Interview with Dr. Holly Randell-Moon
ASCA President, Laura Baker recently interviewed Dr. Holly Randell-Moon to discuss her research into the adoption of smart technology in regional Australia.
‘It just works!’: Regional and rural consumer understandings of smart technologies in North West New South Wales was authored by Dr. Holly Randell-Moon and Danielle Hynes and published in 2021. Link to document is here.
1 Please tell me about the research you conducted. Why did you decide to study it and what was the approach?
I am interested in the digital divide and digital inequality. I live in Dubbo and am passionate about quality internet and services for the region. When looking into smart technologies and local applications, I noticed there is an assumed urban paradigm as it tends to focus on smart cities. With the city context, there comes the assumption that there is telecommunication capacity. In our case, the infrastructure is not necessarily there.
I am also passionate about First Nations cultures and businesses. I was fascinated to learn more about capturing First Nations’ knowledge through digital services and how smart technology could add value to cultural practices.
Through this research, I wanted to create a localised, regional response to the smart technology movement and create research that could create positive local change. The project was funded by the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network and the report is about consumer understanding of consumer smart technology.
It explores digital experiences and smart literacy to better understand how smart services can be applied in a regional context. There are 6 case studies in the report which involved surveys and interviews. There were 119 survey responses, and the survey was designed to be interactive. Participants could unlock 5 unique facts about the town as they progressed through the survey. We also had follow-up interviews with interested survey participants as well as Councillors from Local Governments, and local Aboriginal Land Council leaders. In total, there were 20 individual interviews undertaken.
2 What were your key findings? Was there anything that surprised you?
High awareness, low utilisation
What was interesting is that people had a high awareness of smart technology. There is often the assumption that people in regional Australia have a low awareness. However, that is not the case. The survey had a question ‘are you familiar with smart technology’ and 25% said no. However, when we gave examples, those who were not familiar dropped to 5%. So, once there were clear examples of smart technology (like Internet of Things, Smart Water Meters, Google Home, iPhones etc), people could understand smart technology and smart communities more effectively.
Having said that, the usage of smart technology was quite low. There were quite a few reasons for that, with the main one being the lack of quality telecommunications. This became a dominant theme that in order to establish a smart community, telecommunications infrastructure should be top priority.
First Nations communities' application of smart technology
My research also had a focus on First Nations communities. After interviewing a range of Elders, there seemed to be a big interest in using smart technology. However, there were some key barriers identified, with funding a huge challenge.
If there were unlimited finances, many of the Elders said they would like to do land surveying with drones and digital devices. Currently, land surveying includes a lot of double handling as they don’t have mobile coverage where they are surveying by land. They also identified opportunities for managing their governance and documentation in freeing up time for other activities. They also mentioned that embedding efficient, smart technology could also increase the sustainability of their organisation as it may attract younger people to work in Land Council roles.
Lack of localised consumer research
In the background research, we were surprised that there is very little academic research in the regional and rural consumer adoption of smart technology. There is some research into the application of smart technology in cities, however there is a lack of regional focused research. It would be great to see more localised research to understand mindsets, adoption and challenges to create more localised responses. This lack of research will have implications on the policy landscape, as consumers should be the ones informing things like smart planning, and digital policy developments across all layers of Government.
3 Why is it important to ensure we understand the mindset and awareness of communities relating to smart technology?
To my previous point, I think one of the big reasons is so we can inform policy. The national policy landscape is definitely shifting to embed more smart technology into local environments as well as smart planning practices. So, we need to ensure that consumers are also coming along on the journey. The smart meter example is an important one to note. Rolling out smart water meters in households to allow for better real time monitoring was largely successful. However, we need to ensure that the community understand the benefits and ‘why’ it is important. It is also important for us to understand where consumers are at so we can build inclusive language, that is benefits driven. One of the survey comments said ‘smart is not about the technology, it is about how people use it.’
There is a danger that the smart technology adoption can get rolled out in a ‘top down’ policy and infrastructure approach, rather than understanding the needs of local communities.
4 What tips or insights would you share with smart community professionals to help increase awareness and adoption of smart community initiatives?
Create smart technology champions
One of our key recommendations is to build a network of local, smart tech champions. In every community there are early adopters or passionate about new technologies. Having local Councils tap into these groups to support those in the community who are less technologically advanced can create really powerful outcomes.
