Digital development refers to the use of information technology (IT)—the combination of computing and telecommunications technologies —to improve productivity and competitiveness, create economic and social opportunities, and enhance quality of life. This community-level process incorporates technological, individual, and organizational components, and operates via a partnership between community leaders and local technology talent. Digital development is maximized when leaders and talent work together on projects: goal-oriented activities that take place in a set time with a limited set of resources. The “virtuous spiral” represents a simple yet powerful way to organize and execute projects. Tactics may be distilled from IT-enabled activities that have been undertaken by communities around the world in order to provide blueprints for digital development projects. The digital development framework may be used as a guide by persons involved in community and economic development, or as a lens for those involved in evaluating the use of technology in community and economic development. Integral to the framework is a set of variables and metrics that can be used to measure and evaluate digital development.

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Introduction

The digital development framework is both a guide for action and an analytical lens and, as such, is based on the work of many others: researchers and theorists, development practitioners and community organizers. It is distilled from many efforts in communities around the world, and motivated by the need to better understand and predict the outcome of such efforts. A perennial challenge to the use of IT for community economic development has been effective involvement of a wide range of people with different backgrounds, using different concepts and different vocabularies. This paper seeks to address this issue. It is written for at least three different audiences:

Community and economic development professionals, and other local activists and policy-makers who wish to use information technology more effectively
Social science researchers who are examining, evaluating, and attempting to describe, predict, and understand the role of IT in local socioeconomic dynamics
IT professionals and other technology enthusiasts who wish to contribute to the prosperity and vitality of their communities

The intent of this paper is to provide a framework that is useful to not just one, but all of these audiences. In order to facilitate debate, discussion, and sharing of information there must be a common language. The framework combines concepts from business, information systems design, and community economic development in order to provide such a language. It provides a means to analyze and conceptually organize a whole range of activities from local government operated telecommunications networks, to community technology centers, to technology training programs, to e-government and e-business systems.

A critical feature of the digital development framework is its explicit distinction between having technology and using it. With this distinction practitioners and researchers are able to get past the assumption that having technology inevitably leads to effective use of technology that is implied in much of the discussion of the “digital divide.” Also, as opposed to the problem-oriented view of uneven diffusion of IT that is built into the “digital divide” debate, digital development is based on a solution-oriented view that better supports discussion of practical means for more effectively diffusing IT. Digital development is based on the realization that IT can only be valuable if it is meaningful, if it helps people meet their needs and solve problems. The framework provides both the logic and a roadmap for digital development, explaining what to do, as well as why and how to do it. At the same time, it allows researchers and evaluators to test this logic in particular circumstances, and to compare cases to each other.

There are two fundamental premises to digital development. First, it is taken for granted that people have needs, act in order to fulfill those needs, and need information in order to act effectively. Second, it is assumed that the general value proposition of IT involves improving decision-making and coordination of activities via information processing. Because IT is all about information processing, the fundamental question guiding IT deployment has to be “what information do you need?” And, information requirements are defined by the answer to the question, “what do you want to do?” In the digital development framework, action and information are so closely interlinked as to be practically synonymous: action requires information, information leads to action. If you want to do something effectively, you have to know what you’re doing, and what you do is, conversely, limited by what you know.

The paper begins with a description of the components and process of digital development. This section is primarily for those interested in getting a “quick start” with digital development. The rest of the paper delves into the conceptual and philosophical foundations of digital development, and provides an overview of measuring digital development. A catalog of digital development tactics is being developed as a companion to this paper.

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The Components of Digital Development

The components of digital development are those things that must be developed in order to increase a community’s overall productive capacity and quality of life: individuals, organizations, and technologies. Productivity and quality of life are determined, first and foremost, by the actions and decisions of individuals. Individuals may increase their productivity and quality of life either by improving their personal abilities, or by coordinating with others, each taking on a particular, complementary task or responsibility, resulting in organizations. Technology is a formalized, instantiated means of accomplishing a particular task. Technologies are developed and used by individuals, so their value is determined in part by the ability of those individuals. But the value of technologies is also based on the task they perform, and the extent to which that task is linked with others in an organizational context.

One way to look at these components is as a “three-legged stool,” illustrated in Figure 1. A community’s overall capacity to produce and deliver a high quality of life is a function of the individual capabilities, technological facilities, and organizational capacities that it encompasses. Each “leg” relies on and complements the others. If any one component under-developed it undermines the value of the others. For example, a community might build a high-speed fiber optic network that runs into every home and business. But if individuals are not capable of using it and organizations don’t have the capacity to use it, the network will be under utilized. It will have little value to the community. Thus digital development is maximized when the three components are balanced. Leadership, by definition, determines where resources go and what gets done, so it is central to digital development, to maintaining its balance by supporting and guiding digital development projects.

Figure 1. The “three-legged stool” of digital development.The combination of individual capabilities, technological facilities, and organizational capacities determine a community’s overall capacity. Each “leg” of the stool depends on the others for stability. The balance between components is determined by community leadership and achieved via projects.

There are two aspects to each component of digital development, based on the reality that having does not necessarily result in doing. Just because facilities, capabilities, or capacities exist doesn’t mean they’re used to improve productivity or quality of life. At the most general level, digital development may be discussed in terms of the components a community has, and what it does with them, as “having” and “doing.” More specifically, the components of digital development have intrinsic and instrumental characteristics (or variables) that describe what they are and how they boost productivity and quality of life. Technologies may be available, but availability does not necessarily mean that they are used to access information. Individuals may be aware of what’s available, but may lack the ability to use it. And, organizations might have an architecture of positions and systems, but that does not mean they produce anything of value.

