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United States
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Category:
Economic Development
Vision, objectives and goals:
We are working to create an open standard aggregated set of best of breed tools and applications to
enhance, support and foster greater ecoNomic success within local business communities. We believe
that better local jobs, better pay and more business creates a positive community environment that is
better suited to support the humanistic needs of its communities. When 3 out of every 5 dollars you
spend is circulated around your local community we believe a very slight increase in the frequency of
this circulation has a profound impact on everyone's quality of life. To move more aggressively into a
kNowledge ecoNomy we must first breakdown the barriers within our cities which take away from the
bottom line and ackNowledge that business and labor will be drawn to communities which can anticipate
there business needs and facilitate there success within the community. As big business has
reengineered its supply chains through ERP, provided greater access to both products and services, and
cut time to delivery, our focus is to do the same for SME's and the community as a whole. We are
treating the Internet and its reach as the hub for the development of a municipal operating system,
which will serve everyone within the community and deliver a richer quality of life to all. Andersen
Consulting recently completed a 35 page International report titled, " Report on the use of electronic
networks in cities- Is your city an eTropolis?". Next Generation Cities project was only one of two such
examples globally of what they have termed Meta-Applications. They stated," Rarely, there are cities
that attempt to rethink how services are delivered to an entire portion of the population. These Meta
Applications are the most complex and ambitious initiatives, organizations and cities can undertake,
they create new structures that dramatically improve how cities function". The Report is to available to
download at www.415forum.com.
How ICT contributes to the organisational objectives:
Individuals and companies interviewed over a 12 month period indicated that they wanted better direct
access to one aNother's local products and services. SOMA (South of Market Area) in San Francisco has
the single largest concentration of first stage Internet start-up companies in the United States. As this
industry is focused primarily on providing services to one aNother we sought to expand this access
through the creation of a self-populating electronic business card- WebCard. The WebCard offers
privacy controls for the individual to screen what information can be viewed and by whom. For instance
you might choose to allow everyone to view your business information but only allow personal friends
to view more personal contact information. Todate over 200 people and businesses have registered for
the Webcard and are beginning to interact directly through the website to secure services surrounding
their locations. The website offers Document storage, Discussion areas, Chat and lite ecommerce. We
currently have a database of several thousand local businesses, which provide the community with an
opportunity to search for services they require by filtering them through the distance away from their
location. For instance a company looking for a specific production service can search the database for
those offering those services which are within 3 blocks of their office. By adding individual photos of
members to their WebCards we are expanding the recognition of persons within the community and
enabling a richer level of interaction simulating face to face meetings. We offer a limited amount of
photos of buildings and are expanding there number monthly which provides the richness of visual
cues which extends a persons awareness of the type of products, services and companies, located in
the buildings they pass on the street. People are excited with the first phase of the project and looking
forward to our next level of integrating voice-mail and wireless messaging.
User needs:
I met George White, Department of Public Works, San Francisco at a joint presentation we did in July,
1996 before the American Institute for Architects. During the presentation I was demonstrating a
website application which I had developed providing SME'
Summary:
Today's cities are the single largest nexus of infastructure expenditures and concentration of
businesses in which products and services are all within walking distance. Yet you can find more
information about global businesses on the internet more efficiently and timely than in our own local
business community. Next Generation Cities believes that one of the truly great powers of the internet
is its ability to deliver to local business and citizens rich database information on products and services
in their own city. Contrary to the disintermediation of local tax bases we believe that with the increase
in visibility into the local ecoNomy that real local GDP will expand by factors. 415forum.Com was
established as the first critical building block in the creation of a citywide Digital Community Network.
We link your keyboard to the front door, streets, and buildings within your community. We destroy the
physical and environmental barriers that separate citizens, consumers, and businesses from fully
exploring all the products and services, which are available locally before searching outside their own
communities. We act as an ASP providing individuals and businesses with a best of breed set of tools
to individually control information flow about themselves and their products and services while at the
same time maintaining their own control over individual privacy issues. Our motto is: "Think globally,
but act locally and support your Community".
Competition year:
2000