Keeping Data Alive: From Paper Records to a Living Digital Twin

Keeping Data Alive: From Paper Records to a Living Digital Twin

KEEPING DATA ALIVE: FROM PAPER RECORDS TO A LIVING DIGITAL TWIN

INTRO:
Welcome to the Esri and the Science of Where podcast. We call them cities, whether they have 5,000 people or 10 million. Claes Franck, Chief Product Officer for Geo Solutions at Sokigo, is bringing digital solutions for those problems to hundreds of Swedish municipalities. He thinks all cities have life cycles.

CLAES FRANCK:
Cities are never finished. Sometimes they are, but usually they are not. Things change all the time: new housing, new roads, new rules, renewal of the population, stuff like that. And when I talk about the city's life cycle, I mean all those ongoing things. A good digital system helps municipalities keep track of all that.

INTRO:
Claes Franck talks to Esri's John Lenahan about how a living digital twin has transformed Swedish civic governance.

JOHN LENAHAN:
Hi, Claes, and welcome to the Esri and the Science of Where podcast.

CLAES FRANCK:
It's a pleasure to be here.

JOHN LENAHAN:
Claes, you're the product manager with Sokigo, a company with a long history working with the many municipalities of Sweden. Can you describe what that means on a day-to-day basis?

CLAES FRANCK:
Yeah. We're a product company based in Sweden, and I usually say that we like to build the most lovable products based on ArcGIS. On a daily basis, that means we make sure that our system, Guida, which we offer across the 290 municipalities in Sweden, is driving planning, utilities, and so on.

JOHN LENAHAN:
An element of that consulting and the work you do is really digital transformation. You're helping these communities on that journey. But that's a big goal, and it's harder for some organizations or communities than others. You work with small and large municipalities, a variety of sizes. For those with small budgets, how do you convince them that location technology is going to help them without a lot of expense?

CLAES FRANCK:
That's a real challenge, actually. But the fact that we offer products means we can show every municipality what value they can get from that product, and we can show it immediately. That brings trust within the organization.

It's not about the size. It's about the people who work within that organization. The smallest municipality has 2,000 people, so they have limited budgets. But if you show them value, they tend to commit to that. That's one important thing for us, that we have this product model.

Another thing is that we try to stay away from the tech talk. We don't talk about technology at all. We try to focus on outcomes and show the outcomes. If we do that, they usually tend to trust us. I think that is the most important part of this.

JOHN LENAHAN:
If you're in a community of 2,000, what's the first thing you would recommend they do?

CLAES FRANCK:
Usually, the national authorities in Sweden drive things. Municipalities need to do certain things, like follow laws and regulations. Being a small municipality, that's really hard to do by themselves. So we usually go into situations or departments where they have regulations to follow, and that brings them into a good spot, so to say.

JOHN LENAHAN:
With your product technology, you have smaller modules that may solve one problem. Is that a way you ease them into having a digital transformation or going through a digital transformation?

CLAES FRANCK:
Yeah, it is. Driving things with regulations is one part. Smaller products or modules are another part of that. We tend to address the outcome they need or the problem they need to solve first, of course.

JOHN LENAHAN:
One of the phrases I've heard you say is that you're trying to keep the data alive for some of these communities, which is very interesting and thought-provoking because it makes me wonder: Do they have data that is dead? Can you explain what you mean by that and how that really comes across with these organizations?

CLAES FRANCK:
Yeah. When you enter a municipality, they have loads of papers. They have loads of copies of data. When I enter the product module for doing business or producing functionality for the municipalities, the product makes them update the data in real time, all the time.

We're talking about a data-driven digital twin, where the people who work with that module don't even know that they're updating the data from scratch. So dead data, for me, is paper. We see a huge transformation in Sweden, moving from paper and analog processes into digitized environments.

JOHN LENAHAN:
So you said a data-driven digital twin. At Esri, what we often add to that is that it's a data-driven, living digital twin. That's the concept you're getting across. It's constantly updated, and it's real time.

CLAES FRANCK:
It is.

JOHN LENAHAN:
You mentioned earlier that you don't talk technology. I also believe you don't talk about geographic information systems with your customers who work for these cities, towns, and municipalities. Why not?

CLAES FRANCK:
Because it doesn't matter. If you work within a water and sewage maintenance team, if your data operations are outside, you don't know anything about GIS, you don't know anything about tech. You need to know and have the tools that help you solve your problem. If I go to them and talk about GIS, they will laugh in my face.