Figure 2. The cone of digital development is formed because the scope of assets and activities expands with the scale of entities involved. Note that technology has no scale, because scale involves people, allowing it to be considered independently and flexibly associated with other components and socioeconomic outcomes. (Adapted from Ritchey-Vance, 1997)

When considered holistically, digital development has both scale of persons or entities and a scope of assets and activities. So another way to consider digital development is in terms of scope and scale. Generally, as the scale of digital development increases so does it’s scope, forming a “cone,” as illustrated in Figure 2. The cone illustrates a significant feature of the digital development framework: technology has no scale because it involves only things, not people. This mirrors the distinction between having assets, and doing something with those assets. IT has intrinsic physical and logical characteristics, and it has characteristics that are instrumental to the technologies operation, but the existence and operation of technology isn’t necessarily associated with socioeconomic gains. The digital development framework makes these distinctions so that technological facilities can be measured independently of and then related to other components, and socioeconomic measures.

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Facilities: Technological Availability and Access

The technological components of digital development, availability and access, are what the technology is and what it does independent of individuals and organizations. This is how IT is typically described, in terms of information processing power and cost. Availability may be described qualitatively by cataloging the types of technology available, and quantitatively in terms of number of units and cost. For example a technology center may be described by listing the hardware and software it contains, and the cost of that technology, fees to use the technology, et cetera. Other ways to describe availability include complexity and reliability. Availability describes the intrinsic characteristics of the technology—components, structure, form, cost, et cetera—that determine how well it matches human structure and affords human interaction, in other words, how useable it is. These characteristics are also closely associated with costs: the greater the availability, generally, the greater the cost.[2]

It is possible to describe what facilities do without considering individuals and organizations because the function of information technology is to create, process, store, and transmit digital information. Thus access describes the types and amount of data that move through facilities. The instrumental characteristics of IT may be inferred from access, because access generally implies that some individual is doing something with the facilities. Individuals don’t usually use something, especially consistently over time, unless they are realizing some benefit from it. So access can be seen as proof that facilities are useful and nominally beneficial. But the availability and access of facilities provides no direct evidence of individual capabilities or organizational capacities. Availability and access vary, but there is nothing about facilities that explains why they vary. Variation in facilities can only be understood by relating them to capabilities and capacities.

It might be noted that most discussion of the “digital divide” concerns technological facilities. The divide is an issue of what technology is available to whom and, to a lesser extent, who accesses what information. This is important, as discussed below, but it is not everything. It is possible that digital development may be hampered by lack of facilities, but it may also be hampered by lack of individual and organizational components. Therefore, these components should be fully considered when planning or analyzing digital development.

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Capabilities: Individual Awareness and Ability

People may have facilities available to them but be unaware of them. Or they may know of the facilities but not perceive them as assets. Awareness is a sub-set of, and predicated on, what is available. On the other hand, individuals may be aware of what is available to them, but lack the skill, knowledge, or personal ability to use those facilities to become more productive and to improve their lives. Or, individuals may have the ability to use technology that is not available. When they do use their abilities, access results. If access doesn’t result from individuals’ actions then, by definition, they don’t have that ability. Access effectively demonstrates ability, but ability doesn’t necessarily result in access. Thus awareness and ability are subjective counterparts to availability and access, and may be expressed in similar terms. Awareness is ostensible knowledge “that,” while ability is demonstrable knowledge “how.” The former is the basis for the latter (Ryle, 1966). And, in spite of the fact that knowledge “that” can be established quickly and consciously changed, while knowledge “how” must be developed with time and effort, ostensible knowledge may remain firmly held despite evidence to the contrary—the well-known phenomenon of cognitive dissonance (Wicklund and Brehm, 1976). While knowledge “how” is empirically verifiable, the former may be dubious, ill informed, inconsistent, and even downright incorrect. The significance of this is that awareness is possibly the most critical and malleable component of digital development.

It is important to remember that all actions are taken, and decisions made, by individuals. And, individuals learn (i.e., develop) as a result of their experiences. Individuals bear the costs and reap the benefits of development, and are therefore at the crux of digital development. It is individuals that determine the value of digital development, and that value judgment is made in terms of how well the other components—facilities and capacities—meet individuals’ needs.

Individuals are self-aware and have subjective views of themselves and their current situation. They also have ideas about what they, and their situations, should be. It is the gap between existing and desired circumstances that drive behavior. This may be as simple as feeling hunger, desiring to be satiated, and acting to find food. Or, it may be much more complex, as exemplified by strategic behavior, economic activity, and altruism. Individuals use facilities to meet needs. If they are aware of and able to use facilities, and access does not result, then the technological and individual components are not aligned. Practitioners may be generally concerned with achieving such alignment, and researchers with assessing whether it exists.

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Capacities: Organizational Architecture and Applications

Organizations are aggregates of individuals that are intentionally structured in order to increase their collective productivity and fulfill their individual needs. Organizations may be very small or very large, highly formalized or very informal; they run the gamut from families, to clubs, to agencies and corporations. The common thread is a division of labor between individuals in order to make their efforts more productive. The productive capacity of such aggregates is potentially much greater than the sum of their members’ individual capabilities and technological facilities: organization of facilities and capabilities results in increased capacity. This is the fundamental logic of organization and economics. Organizations provide the context and logic for the creation and use of technology, and are primary means of needs fulfillment in modern societies.

Organizations do not create or use technology. Rather organizations are composed of individuals who do so. Organizations are composed of individuals who are tied together by agreements and who use technology as a means of fulfilling the agreements more effectively and efficiently. So technology does not directly change organizations, but does so via individuals. Technology allows individuals to reallocate their assets in ways that result in improved production. The structure of individuals and technology arranged for some productive purpose is organizational architecture. Organizational architecture refers to an organization’s form. Common architectural variables are “openness,” “flexibility,” and “hierarchy” versus “matrix.” Organizational architecture is most commonly described with organizational charts and asset inventories, and is literally built into the space in which the organization operates.

However listings of individuals and technologies in an organization, or descriptions of the organization’s form, don’t necessarily say much about what the organization, and it’s constituent individuals and technologies, actually do. The actual processes, decisions, and activities that employ technology have observable productive outcomes that may be quite different than what is suggested by the architecture. Applications arise when individuals use IT in the context of organizations in order to achieve some productive outcome, and are commonly described by empirically produced process diagrams, decision trees, and flow charts.

