austin for South by Southwest — and you’re hanging around until the last day of Interactive — I’ll bet you a taco and a beer you’ll learn something from this panel.

Recap post and podcast to follow.

[Editor's note v.2: For those who will be at SXSW, we are hosting an informal networking gathering Sunday evening to talk about the future of Cities. If interested, email Adam Christensen at acch (@) us.ibm.com.]

Technorati Tags: City as a platform, Smarter Cities, SXSW, SXSWi

IBM’s new General Manager for North America, Bridget van Kralingen opened the forum with an update on our Smarter Cities initiatives and on what we’re seeing come out of these important conversations, as more people understand and embrace its vision.

• Cities are taking their first steps, piloting projects to improve efficiency and lower costs: The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC WASA) is working with IBM to analyze and revitalize its aging water and sewer system.
• Relationships are deepening:  IBM completed an automatic metering project with Houston-based Centerpoint Energy, and now the utility is engaging with us for a Smart Grid project.
• Understanding and awareness are growing: Fordham University in New York has developed a new business analytics curriculum, preparing students with the needed skills to address key challenges – from reforming healthcare, to making buildings more energy efficient, to improving delivery of public services.
• Cross-industry connections are being made: Sempra Energy, based in San Diego, is partnering with grocery retailer Kroger developing charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.

Later, in her keynote, North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue noted that as cities recover from the global recession of last year, “there will be a new normal for people, business and government at all levels.”

Governor Perdue discussed how North Carolina is doing business differently across the board to ensure its cities run smarter, leaner and poised to compete globally.  She shared some of the targeted initiatives she’s been undertaking to address each of her top four priorities for the state –   job creation, education, smarter government and public safety – and how she’s positioning North Carolina to be a world leader in green energy and green technology.

Speaking of green, the general session concludes with an insightful presentation and Q&A with Joseph Rigby, Chairman of Pepco Holdings, Inc., one of the largest energy delivery companies in the mid-Atlantic.  His company, which was awarded $168 million in federal stimulus funding for smart grid projects over the next several years, has begun implementing smart meters in Delaware with plans to deploy them in Washington, DC, and Maryland, later this year.

Now that we’ve hopefully whet your appetite, I invite you to replay the general session and each of the six subsequent breakout sessions – which feature additional experts and some great Q&A – on energy, transportation, government, education, public safety and healthcare.

Leslie J. Monreal-Feil is an IBMer based in South Florida.

Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Oregon at IBM's Smarter Transportation Forum

Rather than provide only my own recap of the highly insightful sessions at last week’s Smarter Transportation event in Washington D.C., let me simply point you to the recap from Sean Barry, from Transportation For America, and give you direct access to all the videos of the sessions.

Barry points out two session highlights in particular on the T4America blog, the first from Dr. Leo Kroon of the Netherlands Railway and second from Gunnar Soderholm, of the Stockholm. We’ve talked about Stockholm quite a lot here on the blog, so I’ll focus Dr. Kroon’s comments:

“Kroon described the importance of rail in his “tiny country,” whose 16 million people make it extremely dense. According to Kroon, rail market share between some Dutch cities reaches 50 percent, an amount that would be unheard of in the United States. And rather than force anyone onto the train, Kroon says the Netherlands Railways “seduces” them instead, through continued technological improvement that makes travel convenient and a commitment to reliability and affordability.”

The concept of “seducing” travelers into transit is one we could do well to emulate elsewhere. Even here in New York City, where transit is quite effective and ridership is relatively high, I would hardly consider the riding the subway a seductive experience (though, it does have it’s own charm.

Cost and efficiency are critical pieces of creating a public transportation system that seduces ridership. But it’s beyond simple utility.

Think of premium brands: Apple, BMW, etc. They seduce you on a level above pure functionality. You pay more for the experience. I could find mp3 players far cheaper than the iPod with similar (sometimes better) functionality, yet I willingly pay more so I can have an iPod in my pocket.

What if we applied a similar approach to transit? I’m not naive about the realities we face, nor the challenges of this kind of approach. But surely there’s more we can do to entice transit ridership.

Click here for video archives of the entire event, which included remarks from the following:

• * Dr. Robert Bertini, Deputy Administrator, Research & Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), US DOT
• * Dr. Leo Kroon, Logistics Consultant, Netherlands Railways
• * Gunnar Soderholm, Head of Environmental & Health Administration, City of Stockholm
• * Judge Quentin Kopp, Member and Former Chairman, California High Speed Rail Authority
• * Tom Wright, Executive Director, Regional Plan Administration
• * Janet Kavinoky, Director of Transportation Infrastructure, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
• * Michael Replogle, Global Policy Director, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy
• * Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Oregon, 3rd District

Update: As noted in the comments below, I’ve corrected the Netherlands population number to “16″ million in the quote.

