38 Engaging Local Government Leaders
[Kent Wyatt](https://twitter.com/kwyatt23), co-founder of Engaging Local Government Leaders (ELGL) returns to the podcast. We'll get into how their organization is working to help push government forward, check in on what's been happening over the past year or so, and talk about some trends they've seen along the way.<br><br>### Resources and Shoutouts:<br>- [Engaging Local Government Leaders](https://elgl.org/)<br>- [GovLove Podcast](https://elgl.org/govlove/)<br><br>##### Music Credit: [Tumbleweeds by Monkey Warhol](http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Monkey_Warhol/Lonely_Hearts_Challenge/Monkey_Warhol_-_Tumbleweeds)
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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. Kent, I wanna thank you so much for taking the time to come back and revisit us here at Civic Tech Chat. For folks that haven't listened or weren't a listener back in June,
could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do? Sure thing. Brian, thanks for having me back. It's great to be on the second best government podcast in the world. Some people may say Gov Love, the El Geo podcast is one and two, but or number one, but we can argue that later. Yeah. It's cool to be back, have this discussion continued discussion about, what ELGO, all the engaging local government leaders, is doing to kind of advance government, move it forward. And, I think it goes well with some of the podcasts that I've heard you have in the past and some of your previous guests on the people who don't accept the status quo of government and know that we need to do better. So it's good for me to be back. I am a board member of ELGL. I work full time for the city of Tigard, Oregon as communications manager. So kinda see it on both sides from creation of ELGO, which we've been around for about ten years now, to working for a city every day, and seeing what those communities, want and expect from their government.
And, one of the things that we hone in on at the beginning interviews with Civic Tech Chat is this idea of personal why. You know, the thing that drives you to get out of bed each morning and and do what you do. So, Kent, what would that be for you?
So, yeah, I think when I was on last time, I talked about and this would still be relevant, but I think my drive my ultimate driving force is my kids. I have a nine year old and seven year old girls who love for them to have an equal opportunity in government, and that continues to be my passion. But one other thing my my why, I guess, to add on to that now is just, keep, not just keeping, but attracting and retaining people to government. I've seen and we hear from our members and from others just the frustration of working in government and those challenges that we all share. And I think if we connect with each other, whether that's online or in person, about these challenges and how we can actually help each other, I think we we will make government better, and we already are starting to, especially on the local level. So the why for me is, you know, taking those finding those opportunities and encouraging that dialogue of, hey. We're all frustrated at some point in government, but, we should stay around and try to make it work. And there's a lot of resources out there and a lot of people who have that same, mindset now. So I I'm excited about where local government is headed. We've benefited a little bit from the general attitudes towards federal government lately. So a a lot of people look towards the local level as a place where they can really make an impact.
I believe since we last spoke on the personal front for you that your title has changed just a little bit there with the city of Tigard. Could you tell us a little bit about that change and how it impacts your your day to day work there?
Sure. So I was the interim communications manager. I'm now the communications manager. Before I was interim, I was a senior management analyst and really, in my mind, on track to eventually be a city manager. My my dad was a city manager for thirty some years, so I grew up around local government and seeing what city managers do. But, and I'm not sure if he will listen to this podcast or not, but, the more time I've spent in government, which now has been over ten years in local government and a couple years in state government, I've really noticed the power of communications and how that can do a lot of things that we're talking about with ELGL, but also can really revitalize a community and the way you connect with them. There are communities out there. I mean, we'll expect their local government to be on social media. They expect to be creative. They expect us to get out of city hall and get into their neighborhoods. So I think, my role as communications manager, I've been in the official role now for about a year, and just really excited about, the potential for bringing a new new approach to how we communicate with the local government.
Is there any media, whether it's print, video, podcast, or some other such thing that you found to be especially educational or inspirational for your practice?
Sadly, you know, Governing magazine, I thought, was one of the best resources we had in government. Mark Funkhouser is an incredible incredible resource, still is. So Governing was one of those magazines, publications that I looked at for ideas and to see what others are doing. Outside of that, I guess I'm a little untraditional. I don't look towards some of the, some of the bigger professional associations or publications for ideas. I think there's a lot of stuff happening, some in government and some outside, that we can borrow ideas from, especially when you're talking about communications and community engagement. So there's not, I listen to a whole bunch of podcasts, everything from from this one to the David Axelrod podcast, and some some, podcasts that have focused on revitalization of cities. So I think it's, you you know, a good thing about where we are today in in communications is if you have an idea or if you have a voice and you wanna share it, there's ways to do it through blogs, podcasts, social media. So I think that has kind of leveled the playing field in where we get information from in government.