Table 1. The components of digital development are defined by scale and scope. Scale is the number of persons involved. Scope includes both assets and activities, both what each level “has” and what it “does.” The components conceptually link each level to the other levels.

	Have	Do
Organizational capacities	Architecture Structure of individuals and technology in an organization	Applications Organizational processes and their productive results
Individual capabilities	Awareness Knowledge of (and opinion about) available facilities	Ability Knowledge (and opinion) about how to use any facilities
Technological facilities	Availability Types, quantities, and costs of technologies	Access Types and amount of data within facilities

Community capacity is the sum of a community’s organizational, individual, and technological components. Digital development occurs as the components increase, improve, and complement each other, and is compromised when one or more of the components are missing or unbalanced vis-à-vis the other components. Thus the components are used for digital development, but also change as a result of digital development. They are the means of digital development. Productivity, prosperity, and quality of life are the ends. Thus the challenge is to identify the components within a particular community, and to relate them to those ends.

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The Ladder of A’s

The core issue of the digital development framework is the relationship—potential and actual—between IT and community economic development, which has two aspects:

The inter-relationship between the components of digital development, within the framework, for example: if a particular effort focuses on developing architecture, the way in which local organizations incorporate people and technology, what is the impact on facilities and capabilities? On applications?
The relationship between the components and socioeconomic factors and outcomes, for example: if a particular project succeeds in developing one or more components—such as ability and architecture—does that effect productivity, jobs, wages, teenage pregnancy rate, et cetera?

It may be useful to think of community economic development as climbing, and of digital development as a ladder (see Figure 3 ). Digital development is just one way to climb. It is—hypothetically—a relatively easy and quick way to do it, but first you have to have a ladder. And, once you have the ladder, you have to actually climb it. Each component represents a rung in the ladder. The smaller or weaker a rung, the more difficult it is to move up the ladder. So in any given situation, it may be necessary to broaden or strengthen a particular component.

Figure 3. The “ladder of A’s” can be used to analyze existing assets and activities. Gaps in the ladder represent opportunities for digital development.

One way to judge where to concentrate digital development efforts is by comparing the “rungs” to each other: which is larger, more robust, changing fastest? Another, complementary, approach is to compare the rungs to comparable socioeconomic factors outside the framework, as overviewed in Table 2. The former approach provides a description of the ladder, of how complete and sturdy it is, while the second identifies how well people are climbing up the ladder. Any place where there are missing rungs, or where nobody is climbing it, there is an opportunity for digital development. The best opportunities are those where large gaps in the ladder or major slow-downs in climbing can be filled or sped-up with relatively small investment, relatively small changes in components, in what the community has and/or does.

Table 2. Digital development components compared to socioeconomic variables allows for the evaluation of effectiveness or guide efforts. The greatest digital development opportunities are where a small change in a component will potentially result in a large improvement in a socioeconomic variable.

Having		Doing
Socioeconomic variables	DD component	Socioeconomic variables	DD component
Institutions, Social capital/networks, Tax base	Architecture	Economic and social activities, Productivity, Diversity	Applications
Demographics, Human capital, Workforce	Awareness	Income, Skills, Educational achievement, Mobility	Ability
Financial capital, Infrastructure, Property, Public services	Availability	Geography	Access

The inter-relationship between digital development components is one of predication, which component must exist prior to others. This is not a causal relationship. Individuals can only be aware of what exists, [3] but facilities can—and often do—exist without anyone being aware of them. Predication is reasonably clear for the physical aspect of digital development components, but is much more complex for “doing.” This is because humans have inherent abilities, and technology is typically designed to match them. Generally, ability is predicated on an application. For example, one cannot have the ability to use procurement software if they are not embedded in an organization that makes purchases. Yes, they may know procurement, they may even know procurement software functions, but those abilities have no value without the application, the software implemented and operating in context. Thus predication runs from top to bottom for activities, and bottom to top for assets.

Conceptually, digital development occurs when socioeconomic outcomes—productivity and quality of life—improve as a result of using IT. Within the digital development framework the purpose, rationale, and logic of IT use lies primarily in the organized action of individuals, and secondarily in unilateral, individual action. The framework suggests, by its structure, that the greatest socioeconomic outcomes result from applications, from the use of IT in order to improve organizational productivity. Exactly how the assets afford the activities remains an open question, and one that is negotiated rather than definitively answered. Larger socioeconomic forces shape each of the components and the relationship between their “having” and “doing” aspects. The ladder of A’s provides a means of describing the digital development phenomenon, a means that hopefully affords deeper understanding and more effective action.

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The Process of Digital Development

Generally speaking, digital development occurs whenever someone uses information technology (IT), the combination of computing and telecommunications technology, to increase productive capacity and/or improve quality of life [4] within a community. But such uses often occur in isolation, restricted to a particular individual or organization. Such small-scale digital development has limited impact because it doesn’t tap the efficiencies and synergies that are inherent in community. Digital development becomes more robust with scale and scope, when a broad set of individuals and organizations, representing the whole community, illustrated in Figure 4, are involved.

Figure 4. Community sectors may be characterized by level of formal organization, productive outputs, and the extent to which members of each sector respond to political and/or economic forces. In order to achieve balanced and robust digital development the process should have participants from all sectors and from the various stakeholder groups.

Digital development is most efficient under such circumstances because numerous entities can often realize benefits from IT implementation for little or no marginal cost. Such an inclusive approach can also be more effective because it may simultaneously address several complementary issues. Finally, this approach is naturally more equitable because it involves all members of a community, or at least their representatives. For example, an organization may develop an electronic resume bank in order to get more or better employees and to, consequently, reduce the cost and improve the effectiveness of its human resources functions. But, that same resume bank may be developed to serve the needs of several organizations for little marginal cost. Also, by banding together, the organizations create a larger pool of opportunities for a broader range of job seekers, making the resume bank more noteworthy, visible, and useful.

Figure 5. The general process of digital development involves doing projects that target common or complementary goals of community stakeholders, which can be best identified by broad engagement.