In the meantime, I want to point readers to two related transportation announcements we made this morning. Here is a bit more background on both:

1. Road pricing trial results in the Netherlands.

Aerial View, Eindhoven

Source: Flickr

Consistent with the themes in this morning’s transportation forum, road pricing is a growing tool being used by cities and states around the world to change behaviors drivers and shift the balance of transportation from car-dependent to a more multi-modal form system. Six month ago, IBM and NXP Semiconductors began a pilot in Eindhoven to implement variable road pricing based on traffic demand, time of day and type of car (i.e., size + environmental impact of vehicle). Following are some insights from the pilot:

• * Seventy percent of drivers improved their driving behavior by avoiding rush-hour traffic and using highways instead of local roads.
• * On average, these drivers in the trial saw an improvement of more than 16 percent in average cost per kilometer.
• * A clear system of incentives is critical to changing driving behavior.
• * Instant feedback provided via an On-Board Unit display on the price of the road chosen and total charges for the trip is essential to maximizing the change in behavior.

Importantly, based on the success of the pilot, the Netherlands are looking at similar projects across other parts of the country in an attempt to meet some impressive objectives:

• * Fifty-eight percent reduction in delays caused by traffic jams;
• * Fifteen percent reduction in the total number of kilometers driven annually;
• * Ten percent reduction in CO2 emissions;
• * Six percent increase in total passenger kilometers via public transportation;
• * More than 50 percent of Dutch households will pay less than they do currently for the motor vehicle tax and vehicle purchase tax.

2. Using math to reduce traffic.

Scientists in our labs are using mathematical models and data capture to develop advanced predictive models on traffic behaviors to give drivers better information on their daily commutes. The hope is that with better data at the hands of drivers, comes better decisions, all resulting in a net improvement in time spent in traffic, reduced fossil fuel waste and less carbon spent getting people from place to place. This effort is part of a newly formed Center for Smarter Transportation Systems, comprised of IBM Researchers, mathematicians, industry consultants and software developers.

Technorati Tags: congestion pricing, eindhoven, high-speed rail, Netherlands, Smarter Public Safety, Smarter Transportation, transportation

Graphic courtesy of Johnson Controls, who is working with IBM on smarter buildings

Following is a guest post from Florence Hudson, an energy and environment strategy executive from IBM:

Buildings have always been much more than roofs over our heads. Over the last century, as towers of steel reached higher into the sky and homes sprawled farther and farther into the surrounding landscape, our buildings not only housed burgeoning urban populations and growing economies – they also served as symbols of modernity and progress. Unfortunately, today’s offices, factories, stores and homes are also symbols of something else – waste and pollution.

Today, at the big IBM Pulse conference, we made some announcements that highlight the focus we’ve been putting lately on one of the biggest pieces in building a smarter planet – the building sector. Why? Consider some of the following:

• * The building sector is responsible for more electricity consumption than any other sector, 42%, and 15% of all Green House Gas (GHG) Emissions.
• * In the U.S., buildings represent 72% of all energy usage and 39% of Green House Gas (GHG) Emissions (pdf). Yet, up to 50% of that electricity is wasted.
• * In New York City, buildings account for 80% of NYC’s Carbon Emissions.
• * By 2025, buildings will be the single largest energy consumers and emitters of greenhouse gas on our planet.

The HVAC system, the lights, the water, the elevators, the power and cooling for technology, the heating and cooling for people: all contribute to making buildings a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions—and a leading energy user. Lights blaze and air conditioners hum in empty offices at night, and lawn sprinklers turn on even during a rainstorm. Commercial buildings lose as much as 50% of the water that flows into them.

A vision for smarter buildings

We can think about buildings differently – seeing homes not just as living spaces, but as living systems; seeing offices not just as static environments, but as dynamic ecosystems of people and intelligence. We touched on the concept of a building operating like a living organism in a recent blog post about five innovations we see affecting cities in the next five years.

In a smarter building, systems are not managed separately – they interoperate. Thousands of sensors can monitor everything from motion and temperature to humidity, precipitation, occupancy and light. The building doesn’t just coexist with nature – it harnesses it. Smart buildings can reduce energy consumption and CO₂ emissions by 10% to 50% or more and save 20% to 50% in water usage.

The agenda for smarter, sustainable buildings is a transformational agenda about creating and managing a new future for energy interaction and optimization that will serve as a model for both new and retrofit construction in the commercial and public sectors.

