Cities as Knowledge Systems

1. Cities as Knowledge Systems Denise A. D. Bedford, Ph.D. Goodyear Professor of Knowledge management Kent State university Kent Ohio

2. Presentation overview • Two Perspectives on the Knowledge Economy • The Systems Context • Historical Perspectives on Knowledge Cities • 21st Century View of Knowledge Cities • Getting from Here to There

3. Two perspectives on knowledge economy

4. Knowledge management context • In the past two year’s I’ve been doing research into how we represent and grow a knowledge economy • The starting point for my research was an attempt to use the World Bank’s country-focused Knowledge Economy Index to measure a state’s progress towards a knowledge economy. • As I worked through the research methodology, I realized that my starting model was flawed – in fact the Knowledge Economy Index measured a country’s progress towards an advanced industrial economy • My research took an entirely different path – I had to step back and build out an entirely new model of a knowledge society, including factors that describe the civic context, the social structure, the economic system, the natural and built environment, and the human development context

5. Economist’s perspective – Macroeconomic View • From the economist’s perspective, cities create agglomeration and network effects, opportunities for economies of scale that derive from sector concentrations. • Where there is a concentration of organizations all serving a particular economic sector or industry, stocks of domain knowledge or intellectual capital may lead to innovation or market efficiencies. • This perspective tends to focus on cities in the context of a country or regional economic system. • Cities are lower level sources that contribute intellectual capital to the county or region’s overall economic value and are valued within the national system of accounts.

6. Images of Traditional knowledge cities

7. Knowledge economy indexes No city level representation

8. Knowledge scientist’s perspective – Microeconomic view • The second perspective is that of a knowledge scientist – microeconomic view • From a knowledge sciences perspective, cities are aggregations of intellectual capital produced by individuals in the form of human capital, by households, communities, and organizations in the form of structural capital, and by transactions and activities in the form of relational capital. • Knowledge scientists explore those factors that promote and sustain knowledge cities as complex, adaptive and dynamic systems constructed around knowledge transactions. • Knowledge scientists are concerned with the transformation of cities into knowledge cities.

9. The systems Context

10. Systems thinking and more… • Systems Thinking is a cornerstone of Peter Senge and W. Edward Deming’s philosophies • It involves seeing the whole as more than the sum of its components, understanding the relationship of each component to the health of the whole system. • Dr. Deming’s theories of systems thinking have been applied to bounded entities such as organizations, to corporations, and to aspects of cities. We believe they apply equally well to cities as systems. • Thinking of systems a la Senge also helps us to see how our own actions play a role in the state of a city at any point in time

11. Knowledge sciences view of knowledge economy

12. Community and Organization Scorecard

13. Community and Organization Scorecard

14. City role in the knowledge economy

15. Historical perspective of Knowledge cities Not ready for a knowledge economy….

16. Not a new concept • Knowledge cities are not a new idea. A historical review of the literature finds discussions of different kinds of knowledge cities. • The characterization of cities as places, as environments, as social, political and economic entities was sufficient for an industrial era, but it is not sufficient for a knowledge era. • As Egger suggests - “cities are far more than physical containers storing people, goods and knowledge.“

17. Science Cities • Science cities were constructed to support people who were engaged in scientific or high technology projects, in specific timeframes, and to achieve specific outputs. • These cities were largely created from scratch, with people imported to the communities. • Targeted experiments - targeted the knowledge-rich professions or highly educated classes • Isolated - essential structure and functioning of the city was consistent with industrial economy. • In fact, these cities lacked essential elements of a 21st century knowledge city – heritage, culture, historic city scapes and infrastructures, pride of place, multigenerational social systems, multicultural households, and an infrastructure in harmony with the environment.