The discussion about the productive requirements of citizens and firms. There is even less consideration about how stakeholders might work together to meet challenge for such inclusive projects is that there is rarely a mechanism for identifying synergies between various organizations. Even in small communities where everyone supposedly knows everyone else’s business, there is often little those needs as efficiently and effectively as possible. And, there is even less thought about how IT might be applied to those objectives. Finally, when these things do occur they don’t always result in projects that achieve all of the stated goals. But, even when development efforts fall short, if participants gain experience that can be applied to make future efforts more successful, then learning has occurred. Learning is a form of development, and can be considered a benefit in and of itself.

The general process of digital development, as illustrated in Figure 5, begins with broad engagement of community stakeholders—groups and organizations that have a stake in the productive capacity of the community. Broad engagement makes digital development robust because it means the process doesn’t rely on a large commitment from any one individual or organization. It also helps to assure that digital development is balanced, and optimizes the efficiency, effectiveness, and equity of the process. Ideally, the process includes representatives of various sectors in the community, illustrated in Figure 4, and/or from various community stakeholders, including:

Local government
Basic and non-basic industries
Schools and colleges
Libraries
Public safety
Healthcare and public health
Community and economic development
Volunteer, non-profit, and non-governmental organizations

The next step is to identify the goals of the various stakeholders, and then to choose a tactic. The best tactics are those that address common or complementary goals. For example, schools may have the goal of providing students with real-world applications of math, writing, and other topics, while a goal of Chambers of Commerce is to provide technical assistance to their members. If the students—as they often do—have substantial skills with technology, and the business needs help with technology, then an appropriate tactic may be to create a program in which students and business people cross-train each other. The students help the businesses use technology, and the businesses show students how to calculate and communicate in order to be successful. Note that the technology is not the end in this example, it is the means and the medium by which both the students and the businesses increase their capacity to succeed.

The last, and most crucial, step in the digital development process is doing a project. With this step talk is transformed into action. Without action, digital develop simply does not occur. For example, until we’ve created a school-business technology partnership, as opposed to just talking about it, we can’t reasonably say that it benefited either students or businesspeople! This leap from discussion to action is really what digital development is all about. So how do projects happen; what’s the difference between situations where everyone just talks about using IT for development, and situations where it actually happens? Or where someone does something and no one responds, such as setting up a community technology center and having no one use it? The difference is community technology leadership: persons who have a commitment to the community, experience—or at least interest—in technology, and ability to lead projects. As illustrated in the digital development value chain, technology leadership largely determines the value of a project, as well as whether the project even occurs.

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The Value Chain

The value chain illustrates how value accrues through leadership roles, for particular assets and activities. In other words, if we’re going to invest time and money in using IT for development, how can we maximize the value of, and return on, that investment? The value chain answers this question. The last link in the chain, where the value of digital development is realized, is the project itself. In order to do technology-related projects there must be technical expertise, typically provided by local technology talent. Unfortunately, local technology talent is too often not engaged in community leadership. They may lack either the support or the vision necessary to choose and implement tactics. Also, technologists are often totally consumed with their day-to-day responsibilities and lack the motivation and opportunity to do digital development. The motivation must come from those who employ or otherwise support the technology talent. Specifically, business and civic leaders’ role in digital development is to make sure technologists have the time—paid time off from work, ideally—and resources to work on projects. Of course, community leaders can hardly be expected to make this commitment unless they see clear benefit, at reasonable cost, resulting from the projects.

The sponsor’s role is to facilitate the identification of such opportunities. Sponsors generally are persons whose job it is to foster community economic development, such as Chambers of Commerce or non-profit agency executives, but almost anyone who can engage a broad range of business and civic leaders could play the role of the sponsor. Because few such persons are naturally inclined to use IT, it may be necessary to have some sort of catalyst for digital development. This is where the catalyst comes in, focusing and justifying the digital development process. The catalyst could be an event, such as a plant closing or abysmal school performance. It could be a person, such as a technology evangelist, or a program that facilitates digital development. Or, it could be an article about something that was done in another community that catches the eye of a community leader. White papers such as this may even play the role of catalyst in some situations.

Figure 6. The digital development value chain shows the roles involved in digital development and how each role contributes to the value of digital development projects.

Note that the value chain is not necessarily a sequence, but a visualization of how roles and relationships might be structured in order to maximize digital development. The more value added at each link in the chain, the greater the overall value of the resulting project. Digital development can occur without some components of the value chain, and the roles involved in each link may emerge in any order, but the most impact will come from having them all lined up. For example, talent often exists without projects, and there are many erstwhile sponsors pursuing projects with few supporters and little expertise. While technological expertise is needed to conduct projects, leadership is needed to guide them. The digital development value chain could be embodied in a single person, or multiple persons might fulfill various roles along the chain. Each link may add to, multiply, subtract, or divide the total value of digital development.

The value chain suggests roles that various persons may play in doing digital development projects. The combination of sponsors, supporters, and talent working together make up a community’s digital development team. The scope and scale of digital development are determined by the extent to which community members take on one or more of these roles, and on how many and how well individuals participate on the digital development team. For practitioners, the value chain may be used to digital development efforts in order to maximize the value of each link. For researchers, the value chain provides a way of characterizing the roles played by various participants in digital development.

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The Virtuous Spiral

The question for the digital development team is how IT can be used to address these priorities, to support the strategy, and to effectively improve productivity and quality of life. There are a number of approaches to answering this question, but there are two general concepts that are important to any of them: 1) decisions on what to do and how to do it should be based on sound information, and 2) any given project should be informed by or based on previous projects. These two concepts are built into a general project model known as the "virtuous spiral,"[5] which combines analysis, design, and implementation in a reiterated sequence. As with the other parts of the framework, the spiral may be seen as a guide for those who wish to do digital development, or a hypothetical structure that researchers can use to account for digital development efforts. Any and all individuals who participate in the value chain can participate in the process, but the effectiveness of the process is dependent on having, or developing, some level of expertise with the particular issue and technology involved.

