S5 #5 Leading digital transformation for smart cities and public service

INTRO: Welcome to The Power of Digital Policy, a show that helps digital marketers, online communications directors, and others balance out risks and opportunities created by using digital channels. Here's your host, Kristina Podnar.

[00:00:35] KRISTINA: Welcome back to the Power of Digital Policy, where we talk all things policy in the context of digital operations, with people who go beyond the fluff and answer practical questions. With us today is Lawrence Etta, the vice president of digital and analytics at one of Saudi Arabia's mega projects. As the former CTO of the city of Toronto, Canada, he successfully implemented a strategic framework for the city's digital infrastructure planning and investments. He's an accomplished author, TEDx speaker, and he's considered one of the CX50 KSA award winners. Quite the accolades and a lot of respect. Lawrence is also a founding member of the Coalition of Innovation Leaders Against Racism, also known as the blue CILAR. And they are passionately driven by diversity and inclusion. So Lawrence, welcome. Thank you so much for being with us today.

[00:01:28] LAWRENCE: Thank you, Kristina. It's great to be here. Thank you for having me. .

[00:01:31] KRISTINA: The things that you've done, Lawrence, are so impressive, certainly on a professional level, but also on a personal level; you've done so much. Can you just give us a little bit of a sense of what drives this passion that you have in the digital transformation space? And really, you know, how do you make digital transformation happen in a world that seems so chaotic and so challenging to many of us?

[00:01:55] LAWRENCE: Well, thank you. It's a great question. And I do appreciate being here with your audience. I think for me, it starts with two piece purpose and people. For me, the purpose is the community in terms of serving the community. In walking in cities, you are closest. Out of all the levels of government to the people, so the people deserve a viewpoint where they have the benefits that come from any digital transformation. I'm sure we'll talk about some of the specifics area then purpose. We are all placed in this world to achieve something that hopefully is greater than us to drive a level of transformation, evolution, and ensure that the tools we have in this rapidly fast paced world is benefiting not just one segment of society, but all segments of society. So the purpose and the people really give me that energy to feel that I can make a contribution into the overall way our society is achieving great things.

[00:02:59] KRISTINA: So Lawrence, what strikes me about that and about you is that you have very much what I would call a servant. And it's not something that we normally equate to government. We don't equate it necessarily to smart cities. And how do we start to infuse more of that into cities? And you mentioned citizens, the citizens, and the people of the city, but how do we infuse that? And how do we really ensure that all stakeholders understand their purpose in the ecosystem, including those that are in charge of delivery, to have that purpose and servant attitude that you're speaking of?

[00:03:34] LAWRENCE: Yes, certainly. It's, uh, it's been ingrained in me and probably my early childhood about servant leadership. And as we look at the actual name of government, it's public servants. There's a viewpoint where it's those words matter. It's serving the public in terms of how we infuse and bring a lot of the stakeholders together. I think one of the aspects we've really got to ensure is that we are bringing the community with us. And so there's various ways to do that, whether it's a community forums. Conversation with the community, creating an area where the community comes to contribute in terms of policy development. We see that through certain countries in electoral process, but in terms of the public service, it's really ensuring that when you define policies, or you are looking and bringing in new aspects that will make a change in terms of that transformation, that the public is at the heart of that, the people at the heart of that, and it has aspects of social equity, inclusion, diversity. And I think once you do that, you don't all have to necessarily agree on everything at the start, but what you can do is create as public servants, the framework, the environment that takes all that feedback together, massages is in a way that breaks it down to what are the actual key areas that will bring change, whether it's in, environmental, whether it's social, whether it's economics, and once you do that, the public feel that they are part of the solution, and it's not being done to them, but it's being done with them in a way that creates a more cohesive dialogue. So that's on the public, but also the ecosystem of the private sector cannot be left behind because the private sector also contributes in taxation to actually a lot of the social programs. So they need to feel. Another stakeholder is a not for profit, the academia, and it goes, you know, there are many other stakeholders. So once you've done your sort of stakeholder analysis of your community, you've identified that in whatever format you need, then it's a viewpoint of how do you reach out and reaching out to those and you as the public servants helps to you, curate or facilitate or create the safe space that each of those stakeholders feel that they have a voice and could be representing onto their constituents.