For folks that maybe weren't listeners back June when we initially had you on, Could you give them an idea of, like, at a high level, like, what ELGL or engaging local government leaders is and what it's about?
Well, first, those people should probably apologize for not being a listener back then, but we will we'll work on the assumption that we forgive them now that they have found your podcast, and are able to learn more, about what's happening in the government sector. So for us, for ELGL, engaged in local government leaders, we founded ten years ago with a pretty simple premise of connecting, professionals and local government. We have there's professional associations for city managers, finance officers, planners, you name it. But there wasn't one that went across sectors or cross functions of government. That's what we've created in at ELGO. We're really focused and honed in on on three principles. One, diversity inclusion. It's just completely unacceptable where we are in embracing diversity and inclusion in our workforce, whether that's gender, sexuality, race, government, in this case, talking about local government has really failed to in include those communities and find ways to connect with them. So that's definitely, an emphasis, for ELGL. Secondly, technology. Not to be completely Debbie Downer, but I would say local government, that's another area where we have not done it as best as we should in terms of incorporating these, whether it's software, new platforms, new products. We haven't given them enough time, or thought in how they can improve our communities. Too often feel fine about what we're doing. It works. It's not broken. And instead of waiting for something to break in government, we should be more proactive and find ways that are perhaps, cheaper and better. And then lastly, as some people will argue with this, we're we're here to make local government fun. You know, people say government can't be fun. I would disagree. It can be fun. It is a matter of, it does take work, though. It's like any other profession. There's a lot of rewarding things that are happening. And and at the very simple level, we should have fun and enjoy what we're doing. And at ELGL, you see that through our annual city hall city hall selfie day, which is August 15 every year. We've been overwhelmed with responses. I think last year, we had 2,000, 3,000 submissions of just people taking pictures in front of their city hall because they're proud about where they work and and what they do. So we're we're not going away. We can plan on continuing to hammer those three things, home, diversity, inclusion, tech, and just having a good time.
So over this past year and a half there, would you say that you've managed to perfect the art of local government since we last spoke?
That's a great question. No. I wouldn't say that. I think we've been able to perfect the art of connecting people who, are looking for new solutions, who are trying, to find motivation in government. You know, that may be as simple as a city who's going out for a community survey and helping them find what vendor to use. It may be as simple as on our ELG fifty Facebook group talking about SharePoint as an internal communication tool. How do we use that? Can we use it? What what are we not using? So there's a lot of ways that we're connecting our members with how they can do their jobs better. I don't think we'll ever perfect the art of local government, but I do definitely think, we are and will continue to refine the art of local government.
It appears that ELGL is now working on its tenth year of existence, which is quite a milestone. What was your why initially for starting it, and has your view of that or its contents changed at all during its lifetime?
So, that's a great question. We started we started back in 2009 shortly after our first child was born because we realized, we can do a better job in our positions at the time. My wife worked, as the assistant city manager for the city of West Linn, which is a suburb of Portland about 20,000, and I was working for the city of Tigard. So we started off just meeting, once a month with people who had a similar passion in local government. It was 16 of us. We're now over 4,000 members. And, you know, to your question about has it changed or or the why or or where we're headed, you know, it's a great question. And I think we have we have evolved, and I think largely in response to what we've seen and hear from our members, you know, go back to those three points that I touched on of of what we've, kinda solidified our mission to be, which which is to focus of on diversity tech and and having a good time. So I think ELDO will always we're ten years in. I we'll we'll continue to evolve. We fear becoming a stagnant organization that is not forward thinking. We also fear, you know, being beholden to whether that's vendors or sponsors or people with a loud who think they have a louder voice. We we wanna make decisions, that are the best for government in general. So we're ten years in and where we had, we really are we really are at an interesting time in our organization's history about on where we head from here, because there's there's a lot of potential, and something we'll be definitely focusing these next few months on, to try to chart the path for our next five to ten years.
I would imagine that in that time, you've you've gained a lot of experience, you know, helping lead an organization like that. Are there any lessons you've picked up along the way that you'd be willing to muse about a bit?
