Area futurist embraces tech, Smart City
When Columbus government and business leaders put together the city’s bid for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s 2016 Smart City competition, they turned to Nancy Kramer for help in selling the city to federal officials.
As the founder of Resource Interactive and chairman of Resource/Ammirati since selling her digital marketing firm to IBM last year, Kramer has been Columbus’ resident futurist, dating to when online video and interactive marketing were new concepts. Kramer has helped to make both part of today’s culture.
Q: With the Smart Columbus effort underway, what is the future of transportation in Columbus?
A: Being a carbon-neutral city should be an aspiration. Increasing the use of alternative transportation — bus, dynamic shuttles, autonomous vehicles, ride-share — would be really exciting for us to be able to accomplish. … We have many of the automobile manufacturers that are leaning in on Smart Columbus. They all want to do different experiments and tests.
Q: Some people are a bit weirded out at the thought of autonomous vehicles. What would you tell them?
A: You’ve been on a train. You don’t think about who’s driving the train. You go on a tram in an airport. There’s not anybody driving those. … It’s happening. No one has any control over it being a reality. It’s how we behave with it. It’s how we co-exist with it. What principles do we apply? … People talking about artificial intelligence or robots taking over the world, this crazy stuff. That’s not going to happen.
Q: Have you always been so captivated by technology?
A: That’s what I’ve always been interested in as a person. I’ve been attracted to technology companies because it’s future-focused. For the last 35 years, I’ve been a very future-focused person. That aligns with who I am from a professional standpoint. The idea that I’m now part of IBM, which is a very, very
future-focused organization, and just even seeing some of the technologies that are being developed around Watson and … quantum computing and some of these things that are happening that are going to impact all of our lives in a very profound way, I think it’s fun. I think it’s exciting. I think it’s wonderful.
Q: With all the time you’ve spent in Silicon Valley, you never wanted to set up shop there?
A: Part of it was personal; my parents were here, and I was their primary caregiver. I also felt like every time I’d fly to California, I was bringing (with me) a little bit of the world. Silicon Valley was fairly narrow in their view, and they would easily forget that there’s a whole country beyond the border of Silicon Valley that didn’t know any of this stuff existed or any of these ideas were being invented.
Q: With Apple as your first client, you helped make personal computers a part of everyday life. With Victoria’s Secret, you helped turn the internet into a multimedia presence. Will coming advances be as life-changing?
A: In the same way the commercialization of the internet created the dot-com bubble, I feel as though we’re at the epicenter — it’s hard for me to know if it’s the beginning. It’s kind of the beginning-middle, I guess, of another huge transformational change.
Q: How do you view Smart Columbus beyond its transportation elements?
A: This is really just the beginning of what I think will be the next generation of our community’s economic development and way of life. Different jobs, new approaches. Some of these technologies, just like they did with the personal computer and the cellphone, there are major behavioral changes that have to happen, and they don’t happen quickly.
Q: But you think the project is that transformative?
A: I think it’ll be 20 years, and we’ll be looking at this and saying, “Wow, that U.S. Department of Transportation grant was the catalyst to really get us to think more strategically about the future of our city.”