mid-day asks New York City’s newly appointed Chief Digital Officer Sree Srinivasan if municipal governance — right from potholes to 4G connection — can be enhanced digitally
When New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio tweeted on August 1 “Welcome, @sree, as NYC’s new CDO! And onward to becoming the most tech-friendly, transparent, digitally equitable city in the world’ it got heads turning to an instantly recognizable Twitter handle. @sree, who goes in the real world as Sree Sreenivasan, is a digital expert who previously held the post of Chief Digital Officer (CDO) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) — the first ever such position at the museum — before being ousted from the post due to a ballooning deficit. He led the creation of the museum’s first app and brought the Met’s collection online.
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Sree Sreenivasan is in India on a social media tour. Pic/Prabhanjan Dhanu
That was in June this year. Instead of social media silence on the subject, Sreenivasan, 45, went on to make a Google Form that he posted on Facebook telling people, “A FORM TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO! If you hear of things I should think about, LMK. If you want to invite me to anything, I now have time, including for meaningful cups of coffee and drinks. I’d also love to go walking with anyone available. I try to walk 5 miles a day, I plan to make it 8-10 miles this summer.”
Sreenivasan, a former tech journalist who served as an academic administrator and professor in the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, rides the social media wave with great élan and knows how to use it – personally and professionally.
His father is a former Indian diplomat and is the head of the Council for Higher Education of the State of Kerala.
As he gears up to assume office as NYC’s third CDO in October this year, with a clear agenda declared by Blasio, mid-day caught up with him during his India tour for some tips on digital governance for Mumbai. And if you are wondering how he got so succinct a handle, well, the advantage of getting on Twitter early.
Edited excerpts from the interview:
Q. What do you have to say about the Mayor of New York announcing your new post on Twitter?
A. In most cases, you and your boss discuss over a long period of time, and no one knows what you are doing except you and your boss. No one knows what the deliverables are. And then, in this particular case, something incredible has happened: The Mayor tweeted my job. In one way, the job description is clear, in another way it is ambitious, and in yet another way, it is super scary. Because suddenly the whole world knows what I am going to do. Now, a year later, someone can ask, “Arey bhai, what have you done with this?” He has boiled it down – ‘you better deliver buddy or you are out’. It is a lot of pressure.
Q. As newly appointed Chief Digital Officer, what is on the top of your agenda for NYC?
A. He said that we are going to make NY the most tech-friendly, the most transparent and the most digitally equitable city in the world. What are the ways in which you can get access to wi fi, for example. How can you get people comfortable with using technology? Next, it is about transparency. Everybody talks about transparency but what is it actually? And then, making cities digitally equitable. What does that mean in a city that has a huge digital divide? You have some of the richest and poorest living side by side — you know what it is like in Mumbai. We have that in New York, too. The divide needn’t necessarily be about money. We often think about money in racial terms or economic terms, but it can also be about age. A lot of old people in Kerala feel left out of social media because they think it is for kids. In the media, people are reading Pokemon Go, taking selfies and snapchatting – if you are above 65, you think ‘I don’t have the time’.
Q. With reference to a mismanaged pothole campaign run by the BMC, Raheel Kursheed [who heads news, politics and government for Twitter India] spoke to us about experimenting with “tweeting potholes” — potholes that tweet using sensors. Every time a car hits a pothole, these sensors can auto-tweet. But, honestly, why would we spend on sensors, when instead we can just repair potholes?
A. Because a pothole is not a one-time thing. Even if a pothole gets covered over, in the next rain, it will recur. I can give an example. At the New York Times office, the main atrium has a tree and other plantations which tell you using tweets when they are running out of water. Because it is digital, it will trigger an action. If you are the government, then you can look at pothole tweet data and see how many are silent today. On a rainy day like this, this data will be exploding.
Q. Mumbai University recently started online admissions and it didn’t work out that well. Can we make it better?
A. You have to start it with a good infrastructure; just having an interface does not help. Everyone has to be as involved, right from the principal to the workforce.
Q. What do you think are the limitations of social media when it comes to municipal governance?
A. The best that any municipality can do is to share information – give people access to knowing what’s going on. But you can have all the Twitter Sewa you want, but if people don’t know it exists, then nothing is going to happen. People may have a phone but may not know how to use it. At the same time, be realistic about what is possible and not. Thiruvanthapuram, for example, doesn’t have a single garbage collecting system. They need to work on that first rather than worry about 4G access. All this digital stuff is well and good but let’s not get so caught up in it that we forget underlying issues.
Q. You were Chief Digital Officer for the Met and ran some great initiatives for them. Despite this, the Met ended up in a budget deficit?
Social media cannot solve everything. Can social media help you deal with your relationship with your customers and the funnel. Social media is about building a bigger and better funnel. People who see our content become followers, followers become visitors, member, patrons and then give money – but to get them there you have to increase the catchment area.
Q. What is it like to have be constantly on Twitter. Do you tweet when you are on a vacation with family?
A. I believe you have to keep your social media going, keep it on a low simmer and then you have something big, you have to connect with the people. You don’t have to post everything you see, you might feel like doing that but you don’t have to. My idea of vacation is that my family is all relaxed and I get to speak and help people. That’s how I’m wired. I write every tweet as if it is my last tweet. It’s not a death wish but that’s how much effort I put into it. Not that I get it right every time but it’s about what I leave on the table. Yes so, I need a life. (laughs)
Sreenivasan was in India on a social media tour, offering his master classes on tips and tricks to build social media presence
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