Defining the Networked Community Movement

Sylvie R. Albert

Assistant Professor of Strategy, Laurentian University

<salbert@laurentian.ca>

Abstract

A number of geographical communities are strategizing around improving their telecommunication infrastructure and developing innovative online applications to create social and economic development, and take advantage of the knowledge economy. Telecommunication networks allow communities to import and export knowledge, to promote innovation, and to eliminate physical borders. These ICT-focused communities create partnerships to promote synergy within and between industry clusters, between community or regional organizations, to involve more local users in e-projects so as to develop a culture of use, and to develop alliances internationally. The purpose of this paper is to profile these networked communities by discussing factors that define and influence them while testing the level of agreement that exists among communities in relation to these constructs.

Introduction and influencing factors

The new millennium argument is that telecommunication is the new transport mechanism that can bridge the gap between large and small, improve access for business and residents, and generate new capacity (Landabaso, 2000). Fast sailing ships and railways expanded trade and shaped international politics in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Steam and electricity revolutionized the organization of work in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Automotive technology, highways, and airplanes changed customs, lifestyles, population distribution and shrunk the globe (ICF, 2008). Electronic media and broadband are the next level revolution encouraging a flatter world (Friedman, 2006). Authors such as McAllister (2004) and Wohlbruck and Levy (2001) have suggested that economic disparity between regions may diminish because of information technology - it is making it possible to do business and operate from any location, and when accessibility is provided through the availability of affordable bandwidth and access devices, a greater proportion of the world’s population can participate. A number of authors have since reported the cost savings, economic and social development opportunities afforded by broadband, including Castells (1996, 1997, 1998), Industry Canada (2002a, 2002b, 2004), Dawe & Curri (2003), and Annis, McNiven & Curri (2005). As several authors have noted, technology is an enabler not a driver, nor a panacea to all problems and therefore, this paper does not adopt a modernistic view of ICTs. There are two important facets to consider – the impact of the technical and the social on communities (Arnold, 2007) and the outcomes or the transformation of networked societies is reliant on the proper planning and utilization of both (Rooney, 2005). This paper does not argue that there is a ‘one-size-fits-all’, or that there aren’t any social disadvantages stemming from ICT adoption. Rather, it attempts to look at common constructs and attributes of networked communities that can be utilized to evaluate, benchmark, and measure.

Transformations are possible, as demonstrated among others by examples in Sunderland (UK) and Spokane (USA). Often quoted by the Intelligent Community Forum (Bell, 2006), these networked communities have developed a new vision focused on opportunities available in the knowledge economy and the use of broadband to overcome tremendous challenges posed by a changing economic environment. ICTs, when it is used to expand and improve existing or developing social system, can allow regions to buy and sell knowledge, and market products around the world (Kellar, 1998). Among the benefits reported are reduced health care costs, improved communication; benefits to industry from building capabilities, and developing key technology clusters; job creation opportunities including knowledge jobs and those resulting from innovation and new service delivery; and environmental benefits from sustainable technologies and reduced emissions (Technology Partnerships Canada, 2007).

This paper will also not dwelve into the concept of community as a larger system, for example, in referring to communities of practice. As explained by Arnold (2007), the concept of community means different things to people and the sense of attachment varies among individuals. Communities in this paper are geographically-based, with residents sharing a common attachment to organizations and the culture within.

The Internet, the increased demand for applications requiring high speed, and increased use of wide area networks by businesses and organizations have encouraged action on the propagation of broadband. It has also encouraged discussion on the future role of information and telecommunication technologies in developing communities. In the mid to late 90s, a number of broadband projects surfaced around the globe, some stemming from high velocity technological and knowledge areas such as California, others from smaller communities who could foresee the need for broadband in their future development. Canada was one of the pioneers calling for proposals to implement demonstration projects in each of its provinces to investigate the potential use communities would make of telecommunication technologies. These pilot projects were labeled ‘smart communities’ and within the confines of a rough description provided by the Canadian National Broadband Taskforce, each applicant developed a proposal to leverage federal dollars for infrastructure and telecommunication applications.

During roughly the same period, other groups around the world were at work encouraging broadband and a new information society. Among them is the Intelligent Community Forum based in New York and whose mandate is to encourage the sharing of information among like-minded projects around the world. They labeled these projects as ‘intelligent communities’ with a slightly amended definition to the one proposed by the Canadian National Broadband Taskforce.