So we usually try to keep our focus on the domain and talk about the situation we're in. Of course, if we meet GIS people, we talk about GIS. But it's really important for us to talk about the business or the domain they're in.

JOHN LENAHAN:
It's about them. It's not about the technology.

CLAES FRANCK:
It is.

JOHN LENAHAN:
One of the aspects, or the secrets, of your success must be in hiring people who understand what the end user is doing. What do you look for in terms of people you bring into your organization who really understand the value of applying technology to these problems?

CLAES FRANCK:
We've actually had that strategy since the early 2000s, because if you're going to address a planning department or water and sewage department or whatever, you need to talk the talk. We hire people from planning, planning architects, water and sewage engineers. We hire people who have worked outside to make sure that we know what the real situation is.

We can teach them GIS. Of course, we have GIS people. But usually when we hire people, we look for that knowledge first. That is a core strategy for us.

JOHN LENAHAN:
You're helping people see technology as an interface between residents and the systems the community is using that have been in place a long time. How do you manage that balance?

CLAES FRANCK:
I think of that as modernizing the front door of the municipality all the time. That's in my head. I'm also a resident in a municipality, right? So for me, it's really about making life easier for me and all the other residents.

As a resident, you want quick answers. You want simple interactions when needed. And staff within the municipalities need reliable information. They need fewer manual steps, and so on. As far as I see it, good technology meets both of those needs. That's the way I look at it because the residents are not our customers. The municipalities are.

JOHN LENAHAN:
The value of the technology, the speed, the accuracy, serves both the users and the residents. Same outcome.

CLAES FRANCK:
Exactly.

JOHN LENAHAN:
But change frightens people, and change frightens municipalities. How do you convince them to put a toe in the water and start this journey?

CLAES FRANCK:
I come back to this: We are a product company. We can always show in advance what they will get. That seems to be one of our success stories. If you have a product, you can show the value or the outcome for the customer in the first meeting you have.

JOHN LENAHAN:
Seeing is believing.

CLAES FRANCK:
Yeah, of course. It's all about that. And we might not solve 100 percent of their needs. We might solve 80 percent, and usually that is enough, because if they're running things on ArcGIS Enterprise, they can do things by themselves as well to fulfill their needs. Once they experience success, they tend to like it. That's our melody.

JOHN LENAHAN:
On the flip side, what are the risks if they don't adopt the technology? How will that community suffer?

CLAES FRANCK:
Sweden is driving the digitization of society quite hard, so all the national authorities are bringing in standards and laws to make municipalities move along. If they don't do that, they have no operations. It's quite easy if you explain it like that.

But for me, it's more about the service they give to residents that will suffer. And it moves fast today. You can't even search for building permits if you don't have these systems.

JOHN LENAHAN:
What are some of the issues facing Sweden's cities and smaller communities that you think they could address with your technology and your products?

CLAES FRANCK:
Even if your city is growing or decreasing, you have the same needs. Having control of your data and information allows you to handle both situations.

In Sweden, my personal interest right now is the aging water and sewage networks, the infrastructure that nobody sees. If you do things properly, you can use the network as a digital twin, and with all the information you collect on that twin, you can analyze and plan the renewal of pipes. That means we can help customers put their money in the right spots. Those are the kinds of challenges we have.

JOHN LENAHAN:
I've heard you talk about the life cycle of a city, and I really like that visual. Can you explain for me and for the audience what you mean by that and what that really entails?

CLAES FRANCK:
Cities are never finished. Sometimes they are, but usually they are not. Things change all the time: new housing, new roads, new rules, renewal of the population, stuff like that. When I talk about a city's life cycle, I mean all those ongoing things.

A good digital system helps municipalities keep track of all that in order to make smarter decisions for the future. We end up with this data-driven digital twin that evolves at the same pace as the physical city does. That's my definition of the life cycle of a city.

JOHN LENAHAN:
Claes, you've worked with geospatial technology a long time. What excites you about the future of this industry?

CLAES FRANCK:
I think I saw my first Esri products back in 1996, and since then I've been around Esri technology. Still, so much is yet undone. For me, it's like that. The technology just keeps getting more accessible. It keeps growing, and now we're introducing AI.

With every improvement we make, more municipalities, big and small, discover what's possible. For me, the real excitement has never been about the technology. It's about when you meet a customer, a municipality, or a person within that municipality who says, "This technology actually changes the way I work with my city." That's still driving me in this context.

JOHN LENAHAN:
Well, Claes, thank you so much for joining. Wonderful podcast. I really enjoyed it.

CLAES FRANCK:
Thank you so much.

OUTRO:
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