[00:06:01] KRISTINA: It sounds to me like what you're starting to do is outline a digital strategy or smart city strategy as such. And a lot of people might be wondering, what are we tactically speaking about? You mentioned environmental, social, and economic; a lot of people that I run into say like, Oh, a smart city is the equivalent of being able to have a smart parking meter or pay my registration online. And that's not really what we're talking about. We're talking about something far more meaningful, impactful, and transformational, aren't we?

[00:06:30] LAWRENCE: We are. And I think initially, if you look at the history of how the name smart was created, it was great from a very technology tech approach. But we have evolved and changed us as we have gone. And what does smart mean? It really means the ability to engage the public, as we've talked about. It means the ability to take data in various ways and make it centralized. So data from emergency services, data from health services to make intelligent decisions, effective decisions, evidence based decisions, decisions that move the dial or improve the quality of delivery of service for the public. So I think we are evolving from the word smart to various names resilient. We saw that a lot a few years ago of cities trying to be resilient, intelligent in the way that cities are using the information, community based, in terms of there. So I think it's explaining it in simpler language that says that when you contact the government, especially the local or the city or the municipal government. It is responding to your needs as a resident, as a taxpayer, as somebody who requires their roads to be filled, the garbage to be picked up, the emergency services in a way that gets the end to end persona. I know about you. I know what you're asking for. I can respond to that. I can link you with the services. And so I think we are revolving out of the word smart. And it's really about resiliency. It's about responsiveness. It's about ensuring we're using information in a way that truly serves based on your original question of being a public service.

[00:08:14] KRISTINA: So how should leaders start to engage with the community and think about these services and products, if you will, that they're pulling out and publishing and making available to the community, right? There's a lot of things you could do. What should leaders do?

[00:08:34] LAWRENCE: The first thing is starting with the customer persona of the journey, right? What is the journey you're serving? So there's the resident journey, That the visitor, depending on the destinations or the cities that you have, there is essentially the investor. So it starts with the persona and then you are mapping with that specific resident when they essentially are engaging what is more important to them and we see a lot of strategic direction, whether it's, the elected officials in certain parts of the world saying this is the mandate. This is why I was elected. I was elected to achieve these mandates that I was voted in for. So it starts with those, or it could be in other parts of the world where it's a much more directional aspects with. We really want to make sure that we are becoming a city that is going to be known for innovation incubation. So what is your city mandate? And how is the city leadership, whether it's an elected leadership or whether it's another sort of process or another area that says this is what we want to bring to the people, because this is what we have done. Once you've identified the personas, you've identified the mandate, then it's starting to say that here are the objectives that we want to achieve over the next period of years. And, one of the biggest things of really engaging that is to ensure that you're building that trust with the public. And from that trust, it's. We know the mandate. We know the persona. Let me play this back to you. The public to confirm that we have a social contract, right? And you're creating forums. And that is important because we want to ensure that we are both in terms of the public service and the public. 100 percent aligned or to the best of our ability that what we're about to deliver over the next course is really what is going to deal with some of the systemic issues. You often have to try to focus on a few items. And then you state that if sort of transportation is the biggest issue in the city or one of the biggest issue, or if it's, you're trying to deal with housing, affordability. Let's try to tackle those issues with all the resources and all the efforts. In a period of time, and then let's I actually believe you should publish the tracking of that to show how you're making progress because sometimes we strive for perfection, which is important, but we want to show the public we are progressing. And that comes into key performance indicators, sharing information through your channels. And once you build that trust, you definitely are helping the group of society see that the dollars or the taxpaying information that is being put into that public service is hopefully yielding. tangible, specific, measurable, achievable and realistic benefits in a timely manner. So, you know, often we hear this viewpoint is we should treat government as the private sector. It's a different business model. But what we can do is treat government, the public service in an accountable way. It shows measurable deliverables in a timely, short period of time, gain the trust and then repeat the process again in bringing that level of focus and direction to fixing a mandated direction that the public wants to see addressed.