The networked community cannot be precisely defined. Communities differ and no prescription or packaged answer will serve all, with some looking to restore health, re-invent themselves and/or better serve their members. In general, the idea is to work smarter using high-speed telecommunications infrastructures and software to achieve social and economic development goals. The terms “wired community”, “broadband community”, “smart community”, “digital community”, “intelligent community”, and “community network” are today often used interchangeably. The common element is that communities can now be interconnected, internally and externally, both electronically and socially, and that community leaders can now think seriously about things they could never have done before. The networked community has a physical presence in space and time, and people live there on a daily basis, but all their members are virtually connected to everyone else. In the 21^st century, the common assumption is that the social and economic well being of communities is very much tied to networking (Albert, Flournoy, & LeBrasseur, 2008).

The definitions of factors influencing and defining the network community were evaluated through a survey of projects in Canada as well as a review of panel evaluations of international projects to see where the emphasis is being placed and discuss the benefits and challenges for these communities. Igbaria and Igbaria et al (1999) added to our understanding of networked communities by discussing the impact of influencing factors on the development of networked communities. They proposed that the world is changing as a result of trade, politics, technology, environmental challenges, and social issues and that these are influencing or motivational factors for ICT development at the community level. Change, and especially economic restructuring, requires communities to re-think their strategy, and sometimes it requires communities to consider a transformation effort. Good leadership in all segments of society necessitates an evaluation of the impact of the change that is happening as a result of globalization and technological development, and the possible restructuring that may be required to place the resources in the right projects and efforts. Igbaria et al (1999) in their argument on the factors that promote the development of ICT-based communities discussed the impact of the political environment of communities as positive or negative motivators; of transformational leaders who want to see change; of economic situations such as when communities need to redress poor economic conditions, or want to prepare for a new environment; and finally, when social and cultural factors such as the increasing use of the Internet and broadband applications have the effect of urging leaders into action.

Many private sector enterprises have long realized this developing phenomenon and have used coopetition, strategic alliances, building new social compacts with NGOs (Brugmann & Prahalad, 2007), and restructuring their value chain to keep up to changes emanating from the knowledge economy. Similarly, several communities have embarked on the social re-construction needed to access growing opportunities in using knowledge workers. These examples are worth noting and can become benchmarks for others interested in following a similar route. Some of the more advanced thinkers in social re-construction are the networked communities, because they are taking the lead to collaborate internally to find resources and to leap into new fields that can yield positive economic and social benefits. ICTs are enabling development, allowing communities to extend what they do best to other regions, or allowing them to import what they need from others. It can yield new economic opportunities in the form of new industries and jobs, but more often, it only sustains current assets, or promotes quality of life for at least a portion of its citizens. Waiting for national policies is not considered a requirement - many communities and regions around the world are taking matters into their own hands whether it is to help minimize impact on the environment and global warming, or to find solutions to the health care crisis, or to find synergistic opportunities in their own backyard to maximize efficiency and encourage economic sustainability.

Background and defining factors – the Canadian example

According to the World Foundation for Smart Communities (Eger, 2002), a Smart Community is one ‘that has made a conscious effort to use information technology to transform life and work within its region in significant and fundamental, rather than incremental, ways. This transformation is beneficial to the community and attracts local participation and cooperation among community groups, government, business and education’ (FAQ, ¶1). The key element in this definition is transformation which assumes wide-ranging projects with implications on several community groups. It includes information technology infrastructure, and this infrastructure must be capable of delivering on content that will allow the region to transform itself (Caves, 2001). It also connotes effective collaborations, a well-supported vision, and strong transformational leadership (Albert & Fetzer, 2005) toward co-building of infrastructure, content, learning, and economic foundations. The smart communities concept in Canada needed multi-organizational and multi-sectoral representation on the smart community team (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998) to better handle the various challenges and build the necessary infrastructure, applications, innovations, and develop a culture of use.