Instrumented, Interconnected, Intelligent

Putting the vision into tangible terms, I’ve put what we see as some of the major elements of Smarter Buildings into the context of the three “I’s” we often cite:

Instrumented

• * Smart Meters (electricity, water, gas)
• * Building management systems & building sensors (lighting, fire, environment, CO2)
• * Public safety and surveillance systems
• * IP-enabled devices – servers, PCs, actuators, control devices

Interconnected

• * Environments (fiber, wireless, public spaces, offices)
• * Sensors, sensor platforms & concentrators
• * Meters & building management systems
• * Systems (cost, space-use, portfolio management, facilities management)

Intelligent

• * “Enterprise-view” visibility of the building/campus/enterprise/city operations
• * Real-time analytics of sensor & meter data
• * Behavioral modeling of physical, natural & people systems
• * Visualization for user awareness & action

Not a future vision

It is important to note that this isn’t a futuristic vision. This is already happening today. For example, the St. Regis Hotel in Shanghai is the only 5-star hotel which is an Intelligent Building in the Shanghai region in China. We worked together with the St. Regis to integrate 12 sub-systems to create one intelligent building, with a ratio of energy costs to revenue below 5% compared to 8% for other five-star hotels in the Shanghai region – a 40% improvement.

Technorati Tags: building sector, green building, ibmpulse, smart buildings, Smarter Buildings, Smarter Cities, Smarter Work

This Smarter Cities phenomenon is really taking off. We’ve held major terrestrial events in Berlin and New York, and plan another in Shanghai this summer. We’ve also staged dozens of mini-events in cities throughout the world. So going online is an obvious next step. Anybody who wants to participate is welcome. Register on ibm.com.

The event will start off with a handful of speeches delivered by government and business leaders who are up to their elbows in making cities work better. They include Bev Perdue, governor of North Carolina, and Joseph Rigby, chairman of utility giant Pepco Holdings. Our own Bridget van Kralingen, IBM general manager, North America, will launch the event with an update on our Smarter Planet initiative. (One tidbit: A little more than a year after launching the initiative, we have 1200 partnerships with clients worldwide–a faster uptake than we expected.) Gov. Purdue will talk about a test project in Charlotte aimed at revolutionizing the way highways are built. Using a public-private partnership model,  North Carolina is teaming up with developers who will not only perform the design and construction of the new highway sections, but will invest some of their own money, as well. If this approach works in Charlotte, Perdue plans on rolling it out across the state.

After a lunch break (you’re on your own for that), there will be breakout sessions focusing on education, public safety, transportation, government, energy, and healthcare. As somebody who attended university in Pittsburgh, I’m particularly interested in hearing from Dr. Daniel Martich, the chief medical information officer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. UPMC is reinventing itself as a laboratory for innovations in healthcare technology and new approaches to delivering care.

For participants, there will be plenty of opportunities to weigh in. There will be a question-and-answer session after  the major addresses and interactive discussions during each breakout panel. Participants will type their comments and questions on their computers.

Who knows, maybe the next Jane Jacobs will emerge out of one of these events. The pool of brainpower is certainly getting big enough to make that possible.

The need for progress is clear. There are now more than 475 urban areas with more than 1 million people residing in them. That’s an increase of 573% from 1950 when there were only 83. That translates into more than half the world’s population now living in urban areas. Transportation congestion continues to grow, wasting time and money while creating more pollution. Most of the developed world’s transportation infrastructures were designed decades ago and reflect the available technology, population and requirements at that time. Simply, the infrastructure responsible for moving the world’s people and things is inadequate.

Meanwhile, transportation investment remains a hot topic in Washington due to federal stimulus funding and new surface transportation legislation that Congress is working to pass.

In light of these events, on the morning of February 25 we are hosting a Smarter Transportation forum at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington D.C. to examine society’s need for updated transportation infrastructures. Prominent leaders from government, academia and industry will discuss powerful strategies and solutions to dramatically improve our transportation systems.

Participants will include Congressman Earl Blumenaur from Oregon, Dr. Robert Bertini, Deputy Administrator, US DOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration. Janet Kavinocky from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Judge Quentin Kopp, former Chairman of California High Speed Rail Authority, and other distinguished guests.

• When: Thursday, February 25, 2010
• Time: 9:00 – 11:45 a.m.
• Where: The Rayburn House Office Building, Room B-318,
  Washington, DC 20005

If you would like to join us, please send email to transprt@us.ibm.com to confirm your attendance. If you can’t join us, you can follow the event live on Twitter and at the event hashtag  #ibmtransport.  You are also invited to join our Smarter Transportation Linkedin community to continue this important discussion after the event.

But, physical events are necessarily limiting in their access and participation. Thus, to address that issue, we are going to be hosting the first ever Smarter Cities Virtual Event on February 23. The event will allow anybody to participate live, online, in discussions addressing the weighty issues our cities face, including transportation, education, energy, public safety and more. This is not just a webcast of the same content. Rather, they will be interactive sessions probing deeply on these big topics.

I’ve included a sampling of the agenda below (more details can be found on the registration page on ibm.com). We’ll be sharing some major recaps from the event here on the blog next week. You can also follow along on Twitter @smarterplanet and the event hashtag (forthcoming). But if you are interested in participating in the conversation live, register now.

