The ushering in of the information age from the industrial age was supposed to allow an individual to live anywhere and remain a productive member of society. This meant that someone could, if they found it desirable, live in the forests of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and through the use of telecommunications, work in the accounting industry from a cabin while enjoying the six months of biased summer perfectness. The more common application has realized one or both parents staying at home without sacrificing income.
While suburban sprawl has not slowed and continues to encroach on rural lands, many cities have restored their cores or their urban core is on a path to being vibrant and exciting. This dilemma of how and where we choose to spend our time and how we spend our money is hard to predict and therefore interesting.
The conflict of diametrically opposing views places the physical environment against the virtual environment. Even as some parents are able to work from home, for the majority, it is difficult to escape going to the office five days a week. While shopping at malls is still popular, there are few being constructed today, and a portion of individual stores are closing as commerce activities shift to the virtual environment. A similar shift is occurring in industries such as banking and finance.
Battlefronts playing the struggle between the physical and virtual show the difficulty in predicting future trends. Take for example a university library and a city hall. The virtual environment should consume alive the library. However, Grand Valley State University has proven with the 2013 opening of the Mary Idema Pew Library that the physical space a library represents is important and can form a symbiotic relationship with the virtual library. While the stacks still exist, the space they consume is less than the space dedicated to collaboration, study, and instruction. On the other end of the spectrum, Grand Rapids City Hall, constructed in the 1960s, is making it easier for some residents to choose over-the-phone and online methods to pay bills. This is a direct result of the area being for the majority of the year an uninviting concrete jungle, where finding a particular office in is worse than any corn maze.
There are a number of variables associated with the success and transition listed above. Two that I would like to focus on include, service related variables and external variables. Grand Valley State University Libraries are successful by attracting students to the physical spaces the libraries occupy. With most academic material available electronically, the library is a source of instruction on how to find and integrate media, a place to collaborate on team projects, and a medium to showcase classroom accomplishments beyond the term paper. Grand Rapids’ transition is attributable to its new life as an entertainment center which has residents spending their time in restaurants, microbrewery pubs, parks, museums, and art centers. Considering fighting traffic, finding parking, and avoiding perpetual construction, residents will choose the alternative that meets the majority of their requirements. For some this includes the convenience of paying over the phone and/or online.
The ultimate question becomes, which path should governments, particularly municipal governments, take? Should the focus be on becoming virtually centered by following the trends of non-governmental entities through increasing their ecommerce? Or should the focus be on providing exemplary customer service and intangibles that cannot be emulated by automated phone payment systems, the Internet, or mobile apps?
The classic graduate school answer applies here: it depends. As it stands currently, it takes money to do either or both. Grand Valley spent approximately $90 million to build their new library. Time and economic incentives are needed to recruit and train employees with great customer service skills. Dedication to integrate and implement new commerce methods into existing programs is expensive. I am hoping to position myself to succeed in both: I interact daily with the public and have received customer service training; I am studying and hoping to research the integration of technology in government (specifically the application to winter maintenance and its convergence with accounting).