18. Amidon’s Evolution of Knowledge cities

19. technopolies • Technopolies were targeted experiments in that they focused on incubators or hubs for invention, learning and collaboration within existing cities. • Targeted the same high skilled and highly educated segments of the population, this time focusing largely on engineering and technology sectors. • Like science cities, technopolies did not lead to the development of a knowledge city. Instead, they produced technology corridors or technology hubs, generally promoting economic growth for an existing economic sector. • Technopolies more closely resemble our idea of a knowledge city in that the cities in which they were embedded generally had rich heritage, cultural systems, social and civic systems.

20. Digital cities • As their name suggests, these were laboratories or groups of experts brought together to address a specific problem or to support a project. • These have similarities to the earlier science cities, without the isolation and the need to construct a new city to support the collaboration. • To some extent, we might say that knowledge clusters or collaboratories contributed to a regression from a knowledge city because they entirely removed the context of the city from the vision. • It may be that in hindsight we’ll find that we increased the digital and “knowledge”-divide by creating these kinds of digital laboratories

21. Common elements • There are common elements across these three representations of knowledge cities, including: • their focus on work as the main activity (i.e., scientific exploration, discovery, invention, etc.) rather than everyday activities; • the fact that they relegated the essential functions and characteristics of the city (i.e., support for human activity) to a minor or non-existent role; • the fact that they focused on a small segment of the city’s population, specifically those with high academic credentials; • their dependence on technology support for the community

22. Knowledge villages or cities • What is different about a knowledge village is that they take as a starting point a city, and focus on knowledge rich transactions • What is different about knowledge villages is that everyone who lives in the village is considered to be a part of the city system. All of the inhabitants of a city are engaged in knowledge transactions and activities. • By focusing on people and knowledge activities, we can see a knowledge city as a complex, continuously adaptive, and chaotic system. • This is a radical shift in our thinking – and it requires a major transformation for everyone

23. Characteristics of 21st century knowledge cities • System of a 21st century knowledge city revolves around people • Not just highly skilled or highly educated people, but all of the people who live in a city • Not infrastructure, not the power grid, not the transportation system, or the built environment • The 21st century knowledge city is really an expanded application of Deming’s thinking, his system of profound knowledge

24. Deming’s ideas paint a paint of a knowledge city • A knowledge city in fact exhibits many of the principles in Dr. Deming’s system of profound knowledge. • This system is rich with natural variation. • The knowledge village is a place where knowledge conversations happen every day, all day, among everyone. • All types of knowledge are valued, from the highly credentialed to everyday knowledge. • Let’s consider what a knowledge city looks like and how it functions each day.

25. 21st century view of knowledge cities

26. Center of a Knowledge City • The focal point for a knowledge city is not its technologies, not its built environment, or its technology infrastructure – but its people, its households, its communities and organizations. • A knowledge city is one in which people are engaged in robust knowledge transactions, in which everyone engages in knowledge moments, and knowledge conversations. • Peter Cook and Ron Dvir have created an image of a knowledge cities as a collage of interconnected knowledge moments and interactions as seen from the perspective of an individual, the household, community and organization

28. Knowledge Moments • According to Ron Dvir a “knowledge moment” is a spontaneous or planned human experience in which knowledge is discovered, created, nourished, exchanged, and transformed into a new form.” (Knowledge City, seen as a Collage of Human Knowledge Moments in Knowledge Cities: approaches, Experiences, and Perspectives. F. K. Carillo 2005). • The concept of a knowledge moment is central to Mark McElroy’s Knowledge Life Cycle and to Nonaka’s SECI model. • Each of those cells in the collage represents a knowledge moment. If you stopped to look at a week in your life, you could paint your own collage of knowledge moments.

29. What a knowledge city looks like(Deming’s Hidden Principles) • Quality and quantity – its all about the quantity and quality of knowledge flowing through the city, creating opportunities for knowledge exchange • Continuation and heartbeat – continuous opportunities to engage in knowledge moments and encounters, daily, weekly events • Planned and Spontaneous activities – both are required to create a vibrant knowledge city • Breakthroughs – making the breakthrough from an industrial city to a knowledge city • Historicity – many elements of early cities where citizens engaged one on one to survive are important to the knowledge city. Also a sense of the “humanity” and life of the city.

