About Forrester
Forrester Research, Inc. is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology.

Gene provides research and advisory services that address the needs of Enterprise Architecture Professionals. Gene has been researching best practices in making enterprise architecture programs effective since 1999 and focuses on helping clients implement a pragmatic approach to EA that has clear value to business and IT leaders.
Gene has more than 25 years of IT experience, including enterprise architecture planning, infrastructure architecture, IT management, performance management, capacity planning, product strategy, and application development. Gene came to Forrester through its acquisition of Giga Information Group. Prior to joining Giga, he was director of infrastructure architecture and capacity planning at John Hancock Financial Services in Boston. Previously, he held senior IT positions at First Data Corporation and Fidelity Investments and development and marketing management positions at leading software firms.
He has published dozens of papers on various topics and has spoken at a variety of conferences in the US and abroad.
Gene earned a B.A. in psychology and music from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.
The promise of new citizen-centric government services enabled by social and mobile technologies and often access to government data is fast becoming reality — and has changed the way in which...
As we know, citizen engagement is a top priority of governments around the world. Many are launching digital outreach projects such as Adopt-A-Hydrant (pictured to the right). This is good news for...
Orange Business Services has all the pieces to have a comprehensive smart cities services offering. But they aren’t telling that story, or maybe just not yet. Given the interest in smart cities...

Open Data Pioneers Offer Lessons For Launching Initiatives
The recent Executive Order Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum Open Data Policy –...
What’s your approach to the smart city? What's your role? Join Forrester Analysts, IT decision-makers, vendor strategists, and other Tweeters in our upcoming Smart Cities Tweet...
Many of the marque open data programs are in the big cities. Think New York City and its NY Big Apps Contests, or Chicago or London or Barcelona or Rio de Janeiro. But smaller cities are also sitting...
I’ve always been a map person with maps showing up in my house as floor rugs, shower curtains, clothing, dishes, jigsaw puzzles etc. So the ESRI User Conference was right up my...
Several weeks ago I toured Friedrichshafen, Deutsche Telekom’s T-City — a smart city demonstration project launched in 2006 to test the use of ICT across a real city with real...
Last week I gave a Forrester webinar on open data in government. The premise was that while big data is changing business, open data is changing the business of government. Open data provides not...
[Co-authored with Rachel Brown] Recently, two top-tier American universities announced plans to launch new global satellite campuses. Yale University will partner with the National University of...
I love the idea of the Edmonton’s Planning Academy, which offers planning courses to anyone in the city. What a great way to get citizens involved in the complex challenges of city...
In addition to the eHealth initiatives mentioned in my previous blog, I wanted to call out another T-city program that struck close to home for me — the “tumor conference program.”...
Social Media, Mobility, And Open Data Transform eGovernment From Electronic To Engaged
One of the most significant changes in city governance has been the growing trend toward constituent engagement — both with individual citizens and local businesses. Even in non-democratic...

My first whirlwind trip to Brazil confirmed much of what I’d expected. Brazil is booming. Traffic in the cities is horrendous. The buzz of helicopters in Sao Paulo is...
What’s it take to be a smart city? Is it smart transportation, such as sensors in parking spaces that call out to drivers like sirens calling to Ulysses as he headed back to...
In my last blog, I discussed the 3-1-1 initiative, which was in many cases the instigator for creating citizen services portals and a channel not only for delivering services but also for registering...
Yesterday the Kenyan president broke ground on a new smart city development outside of Nairobi. The site of the new Konza Techno City is located in Eastern Kenya, 60 km from Nairobi on...
If you haven’t read George’s notes from Davos 2011 yet, definitely take a look. I too have been thinking about the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos – but not...
[Co-authored with Charles Green] In my last blog I asked the question, “What’s it take to be a smart city?” One of the critical elements lies in smart governance. Smart governance...
[co-authored with Eddie Radcliffe] Last year, Internet inventor Tim Berners-Lee called for access to raw data as the next step in the evolution of the Internet. Apparently Transport For London (TFL,...
Unfortunately, I will not able to deliver the keynote presentation at Forrester’s upcoming Infrastructure and Operations Forum in Paris as planned. The theme of the conference is...