Yeah. I you know, I I struggled sometimes when I was in school, graduate school and undergraduate because a lot of especially in, like, leadership type classes because it it seemed like a lot of jargon to me and a lot of, you know, kinda rah rah stuff. But, you know, I've really learned the the art of leadership and and really what goes into that, the being willing to work and being willing to be a hard worker, and that you'll see that throughout our organization. We literally started at zero and even started with some obstacles against us in terms of other associations really not wanting to see us exist. So, you know, as cheesy as it sounds, like hard work does not get defeated. Like, we are outworking organizations that are larger than us, have more funding than us. We're outworking them, providing a better product to our members. I would I challenge any of our members or for when we do sessions or presentations, anybody in the audience to think about, you know, the money that you're paying, whether that's for training or professional associations, the money you're putting in and the value you're getting out. And at ELGL, we provide the best value that you'll ever see of any organization because simply we've our leaders, our board of directors, our staff are the hardest workers that you'll find. So not a necessarily a magical secret tip for anybody listening, but I would hope that you would at least consider, you know, whatever your job is right now, that hard work and perseverance does pay off. There's plenty of others who will fall by the wayside. But if you're willing to continue to put the time and effort in, there will be successes. And there will be some bumps in the road, but for the most part, I think you'll get to where you wanna be.
Speaking of bumps in the road, as you put it, what would you say is something that's been a significant challenge that either you personally or as an organization have faced, since the last time we, convened here?
So one of the things we've we've drawn the most indirect criticism or, I guess, talking behind our backs is the diversity initiative. The the, it was a started off as a 13% initiative, which highlights from 1984 to 2014, the percent of women as city managers didn't change, which is disgusting and unacceptable. And some of those organizations, and this, I should say, is my personal opinion. Some of those organizations that were responsible for that, for not having more of a focus on that, were not appreciative of our efforts to, one, highlight the sheer numbers, and then two, to actually have a plan to do something about it. A report is great to put that out there, but you should also have substantive steps. And, at EGL, since 2014, that's really been, one of our biggest focuses. You'll see it whether that's a if you go to our conference, a panel session that we put together or if you look at our board of directors, diversity inclusion is woven throughout our organization. And I think it is unfortunate, how, you know, there is definitely a segment where of folks in government who wanna keep the status quo, because that would benefit them. I would completely push back on that, and I I think that's not responsible to our communities. For me, it's not responsible. And if I think about having two kids grow up and perhaps being interested in a government career. So our our opinions as ELG have not always been popular, and they've not always been the kind of talking points that you would hear from other organizations. But I think that authentic response to issues like, diversity, are what really keeps our keep our members, very engaged in our organization.
Have you seen any movement, you know, from those efforts that gives you hope that maybe in the future that that those numbers will improve, that that situation will become more equitable?
I actually, I've seen some movement. I think that I think part of it just from the changing demographic, there will be, an increase. And I think, you know, there's Washington state, for example, has has put together some good programs on on cultivating that. LGO would try to provide opportunities, but I think a lot of it comes down to, seeing people that look like you in the roles that you wanna be. And I I do think that's changing. I do think, most associations and most governments have really strong, female leadership at some level, at least the ones that, we interact with. So I think it's changing, but I think we would be foolish to think it has completely changed and that we can move on to a different topic. The where it's not changing, is we still hear the same conversations from our members who are encountering uncomfortable situations at work because of a manager, members who are at conferences who are in very uncomfortable situations, because of, male colleagues. If that exists, people are more willing to talk about it now, a little bit more open, but some of that, still exists and hasn't changed. And that, we would love for this not to be a focus of our organization, but I can't imagine anytime in the foreseeable future that that will that will be the case.
It it sounds like y'all are seeing a, you know, a problem that's out there and very serious, and you're attempting to do what you can to help support folks. Is I think I'm that's what I'm hearing from you. Yeah. Lot there's a lot of connecting. So,
for our members who are looking to be city managers, we will and have take the time to connect you with recruiters, to connect you with cities that you see an opening and you may be interested in applying for. My wife is full time now with the ELGL. She has experience in city management. She's encountered some of what we're talking about in her last job where she ended up, filing a gender gender discrimination lawsuit against the city she was working for, because she was told that a young woman with kids is really not, the person they want as an interim city manager. So we've we, as a group, have experience that, we can share and really help benefit our members who are, unfortunately, facing some of these same situations. But on the bright side, the number is increasing in in those leadership roles, and I think they're really those folks in those positions are really doing a good job of cultivating, the next generation and building that more inclusive workplace.