Figure 7. The “virtuous spiral” life-cycle model of projects is a simple, effective way to structure community information technology projects. The project process is driven by supporters—business and civic leaders who define overall strategy—and led by technology leaders. The purposes, timeframe, and methods of the project are highly flexible, to suit the situation in any given community.

Because no real community, organization, or individual exists without a past, it is assumed that something has been implemented in the past, and that there were some reasons for doing those things. The result is an implicit or explicit set of community priorities and strategies for development. The first phase in the process is to analyze the existing and desired situations associated with common, complementary, or high-priority goals, in terms of what the stakeholders have and do, their resources and processes, both in general and specific to IT. Questions that should be answered during analysis include: What is the productive purpose that IT might fulfill and what is the application that will close the gap between the existing and desired situation? What is the required architecture for this application, and how might the existing technological and individual components be included in that architecture? Where are there gaps between existing awareness, ability, and availability, and what components are required for a particular application? What abilities and access should result from the application? Team members will have to collect data from community stakeholders in order answer these questions. Once the data is gathered and analyzed there is some basis for designing the project. The project should leverage existing components to close the gap between the existing and desired states.

The next step is to design artifacts or activities that fill in the gaps in the ladder of A’s. Generally, this involves taking an established tactic and tailoring it to the existing situation, in order to achieve stated goals, and realize the desired situation. A tactic provides basic information about what might be done, how to do it, and what outcomes it might have. The team has to add the specifics, based on its analysis. The result should be an action plan for implementation, a set of tasks and resources required for the project, and metrics for judging the project’s success.

The final phase of the virtuous spiral is action: implementing the tactic. On the face this is simple, for it just requires lining up the resources and doing the activities detailed in the design phase. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems, but that’s compensated for in the framework, that’s why it is a phased, reiterative process: each phase and iteration builds on the last. Implementation ends not with the end of the project, but with a review of what was done with what result, with a review of the projects’ metrics and how they relate to community goals. This “post mortem” provides the basis for future efforts, for new tactics and projects, for continued digital development. The virtuous spiral is, by its nature, a learning process, and may be judged by comparing iterations.

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Digital Development Tactics

Digital development tactics are basically blueprints for projects. Tactics are selected based on existing goals, resources, and activities, in order to fill gaps in or strengthen the ladder of A’s. Tactics may target a particular component, as listed in Table 3. But tactics should not be seen as ends in and of themselves. This is a recipe for failure. Tactics should be tied to socioeconomic outcomes as explicitly as possible. There are several reasons for this. First, without such linkage there will be scant support for the tactic. The socioeconomic outcomes provide the rationale but also the WIIFM—“what’s in it for me”—that motivates people to allocate assets and activities to the tactic. Second, development is a learning process, which necessarily means the learner is assessing his/her/its knowledge, and socioeconomic outcomes provide a means of doing this. Finally, tactics, along with socioeconomic circumstances, change over time. For example, there may be a significant population that desires, but cannot afford, a computer, so it may be reasonable to implement a computer purchase or redistribution program. But eventually that demand will be met. What then? Should the program continue indefinitely? Should it become something else? These questions can only be answered by relating the effort back to the socioeconomic objectives. If the purpose was simply to give people computers, then the program can come to an end. But if the program was to build skills, or improve access to healthcare, or promote civic participation, then other tactics may be appropriate.

It may go without saying, but digital development tactics can be difficult to replicate. This in spite of the fact that many of these tactics require very low real asset commitments, i.e., they don’t cost a lot to do. But replication of tactics inevitably requires organization and knowledge. Every community is replicating learning that has occurred somewhere else when they implement these tactics. And, because every community is different, the rationale, the implementation process, the tactic itself, and the eventual outcomes will be different. Communities typically don’t have a complete or robust digital development value chain in place, and therefore don’t have adequate capacity to do digital development, which is the source of the old “chicken or egg” paradox: you can’t use IT if you don’t have it, but if you don’t use it you can’t get it. There are two general ways to address this. One is to provide an optimal amount of information about each tactic: enough so that a reasonably motivated and intelligent individual can instigate them, but not so much that the tactic becomes inflexible and difficult to adapt. The second is to undertake “super-tactics” that can build capacity to do digital development.

Table 3. Digital development tactics can be categorizes by the components they enhance. Some tactics lend themselves to, or are complementary to, multiple components. Tactics can be combined or tailored to achieve particular goals. Some tactics may need to precede others due to predication.

Technological Facilities Availability & Access	Individuals Capabilities Awareness & Ability	Organizational Capacities Architecture & Applications
Computer purchase or refurbishing program Free laptops for students Community technology center Municipal telecommunications policy Conduit development program Public ISP (freenet) Wireless Internet zones Community managed infrastructure New product trials	Basic computer literacy training School-business mentoring program Web fair Technology demonstration sites IT professional mentoring Technology presentations In-home support Software selection assistance Internet promoter	Public email Web site for civic groups Electronic collaboration (groupware, workflow, etc.) Electronic newsletter for community ex-patriots Community portal Web-based calendars Web-based conference area/ town commons Community history base/ archival record On-line volunteer database

Technological Facilities

Availability & Access

Individuals Capabilities

Awareness & Ability

Organizational Capacities

Architecture & Applications

Computer purchase or refurbishing program
Free laptops for students
Community technology center
Municipal telecommunications policy
Conduit development program
Public ISP (freenet)
Wireless Internet zones
Community managed infrastructure
New product trials

Basic computer literacy training
School-business mentoring program
Web fair
Technology demonstration sites
IT professional mentoring
Technology presentations
In-home support
Software selection assistance
Internet promoter

Public email
Web site for civic groups
Electronic collaboration (groupware, workflow, etc.)
Electronic newsletter for community ex-patriots
Community portal
Web-based calendars
Web-based conference area/ town commons
Community history base/ archival record
On-line volunteer database

The tactics in Table 2 are “project” tactics, because they are amenable to being instantiated as projects, by going through the virtuous spiral, identifying a need, developing a plan, and implementing it. Tactics are categorized by the components that are primarily developed when they are implemented as projects. Tactics inevitably touch components of all three types, but typically focus on a particular level, on establishing a particular “having” component and developing a consequent “doing” component. Project tactics can be described in terms of the IT-related components involved and the hypothetical or desired result, the socioeconomic rationale for the project. In order to effectively replicate the tactic, those involved in implementing it also need to know the sequence of tasks, or action plan, for the tactic, and need to have some idea of time and resource commitments required to make it successful, given the scale on which they wish to implement it.