When Industry Canada Broadband launched the Smart Community Program in 2002, they were searching for answers on the definition of a Smart Community and included the following (Albert & Lebrasseur, 2006; Albert, 2003):

1. Partnerships: Several community players participating at the table,

2. Applications: Common vision in the development of applications,

3. Infrastructure: Ensuring the adequacy of the technology infrastructure,

4. Leadership and Skills: Project implementation ability including user needs, user involvement, and skills,

5. Vision: Common vision,

6. Economic development: the desire to co-build economic foundations.

A slightly more detailed description of the constructs and measurement is included in appendix (Table 1 in appendix). The 2002 Canadian survey allowed the researcher to identify a hierarchy of attributes. Although all descriptors could be considered equally important, they were not always given the same level of attention by all communities.

The Canadian smart community pilot projects were representative of large and small cities, of cultural groups, of the flavour of each province throughout the country, and of applicants that could demonstrate innovation. However, prior to the federal government’s announcement, many other communities had made strides in this direction and others followed in years to come. Some came from small towns that believed they needed to collaborate to obtain a broadband infrastructure, fearing that they would be left behind in a knowledge economy. Others were formed by community organizations frustrated by their level of service from telecommunication providers. Still more were formed by community leaders who took advantage of public-private partnerships to improve their lot. The Canadian survey included the federal pilot projects and these other networked community projects.

Background and defining factors – international examples

In documents by Bell (2001 and 2007), similar but enhanced descriptors to the Canadian smart community initiative were offered and under the title of ‘Intelligent Community’. The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) launched an annual award in the mid 1990s and began receiving international applications from projects who wanted to become recognized as intelligent cities or projects. The intelligent community indicators are described in slightly more details in appendix (Table 2 in appendix) and included:

1. Broadband Infrastructure: ensuring an affordable, sustainable, and expandable broadband infrastructure.

2. Knowledge-Based Workforce, Digital Democracy, Marketing (users): planning for a trained workforce and one ready to operate in a knowledge-based economy, encouraging stewardship where community residents and stakeholders to get involved often online, developing a culture of use, telling your own community and the world about your efforts, and disseminating knowledge.

3. Innovation and Content: encourage the development of applications (content), research and development, and economic development around ICTs.

4. Leadership, partnership, and vision: encouraging wide-ranging collaborations to develop economies of scale, efficiencies, and synergies, leading by example, sharing a common vision.

An intelligent community is described as ‘a town, city, county or region that views communications bandwidth as the new essential utility, as vital to economic growth and public welfare as clean water and dependable electricity. Where communities once raced to build seaports, rail depots, airports, and highways to attract businesses and create jobs, many now view broadband communications and information technology as the new keys to prosperity’ (ICF, 2008). Communities are responding to the challenge of local economic development in the broadband economy. They are working to maintain a high quality of life - as places where the next generation can find a good job, make a home and raise their children. They are leveraging their unique qualities and traditional strengths in a new economic environment and they are creating a culture of use. The description of intelligent community is more focused on the user and encouraging a culture of use and is evolving the concept of ‘smart community’ over time. It is also more focused on and looking for evidence of innovation and economic development having defined a bit more clearly the concept of transformation.

Several dozens of communities and their stories are featured on the ICF website and include smaller locations such as Pirai (Brazil), with a population of 20,000, to larger cities and suburbs such as Mitaka (Japan) with a population of 170,000, to Taipei (Taiwan) at 2.6 Million habitants. Each of these communities have demonstrated a high level of innovation in using ICT for economic and social development.

Whether the process is top down, bottom up, or a combination of both, successful intelligent communities result from collaboration between business, government, non-profit organizations, and individual citizens (McGuire, 2000). The driver of the collaboration is a sense of concern about the ability of the community to compete in the global knowledge-based economy (Blakely, 2001; Hughes & Spray, 2002). Leaders from each stakeholder group (multi-sectoral and multi-organizational) are in the best position to know how technology could be applied in the community to meet economic and social needs.

The benefits are wide-ranging – one of several conferences on building the next century economy (Government of Canada, 2004), identified that smart and intelligent infrastructure will serve as the backbone of the e-economy by encouraging investment, strengthening research, enhancing commercialization, and ensuring that all Canadians have access to this infrastructure and know how to use it. Infrastructure is identified as an underlying requirement to build the networked community and it should no surprise that it becomes the first priority for a number of networks, or as Arnold (2007) has suggested, some things lead while others follow, but social networking is the key element in building the networked community. Infrastructure on its own has a field of dreams flavour that may or may not entice a transformation process.