I've been noticing and enjoying some of the, innovation driven content that's been coming out, whether it's, you know, ELGL posts or the podcast y'all run, Gov Love. I've seen things like, coverage of web accessibility, city innovation teams, and things in between. Have you started to see any emerging patterns in that local gov innovation space as you've gone along?
So I don't know if this is allowed, but I'm gonna flip the question back on you. I I struggle a little bit with this, innovation and have some worries about innovation becoming a buzzword. So what what would you say is innovation, like, in in your experience?
So I can speak, I suppose, to what I mean from the word. Maybe it doesn't reflect on others so much in how they use it. For but for me, it ends up being a lot, at least in the government context, a lot of attention placed upon how services are ultimately delivered and then the way that, things like technology can interweave with that to improve that services delivery, whether that's like the like improving the software development cycle, whether that's improving the way an organization gets feedback from folks that are actually impacted by the initiative or, things in between. Does that I I guess, does that viewpoint kinda clear up what what I mean a bit? Yeah. And I and I just I'm I'm just always curious to hear
people's, lens of of innovation. Because I do I do worry a little bit if you're working for a smaller organization, midsize organization, and you continue to hear this drumbeat of innovation, which, at least for now, largely is coming from cities of a a bigger population that that you may be discouraged. And, you know, whatever you wanna call it, innovation, new ways of doing things, I mean, there's for a city of 5,000 that may be moving from a paper newsletter to electronic newsletter. It may be starting to have social media account, for some medium sized organizations. For example, in Tigard, we now have a four day work week. Four tens is our work week. That's innovation in in a lot of ways. So we are trying to bring that together with the ELGL through, like, you mentioned our podcast, some of our content. We also have an innovation Wiki on our, website where people can kind of what we're talking about here define what innovation is, on in at their organizations and and what they've seen. So I think where we're going as an as ELGIL is we wanna have a platform where you could come to our website and see. There's 500 things that are innovating government broken down by the government that's doing it, the size of that government. And our hope is you can take something away from that that you could transfer to your organization as an innovative practice.
To to follow-up on that, I I I noticed that that drop of the four day work week there for the city. I have to admit, I've read, like, academic work about the benefits of something like that, but I think you're the first person I've talked to that has any real world experience with an organization actually doing it. Could you tell me a little bit about your experience with with that initiative there?
Sure. I would credit our, city manager, Marty Wine, who's been with the city about eight years now. She started it. It was under the kind of the guys of, cost savings. We expected to cut to cut costs a little around $5,060,000 dollars from, simply turning the lights on and some of those basic things that happen every day in the buildings. You know, cost savings, I'm not sure exactly how that ended up shaking out, but I do know it's improved the employee morale. I think it's a think it's a benefit when people are looking at the various local government jobs that, you know, they could work in tiger, I don't know, four day work week schedule, flexible schedule compared to, you know, a neighboring city who may not have that. So all in all, I I've loved it. It's honestly one of the reasons I continue with the organization because of that flexible schedule that allows me to spend time on family matters with coaching my seven year old's basketball team. But at the same time, you know, Monday through Thursday, it's a grind, but we're getting getting a lot of work done, and I think it's just a different way to approach a work week. So we've we've done some surveying and talking to employees and generally, you know, absentee kind of initial shock of, like, hey. How am I gonna do childcare? How am I gonna still play my softball league after work? Once you get past that, people really do embrace it, as a great way to to almost force a work life balance upon among, folks.
With your implementation, and this may be a bit into the weeds of how something like this works. Uh-huh. Does everyone sort of have, are there are there, like, differing days that's, like, their four days, or or do you or have you all aligned on, like, this day as our
our day off? Good question. We're we're all off on Fridays. Obviously, police is still police still works, some of our public works crews in library, but, you know, we have 30 300 Feet. I'd say about 200 of those are on Monday through Thursday schedule every Friday off. I know City of West Linn, where we live, they have every other Friday off. They have the nine eighty schedule. So, yeah, it's it's pretty much throughout our organization in Tigard.
Well, that that is, that is certainly an innovation move. I I can't think of another organization off the top that has explored that one. That that's pretty neat. Yeah. Well, yeah, I know the state of Utah, I think it was, at one point,
moved their whole workforce to the four ten schedule. And then I think a couple years after that, they backed off that. I'm not sure the exact reason. But, yeah, for us, it's been successful, and, you know, I think every organization's slightly different, but it is an innovative approach to workforce.