[00:12:02] KRISTINA: It sounds like a far more agile approach to me. Is that right?

[00:12:07] LAWRENCE: It is a very agile approach. The challenge can be is that sometimes the construct of, of the public surface is it's so agile. So there are many things that you do, but yes, we do want an agile approach. It's also ensuring that you educate the public in terms of what does that agile mean? And there are some aspects that may not be so agile, but that's why a lot of the times of cities you see that are trying to be smart, tries the proofs of concepts.

They try pilots, they're trying to create a breakdown. That happens is that how do you take some of that agile approach to scale, right? You know, cities that have millions of people, maybe in smaller populations. Smaller cities, not a problem, but how do you now take that agile? So if you're dealing with the smart meter or the smart parking we've done, how do you scale that now? And I think that that's where a lot of the smart city initiatives, it's still trying to learn how you scale both from a resources, a governance, a policy, a regulation aspect.

[00:13:13] KRISTINA: And you mentioned policy; what does policy look like in this context, and what is the right time to start to introduce policy? Because I believe, on the one hand, you kind of don't want to be held back in terms of innovation, but then you still need to have policy. So, what has been your experience? How do you advise going about that?

[00:13:31] LAWRENCE: Well, one of the experiences we had, certainly in some of my experiences that we decided to start on guidelines that transition to policies, which transitioned into framework, and let me get to be specific guidelines, at least get you information from what the public is asking for. So the guidelines, Not mandatory, but they're giving you guidelines because as we know, the technology changes so fast in a period of time. So by the time you spend all your time dealing with, you know, a large policy, the technology could have left you behind. So at least the guidelines looks at it from either risk factor. It looks at it from economic factors, from social factors. From political factors and says, Okay, we know essentially that we're trying to deliver that service. And here are guidelines. And from that guideline in an agile approach, you're now now looking at let's do a current state assessment on what policies we have that were written 40 or 50 years ago. And instead of starting from ground zero, how do we modify some of those policies? And we saw that rapidly a few years ago, , during the pandemic where we had to quickly come with policy changes of certain things. So you go to the guidelines, then you go into the policies and then from those policies, you create an environment that the policies can be repeatedly changed. And now we have a lot of tools, through artificial intelligence that can maybe go on research policies. State that policies were done years ago. What in those policies that we need to be able to stress test that needs to change to be able to reflect the way the transformation digitally of our society is happening. So and then you can certainly get to regulations, but regulations in some ways, I see it as sort of a master agreement. That it's saying that if we focus to the regulations, we want to ensure we have these level of benefits. So it's a very high level aspects, but the drill down becomes the. Policy that allows you to agilely change as you see our society changing to be able to respond. And then within those policies underneath or overarching comes the governance of those policies in governing those policies, and that comes from a combination of inviting other stakeholders, as I've mentioned. The academic, the private sectors who be part of a round table, the nostril prophecies that are helping you create those policies because they're closer to the personas of the people. So the policies is very much agile, but it's very, very crucial because people look to government to set the direction in terms of those policies, enactments, or those policy revisions. And it is something that government should take the responsibility and accountability to ensure that they are saying. We see where some of the macro or the micro issues are going to occur. We see where there's gaps in the policies. We've put together a round table of various stakeholders and within a period of time, 30, 60, 120 days, we're going to come with revisions of those policies that has a certain governing body that will approve it. We'll test it in a forum and then we'll release it to the public. That can happen in months, not years if the will is there to move forward in that approach.

[00:16:54] KRISTINA: Are there standard policies that you see required by cities or providences or any really governing area? Is there a standard set of policies they should be thinking about as emerging technologies come into play or as they're trying to kind of look forward and transform themselves, or is it very specific to a scenario?