It may be unnecessary, or even detrimental, to provide too much information. The sponsors, supporters, and talent involved should effectively be required to get creative and be discouraged from trying to take a cookie-cutter approach. Again, every community is different, so the underlying socioeconomic rationale and the actual instance of the tactic will be different. For example, the last tactic listed in Table 3 under individual abilities, “Internet promoter,” is an adaptation of the Grameen Bank’s “phone lady” program that provides cell phones to matriarchs in rural Bangledeshi villages.[6] A similar program could be highly effective for introducing the Internet to rural populations in developed countries. But relating it to Bangledesh, or even referring to it as Internet “lady,” despite the fact that the promoter would almost have to be a matriarchal figure, could make it unappealing to community stakeholders. Tactics can be distilled down to their benefits, activities, and costs without necessarily detailing exactly how they were implemented in other places. Those details may be irrelevant and even counterproductive. The tactic should provide just enough information to show the potential socioeconomic benefits, provide a general roadmap for implementation as a project, and spark the imagination.[7] This format is exemplified by the super-tactics in the appendix to this paper, discussed below. Project tactics take much the same form as the super-tactics—description, benefits, plan, and budget—but are much more numerous. They are included in a separate catalog.

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Super-Tactics

The super-tactics lay the foundation and build capacity for digital development. They build the value chain and instigate the virtuous spiral. There are three super-tactics that can occur in any order, and may be implemented according to whether the strategic focus is on technological infrastructure, workforce development, or leadership, but contain all three components. The success of all of the super-tactics is dependent upon the level and extent of participation by business and civic leaders as sponsors and supporters. Those that have strong participation from all sectors of the community are going to be the most successful at digital development.

Community Technology Opportunity Assessment

The most fundamental super-tactic involves assessing opportunities for digital development, and is generally most appropriate where there is a strong focus on infrastructure issues. The assessment involves a high-level consideration of components of digital development within a community. It is not meant to be an exhaustive inventory of the components. It only needs to be detailed enough to identify gaps in the ladder of A’s, particularly those gaps that can be closed with relatively little cost. An exhaustive inventory is only marginally more useful than a superficial overview, and can become a substitute for actually doing digital development projects. Such detailed studies rarely have a real socioeconomic justification, particularly for those communities that are just starting to climb up the digital development ladder. In truth, the primary purpose of the assessment is to identify the justifications for digital development that are meaningful to the particular community. Because digital development is justified by socioeconomic gains, and because broad participation is necessary to realize these gains, the assessment seeks to identify goals or values that are common across all sectors of the community. These goals provide the anchor and criteria for digital development efforts and identify which gaps community members will be most amenable to filling.

Community Technology Alliance Building

A more demanding super-tactic involves pooling a community’s technical expertise and aggregating its demand for technology by forming an alliance of persons who use IT. Such technology alliances may be highly formalized associations, or they may be informal groups that meet at lunch or after work. Alliances have a triple purpose: 1) to provide for the professional development of individual members, 2) to make more, better technology available at a lower cost, and 3) to develop the organizational capacity to carry out digital development projects. As with any other digital development tactic the implementation of an alliance is largely determined by the engagement of a sponsor, supporters, and technology talent, but the alliance is probably the most practical super-tactic in situations where there is initiative among the local technology talent, and relatively little sponsorship or support.

The initial challenge is to identify content or issues that will motivate the talent to participate. Generally, these revolve around improving the performance of information systems, and include IT skill development, new technologies, and cost control. Bringing together the talent effectively aggregates demand, because the talent has a great deal of influence over IT expenditures, which attracts technology providers. A common stumbling block for alliances is that providers become engaged too soon or too strongly, which transforms the alliance into either a sales-shark feeding frenzy when there are numerous providers involved, or into a vendor booster association when there are a small number. Either of which will generally discourage participation by local technology talent. It is important that the alliance center on, and be driven and controlled by, users, not providers. If the users control the alliance they can act most effectively as a coalition of consumers, and will have a greater chance of extracting concessions from providers such as bulk pricing discounts, improved product and service offerings, and increased capital investment.

The greatest challenge for alliances, though, is to place community issues on the their agendas, and convert self-interest into enlightened self-interest. Many technologists live where they do because they value the quality of life. And they often have strong feelings about what needs to be done to assure that quality, and are willing to make a contribution towards it. But, because they are largely focused on technology issues they may not fully understand community institutional dynamics and development. And, because they are often critical yet ancillary human resources for their employers, there are overwhelming demands upon their skills and their time. Thus it is critically important to engage the business and civic leaders in order to provide the opportunity and motivation for them to take on the role of technology leader. Specifically, digital development supporters must work to make sure the talent has paid time off of work to do digital development projects. And supporters must provide clear direction and specific objectives for the talent, or the talent will pursue goals that are not particularly meaningful to the community at large and/or get frustrated with, and disengage from, the digital development process.

Community Technology Leadership Development

The third super-tactic practically requires an outside facilitator, but is a highly effective way to scaffold the process of collective learning-by-doing that is central to digital development. The facilitator of the community technology leadership development process walks community members through a digital development project, giving them the opportunity to learn about digital development by doing it. The facilitator must first identify and engage community business and civic leaders, which necessarily involve working closely with a sponsor. The sponsor not only gives the process legitimacy, they also can engage participants more efficiently and effectively because they are embedded in the community.