Recently, we've also started to see the rise of these, like, local and state digital services, which kinda have a a model that they that they work through, whether it's in cities like San Francisco or in states like Colorado, which just, recently got theirs up off the ground. Do you have any feelings about these sort of initiatives as they're put together?
Yeah. I think at this point, there it's for the most part, they're good. It ray it raises awareness on the topic. If there's any way to pool resources, I think that's that's always helpful. Once again, going back to kind of a lens of a smaller cities, I I just want any I don't think the smaller to medium sized cities should get left out of any initiatives, or if there's ways to include them, especially if it's kind of a state sponsored program, because, you know, a lot of times they don't aren't gonna have the resources, time, or or staff to do that. But I think it's a great step in the right direction, on continuing to recognize we have we have some progress we need to make in this area. What what are your feelings to this? Have you seen a model that you think is more successful than some of the others? Or
That's that's a really great question. I I wouldn't suggest that the, like, the digital services model is necessarily the, like, the end all, be all of all possibilities. But I do think it's pretty good. Like, I think it's got a a good track record. You know, the federal government has done a pretty decent job with The United States digital service, kind of showcasing what's possible. And I think through that is why you're starting to see it happen now at, like, the state and and local level. In part, that's in fact, folks kinda coming out of that service and going back to their, you know, their hometowns and home states and going, you know what? Like, I think I think this could work here, which I think is, if my memory of the story for how Colorado got going, that's, like, their story as, like, a USDS alum came came back home and decided to help get that going.
Yeah. And I you know, I think I I think there are some missed opportunities in that because there there's some great stuff happening on on a federal and state level and and making sure that we, as local government, find a way to connect with those resources is extremely important.
Well, one thing I I, I like that you keenly pointed out is the the, idea of trying to make sure that, like, smaller cities and medium sized cities don't miss out on this sort of thing. Because often, I I think there's probably a a bit of a resource constraint problem because you're probably not gonna see a lot of cities of that size make you know, like, making their own digital service. I imagine it's not practical. I wonder what that relationship would be between them and, like, a state run initiative.
Yeah. I think I think there's some of that throughout the country, and there's some, I think there's more sharing and partnering amongst, you know, area cities that are neighboring each other. So it's just yeah. There's a lot of ways that we really haven't used, as cities working with just simply each other to to really use our our, workforce and our communities as an asset to with each other. For example, in in Tigard and Lake Oswego, which is the neighboring city, we have a water, water partnership that has really helped, provide a long term water source for our community. On the kinda IT front, there was couple cities around here who shared IT services. So some of those recessions are never good, but, you know, during the last one, those are some of the things that I started to see bubble up. But I feel like with the economy turning back around, I haven't haven't seen or heard as much of that.
You've now had a Dublev, the a podcast that runs under ELGL up and running now for a few years as well. If my podcast app is to be trusted, I believe, since around somewhere in 2015. Does that sound? That's correct. Yep. Yeah. How was the experience of being a host for a program like that changed for you over time?
I mean, the couple of podcasts is great. Ben Kittleson is our is the producer and really makes that engine run. It started off as a partnership with SeeClickFix. It was a joint podcast, which that partnership lasted maybe for a year, and then they decided to go in a different direction. So ever since then, we've really been a sole provider, and it's incredible. I have less, I host maybe eight to 10 episodes a year because we have three to four hosts now. And I think what you've really seen is just the change in diversity and content. For a while, it was just two or three of us that were hosting and, you know, so we tended to have the same type of guests. But, really, now if you go on and see our recent episodes, they're all over the place. In terms of host actual hosting, you know, as as you know, it's I'm always learning. Like, it's, you really wanna create a conversation with your guest. Sometimes that's easier than others. But I think yeah. I learned the most from listening to other podcasts, to be honest. Some of the questions that are asked, we will replicate on our on our podcast because they're I think they're probing questions that are interesting in getting at somebody's story. For me as a host, I've kinda honed in on, like, similar to your why, just the like, how did you get here? What what what was the impact of your upbringing? Was your were your parents in government? Did you have siblings that were in government? If you knew nothing about government, like, how did you land here? Because more and more, we see the people in government pretty high positions that this wasn't their intended path. And, to kinda share those career paths, I think, are are are interesting, interesting to me and then hopefully interesting to our listening audience.
You mentioned in there the model that y'all remember. You have, like, a series of hosts that kinda collaboratively work to produce content. Yep. Could you talk a little bit more, like, what that experience is like and maybe how like, how how did you end up, like, pulling folks into the fold like that?
Yeah. So if you listen to the podcast, you may notice, but we we don't have any formal podcast training. So we, we we all take slightly different approaches. There's, like I said, four or five of us. We've gotten Ben, myself, and Kiersten have have done it all along, but Alyssa and Jovan, two of the other hosts, are folks who had different roles with ELGO, kinda landed and really enjoying the art of, like, conversation with, interesting people. So they've stepped up, and really done incredible jobs. They start they were working for the city of Kansas City, Missouri together. Now they're in different places. But, you know, it's one of those things where they had a passion for it and have added just incredible value, for our listeners. So and I think the rotating host is a is a good model. At least for us, it works. And we're we're aware that, you know, we probably can tighten a few things up, so we're we're always looking at whether it's the format, to the guests, to the questions, you know, what our listeners really want.
If folks listening to this are interested in getting involved with engaging local government leaders, maybe they wanna become a member, maybe they just kinda wanna learn and figure out more about what y'all are about. What would be the best way for them to start that journey?
Hey. Let's say right now, send me an email, kent@elgl.org. Let's talk either over email or over phone. I'm happy to connect with you that way. That's the most direct way. Other ways, if you don't wanna do that, we have a website, elgl.org. A lot of information on that about what we stand for. A lot of content. So what you'll find on our website is articles involving a local government that are written by local government professionals. We don't we don't have reporters or journalists. We are an organization who has members in the profession writing about the profession. So kind of a unique approach, one that I would compare if you're familiar with it to the the Players' Tribune, which is is an athletic website. The athlete athletes write about their experience about, you know, playing basketball or whatever it is. And it's kind of the model that we have, and I think our our members really connect to it because it is it's very, very specific, the content we have, but also pretty transferable, to other organizations. And then as we've mentioned a couple times, the podcast couple of podcasts is available on all the major podcast services. There are I think we're over 200 episodes now, so plenty to choose from from an interview with Malcolm Gladwell to the mayor, to the mayor of Richmond. We cover cover it all, and, hopefully, there's something in there that everybody can take, take a little bit from.
Sounds like there's, plenty enough there for you to binge on your next road trip.
Yes.
And, I do wanna reinforce, folks. If you're either involved in local government or you're just interested in the topic, I I highly suggest checking out those resources Kent talked about. It's It's a pretty fantastic organization they've got over there. And, Kent, one tradition we have as you're likely aware, as a returning guest is that we save some time at the end of the conversation to, let the guest kinda give us an idea of what thoughts we should leave this conversation thinking about or concluding thoughts as it were. What would that be for you in this conversation?
This is somewhat ELGL related, somewhat not. I'm really worried about the census, 2020 census, from my work at City of Tiger and Boston from ELGL. We have had a number of podcast episodes focused on the census. And, I think for your audience, especially those on a federal level and, the others who are interacting with the census and trying to make this a complete count, My thought is more of a worry and, a hope, I guess, that, as government and nonprofits and as a community, we can come together and make sure that, we do get as complete of account as possible. I know there's a lot of folks out there working in this direction, but anything that ELGIL as an organization can do, we are completely wide open. There's no strings attached, assuming that, it's for the good. We wanna make sure that our communities are counted and represented. At the same time, we also recognize some of the fears out there, some of the communities who are part who are often undercounted in the census. So, we wanna help. We wanna be a help, and we wanna help. So please reach out to myself, if you have an idea of a guest we should have on our podcast to talk about the census, if you have content you wanna share about the census. I know the US census does a great job of putting materials out there. We use some of that on our city's website. That's great. But I think the more personal stories we can have around the census discussion, I think the better off we'll be. So we're encouraging your audience to at least think about it and do one thing that it's gonna help move the needle towards a more complete count in the 2020 census.
I think that's a fantastic ask and a really reasonable thing to have worries about. And, Kent, I wanna thank you again for taking the time out of your day to come on Civic Tech Chat and share with us a bit about what's going on at ELGL, at GovLab, and just your general experience and knowledge.
Yeah. I really appreciate you. I appreciate the opportunity. I I think my kids in fifteen years will enjoy listening to this episode. I think that they'll find you to be a wonderful host. Hopefully, you'll still be hosting podcast, at that time too. But, we really enjoy the opportunity to to go on other podcast, other formats, and, just discuss local government and and how we can work, better with each other. So really appreciate the opportunity, Ryan. Look forward to having you on the number one podcast in local government, a couple of podcasts here, shortly.
I will definitely be looking forward to that. Great. 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.
