What if there was an intelligence test for your community? How would it score? 

An intelligence test is a set of carefully designed questions that measure how well we reason, remember, understand visual information and solve problems. They are used to predict how we will do in school, work and military service and – believe it or not – our odds of living a long and healthy life. But IQ scores offer probabilities, not facts. Of equal or greater importance are all
the beautiful, complex and messy human factors, from personality and creativity to social skills, social class and family history.

The same is true of a community. Smarts matter – but so do the community’s stories about itself. So do its geography, the skills and creativity of its people and conditions far beyond its control. A community IQ test would have to measure all that. But how?

Shaking the Foundations

That’s what my partners and I set out to do more than 20 years ago. We were driven by fear that the explosive growth of digital technology was going to strike communities like an earthquake, shaking the foundations of their economies and the social and cultural bonds that held them together.

Unfortunately, we were right. For every place that prospered from digital transformation, there were dozens that struggled, stagnated or declined, taking their citizens with them. Clearly, they needed to get on the technology train. But they needed much more: the capacity to understand the new economy, to put technology to work for the benefit of their people, and to bring more of their people into growing parts of a tech-driven economy.

That’s why I and my partners have spent more than 20 years researching, advising and auditing what we came to call Intelligent Communities. They are places that have found prosperity in the chaos of the digital economy, made it inclusive and built strong societies and cultures on that foundation. Not through luck, but by choosing to act, envisioning a future and working hard to attain it. We learned from them. We catalogued what they did and turned it into a framework we call the Community Accelerator Strategy, so that other communities could replicate their success. And we developed a set of numerical and descriptive measurements that let us finally produce a community intelligence test that evaluates their probability of success.

Smart or Intelligent?

Thanks to the branding efforts of IBM and Cisco, most communities start by telling us about their Smart City technology. But at ICF, the smart stuff is just the start. We are looking for places that have taken economic and community development to a new level matching the pace of our high-pressure, always-on digital century. We are looking for the factors that can make the community a great place to live, work, start a family, launch a business and make room for the next generation, regardless of size or location. Because those are the things that create, attract and retain skilled people and innovative employers to generate a virtuous cycle of inclusive growth.

So now, when people tell me about their Smart City, I have a question. How smart is your city – really? You’ll have a chance to hear the answers in our new podcast, Intelligence Test. It will introduce you to municipal innovators from around the world. The first episode drops on October 29 and will come to you monthly from your favorite podcast channel. It has been my privilege to see these cities and regions from the inside, as few get to do. Now it can be yours, too.

Listen to the first episode on October 29 here.