40 First Live Show
Join [Leah Bannon](https://twitter.com/leahbannon), [Mohith Rao](https://twitter.com/localtechsupp}, and [Ryan Koch](https://twitter.com/ryan_koch) as they record a live episode streamed on the [Twitch platform](https://www.twitch.tv/civictechchat). They'll discuss a number of topics including the responsibility tech companies have over their platforms, how regulations and agencies interact with large corporations, the inner workings of Code for America Brigade management, and even some sci-fi-esque public policy.<br><br>### Resources and Shoutouts:<br>- [Facebook let's politicians lie on platform article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/10/facebook-policy-political-speech-lets-politicians-lie-ads/?utm_campaign=the_technology_202&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Newsletter&wpisrc=nl_technology202&wpmm=1)<br>- [FTC Commissioner Chopra dissent about Google and COPPA](https://twitter.com/chopraftc/status/1169245405986611200)<br>- [Propublica Article about IRS-Turbotax decision](https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-reforms-free-file-program-drops-agreement-not-to-compete-with-turbotax){:target="_blank"}<br>- [Code for America Summit](https://www.codeforamerica.org/summit/)<br>- [San Francisco Digital Service is hiring](https://digitalservices.sfgov.org/)<br><br>##### Music Credit: [Tumbleweeds by Monkey Warhol](http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Monkey_Warhol/Lonely_Hearts_Challenge/Monkey_Warhol_-_Tumbleweeds)
Top Keywords
- mean 0.008
- folks 0.007
- brigade 0.006
- government 0.005
- stuff 0.005
- brigades 0.004
- civic 0.004
- make 0.004
- civic tech 0.004
- companies 0.004
- even 0.004
- enforcing 0.004
Transcript
Hello. I'm Ryan Cook, and this is Civic Tech Chat, a podcast about the civic technology movement. We seek to harness the power technology has to improve the delivery of public services to people everywhere. Excellent. I'm, happy to have you both on here, and I'm pretty excited to, dive into a conversation here about a couple of different topics. The first of those that I was hoping to bring up is this, kind of current event thread about Facebook and its ever happening problems with political communication on its platform. For folks that aren't caught up on it, Facebook's been going through some trials and tribulations about the way it's handling, political ads in particular. For instance, they decided to add some fact checking on their platform for advertising in particular, but that does not extend to politicians on the platform. And that goes from the federal level down through even, like, regional, county, city candidates and the like. Going on from that, earlier this month, a memo was surfaced from, Andrew Bosworth, who's the head of virtual reality and augmented reality at Facebook, warning that they shouldn't tilt the scales against Trump in the upcoming cycle. And then adding to that again late last year, there was the revelation that, Trump and Zuckerberg had met privately twice. All this kind of builds some context for this kind of interesting and murky situation the organization finds itself in in its position in the political landscape. Liam, do do you have any, like, kind of, I guess, like, initial reactions to to to that, event as it's been playing out?
For me, I mean, you know, honestly, I I wasn't surprised. I and to a certain extent, I don't know. I feel like there isn't necessarily the proper, understanding on like, by, like, a like a government or a law, standard on what how data and technology plays a role in right now. So it's like you you know, I mean, we have, like, you know, these rules that are now companies like Facebook are essentially setting themselves, and there's no there's no standard that we can necessarily hold them to. So we're kind of forced to just be, like, just kind of let them do whatever. And and that's something that I think is I think the first thing we should do is kind of, you know, figure out, okay, let's let's educate government and bring up government saying, hey. You know, this is this is what the effect like, what data has to offer and what what technology has to offer. And and then from there, I think we'll be able to forge a path that way.
So the Federal Trade Commission is the main agency, responsible for regulating, a lot of this stuff. And, you know, they've been kind of saying that and pointing to that as the main reason why they're not, doing more on it. But even in areas where they do have very clear laws, regulations, and staff to regulate, for example, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, COPPA, gives them a lot of power to, find and regulate and enforce agencies. And they're still not fully enforcing the regulations that they have. So, for example, I'm closely following show Chopra's. He's one of the commissioners, and he's been dissenting on a lot of the, opinions lately pointing out that, you know, a lot of the stuff that they're going after Google or Facebook for, they're not even clawing back, finds that meet the profit that the, companies made. So for example, like YouTube was like baiting I mean, Chopra tweeted this, which is pretty cool. YouTube's baiting kids with nursery rhymes, cartoons, and more to feed its massively profitable behavioral advertising business and and selling that advertising data. It was very lucrative, and it was legal. And they really, you know, barely scratched the surface in finding and enforcing them. So I think it's a lot less about educating government or, you know, recruiting the right people even though that's always very important and government needs more tech folks. But, there also needs to be a will to really go after these companies when they're fully clearly breaking the laws, and we're still not even doing that. Also, on another angle, like, I believe that, you know, it's kind of too late for this election to really hope for much, on this front and that's why I believe that we need to run a candidate who can truly build a grassroots movement and that means having people calling having actual real humans knocking on doors and talking and having conversations with people. You need someone who's getting endorsements from massive movements of people like sunrise movement and stuff. So, we just like, we all really need to be out there knocking on doors and learning how to organize because even if Democrats win, we're still gonna need to keep doing that to hold people accountable and to push
agencies to really enforce the law. Something you mentioned in there that, idea about, like, enforcing the existing laws, because as you mentioned, like, these these companies are breaking existing laws, but the consequences are either small or they're still making a profit or they don't happen at all. In that, descent that you mentioned in in your answer, one of the things that I thought came out of that's, like, as a theme that's interesting there is this idea that the FTC is treating larger organizations much differently than smaller ones, whereas there might have been instances where they were able to, say, go and file suit against a smaller organization with, you know, principles, Oz, defendants, and they, like, go through and actually, like, claw back profits from that organization. But then you take an organization like Google or like Facebook that are much larger, and maybe some of it is, like, some fear of the legal defense they could maintain. I'm not sure if that's, like, the why, but it it does seem like there is a different approach taken.
Yeah. I mean, I think, it's a lot easier to go after the little guys than it is, and you see that all across government. I mean, you see that the IRS has been saying, they really only go after, you know, not rich people because they're easier and they have the resources to go after them. The Federal Commission, unfortunately, doesn't have the resources or the commissioners to even vote on enforcing really big campaign finance violations. So you see, like, huge campaigns get away with breaking laws constantly and small campaigns, get, you know, a lot of fines. So, yeah, I think it's, you know, we need a lot of political will and, we need, like, a fully staffed commission at the Federal Election Commission and, like, different things, to be able to even start scratching the surface on this. We have a question. Somebody was asking what level of enforcement would be needed. I guess we kinda got into that. But yeah. I mean, I I'd say start with, like, at least clawing back enough to, like, get at the profits they made for that, make it hurt for the future, hold actual individuals accountable for breaking the law. There were a lot of folks who like, right up to the top, Sheryl Sandberg, who signed off on a lot of illegal behavior, and, they you know, nothing happened to them. We need to have fines that really make it hurt and make them remember and really send a message that we will be enforcing the law.
Yeah. I I mean, I I yeah. Accountability. Yeah. That's one. I I think that making it hard, especially where, you know, I mean yeah. Holding accountable people accountable is one thing, but, you know, overall as a company, right, we I think that they should like, the whole company kind of should feel it saying, okay. Hey. Like, this is something that is not okay no matter who it is. And I think that that one sends a message to a particular company, but also depending on the size of that company, it sends a message to almost the industry saying that's okay.
Well, in holding individual actors accountable too. Like, people need to know that, like, you just because you're at a huge company and have great lawyers, you're not just protected from breaking the law. Like, you will be hold held accountable for approving law breaking. Right.
Yeah. I think I think that's absolutely true. Because I I think what tends to happen when with those things being absent is companies either, like, create a fund and set money aside for the potential damages, and then they still make a profit. And then the folks that did the act will will will do it again because it worked, and they made a profit, and their shareholders were happy. So I think I think you're both absolutely right. Like, that that type of culture does need to change for us to see wholesale change at a larger level. Yeah. Yeah. Make it hurt enough that the shareholders care.
Right.
And I I think, so I think we we've talked a bit about, I guess, like, the existing laws and how they're being broken and a bit about maybe, like, our our personal expectations about what that should look like. Beyond what it currently exists, do you do you have opinions on if there should be, like, additional regulation on that talks about, like, the responsibility a platform has, whether it's around the risk of, like, for example, like, with Google and YouTube without with content that's directly related to children or in the political sphere, like, the messaging that's being placed on a platform. Essentially, how much responsibility should we be putting on the whole the runner of the platform on the things that are posted on the platform?
First, I'll say I'm not an expert on this, and I think, like, one of the most important things is, to really incorporate the communities that are affected by this stuff when you're designing any kind of laws or enforcements. Like, if you look at, for example, Sesta Foster, which, you know, had a good idea of going after, child prostitution rings and, stuff, but it's really ended up making, really harming the, sex worker community and, making them a lot less safe. You know? They it's a lot harder for them to vet, clients or share information about clients or promote their work, in a safe place so they don't have to literally go out on the street, and and potentially encounter a lot of violence. So I that's where I would start is not repeating the mistakes of something like Siesta Festa by actually talking to the communities affected by this.
I feel like whatever decision a platform makes. Because I don't because I don't know. Because, like, you know, Twitter's like, you know, Twitter's multiple times have said mold that they don't wanna be the ones who censor or do anything. They just kind of provide the platform, which I I I mean, again, like, like I said, I'm not at all an expert on this. So I'd I mean, my opinion is just, you know, whatever they decide, I I think it should be more of like a, hey. This applies to everyone. Don't you know, you can't. I mean, when you when you go into, like, picking and choosing at that point, that's the that's, I guess, the line where I would draw. I think also,
was it Sasha Baron Cohen, had a really great, speech on this where he talked about, like, you know, Facebook is just like, we're not it's not up to us. We don't have to you know, we're a business. And he was pointing out that, like, if you ran a business like a restaurant, you would not be required to allow a Nazi to run around and harass your co your, you know, your your customers and stuff. So, like, I think, like, the more we can, like like, what he's doing to make, like, real life examples and, like, really show the kind of bullshit and hypocrisy that, these huge companies are relying upon to get away with this stuff and excuse themselves from any responsibility for the, potential disaster they're wreaking across, communities, and and help they're providing to Nazi and fascism,
and it's spread around the world is, important. I really like the the mention of the, like, real world analogies. Because I I think if you're not in the the existing conversation or it's not a thing that you regularly follow, it probably feels very abstract to you. Like, unless you're on Twitter all the time and, like, running into that might type of messaging or on Facebook and, like, you you, like, understand it's there. Or even on the, like, Google explanation, like, if you understand, like, what it means to have information sold to, like, a third party, like, that's all stuff that you can't really, like, see it, touch it. You don't really under like, you don't feel the impact immediately. It's something that maybe you feel later through exposure or you find out later, like, that your information was sold to somebody. So I I really I really like that that thought of trying to tie it to something that's a bit more relatable.
Yeah. I mean, I think communication on this stuff is key and, like, I think it's also, you know, it's easy to, like, think, like, how the heck would I do that? It seems enormous. Like, it seems like a huge challenge, but, like, these companies know how to cope with this stuff. They know how to handle this stuff. Like, they've been doing it, to prevent women's nipples on their platforms for years and years and years. Right? And they have huge platforms for years and years and years. Right? And they have huge groups of people enforcing that. So I think, but, like, that's also built on the backs of, underpaid staffers who are getting PTSD from, like, looking at violent videos all the time and stuff. So they're it's it's challenging and it's difficult, but, like, they definitely know a lot of obvious ways, and could be doing far, far more than they are now. We're not expecting perfection, but we are asking them to just fucking try a tiny bit.
So I I think something that is intertwined in what we've been talking about is also the amount of power that these organizations seem to hold now over our communications as, like, more and more people use one of these platforms to either find out what's going on in the world, communicate with loved ones, all that sort of thing. And, of course, that when you talk about power, especially in something like communications, that can also lead to conversations about antitrust, which I think is why you see, like, folks at the federal level looking into these these platforms from that perspective. Do you all have, like, a perspective on, that that kind of relationship? Like, do are these companies getting too much influence, too much power over the way we communicate?
Yes. I yes. 100%. I think that, you know, as I I think it's more of, it's not it's not the fact that, like, their software or whatever is is what people are choosing. It's the fact of that they're, that a lot of, like, supplemental, like like, Google's, like, over like, their phones. Right? They kinda took over, you know, selling phones and, like, Apple's done Apple is known to do that or they create their own ecosystem. And and it's very it's a very high barrier to entry if you're not buying their particular thing. So I think it's I think it's more than just the way we communicate. I think they're going first overall, like, how we live our lives, and I think that's I don't know. It it almost seems like like, legally, it doesn't look like a monopoly, but it's almost like a monopoly on your life where you're basically now being forced to adopt a lot of just whatever. Like, you buy one one thing, and then you're you're kind of screwed in this one ecosystem where you can't leave or do anything else without without trying without making it, hard to lead.
Yeah. I mean, I think, again, like, getting back to, like, kind of the government angle, like, we really need leadership in these agencies that is willing to actually go after corporations and, like, actually, make them, follow the law and pay when they don't. And, like, we just don't have that right now when you look at, like, agencies responsible for enforcing monopolies. I mean, these companies absolutely are monopolies, and, like, maybe they do need to be broken up. But I don't know. I'm not an expert in that. But, like, if you look at the National Labor Relations Board, like, they are largely enforcing complaints of white male discrimination at this point and not really protecting the workers at these agencies and stuff. So I think, like, all across, government, we need leadership that, is willing to, like, articulate the companies that are harming us and go after them in ways that actually make them learn. Do you wanna switch to another topic? We could talk about IRS a little bit. Yeah. I think it's really good timing to talk about IRS. Yeah. So I think this really ties into what we're talking about about, like, agency leadership, being willing to push back against corporations. And this is a really exciting development that, I think had to make its way into the court before it was it finally broke through. But the IRS had this very long agreement, with, the major tax prep organizations like TurboTax. And it's funny because in government a lot of times when people talk about, improving the user experience of a form or, improving access to something, they often point to, TurboTax as, like, an example of, like, great, like, example of a form experience. But those companies actively lobbied and, push strongly to prevent the IRS from giving you any simpler experience. And, like, I think it's also a bad example because, making forms easier is really not necessarily the best way to improve, your experience with the government. I mean, in a lot of cases, we can just obviate them and get rid of them entirely. So, for example, the IRS already knows automatically pretty much everything that you should be paying and could just send you an a nearly completed tax form that you can correct or add deductions to. California tested this out, and it was very successful, but then got killed because of lobbying, like, companies like Intuit who make TurboTax. And so, this new development, drops that agreement because a lot of these companies were not really keeping up their side of the bargain and, part of what they were supposed to be doing was providing a middle and low income folks with free, access to their tools and they were specifically trying to hide them from Google, trying to, make it much harder to actually access and use them. It's a two decade old agreement, and the industry had it like, they had with industry. And, so I'm excited to see. And it's been really barring IRS for making a lot more, like, a lot of different kinds of improvements. So I'm really excited to see where this leads. It's also the result of some significant, investigative reporting by ProPublica.
So definitely check out their recent writing on that. For sure. And I I think we'll, we'll have to go ahead and make sure that that piece is linked in the, podcast episode description when it's released. It that's a good read. One of the things that I I took from that piece that is part of that agreement that I think is really cool, although it sounds like a small thing, is that there's some, like, naming convention requirements like that. Like, the free programs have to be named, like, roughly a similar thing across different, companies' implementations. Because as a user of tax software, I know one thing that confuses the crap out of me often is, like, the different additions that they then have very confusing communication about, like, what you're paying for versus what you're not. And then all of a sudden you get to the end, and they're like, give us a bunch of money, Ryan. We did things that you've promised to pay us for. And it's it's, it can be very confusing. I can only imagine, like and crap. I, you know, I work with computers for a living, so I I can't imagine what it's like if, you know, you're not using software all that often, now you're into this tool and yeah. I just imagine it's confusing.
Yeah. I mean, that's their right? Capitalist gonna capital. So, like, that's always gonna be their goal. Right? It's to, like, push you into paying more for things or, making it seem a lot more complicated than it actually is so that, you think you gotta pay them more for all kinds of different things when, really, these things could be a lot simpler without their lobbying.
Well, a question to to clarify. So is this, is this mostly like an agreement as far as, like, the free edition goes where others would provide that, or did the government have to build something as as part of this as well?
So it, it changed well, it officially ruled that, these companies can no longer hide or ban the robots.txt, on their site, so that these these still need to be available. And the IRS is free to start making the, and improving, the forms. And and so TBD, you know, it's always it's it's, it's tough, but there's a lot of great folks, in IRS over on tech or folks who've, like, tried to work on that and weren't able to because of these restrictions and had to leave. And so I'm really excited to see I mean, I've already seen a flurry across civic tech of folks just absolutely thrilled or who had tried to work on this in some way or another in the past, and, the projects got stymied. So, we'll see. Keep an eye on it.
That is really cool to hear. I'm I'm glad that that allotment was made. I I think, like, the the idea of, like, getting forms right is definitely a space where I think there's a lot of folks out there that are definitely willing to pitch in. So it's six that's exciting news.
Yeah. But, I mean, again, my big, mission is kill all forms. Right? Like, universality of programs is the future of government. And so, like, the the you know, because every time you put restrictions on who can access something or who, qualifies to receive a benefit, you make you create a government monstrosity that is there the responsible for, making sure you're the right person who gets it or making sure you're the right person, who applied and, I mean, obviously, we wanna make sure you are who you say you are, but, like, the more that we can just tax the billionaires and provide these programs to everyone without forcing people to go through endless hoops or hire a lawyer to help them figure out how to go through the process, or hire you know, once they fall through the cracks, it's usually only the folks who can afford a lawyer or who already have some kind of representation like the veteran service organizations that will, like, really help them get through and, get the benefit that they deserve and need. So kill all forms.
Mhmm. Yeah. Also, yes. It's quite terrible. Yeah. It doesn't really make sense to me. And I'm Yeah. Like I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. No. I mean, I've I'm I'm newly grads. I'm, like, I'm new to all this. And I'm, you know, I've been I've been doing all my research, and it's just it doesn't know. And they know, and and they they they're the ones who tell you to do it this way.
Yeah. Like, Thayer was just saying in the comments. Sorry if I'm screwing up your name. But, like, how terrible is it if you mess up on the form they send you, and then, you can be fined and punished for screwing up when they already know how to do it. And I think that's a good point, like, that oftentimes, like, forms are really no matter how easy you make them, like, and they rarely are easy, people are always gonna mess up because they're not intuitive or, they didn't have the right information available to them at the time that they were trying to complete the form or something. And so, like, folks are constantly falling through the cracks or or having things getting endlessly delayed. And I think a lot of folks don't think about all of that monstrosity that has to get built when you put, like, small restrictions on who can access things like free student loans or, or, I mean, student loan forgiveness or other benefits,
health care. You know? I apologize if this comment is a bit beating on the dead horse, but I sometimes worry about with with forms and and maybe it's like a thing that there's, like, an analog to public meetings to where it's like, sometimes a form is there to be helpful or a meeting is there to be helpful, and we actually want you to succeed at it. And sometimes the form or public meeting is a thing that we just sort of threw out there so we could say we had it. We don't actually expect you to get past it. It's, like, meant to be, like, a gate to keep folks from getting to the thing that they are entitled to get to. So so I I'm definitely behind your your kill forms mantra because I think that's a rather prevalent behavior, unfortunately.
So if if y'all can go across oh, go ahead. Go ahead. I was supposed to say, do you wanna just kinda go through some random civic tech news? Or
Yeah. Sure. I I actually saw, something that's coming up soon if if we wanna mention a bit for folks that aren't following along is I see in your notes here you have, so some mention of being excited about summit things, the Code for America summit. Would you all like to to chat about that for a minute?
Yeah. So, Code for America summit is the big gathering of all the civic tech people, ideally, from all different levels. And one of my the reasons I love it so much is that it usually brings folks, from state, local, municipal governments, and the federal government, folks who have, you know, new startups in this space. There's usually not that many of the, like, huge, old Beltway bandits, and a lot of the brigades, Code for America, like, the volunteers and folks. And, it's a really great opportunity to just see like, we never get to see everyone, you know, all in one place because by definition, we're across the country working for different governments all across the country. And so it's a really great opportunity to, like, catch up and and get the pulse of, like, what's going on in civic tech. And, my my talk was accepted. So, we're gonna be giving a talk about the program that we built out at the VA, on you know, we launched va.gov, with user centered design and agile and, all the lovely things. And, then we we realized, you know, we really needed to scale up quickly to maintain control over the site and to keep up with, all the additional benefits we needed to build, to support veterans. So we built this program that is now about eight teams that support those 15 teams who are currently building on va.gov. We do all the we we I just left, but we do all the onboarding and, we do all their code and quality and design reviews and support and, help manage the infrastructure. We manage all the regulatory compliance and ensure and train folks in that. And, so what I'm excited to mostly talk about is, you know, not just this is a a program. You should copy it because it's massive, and and, I don't know how many folks are trying to build out such a huge thing. But kind of talking through, how we used agile and user centered design on ourselves as we were developing this to figure out, you know, how do we do this? Because, we've had to change it a lot over the last year, and adjust and reorg and, you know, use the methodologies we know work for building public services on ourselves to figure out how to do this thing and and everything with the idea of scaling eventually. So the idea is not always to have, you know, half the teams that are that we're supporting be, you know, part of the support, but, ultimately build out something that is much more scalable for more and more and more teams.
I I too am excited for the event Yeah. For all other reasons you talked about. It is interesting, like, there's that kinda, like, group of people that you really that's when you see them is at these conferences, and that's, like, how those networks stay there. I am not going to give a talk, though one of the things I'm hoping to do, on behalf of this program is try to sneak in some interviews with folks. So I'm gonna do a shameless call to action here. If you're going to Summit and you're here listening to this and you're, like, following along here and you wanna talk to Civic Tech Chat, feel free to get in contact with us, and, maybe we can get your story
in while we're there. Well, Savannah, it's always been I mean, this is my third summit I'm going to, and it's always been you know, I I come from a brigade volunteer background. I I mean, mostly I even I even even now I work in the private sector, and it's it's something that it really opened up a whole world to me. So, I, you know, I went from, oh, hey. Look. There's some people who are trying to do something to, oh my gosh. There's, like, a whole movement of people everywhere. And it was it was it's really it's really the and my first the the first one was really eye opener, and I I just absolutely loved it. And, yeah, the people I mean, it's you know, some sometimes I, you know, I say it's like, you know, I look forward to these events because a lot of times when you're you know, as brigade, when we're working on just as volunteers, there's a lot of people who really don't share the same mindset. They're kind of they have their own agenda or whatever trying to do working with us. But then you go to you go to these events, and it's all the same people. You know? Just people who are interested trying to make government better and and try to just help help people. And it's just it's so refreshing. Kinda, like, red lights the the fire slash passion
for for what we do here. So, yeah, I love it. Yeah. Yeah. And it kinda helps you remind reminds you, like, I'm not crazy. I'm not failing. Like, this is hard. Everyone has challenges. Like Yeah. Yeah. It's good to get together. Is there, like are you gonna be doing extra stuff for the brigade? Or I think I saw that the brigades are not doing, like, their own breakout thing this year.
Oh, really? I thought that we are It's like not a separate day maybe. Yeah. So usually so Wednesday. So it's a three day event. Right? So on Wednesday, it's, like, just workshops that are, outside of just the the main festivities. And that but I think I wasn't sure. I I the last time I heard, we we usually have, like, a brigade day where we have our own workshop that we go to, and we kinda just, like, share ideas. So I believe that's still happening this year. I have not heard otherwise. But yeah. I mean I mean, either way, even even just outside of the world of brigades, I mean, it's just really, really good experience. So for me, I I I've been so I I've recently so for the last year, I've been captain in my brigade. And I for me, my biggest focus and one of the things that I'll be doing with Beta NYC, hopefully, I don't I don't I'm still talking to them, but, they're having they wanna have a session on or they're having a session on, like, brigade management and how, like, fundraising and, like, and and, like, overall, like, how to how running a brigade works. And for so I'll I'll hopefully be on it. So maybe I'll be there. But except for that, no. I'm not doing anything else. I'm just there to take it all in. That, that sounds like a good session, though. I I think
sometimes folks don't realize that, like, running a brigade is it like, you're running a small nonprofit, really. So there's, like, a lot of a lot of things to to learn, a lot of skills to pick up. Right. So it's cool it's cool to hear that there's a the thing to help out with that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a little curious. Is that, like,
that kind of, like, managing it, is that one of the biggest challenges that brigades are focusing on right now? Like, are there any other things y'all are talking about?
Yeah. So managing a brigade, I mean, yes. It's it's essentially you wanna you wanna kinda look at it at least the way I look at it is, like, be almost we're, like, consultants to government or nonprofits or whoever we're working with. We're coming in. We're working on projects. So, I mean, it's, you know, it's honestly a it's it's a full time job that you're you're there. And a lot of times, I mean, you're meeting with clients who are government, who are who are like, hey. You know, I'm this is this is when I'm this is my work time, so I have to come meet you. And and and some people, some of the bigger, you know, brigades are are are able to to handle that. But then, like like, our brigade, we're small. I still work a full time forty hour, a week job. So now I have to, like, kinda come outside of that job, take these meetings during the day, some mostly during the evenings. And then we have to also, design, you know, and then we have to, like, we have to have a team that designs sites. So I feel like it it almost feels like a full time job. So but it's, so I I feel I feel like that's where the real difficulty comes in running a brigade is that you have to worry about finances. You have to you know, for certain for certain things, obviously, a lot of we get a lot of in kind donations. A lot of, like it's easier for a nonprofit, but at the same time, we're like like, for us, like, for the smaller brigades, it's we're running on maybe, like, a couple donations a year of, like, less than a thousand dollars. So it's like, how do we how do we host events? How where do we host them? How do we get that? How do we, you know, get food for certain events? How do we, you know, get marketing for certain events? And we're doing all this on our free time. So it's it's it's a time commitment, and and and that's, and and especially for me, you know, I I came in you know, I like I said, I'm a recent college grad. I'm a computer science. Like, I, like, I've grown up being a nerd. Like, I play video games and and and code. And, you know, so coming into a whole business world of of of of, like, how how how to run a business or a nonprofit is just,
it's been a learning curve. It's a lot. I remember when I was leading the code for DC brigade many years ago, I just kept having this overwhelming feel feeling like, god, there would be so much I could do if I could just take, like, a month off work or something and, like, work on this. You know? Like Exactly. It's hard.
Yeah.
I I I can echo that feel. Sometimes I think of it that with code for Chicago. It's like, if I could just, like, dedicate some time, like, maybe it could get the ball to a point. Out of curiosity, since both of you also have experience with this, do you feel like that whether it's, like, the skills being picked up or just, like, tools to help struggle through these things, You think those things are available in, like, an adequate fashion?
Yes. Only because we are communicate I mean, we we know the importance of communication. Right? The whole network can talk to each other. We have a full on Slack. We have, you know, we can we can hit each other up one on one. And I feel like I feel like a there would be a good use of a central, like, repository of assets or or just, like, ideas of people have. And we do. We have a discourse, and and there's a lot a lot of there. But just something that something like you don't really go ask for, you kinda just go, like, look up, say, hey. You know, especially for a lot of, like, documents, a lot of templates. So how do we, you know, how do we approach how do we send emails out to a protect a potential funder or something like that or or or marketing assets? So things like that. I think that if you if you ask, it'll be given. It's there. I don't know if it's there if you don't ask. Like, if you don't know who to go talk to, I think it's it can be kind of hard to to find that.
Yeah. I mean, I remember one thing that was always hard that I've heard is still kinda hard is, leadership traditions. Like, it's and, you know, just, doing something at so much at the at through volunteering, not getting paid at all for it is will always kind of be fraught, and, you know, lead to burnout for folks because you're, you know, working more than forty hours a week, which is already too many hours in my opinion. So, So, like, yeah. I mean, I think that's still a big challenge. But it's also, like, one of the coolest things you can do Yeah. As a volunteer if you wanna kinda level up your current skills or get to know your your local government or people in your community who care about local government and tech and design. So I don't know. They've got a lot of smart folks and, like, especially across the country with dedicated awesome folks who are working on it. But it's also, like, what, like, 50,000 volunteers and, like, a five person team that's actually paid to at CFA to to manage it. Like, that team does amazing stuff, but I think they should be a lot bigger Yeah. Given how big the program is.
What do you think about this, Ryan?
So I I I think I would echo a lot of what you already said. So I want, like, re retread on that ground. Although the idea of, like, knowing where stuff is, though, I will, I guess, retread on that a little bit because I think that is always an issue, like, trying to socialize information. It's, like, a thing that a lot of efforts put into. I know we try to do it in a number of different communication mediums, but, I think that's, like, always going to be a struggle. Yeah. And then the other, like I guess, like, this is more like a step in the process, but I think I'm always thinking about and I I think other brigades think about this too. And this is only, like, maybe partially related to the question I asked is, the idea of, like, onboarding folks into the brigade and, like, trying to then maintain an interest level Yeah. It's it can be hard if you don't, like, have that really fleshed out for your organization. And in part because of some of the things like Leo was expressing, like, even people that are volunteering, oftentimes, you know, they're already working forty hours a week doing job thing. And now they're coming to your group with their free time, and, you know, they're they're lending it to you. So if if you have no smooth way on there in a way that makes things seem engaging, it can be tough to keep folks around. Yes. I agree 100%.
That's actually a resource that I would love to get from other brigades, as well. Just like just like what they think about it because retaining retention of members is something that I don't know. I feel like to a certain extent, it's unique to your community, or or is kind of unique to the city. But at the same time, it can definitely be, quite similar. And getting those metrics okay. What is your community like how do you okay. Yeah. For me, it's like I had to kinda feel it out. Just be like, okay. You know, we went through a lot of people who just show up and never come back, and then I would message them. I'd see them at other events and be like, hey. It's like, what's up? And, you know, I mean, I would get some feedback, but it's really just that feedback that, I I I went through that that we kinda figure out a way where people people were more, more willing to stay and stick around.
That reminds me another thing since we're talking speaking of like leave and pay, one thing that I'm kinda interested excited about is that the federal government now has parental leave. So if you didn't know, until now we had zero leave. If you have a kid, you could take your your personal leave or you could possibly take some sick leave maybe. But they just amended the Family Medical Leave Act. So it you we get twelve weeks off if you have a kid. And what's so cool about the fact that they amended that act is that it also covers adoption, fostering, or serious health conditions for you or your family. So I I feel like a lot of people were saying, you know, oh, now I could actually work in the federal government and stay because, I had this. And I was actually thinking like, oh, maybe I could have a kid. It's a little crazy, but, and fun DC rumor, which I I've heard some pretty good from some pretty good sources is that, we got this because the Trump administration was willing to negotiate pretty much anything to get Space Force, which is really just a new look, so far. So it's it's not even, like, a big new thing necessarily. So
That is exciting. I think it's, like, well worth a trade because I think Space Force is really just like some stations in places like Greenland that monitor satellites pretty much. Right? Like plus I I feel like it's like win win for for us all. Like, you get Hopefully. I hope it stays to that. Right. I mean, we get we get leave, which is great, and we also get something we can joke about incessantly. So, I mean, I feel like it's win win for us.
Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully. I mean, I I really don't hope that that doesn't grow because I don't know. I it was a quote. I think Jeff Bezos was talking about how he wanted all manufacturing to go to space and and Earth become, like, rezoned completely to be residential, which I don't understand. I I don't get why what he means by that or what how that's gonna happen, but I have a feeling that Spares Force will have a thing part of that.
Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I feel like a lot of this is just related to, like, billionaires or, like, the you know? We're not gonna cut back on emissions or, do anything to combat climate change, so probably gonna need a new planet. So let's start building out in space. Right? Like, it's what a lot of them are focused on, Elon Musk. Yeah. So it's madness, and it's terrifying because Yeah. This is really our only planet.
It it's it's it just sounds so much like eccentric billionaire idea that they thought of while they were in their, like, mountain fortress, crook in a cat in, like, a large leather chair. Like, yes. We can build everything in space. Like, what is this?
Yes. We'll be fine. And what about the rest of us who are stuck here? Or isn't there a planet. That was like a dystopian jobs. Alright.
Isn't that, like, a dystopian sci fi story about this where, like, all of the wealthy billionaires go up into the, like, the upper atmosphere and leave all of us regular folks down on the planet to suffer or something. I can't remember the title. But Oh, is there?
Oh. I think there's a lot of them. There's the expanse, which is pretty good. Yeah.
I don't know. I don't know. Actually, it might be good if they if if if all manufacturing goes to space, that means that we're no longer creating emissions in on Earth. Right? So Yeah. If it's possible, it's it is technically could be good. I don't know how how long it would be or or or if it were if it would work. But, I mean, technically, I mean, there would be the all the emissions would not be on Earth to where we possibly could go back to a cleaner, healthier Earth that we live on, but I don't know.
Yeah. Yeah. I I just I am not optimistic enough to believe that that's viable. And also, like, it's still gonna require a ton of people. Like, I don't care how great he thinks he is at building his, like, drone delivery robots. Like, I don't see a future in which we can manufacture all this stuff and, like, transport it back and forth without releasing a fuck ton of emissions. Like Right.
That's that's true. So
but, yeah, pollution bad. I agree on that.
Yeah. Yeah. And the the back and forth is a is is a good point. It does take a lot of energy to move stuff up to high atmosphere or to orbit. So it probably would need some solution to that. I am not qualified to propose one. But Yeah. Neither am I. I can see that it's probable. Well, and are we assuming we're just gonna, like, have a, like, population of people who are permanently stuck as, like,
Amazon warehouse workers up in the sky? Like, they're barely treating their workers here on the ground very well. Like, what about when they don't have regulations or, you know, like Yeah. No. That would Permanent population stuck in the sky. Like, that's basically exactly The Expanse. It's like we screwed up the Earth. That new sci fi, like, that got picked up by Amazon, ironically. Yeah. The it's like Earth is, like, kind of okay, mostly underwater. Most people have left for either Mars or they're, like, working class schlubs who get treated like crap, who are, like, the belters, who are, like, out in the asteroid belt, like, manufacturing things. Like Oh, that's so just like like yeah. He just re upped the show and was like, hey. Great idea. I want a class of people stuck on asteroids so I can treat my crap.
So I guess if you're out there and you're gonna make a dystopian sci fi story, I would ask that you put a disclaimer on the front that says, please don't take this as an idea. It is a dystopian sci fi story. Recommendation. Not a recommendation.
One last thing I was just gonna put in real quick is that, if you're going to CFA Summit, make sure you book your flight to leave straight to Austin and not home so that you come to South by Southwest, which starts the day I think, like, the the last day of Summit or right after that. Oh. Because they're trying to build out a bunch more civic tech stuff. And I'm in Austin, so come say hi to me. They're doing a the I think there's this group Civic IO, which is, like, a lot of mayors, South by Southwest, and our our mayor's office, hosting, like, a pitch for 10 k for your civic tech startup. Oh, interesting. It's like one one thing. So, but even if that's not your thing, I've heard that they're explaining a bunch of the civic tech stuff at South by. So Yeah. Come say hi. I will show you where all the good tacos are.
Awesome. Also, speaking of events around summit, I think March 7 is open data day this year. So I'm pretty sure a lot of brigades will be having events, maybe even other organizations. So that's also something,
if if it's in your city to look for. Yeah. Doesn't beta NYC usually do something big for that?
Yeah. I know we're doing one. Open data week or something. No one's gonna kill me for butchering this.
Oh, here it is. Wait. No. I found it. Open data week twenty twenty. February 29 through March 7. So you could just have, like, a whole city Yeah. Tour of civic tech awesome events. That one is really awesome. You should check it out. It's called, Open Data NYC. It's hosted by Beta NYC, the local brigade there.
Yeah. Also, this year in Saint Louis, we are also hosting an event. It's not gonna be a full week. It's it's gonna be a full day. But we are hosting a event for it. Come on by.
Awesome. Thank you both for sharing those, those, events. It sounds like somebody, if they want to, they can plan a whole, like, civic type vacation and just just do the tour. Oh, that would be great. Oh,
one more thing. I just remembered. San Francisco Digital Service, they just started posting. They're expanding from, like, 25 to 40 people, and there's a bunch there's a lot of great folks. There's some folks from AT and F who went over there, from government digital service in The UK, who went over there. So, they're hiring all the roles, and San Francisco is a city that really needs better public services. So be a part of that. They're doing it right. Awesome.
So whether you wanted travel advice or you were looking for a job, you're just taken care of there in that in that in that time period there. So before we, wind up wrapping up here, do y'all have any more any more, like, little little nuggets or plugs we wanna sneak in here before?
I don't think so. Just, if you're my friend or we've talked before, I just took three months off. So, hit me up. I've got plenty of time on my hands, and I wanna catch up and learn more about what's going on in civic tech and possibly talk about it here. So
Yeah. I think I'm, good. If you guys are new to the stream, we are this is our first ever stream. Please hit the follow button. You'll get a notification when we go live, and you guys can come hang out with us. It'd be really fun.
Agreed. I, I think we are going to, try to make this a regular thing. And, if for some reason you you did miss this, this is also going to be released through the regular podcast things. So do make sure to check that out as well. Leah and Mohit, I wanna thank you both for for hanging out here and being on the stream, and looking forward to future conversations with y'all.
Yeah. Definitely. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Thanks, Ryan.
You can follow us on Twitter using the handle at civic tech chat. Visit us on the web at civictech.chat, or subscribe to us for content updates wherever it is you download your podcasts.