[00:17:13] LAWRENCE: No, I think they're standard. Of course, there's this privacy policies in some parts of the world are very important. I think the biggest thing is emerging technologies is data policies, data classification. Jurisdiction of where data is shared, the way data is shared across different levels of government, um, the way that it's classified, as I've mentioned, the way that it looks into anonymizing data, making sure the data isn't specifically identifying individuals. We see a lot of emerging technologies now, if even you look at points of entry in the airport biometrics, the way that that data has been used. So data, I think, is, is the biggest aspects of policy that truly needs to change because without the data you're not essentially transforming digitally. The technology is there. The technology will continue to grow, but it's the utilization of the data that makes the technology more intelligent to be able to provide a service and then also ensuring that you are making sure that when the data is used, there is the policy that ensures that it's being used for good and it's not being used in nefarious areas to be able to use it for bad. So I think that the data I would say is the most important aspects. And that data is ensuring it's an end to end. Often what happens is that the policies end up being in a segregated siloed approach, and in certain countries, that's three levels of government. There's a federal government, there is the Eight or provincial government, and I'm specifically referring to in terms of the U. S. and Canada, and then there is either municipal or local. Often those policies need to have dependency. So you're looking at what is the interconnection as the data moves at different levels. We do know that there's various laws of privacy, um, to ensure the data is, but there are some unification. When the resident engages you at the municipal level, there is an expectation that, at the state or the provincial level, or even the federal level, you're still dealing with the same customer. It's still dealing with the same resident. So you don't want the residents to be asked the same questions multiple times, or you do need data policies that protect the resident, but ensures that the ability to share that information is done in a very trusted, secure way and technologies to do that trusted layers. There's technology to ensure that that is being classified and done in a proper way, but it actually requires the three levels of government. In this example, I've used in North America to be able to come in a trust and have that conversation with the public. Government already has the information. It's a question of how is the nation shared in a way. And that's where policy needs to evolve in certainly those examples of the part of the world that I've given.

[00:20:07] KRISTINA: As you just mentioned, how do you see leaders, responsible leaders, going about deciding which technologies to adopt and which ones not to adopt? I mean, there's a level of investment that has to be done here. And so, how should that be prioritized within the ecosystem that you've described?

[00:20:24] LAWRENCE: Integration. So, you know, one of the aspects is that for me, my principle is that it's based on, and I've said this in, in various other forums, I have a methodology. And that methodology is driven, a lot by this five S principles that I learned in being in the fourth largest municipal, , government, local government in North America, that it's, it's ensuring that the technology has to provide stability. So if the technology is not providing stability, you don't get trust and confidence. You can have experimentation, R and B and all that aspects, but I'm talking about when the technology has to scale and many, many people, because the citizens and the residents requires to feel safe. So it has to be stable. And the technology has to be able to ensure that it can scale and it can scale. As I've mentioned, when the technology has to demonstrate that it's going to be integrated, it's going to be integrated because often you have a whole pollution of technology. And if those technologies can't interconnect with each other, way, there's APIs, application program or interfaces this way. So is your technology going to be able to integrate to other aspects of technology and if you tested the ability that you're doing either software development, it's APIs that can do that. And then is the technology secure enough to ensure that you have taken responsibility from a cyber security and protecting that and is it going to be sustainable? Specifically, is it cloud based? We still have on premise base, but can it still with software as a service platform as a service infrastructure as a service? Is it a service offered? And ensuring that it's not having technology lock it where you're forced and I think cities have an opportunity to state that some of the intellectual property of some of these aspects I've mentioned in those 5 s is the city, the local government is taking that responsibility. So it comes on integration. So how I make the selection is based on those five s principles. How I state is that can it provide end to end integration? And I also have another viewpoint of ensuring that the technology isn't duplicating other technologies. It's called technology sprawl. You know, you purchase the same technology, you go through the procurement process, you go through that. But if it's already duplicating other services, you're not having a good customer experience in terms of the persona. So the integration. The limited technology sprawl, the ability to ensure the technology is complementing or augmenting, or the technology is providing something cutting edge that is not new in your ecosystem. That's the methodology that I generally adopt when, when I'm walking with other leaders in terms of looking at the best technology to, to bring from a city lens anyway.