30. What a knowledge city looks like • Roots – knowledge cities have history, legacy and tradition. This contributes to pride and a sense of belonging. Multi-generational households, multicultural households are critical to generating knowledge gaps and encouraging learning. • Future orientation – moving towards a vision of the future, thinking about how to solve today’s problems with better solutions for tomorrow • Identity – creating identity around knowledge of the inhabitants, so that everyone can buy into the identity • Governance – strong and visionary leadership, grounded on knowledge-rich decisions and deliberations, and extensive participation • Multi-faceted – knowledge is part of every citizen’s everyday life • Different scales – knowledge activities at all levels, not just high scale professions or high value positions

31. What a knowledge city looks like • Dynamic flows – rich networks of connections, vibrant and growing knowledge networks ensure that knowledge flows • Inclusivity – everyone engages in knowledge transactions, not just the Cxx folks or the intellectuals • Speed – faster knowledge cycles and flows due to the level of engagement and activities • Expertise and Experience – conversion of existing knowledge stores into knowledge actions • Transformation of Existing Places – enrich existing places where people congregate with knowledge, rather than create new places (collaboratories) where some people can go

32. What a knowledge city looks like • Architecture – Design determines the flow of knowledge to some extent. Where cities are designed around strip malls, require driving, with few community gathering places – expect low flows • Local and global focus – a knowledge city is part of a network, it becomes part of a larger system of knowledge transactions and flows. Flows are horizontal and networked, not up to the state or district • Serious Play – child’s play, game nights, online games, gamification of decisions, city sports leagues, public play spaces are all important social contexts that help knowledge flows • Conversations - conversations and dialogs are the atomic level of knowledge flows. No knowledge city can exist where there are no conversations. All conversations.

33. Getting from here to there Transforming cities to living systems

34. Transformation • Getting from where we are today to where we want to be tomorrow is not a trivial task • It requires a fundamental shift in how we think of ourselves and our roles in the city as a system • We need transformational leaders to help us accomplish this, but the term “leader” here is used fairly loosely • We need leaders at all levels – household, community, groups, organizations –

35. Deming’s challenge to knowledge city inhabitants • Challenge we face is to translate the principles into practice • Increasing awareness of what it means to be a transformational leader and how we each do this each day • Knowledge management curriculum will begin to promote these ideas as part of a new course on knowledge leadership • We also believe it is important to promote these ideas through academic study and research into knowledge economics

36. Becoming a knowledge leader • As I’ve studied Deming’s work over the past two years, I’ve come to see that his concept of leadership is not limited to people who are in positions that have manager, director, officer, or president in the title • Each one of us must be a knowledge leader • It means that I must do more than talk about Deming’s work or teach it • It means that I have to live it and be a practical living example of the theory

37. How my day changes • Changing from a follower and consumer to an everyday leader and creator • What does my day look like in a knowledge city? • What are the knowledge moments I generate? • How do I encourage others to create and engage in knowledge moments with me and with others? • How do we break out of a lot of our follower and fear-based culture?

38. Next steps… • We have formulated a new set of indicators that more closely align with how a knowledge economy behaves • Quanttiative indicators are designed to be applied at the city level, with a focus on individuals, households, communities, neighborhoods and organizations • Qualitative indicators such as observing and experience the occurrence and intensity of knowledge moments is a new aspect of the overall index • We would welcome research collaboration or simply advice as we move forward • Our intent is to apply this methodology to the nine largest cities in the state of Ohio

39. Observing knowledge moments • Capturing a snapshot of the city in the morning, afternoon, evening and late at night. • Observing moments at specific places – restaurants, shopping centers, libraries, city hall, churches • Observing citizens for knowledge activities - all age groups, across cultures, across occupations • Observing processes across actors and moments – city governance and decision making, neighborhood activity planning, legal and judicial processes, business activities

40. Thank you! dbedfor3@kent.edu