Once a broad range of business and civic leaders have been engaged the facilitator leads these nascent supporters in a dialog about goals in order to identify those that are shared by a broad range of community stakeholders. A basic barrier to digital development is that most community leaders have a rudimentary—at best—understanding of IT and its economic role, and are generally not interested in, and possibly hostile to, the topic. Therefore any effort to inform leaders about IT must be done in terms of what is important to them, in terms of their goals and objectives. The focus has to be on solving problems or realizing benefits, rather than on the technology. The starting point for all digital development efforts must be community goals.

After the community goals have been identified it is important to narrow the goals down to identify a subject for the technology leadership development program. The supporters and talent both need to have a context for digital development; therefore it is necessary to have an issue on which to focus the efforts. This is the subject of the program. The subject allows the participants to practice their roles in context, to see the digital development components in their community, and to make a concrete, practical connection between technology and development. The facilitator must engage the supporters in a discussion about how IT might be applied to these goals, which may involve a significant amount of education for existing leaders. Again, this educational process is made much easier and effective by discussing IT in terms of the subject.

Another major challenge to community technology leadership development is that business and civic leaders aren’t generally conscious of the technology talent, and don’t think of them as an economic asset, or as a source of potential leaders. Again the facilitator and sponsor must work together to identify persons in the community with expertise or experience with IT, or even just a willingness to learn about it. After a subject has been specified, and the technology talent identified and engaged, the technology leadership development process involves walking the talent through a project using the virtuous spiral to structure the activities. During each phase of the project—analysis, design, and implementation—the talent should re-engage with the supporters, both to get their input and guidance, and to inform and educate the supporters about technology and its role as an enabler of community and economic development.

The community technology leadership development process culminates with a discussion between and among supporters and talent, about the process itself, about digital development in general, and about particular digital development opportunities in the community. This discussion should not only solidify the digital development value chain, but also allow lessons learned during the technology leadership development process to be transferred to other subjects.

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Measuring Digital Development

In order to effectively implement or evaluate digital development there must be some means of measuring it, so that components can be compared and controlled across times and situations. Basically, these means of measuring—or “metrics”—have both qualitative and quantitative characteristics, or type and amount, respectively. Specific digital development metrics are suggested by the framework, which has both scale and scope. As noted above, scale is a function of the persons or entities involved in digital development, and scope is a function of the “having” and “doing” aspects of each component. Quantity along scale is simply a count of individuals and, in aggregate, organizations. Types along scale include demographics, productive roles (e.g., electrician, parent, city council person, et cetera), community sector (illustrated in Figure 4), place in the digital development value chain (see Figure 6), and others.

The elementary metric for assets, for the “having” aspect of scope, is cost per type, which may be summed into total costs. Types of assets can be counted, which is commonly used as a measure of availability: number of computers, number of phone lines, miles of optical fiber, et cetera. A somewhat more sophisticated, if less common, approach is to identify the monetary cost of each type. Awareness and architecture can be measured similarly: types of persons aware of particular facilities, and types of individuals and technologies that make up an organization, total cost for all types of assets, and cost per type.

The activity-oriented metrics, those that measure the “doing” aspects of scope, have the same structure. Activities are assumed to be the result of informed intention, and, for our purposes here, involve the use of information technology. Therefore the fundamental metric for “doing” is amount of information associated with each type of activity, which is quantitatively measure as bits, bytes, and their multiples, of data. As with assets, activities can be characterized by type, as well as amount, of data associated with developing or maintaining access, abilities, and applications.

Conceptually lower-level components have more costs associated with them than the higher-level components. Making technology available is expensive, making individuals aware of it is less expensive, and, assuming that the technology is available and individuals are aware of it, integrating those individuals and technologies into an organization is relatively inexpensive. Conversely, higher-level components generate more data than those at lower levels. Most data is associated with applications, relatively less associated solely with developing and maintaining abilities, and even less with developing and maintaining access. Consequently, the expanding scope over scale of digital development—represented by the “cone” illustrated in Figure 2—is actually a ratio of assets to activities. This ratio is effectively a measure of productivity. As scale of digital development increases so does the productive result of IT. Each level involves relatively fewer costs, and relatively greater data, than the components on the level below. This relationship is illustrated by super-imposing the components from the ladder of A’s over the cone of digital development, resulting in what may be called the ideal digital development “space” (see Figure 8).

Figure 8. The digital development “space” is created when the components are measured, placing them relative to each other in terms of scale and scope. The expanding “cone,” which represents the productive contribution of each level, can be seen to be a ratio of assets to activities, of “having” to “doing” components.

It should be emphasized that the measures discussed here are the fundamental, or even “crude,” measures of digital development. This key point has two important implications. First, measures of digital development have very little independent meaning. If they are to be used to guide or evaluate digital development they must be related to each other and, more significantly, to socioeconomic measures. Second, greater insights into digital development may be realized by developing more sophisticated metrics. Not only are the metrics discussed here rather general, they are also somewhat impractical. Gathering the amount of information necessary to construct all of these metrics could be very difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. And that time and money may be better spent on digital development itself, or on other forms of development. Specific digital development efforts may need more specific, and practical, metrics.

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Conclusion

Information technology can be a powerful tool for community and economic development, but it doesn’t magically lead to these things. IT contributes to development when it is used to inform decisions about allocating assets and activities. Socioeconomic gains involve increases in the scale and scope of economic activities, and improvements in the quality of life for more, and more diverse, persons. IT can contribute to these gains, but doesn’t necessarily do so. In order to effectively apply IT to socioeconomic development, those who are directly engaged in these efforts, and those who evaluate them, need to share information. Such information sharing is greatly enhanced by having a common language, a shared analytical framework. The digital development framework represents one means of characterizing and comparing efforts to apply IT to development. It is hoped that this framework will provide a means for development practitioners, technology experts, public policy makers, and social scientists to engage in a robust and productive discussion about the subject. And, it is hoped that the framework will be used, and adapted as necessary, to realize the value of IT for all persons in communities everywhere.