[00:23:24] KRISTINA: How does that work in your experience in places where there seem to be so many silos? Have you seen progress, or is it still the case?

[00:23:33] LAWRENCE: No, often it's not the technology. That's the challenge is. It's the governance is the policy and it's generally bringing people together in a coherent direction. So the governance is very, very important and that also leads to change management and that's often what is seen last, in terms of the process, but it's the governance and when you have a federated model in some countries, it's very difficult, right? People, you have a federated model and from a RACI responsible, accountable, consulted, informed, well, everybody can't essentially be the decision maker or be in charge. So, therefore, there's different jurisdiction. There's different policy. So that is definitely a challenge in terms of navigating that. So I think it's in, in, in countries that have elected officials. It's trying to have a dialogue with the elected officials to give you some of the delegated authority to ensure that you can bring some of the other agencies or parties together. But eventually it has to have a sort of contractual written, and this is where I believe then a regulation can help because then you are regulating the fact that three levels of government need to share information together based on these areas of policies and principles. So it's the governance that really does it. And a lot of people hear the word governance and they think, oh, bureaucracy, et cetera. But I call it, uh, it could be a light or an agile governance. It could be a governance that has said our focus is to remove friction from the system, friction in the delivery of the service, frictionless. And we've often heard that. And if you started, you often hear the frictionless start on the tech, the frictionless needs to start in the governance. , we are all public servants. And so if we walk together to create sort of agreements between levels of government and then through the elected process, we take reports together and we create that sort of viewpoints that we're doing this at different stages of the of government to ensure that the public is having a friction less experience. Then that's where you start to see change. So it's governance that becomes, I think, extremely important. And then it's the change management. And often what happens is that as you digitize areas, if you say to somebody, what is digital? You could have various interpretation depending on where you've come from. It could be about people. It could be about technology, it could be about process or process reengineering. It could be about change management. There isn't a governing body in the technology industry compared to other industries like a legal industry, you know, or other industries that have a body that governs it or the medical. We are not an industry that is holistically governed in a unified body, um, the certification. The governance becomes very, very important. And I think that that is tremendous opportunity, similar to policies that we need strong leadership and decision makers in the public service, both at the elected positions in those countries that have elected officials, as well as in the public servants to recognize that removing friction, creating an end to end experience for the customer. which is the residents, the citizens, the business community, the investors, will create a playing field that allows people to recognize these are the parameters, and it's about the transformation of the end to end way of providing good public service.

[00:27:10] KRISTINA: As a leader in this space specifically, because you are a leader in this space, How do you foster that culture of innovation and continuous improvement amongst your teams and other teams really, when nobody has come along and from a governance perspective said, Lawrence, you're in charge of it all.

[00:27:28] LAWRENCE: One of the things I've found is that it's important to have diversity of thoughts, diversity of stakeholders, especially in countries that have a diverse population. What cities that have a diverse population, because what will happen is that there's nothing better than a lived experience. Because when you're fostering innovation, you may come from a specific lens and if you hear those different voices based on their lived experience, then what happens is, is you have enrichment of the innovation because you often may have not thought about aspects that will affect either in a, you know, in, in a positive way or in a negative way, certain aspects of society. So we see that a lot right now on some of the aspects when you're looking at the generative AI in terms of the data sets that are being built and the data that are being utilized. It's generally coming from a specific level of focus in terms of a specific language set, but there are many parts of the world where there are other language models that needs to be incorporated into some of this, computation models that have been built. That fosters innovation because context matters, new ones matter. I think that having the, diversity, equity, and inclusion, you include a diverse group, you focus on the information or the technology providing an equitable delivery in terms of service. In terms of experience, you didn't have a much richer innovation and innovation. I like to link into accountability because you can innovate, but you have to have accountability. That information is being done for good. If I take you back to, you asked me why it is. I said it's purpose and people; the innovation has to have a purpose, and purpose is about people, and that people is about progress. So that's another key that I brought into the maker. It has a purpose of innovation. It includes people and it's showing progressive development of society. And that to me comes from a, from a DEI diversity, equitable, , inclusion aspect.

