Hi #smartcommunity friends! In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a great talk with Dustin Haisler. Dustin is the Chief Innovation Officer for e.Republic, a media and research company focused exclusively on state and local government. Dustin is also an Eisenhower Fellow and Program Faculty for the Certified Public Management Program at Texas State University. In this episode, Dustin starts by telling us about his background in banking, how he ended up working in Government to then startups, and his passion for Government and in particular cities. Dustin then shares with us what a Smart Community is to him, a bit about e.Republic and what they do, and we discuss the importance of being able to work together and partner with governments, before Dustin shares with us some of his favourite projects he has been working on. Dustin then shares some of his experiences connecting different government agencies together and we discuss the importance of knowledge sharing and collaboration. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of digital equity and inclusion, and decentralised identity. As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it!

Listen here: 

What we cover in this episode:

• Dustin’s background in banking and how he ended up working in Government then startups
• His passion for government and in particular cities 
• What a Smart Community is to Dustin
• A bit about the company Dustin currently works for e.Republic and what they do 
• The importance of being able to work together with governments and partnering with them 
• Some of Dustin’s favourite projects he has been working on
• Dustin’s experience connecting different government agencies together
• The importance of knowledge sharing and collaboration 
• The emerging trends of digital equity and inclusion and collectively solving the digital divide and decentralised identity 

Quotes: 

“I think truly a community that is a Smart City is one that doesn’t just leverage tech, they leverage innovative people, they leverage innovative processes, they find ways to do things differently.”

“When I went into cities, I realised that change and innovation and new ideas have a direct impact on real people, and you got to see that change firsthand. And cities is where [the] government touches people first.”

“Sometimes the best ideas come from friction and pain points and constraints. So when someone’s calling to complain about something, that’s a great opportunity to flip it around to try to figure out what should we do differently? How can we solve that problem before it becomes a problem in the future.”

“[e.Republic] serves as an intermediary at the intersection of tech and the tech industry and governments. And so we help those companies commercialise their technology and government by educating government on how you can apply it to pain points that you have, and others that have done it before you in what they you know, what they have done, and how they have done it. And then, we help those companies better connect with government and really build relationships to do that.”

“[China’s] small cities are like our largest city here in the US, but at the end of the day, they were dealing with some of the same challenges and constraints and really, we’re looking for ways to collaborate with the international community on how to tackle some of them. So I think we’re all kind of in the same boat when it comes to that problem solving.”

“Every community has their own cultural norms and other things, and every workforce is the same; however, there’s ways that we can leverage at least the insights of what’s been done before so that we can not just reinvent the wheel.” 

“I think we have to start to really think strategically about, how do we really do data standardisation? How do we start to bake that into the way that we procure things? How do we start to work with the industry community to build some of these open standards that aren’t upsells to products, but that are truly embedded in the way that the technology is delivered?”

Links: 

e.Republic Website 

Connect:

Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community 

Connect with Dustin via LinkedIn or Twitter 

Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community  

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital