[Again: disclaimer - blogging for memory’s sake - it’s already 10pm after going all day long, so these are not going to be completely coherent blog posts —- but i’m committed to trying to keep the information from pooling in my head]
Today we had three visitors come to talk to us.
Ed Rieskin, who is the Head of the Department of Public Works in San Francisco. He gave us a crash course in how municipal government works. He explains the basic architecture of the systems.
Here’s an example:municipal public safety (fire/police)public services (libraries/rec centers)public educationbasic infrastructure (road/sewers)urban/development county (stronger in west coast)public healthsocial servicescourt systems(san francisco combines city/county) state correctionsmotor vehiclesunemployment insurance(service provided at local levels)
Then he told us an inspiring story of how a critical look at street sweeping data allowed the city to save a lot of money by not sweeping streets that weren’t really dirty. They managed to do this without having to lay off a lot of people.
He explained many of the constraints & fears that civil servants have in their every day life. The very real impact that bad press can have on their livelihoods. He explained how city governments are largely risk averse, and how they are defensive systems.
Jen Pahlka brought up a good point that these defensive systems should be honored - we need people being thoughtful and defensive. We also need examples of good things that happen, and good press for the mayor can also go a long way.
Overall, navigating in the public sector is a lot like navigating in a large organization. There are lots of the same constraints. Even a mayor can’t necessarily just decree that something should happen. They need to get buyin.
So the takeaway message: good diplomacy is just generally helpful.
Then Andrew Greenhill, from the City of Tuscon. Andrew Greenhill had been a Teach for America fellow back in their second year.
“how to build a society to match the scenery” - This is something he aspires to in his work.He said that local government is one of the easiest to wander into.He told a story of how Tuscon integrated See Click Fix into their city system for reporting potholes. Some particularly good anecdotes: there had been a pothole hotline - where humans described a pothole verbally, and these were dutifully transcribed by the message taker. However, down at street level, the people who actually filled potholes would just drive around and fill potholes they saw, and then go back to their office and record which potholes they filled. They made a mobile application that allowed people to take pictures of potholes, and then for city workers to take pictures of the potholes after they filled them - a before/after - which ultimately gave recognition to the city workers.I like that idea :)We learned that “procurement” (software procurement) is a really tricky issue. We get to learn more about working that system later.In case you were wondering… (we were) Magazines he reads: “government technology”“public CIO”…. [ hour long break talking with Maria about the day … ]I will need to close out this blog post.I’ll say that we also met Eric Ries (Minimum Viable Products & Agile development - very inspiring and I am very concerned about how we will build an iterative testing framework so Seattle can see what we are making) and Jay Nath - who talked about DataSF and working from within government to bring about technological innovation.For my Museum People Friends: Government sounds like Museum Culture, but worse - though with more substantial consequences. I know I did OK in actually finishing projects with some degree of “well, I guess that was OK” - and I think that real innovation in static situations depends mainly on personality and having many people backing an idea. I don’t feel like I’ve ever been in a situation to ‘rock a system’ - though I hope to try. But advice was - ‘avoid the nay-sayers’ - this I totally, totally agree with. The nay-sayers are really helpful cause they help you understand the fears, or they help you practice your explanation. But sometimes the culture is just too deep. This was why I left museums - I didn’t feel like we were working up to our potential and there was no way I could do anything from within to change that - but now I’ve got a posse. As I was just discussing with Maria, I’m way more interested in public ownership & participation in what we are doing. I know for a fact that people like to learn a little more technology and feel more empowered. So long as they don’t have to get stressed out. Most people like to learn and understand the world a little more deeply. Most people don’t like having it shoved down their throats. And they don’t like it when you do it for them. And they don’t like it when they struggle and no one is there to help them and nudge them along. It’s really pretty simple.Sometimes I can’t quite believe the thinking of startup developers. I appreciate that they have a business mind & that they are experts in assessing ‘real value’ - real, as in money. As someone who has paid a lot of attention to the arts & education… real value is measured so very differently. In long term intangibles. But I felt very reaffirmed that Eric Ries talked about making sure people “get” what you are making. It’s very obvious to me that if you make something for someone, you want to see their face and hear stories that it helped them. Why else do we do anything, really? So his point that lots of extreme software talent is poured down the drain is well taken. Every software developer I have met wants to know that they worked on something that is useful. Maybe there are others…? I don’t know them.The other thought I had today… it sounded like city services often deal with operational issues - like dirty streets. Now, I know humans by default are just messy - but ultimately, isn’t the question something like “how do we make the streets not dirty in the first place?” - unrealistic given human nature… maybe. Perhaps out of scope for Code for America… but maybe worthwhile to keep in the back of the mind. If you are fixing a broken system, or even just dealing with constraints provided by a very old system* - well, then ultimately even what we make will be useless.Last thought for the night: If workers are competitive and afraid of change and innovation because they might lose their jobs… then ultimately, the most fair thing to do is to really understand their personal aspirations and ambitions & where they are at in life. If stability is important, then making new stable positions would be good. Cause really, people are stressed out when their jobs are threatened, and actually, that isn’t healthy. There was a Robert Sapolsky documentary about stress - and they talk about British Civil Servants and their stress levels by rank. It turns out that we humans are just like baboons. But even baboon culture can change if the balance of power mongering baboon dudes changes - change to become more open and sharing. I’m excited to bring some of the non-competitive sharing tactics I’ve learned in recent years, mainly from my involvement in open source. They totally changed my life for the better.That’s all for tonight.* I learned today that cities have ‘civil service’ and civil servants have this long 100 year political culture & checks and balances in the way things are done - which is designed to prevent corruption, but might not actually be missed were it to go away.