Other factors were discussed as important by Albert, Flournoy and Lebrasseur (2008) such as the need for an evaluation process to attract and maintain collaborators and allow for benchmarking, goal setting, and measurement toward planning for the long-term sustainability of the network. Although influencing factors may attract partnerships to the networked community agenda, the future of the initiative will rest upon sound reporting mechanisms that demonstrate a clear positive impact for citizens and stakeholders.

Analysis – Canadian smart community defining factors

To validate the defining factors, two types of analyses were performed. The first, a survey of 28 Canadian telecommunication networks performed in 2002, and the second, an assessment of 39 international intelligent community applications in 2005 and 2006.

Eger (1997), Tan (1999), and Cohill (1999, 2000a, 2000b, & 2001) had already identified some variables through their own projects which lended support to the Industry Canada Broadband construct. However, a perspective from a larger number of existing projects or a survey was missing as most accounts to date had been in the form of case studies. The intent of the 2002 survey was to identify whether Canadian smart communities were active in each of the variables defining the Smart Community construct. The survey was meant to profile the activities of Canadian networks and determine if any of the objects and attributes were considered more or less important, or given varying levels of priority. Each Province was contacted to provide a list of current projects with the intention of performing a census – seventy six projects were found in ten Canadian provinces (including the federal government pilot projects) and twenty-eight communities (37% of the known population) responded and forwarded a total of seventy two complete surveys. Some of the results of the survey were reported in Albert and Lebrasseur (2006).

Smart Community is a latent concept because it is relatively intangible. It utilises a number of constructs built from objects and attributes that can be examined using a C-OAR-SE procedure for scale development (Rossiter, 2002). According to the definition offered by Rossiter, the objects in smart/intelligent communities are abstract collective, meaning that the set of concrete singular objects form a higher-level category in the opinion of experts. The super ordinate category object is abstract but its sub-objects are concrete singular objects for the ratter, for example, the definition of what constitutes broadband, or collaboration can be clearly described but the combination of several of these sub-objects into a title such as ‘culture of use’ is an abstract concept. Each attribute is formative, or adds to the main component. The description of Cadieux, Roy and Desmarais (2006) on the five steps needed to evaluate latent formative constructs outlines the process used for this study. (a) The first step examines the constructs’ unidimensionality to ensure that each item is linked to a single latent construct. (b) The second step looks at the constructs’ internal coherence using Cronbach’s alpha. (c) In the third step, researchers address convergent validity by trying to quantify the extent to which items are related to the construct that they comprise. (d) The fourth step involves the constructs’ discriminant validity, which examines the real difference between the constructs to determine if they should be regrouped. (e) The fifth step ensures that the instrument measures are coherent with the reality under study.

Table 1 in appendix identifies the six variables being measured and the items included in the survey instrument as well as the results of statistical analyses to support the C-OAR-SE procedure for building and evaluating the scale. The instrument was tested and corrected to improve validity. The Cronbach's alpha identified a good coefficient of reliability, showing that items (or variables) measured a single unidimensional latent construct. 

The argument presented is that smart community networks should be good at all of the variables identified. For the sake of profiling communities, the researcher categorized scores to identify the top, middle, and low achievers, equally separating each class. A stepwise regression at significance of 0.05 to enter and 0.10 to remove did not eliminate any of the variables. A frequency analysis was performed to identify the percentage of respondents indicating that they either ‘agreed’ or ‘completely agreed’ with each of the statements made. The results (Table 3) mirrored the tendencies. Vision, infrastructure and partnership were identified as the top three priorities of networks. The regression tests the significance of the six variables proposed against the combined score of all responses. Each variable provided a significant predictive ability to the model and showed large absolute values in their partial correlation coefficient. Therefore, each variable had unique information to contribute to the equation.

Table 3: Frequency Analysis

As can be surmised from this table, economic development activities and user needs tended to be lower priorities for most Canadian networks activists but a majority agreed that they were working on each of the variables defining a smart community. It should be noted that consistency may be greater in Canadian networks since the Canadian government had provided some benchmarks on the activities of the first twelve pilot projects. This ‘common understanding’ may not have existed to the same extent in other international networks studied under the intelligent community applications.