Prior to the research, I worked on a project in Port Macquarie with elderly communities. The project was to create tech buddies for elderly community members to provide 1:1 tech support. This helped them to build their tech confidence and literacy as well as reduce social isolation. Having a model similar to this with smart technology champions who can show community members how to use smart technology and understand the benefits will really help to reduce that gap between awareness and utilisation.
When we were doing our research, we saw a distinct lack of older people as a consumer group in smart technology. There is so much potential to understand more as there are so many ways smart technology could benefit their lives. Smart homes, for example, to monitor activity and keep elderly people in their homes for longer, could help reduce the stress on the aged care sector and increase quality of life.
Understanding consumer data rights
Understanding consumer data rights is important, as it is quite complex. Data privacy straddles a range of portfolios at a State and Federal level. Unfortunately, there is no single point across all layers of Government for consumer data rights. This makes it difficult for consumers to know where to go. For example, in the research, 1 in 3 respondents said they would go to the Local Council to raise a concern about data privacy. Over 90 per cent of the respondents assumed that there was a data rights framework at a Local Government level, however, none of the local councils had one. This shows the misalignment between roles, responsibilities and reality.
In NSW, updating the Local Government Act needs to reflect the digital landscape including the duties and responsibilities would be a huge step forward. Also having State Government supporting Local Government with data rights frameworks and other tools, will reduce the capability gap in regional Local Government. It would also be great to see a Data Rights Office at a Federal level, that is fit for purpose and who can bring together all the areas. It is a little concerning that there is not one approach at a national level. There really should be a consumer rights framework that relates to digital and data standards.
Some resources that are helpful are:
Councils sharing smart community benefits and outcomes
One of the insights from the work was that there should be a focus on the benefits of smart technology, rather than the technology itself. Having Council lead the conversation locally is important. There are opportunities for Councils to communicate the benefits of their smart technology implementations to the community through social media and events.
One of the recommendations of the report is for Councils to partner with industry or other Governments to have smart tech open days. Many regional Councils have huge resourcing challenges, so finding partners or working with local technology champions is a good way to get things happening, in a low cost, low resource way.
Using inclusive language is also important to encourage broad engagement. Also, getting people to share stories tends to have greater cut through than focusing on the technology features.
5 what do you see as the most important smart community trends over the next 5 years.
The consumer data rights are a massive trend. Over the next 5 years, the amount of data is only going to increase, and consumers will become more aware of what data is being captured. There needs to be consistency across all layers of Government as it seems like consumers will go to Local Governments first with their concerns. For many Local Governments, there is still a large capability gap, so we need to ensure that there is strong advocacy towards policy development for digital rights.
Another big issue is e-waste. It is difficult to recycle and reuse smart technology. In the research, of all the Councils, only Dubbo (including Narromine but is a bit of a drive) had an e-waste policy and depot drop off point. Even in some of the smart technology planning and policies, there are no corresponding policies to manage the waste. If this will fall onto consumers, this is a huge challenge.
I think there is also a growing trend for more engagement with First Nation communities about how smart technology and planning can be embedded in local practices.
6. Do you have any final thoughts?
I would love to build on this research. There is a huge gap in the research, especially in a localised responses, so we do need more research and insights at a local level. This research should enable local participation and inclusion. One of the challenges of this research was there not a strong response from the disabled or elderly community.
Most respondents were in their 30s-40s. In fact, only 13% of responses were over 50 responses and would have liked to see more. One of the reasons for this is that it happened during the pandemic. It was a challenge to get out into the community. There was a small window in 2021, when things opened for a bit. However, next time would try to get out there and conduct surveys and interviews in the local communities.
I would also like to understand the workforce needs in relation to smart technology. For example, are the jobs relating to smart technology going to local people or are there people coming in from bigger cities? Is there capacity for the change at a local level? Smart technology is changing the landscape of our communities to create more liveable, attractive places to live and work. So, we need to understand these drivers and how regional Australia can get the benefits as well.
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Dr. Holly Randell-Moon is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Indigenous Australian Studies based at the Dubbo campus of Charles Sturt University. Holly researches community understandings of digital infrastructure and telecommunications and social inclusion. She has worked on projects involving older people’s use of technology, First Nations’ contributions to urbanisation, the Gigatown competition in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the First Nations foundations of infrastructure in Australia. https://criticalindigenousresearch.csu.domains