Information Sharing in Smart Communities, with Nathaniel Mason

In this episode I have a really great conversation with Nathaniel Mason, the Team Leader of Business Solutions at the City fo Tea Tree Gully in South Australia. This episode is personal opinion only and does not represent any government or agency. Nathaniel is a member of LGITSA, the Local Government IT Association of South Australia. Nathaniel and I met at the LGITSA conference in 2019 where I spoke about my Churchill Fellowship and shared learnings for local government. In this episode, Nathaniel tells us about his varied background beginning in customer service and hospitality but ending up in IT and local government. He shares with us his passion for volunteering and why he believes getting involved in contribution and collaboration is so important to our Smart Communities. Nathaniel tells us what a Smart Community is to him and why he feels it is so important in this ever-changing world. We discuss the impact of policy and the concept of Continuous Improvement, and how this is not new but is finding new focus in the Smart City movement. We also talk about the fact that awareness is still growing and the concept of Smart Communities is still gaining traction in the general population. Nathaniel then tells us about some of the projects he's currently working on and why information sharing is the real key to integrating across disciplines, industries and agencies, as well as how important it is for regional areas in order to continue to be creative, resilient and resourceful. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of changing local government models where information sharing is more supported and expected. As you know, this month has been all about regional perspectives, and it's such a big topic that we're extending this into January as well so stay tuned for more conversations from local government and regional champions soon! I also want to say Happy New Year and stay tuned for a special episode next week, being that it will be our 150th episode! As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with Nathaniel via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook @SmartCommHQ The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.