Analysis – international intelligent community defining factors

The second level of analysis is the international intelligent community data stemming from 39 applications received worldwide by the Intelligent Community Forum between 2005 and 2006. The questions were open ended and respondents had to describe the activities under each of the indicators. The evaluation was performed by two university professors, one of them with more than ten years consulting and research experience on networked communities. They performed the review of ICF files in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and applied their own measurement scale to compare achievement between communities. Similar to the smart community achievement scale, the variables or indicators utilized a measurement description scale (Table 2 in appendix). The results were recalculated to yield a percentage value to allow the researcher to measure the relative importance that networks affix to each variable and are shown in Table 4. The percentage cannot be compared to the first population (Canadian smart communities) because slightly different definitions of each variable were measured; however, some comparisons can be made on the level of importance that networks tend to attach to each variable or indicator. For example, similar to the Canadian smart communities, intelligent communities tended to spend a lot of time in developing a common vision and partnerships within the community or region. Infrastructure was the second most pursued activity in both analyses. Content was the third and the variables on user involvement and developing a culture of use ranked last, as it did in the smart community movement in Canada.

Table 4: 2005-2006 Intelligent Community Indicators

Discussion of Results

Vision is an important element of smart networks

The strongest variable in the study was shared vision toward synergy, risk mitigation, and new opportunities for development. The vision variable is defined as the reason or benefit of the partnership. 84% of the respondents in smart communities and 67% in intelligent communities believed in building multi-organizational partnerships and saw an opportunity for synergy, shared risk, and value in working in a collaborative manner. Again, the percentages are difficult to compare because the measures were not equal in both tools and there are international differences as a result of policies and social/culture issues, however, the vision variable was the best achievement in both groups.

Networks tend to concentrate on infrastructur

One of the strongest variables, infrastructure (77% either agreeing or totally agreeing with statements relating to the work being done in the community on infrastructure in Canadian smart communities), demonstrated that there is a strong commitment to infrastructure upgrading/development by most community networks across Canada and the international case files (62% achievement level in international projects). Communities either completely agreed, or agreed that their network is working to ensure that their infrastructure can meet future need, offers adequate speed, and can create economic development. Networks are often formed to resolve an infrastructure problem – in fact, networks differed in their ‘ability to attract applications’, ‘pricing’, ‘reliability’, and ‘security’. There was a slight difference in perception on items four (price) and five (reliability of the infrastructure) between groups of networks in the Canadian survey. Not all networks require infrastructure upgrading, especially in larger centers where private sector has made substantial contributions. However, intelligent communities still report and follow-up on the level of access and the take-up rate to continually improve usage. They also work with private sector to ensure that the technology can keep up to the applications that can yield value for the community.

Networks perceive the importance of the application variable

Seventy two percent of the Canadian smart community respondents identified that they agreed that applications and innovations are an important component but the numbers indicate that it was not necessarily their top priority. Members of community networks were asked to identify their current and proposed level of involvement in developing innovative applications. Perhaps it is because community networks are relatively new, and applications are not always at the forefront, especially if the first concern is to resolve an infrastructure problem. Inadequate planning and goal setting can affect the ability of community partners to work effectively together and for the network to reach its goals.

The extent of collaboration is considered important in smart networks

Related to the vision variable, respondents are highly involved in partnerships and collaborative activity. Seventy six percent of the time, respondents agreed or completely agreed with statements that they are building wide-ranging partnerships such as those involving business, government, non-profit organizations, and citizens. Many networks appear to begin as private networks or MUSH-type networks (municipal, university/college, schools, and hospitals) and grow to include a wider cross section of community stakeholders. This variable continues to confirm the trends toward sharing risks by spreading costs among community partners, and building public-private partnership to maximize efficiency.

Economic development opportunities are not always planned by networks

The economic development variable is an important one, and it is understandable that the community or region would strive to develop a networked community vision with the intent of contributing to economic and social development. However, many respondents felt that they were not properly planning to realize these opportunities. Sixty five percent of the time in Canadian networks respondents felt they were working on creating economic development opportunities. It would appear that many networks are hoping, from a vision perspective, that their telecommunication network will create economic development, but are not necessarily involved in specific activities to make it happen. Foundations must be laid for new entrepreneurial activity starting with a clear understanding of capabilities and a plan for addressing weaknesses as identified by Castells (1996, 1997, & 1998).