[00:29:44] KRISTINA: And something that we have to purposefully seek out. It sounds like. It's not just presenting.

[00:29:49] LAWRENCE: Correct. Correct.

[00:29:52] KRISTINA: You talk about all of these concepts and more in your recent book. Tell us more, Lawrence.

[00:30:00] LAWRENCE: Thank you very much. It's been very exciting. It's called Bridging Worlds, the journey of technology leadership and the public service. It's my first published books and, and now it's a number one bestseller available on amazon. com. For people to look and the word bridging worlds was, was I've lived in five countries. I was born in Nigeria, and then moved to the United Kingdom, moved to Canada, moved to the U S and now residing in Saudi Arabia. I come from a lens where I see myself as a global, a global citizen in many ways going through different change. So there's a part of the book that sort of speaks to the initial part, that sort of memoir of my life through this journey that led me into technology. And the great advancements and opportunity technology as in terms of, as we've moved through over the lens of the past sort of 20, 30, 40 years. And then it talks about the passion that I had having the opportunity, and having it with a ability of humility that brought me into the public service because I was in the private sector for many years. And when I arrived in the public service in 2017. It just marveled me about the efforts, the ability to deliver that. So the book is also what I really wanted to do was ensure a book and to ensure the book right in the book at actionable items for the next generation. Because when I was younger, number one, they want a lot of people who looked like myself in terms of certain leadership position. So, and also there was a generation of trying to look at where is the, what are the lessons learned, actionable lessons learned based on my lead. So in each chapter of the book, there is a sort of a summary from a lessons learned to help the book with being a yes, a memoir, yes, a start of a story. Yes. Talking about coming my journey through there. But also something that you could refer to in terms of how do I take it forward in being a leader? Because we need more leaders in the public service, especially in an area that required probably one of the largest transformation because the public services is serving the people. So it really inspired me to write this book and to be with people that helped publish this book. It's been a wonderful experience seeing it launched and available. So thank you for the opportunity to talk about it briefly.

[00:32:26] KRISTINA: Well, I'm excited. I have my copy. I have to admit that I haven't cracked it open yet, but I do have it on my desk right there, and I'm waiting for not this weekend but next weekend when I have more time to delve into it. But frankly, it is such an honor to have you with us today, Lawrence, because you are really an inspiring person. Thank you. I am so grateful that you shared your inspiration, thoughts, and experiences in your new book and made it available broadly to everybody. I look forward to tracking your journey as you go forward and do more amazing things.

[00:32:57] LAWRENCE: And thank you, Kristina. I know that in many aspects, you're a leader in this space as well. You and I have had many conversations, in person and, and when we've been together in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. So thank you for this and your leadership in public service, your passion, your governments, your public policy, you're looking at transformation. So it's always good to have this opportunity to be around thought leaders of your caliber as well. I'm very appreciative. Thank you.

[00:33:25] KRISTINA: Well, the feeling is quite mutual and, admiration club going on here. So folks take a look at Lawrence's book, continue to track him online. But frankly, I think that, it would behoove anybody who's listening. Yes. If you're in the public sector, it's a must have on your desk, but frankly, I think also if you're in the private sector, there's so much to take away from all of this knowledge and insight and how we show up every day as individuals, as members of our society, as corporate members. And how we kind of wage our journey forward based on where we've been in the past. So grab that book, give us feedback, reach out to Lawrence directly. And I hope you enjoy as much as I have this conversation, but also that you benefit as much from Lawrence's generosity and sharing his insights and experience. Take good care. Keep doing good digital policy work, and we will check back in in the next episode.

[00:34:15] OUTRO: Thank you for joining the Power of Digital Policy; get access to policy checklists, detailed information on policies, and other helpful resources, head over to the power of digital policy.com. If you get a moment, please leave a review on iTunes to help your digital colleagues find out about the podcast.