References

Alexander, Christopher (1979) The Timeless Way of Building. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ritchey-Vance, Marion. (1997) Social Capital, Sustainability and Working Democracy: New Yardsticks for Grassroots Development. Special ed. Arlington, VA (901 N. Stuart St., 10th floor, Arlington 22203): Inter-American Foundation.

Ryle, Gilbert (1966)The concept of mind. London: Hutchinson.

Schuler, Doug; et al. (September 17, 2002) Public Sphere Project: A Pattern Language for Living Communication. http://www.cpsr.org/program/sphere/patterns/

Wicklund, Robert A.; Brehm, Jack Williams (1976)Perspectives on cognitive dissonance. Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum.

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Appendix: Super-Tactics

The following tactics are blueprints for digital development activities that don’t address particular community goals and aren’t constrained in time as project tactics are. Their purpose is to build capacity for doing digital development projects. They have the same structure as project tactics might, providing the information that sponsors, supporters, and talent might need to implement them: a description of the tactic and it’s benefits, a task list or action plan, and a general budget. The budget for any tactic will vary with the scale upon which it is implemented, and is therefore stated in relative terms. A list of project tactics are contained in a separate catalog, which, as of this date, contains only brief descriptions of each tactic.

Super-Tactic 1. Assess Opportunities

Description

Assessing digital development opportunities involves bringing together 12 to 20 representatives of various community sectors—including large and/or innovative firms in basic and non-basic industries, local government, healthcare, education, social and human services, et cetera—to gather data regarding their organizations goals, resources, and activities, particularly those related to IT.

Benefit

The digital development opportunity assessment allows for digital development to be done effectively by identifying important community goals to be achieved. It also increases the efficiency of digital development by identifying resources that can be tapped at marginal costs. Finally, the assessment lays a robust and resilient foundation for digital development by engaging broadly across the community.

Plan

Establish a sponsor (Chamber, development authority, college, et al, executive)
Sponsor identifies stakeholder representatives from among business and civic leaders to be supporters
Supporters identify current goals for their organizations, and for the community (desired general state)
Supporters identify their current IT facilities, the technological capabilities of individuals within their organizations and among their associates, and organizational applications uses of IT resources and talent.
Data about goals and current digital development are analyzed by comparing current and desired general states, which identifies where facilities, capabilities, and/or capacities might be developed within the community.
Match these opportunities with tactics based on how well the existing state matches the resource and activity required for the tactic.
Share the results with the sponsor and supporters.

Budget

Sponsor................................................................ 5 days

Supporters............................................................ 1 day * n supporters

Data gathering and analysis.................................... 3 days

Meeting room and refreshments............................. $ * 2

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Super-Tactic 2. Form an Alliance

Description

The core function of a technology alliance are periodic meetings for persons who use or are interested in information technology. Programs about various technology topics are presented during meetings and participants have the opportunity to discuss what they are working on, problems or resources they have, and potential digital development projects.

Benefits

Alliances aggregate demand for IT products and services and pool IT-related expertise. Programs develop members’ abilities and their awareness of IT-related resources and activities. By acting collectively, members’ can also negotiate for lower cost IT products and services. Alliances can be tapped by members to enhance their organizational capacity.

Plan

Establish sponsor and supporters
Supporters identify IT talent and invite them to attend
Form a board of directors from among supporters
Board of directors nominates technology talent to alliance organizing committee/interim officers
Survey members/attendees about existing and desired awareness and ability
Sponsor organizes regular programs (e.g., monthly meetings) with the assistance of the organizing committee
Facilitate discussions about problems, goals, facilities, capabilities, capacities, and potential projects
Evaluate gain in awareness and ability, as well as developments in facilities and capacities resulting from the alliance
Continue alliance activities, and formalize organization, as appropriate

Budget

Sponsor................................................................ 36 days/6 months

Supporters............................................................ 1.5 days/6 months * n supporters

Talent.................................................................... 6 days / 6 months * n organizing committee members + 1.5 days / 6 months * n members

Survey................................................................... $ * n members

Facilitation............................................................. $ * n sessions

Evaluation.............................................................. $

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Super-Tactic 3. Develop community technology leadership

Description

Digital development projects thrive on community technology leadership: members of the community with technological bent who are willing to lead projects. Communities can develop this capacity for digital development projects with a strong sponsor, or with assistance from an outside catalyst. The community technology leadership program involves cross-training leaders and technologists. It provides structure for defining objectives, allocating resources, conducting analysis, design, implementation, and for review and evaluating the program itself. In other words the program involves actually working through a project with active participation by leadership and talent, supported by an outside facilitator. Before the practice sessions, the facilitators must have a clear idea of community goals, and type of digital development project would further those goals. The leaders are then briefed on what has been implemented in other locations, and asked to provide a vision for the community, and to nominat

A “White Paper” Prepared by:

Greg Laudeman, Community Technology Specialist

Georgia Tech Economic Development Institute

112 Tech Bldg., 213 N. College Dr.

Dalton, GA 30720

Phone: 706-272-2703

Fax: 706-272-2701

E-mail: greg.laudeman@edi.gatech.edu

January 25, 2003

Figures and Tables

Have

Do

Organizational capacities

Architecture

Structure of individuals and technology in an organization

Applications

Organizational processes and their productive results

Individual capabilities

Awareness

Knowledge of (and opinion about) available facilities

Ability

Knowledge (and opinion) about how to use any facilities

Technological facilities

Availability

Types, quantities, and costs of technologies

Access

Types and amount of data within facilities

Having

Doing

Socioeconomic variables

DD component

Socioeconomic variables

DD component

Institutions, Social capital/networks, Tax base

Architecture

Economic and social activities, Productivity, Diversity

Applications

Demographics, Human capital, Workforce

Awareness

Income, Skills, Educational achievement, Mobility

Ability

Financial capital, Infrastructure, Property, Public services

Availability

Geography

Access

Technological Facilities

Individuals Capabilities

Organizational Capacities

Community Technology Opportunity Assessment

Community Technology Alliance Building

Community Technology Leadership Development

Description

Benefit

Plan

Budget

Description

Benefits

Plan

Budget

Description