Users are not always involved

The step-wise analysis identified that the user variable is a good predictor in the model, but current networks tend to pay too little attention to this variable. It is the weakest variable with only 56% to 58% of the respondents in both groups surveyed showing that they were actively working on this variable. It includes the marketing and training efforts needed to create a culture of use, accessibility issues, and user involvement in decision-making. It is not surprising that users are an afterthought, but it is not optimal for most networks since a transformation effort requires building a culture of use which requires user involvement.

Smart and Intelligent Community achievement weighs toward achievement in all variables but there is still room for improvement

Can we call the communities responding to the survey or making application to be recognized as ‘networked’, ‘smart’ or ‘intelligent’? The concept of ICT achievement is nebulous and abstract. The overall achievement of Canadian networks responding to the survey indicated a good ability to achieve a high score on all variables with a group mean (by project) of 79.8 (therefore almost 80% achievement of the variables), with a t = 8.53 at a significance of less than 0.0005 and a test value of 100 (the mean average was further divided into three groups: top, middle, and bottom scores achieved by each community network. Top performers achieved an aggregated score of 86-99%, whereas low performers achieved an aggregated score of less than 75% (Table 5)). For Intelligent communities, the scores were slightly lower as a result of the measurement system, but similar categories for upper, middle, and bottom thirds were utilised for comparison purposes and similar divisions could be found to the ones in smart community achievement (Table 6). Performance is based on achievement of the variables from a process point of view, not on actual output based on a benchmarked statistic. It would be difficult to make an effective comparison between small and large communities, democratic vs. socialistic economies, and so on to create a benchmark. Therefore, this achievement becomes largely subjective and is this concept would require further research.

Table 5: Smart Community Achievement (N=28)

Table 6: Intelligent Community Achievement (N=39)

International Intelligent communities, as compared to Canadian Smart communities, fared similarly in the top third but were much weaker in the middle and bottom third. A few reasons can be offered for this discrepancy, a) the international questionnaire was open ended and required a fair amount of descriptions to be provided by the respondent whereas the Canadian survey asked specific questions and respondents were able to choose on a five-point scale; b) intelligent community respondents are motivated by an international recognition but are not always aware of standards or evaluative tools needed to complete the application; c) respondents do not always utilise the right resources (i.e. leaders participating in the reporting rather than less experienced staff resources); d) the requirement to complete the report in English could be a contributor to poor quality responses in an international setting; and e) international projects had little time to complete the application process as compared to the Canadian respondents.

Conclusion

Over the last two decades, many researchers have demonstrated that first world economies were increasingly reliant on knowledge workers. Smart communities attempt to ensure that they have the tools (infrastructure and applications) so that their citizens can choose to participate in the importation and exportation of knowledge. They make every attempt to involve users in the planning and implementation of technologies and applications, and make provisions to ensure access for all citizens and training and education for those who need help in order to create a culture of use. Networked communities develop partnerships between several sectors and organizations to discuss ways to improve the economic and social environment by finding synergies and improving access to information and resources. Finally, networked communities brainstorm on ways to use its assets to encourage a transformation process that includes social and economic development.

The results of these surveys may provide a potential model to profile these networked communities and encourage policies that further the development of new projects. The evidence demonstrates a commitment toward ensuring a common vision, sound partnerships, and planning toward the development of the infrastructure in existing networked communities. It would appear that some progress is being made in encouraging a culture of use and in developing a wider range of innovative applications as evidenced by the importance that international intelligent community networks are according to these constructs but there is plenty of room to grow in these constructs of the networked community.

Changing technologies, innovations, and the varying sizes and abilities of communities make benchmarking difficult, but best practices can be imported or exported which will only serve to strengthen projects around the world. Although measurement of networked communities continues to be present, achievement may be better placed on a continuum and measured in terms of its ongoing transformation since benchmarking is difficult. Once the original objectives of each network have been met, the collaboration can continue to innovate to provide new levels of service.

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Appendices

Table 1: Smart Community Indicators

Table 2: Intelligent Community Indicators