It’s one thing to modernize operations with digital tools, data systems, communications, scheduling and procedures in various pockets of a city’s operations, businesses, institutions and civic life. That’s smart. And a community can do a lot of things smart. An Intelligent Community integrates those smart people, facilities, equipment, data and policies into a united and common direction.

Advocacy is that unifying element – gathering and aligning local initiatives in Broadband, Knowledge Workforce, Digital Equity, Innovation and Sustainability into a broadly shared and understood narrative. Momentum with intention.

Successful engagement coalesces a community’s character and conveys a public identity to the world. It energizes economic development, investment attraction and business formation because the community has built a unique vision of its culture and its future. In this report, ICF shares dynamics, strategies and successful examples of engagement in action.

Report Contents:

1.  Introduction  

2.  In This Report

3.  How Engagement Works

4.  Our Communities

• Arlington County, Virginia, USA
• Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
• Moscow, Russia
• Whanganui, New Zealand

5.  Creating Engagement

• Community Engagement in Whanganui
• Changing the Engagement Model in Hamilton
• Reforming Culture, Embracing Data in Moscow
• The Arlington Way

6.  Institutional Advocates

• Social Engagement Through Education in Hamilton
• The Whanganui e-Learning Trust

7.  Engagement Across the ICF Method

• Connect
• Include
• Work
• Innovate
• Sustain

8.  Questions and Conversation Starters