Here’s a sampling of the agenda:

Main tent:

• Bridget Van Kralingen, IBM
• North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue
• Joseph Rigby, President & CEO, Pepco Holdings

As in all of our Smarter Cities conferences, the “main tent” sessions are followed by interactive breakout sessions probing much deeper into the major systems that comprise a smarter city. The Virtual Smarter Cities Forum will host the following:

• Smarter Energy, moderated by Guido Bartels, IBM and Todd McGregor, PHI
• Smarter Transportation, moderated by Gerry Mooney, IBM; Pat McCrory, Moore & Van Allen, (and former Mayor of Charlotte, NC); and Bob Kingston, McCarran Airport, Las Vegas
• Smarter Government, moderated by Nicole Gardner, IBM; Barbara Ramsey, Oklahoma Employment Security Commission; and Don R. Edwards, Alameda County Social Services Agency
• Smarter Education, moderated by Mike King, IBM; J.L. Albert, Georgia State University; and Sharon P. Pitt, George Mason University
• Smarter Public Safety, moderated by George Cruser, IBM; Stephen Hollifield, City of Richmond Police; and Pat McCrory, McCrory & Co. (and former Mayor of Charlotte, NC)
• Smarter Healthcare, moderated by Patrick Boyle, IBM; Daniel Martich, University of Pennsylvania Medical Center; and Asif Ahmad, of Duke University Health System

We hope to “see” you next week.

Technorati Tags: energy, healthcare, public safety, Smart Grids, Smarter Cities, traffic, transportation

Yet in many places, water remains an afterthought.  Communities often resent water restrictions, not understanding the need to conserve.  And while upgrades or repairs to existing systems may seem expensive, the stakes are too high to ignore:  this map neatly shows that nearly half of the world’s population faces a water shortage.  And this one shows the widespread reach of groundwater contamination.  None of this is going to change by itself.

On its website, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Water notes that given the scarcity of freshwater supplies and the intrinsic value of our water resources, water should be recognized as a precious commodity and protected…and goes on to say that because water is considered common property that belongs to everyone and no one, it is subjected to exploitation and misuse.

Many communities face significant challenges when it comes to managing aging water and sewer infrastructures.  But since we at IBM began to explore how we could apply advanced analytics and other technologies to help create sustainable water systems, we’ve found a growing number of people ready to think differently about the value of water, ready to meet those challenges head on.  Our collaboration with the city of Dubuque, Iowa, continues with the rollout of a smart water meter pilot that will let customers see trends in their water use and help them to conserve.  And in Sacramento, California, we’re helping two agencies – the Sacramento Area Sewer District (SASD) and the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District (SRCSD) — improve water quality and help prevent sewage spills.

SRCSD treatment process

The SASD manages wastewater collection services for more than one million people in the Sacramento region via a complex system that includes 52 miles of forced mains and pressure systems, 3,000 miles of gravity sewers, and 279,000 service level connections.

And the SRCSD, which treats wastewater from the SASD along with other regional wastewater collection agencies, runs a state of the art treatment plant comprising nearly 100 miles of pipeline and 20 pump stations. On an average day, the plant moves and treats approximately 165 million gallons of wastewater—enough to fill a football field 40 stories high.

SRCSD plant control center

Keeping track of all those moving parts – not to mention maintenance records, service calls, compliance reports and so on – was once a major headache, to say the least.  Now, we’re helping these agencies collect, analyze and share data in real time so that they can identify and prevent emerging problems before they happen.  That’s pretty cool.

In these cities and in many others around the world, we’re finding advocates, collaborators and partners who are ready, willing and able to make significant changes in the name of sustainability and environmental stewardship.  Because truly, it’s not a choice, it’s an imperative.

Technorati Tags: conservation, Dubuque, EPA, Maximo, Sacramento, sewer, wastewater, water

So maybe filming on Lake Champlain in an unstable canoe in the dead of winter wasn’t the brightest idea (smarter scheduling?).  But as always, when hanging out with John Cohn, it was a fun and educational experience, even with seemingly asymptotic temperatures.

John took me on a tour starting at the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center, in front of 5,000 gallon aquarium.   (They didn’t want us to swim in the tank with the forty pound Lake Sturgeon, but John did ask).  We then visited the Champlain Water District which supplies our semiconductor manufacturing site with water, to see how it uses sensors to monitor particle levels.  IBM uses similar technology in our REON partnership with the Beacon Institute and Clarkson University to monitor the health of the Hudson River.  For more on IBM’s water management work, click here.

Technorati Tags: Burlington, Champlain Water District, discovery channel, Downloads, ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center, Essays, hudson river, IBM, information technology, john cohn, Lake Champlain, New York, Podcasts, REON, Smarter Cities, Smarter Planet, Smarter Retail, Smarter Water, the colony, vermont, Videos, water management