More times than not, asking the right question is more important than getting an answer. Such is the case with connected communities deployments where municipal technologies purport to have the ability to solve all the right problems. Said another way, the technology vendors are telling municipalities which questions to ask and then answering them. But are those the right questions?

Having a general conversation about risk is about as useful as having one about AI, IoT, or any other technology. These are terms that can mean nothing and everything at the same time. A statement like, “We need to do something about IoT” is vague to the point of not being useful. “What are the risks to our organization,” sounds similarly insightful and commanding but means little.

Any conversation about the concept of convergence should start in the logical place: chocolate and peanut butter. Convergence is when two (or more) things layered together create a capability that is greater than the individual components.