01 We the Technologists
Our inaugural episode features a panel discussion with Kristi Leach, an independent Design Researcher and Information Architect, Tom Dooner, a Developer Evangelist for Code for America, and Cyrus Sethna, a Digital Services Expert with the United States Digital Service. We'll talk about what Civic Tech is, where the movement stands, and how you can get involved.<br><br>Web Resources mentioned in the episode<br><br>-Code for America Brigade: https://brigade.codeforamerica.org/<br>-Code for America Public Interest Tech Job Board: https://jobs.codeforamerica.org/
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- brigade 0.006
- cyrus 0.006
- involved 0.006
- christy 0.006
- code america 0.005
- technology 0.005
- community 0.005
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Transcript
Welcome to our inaugural episode. Civic Tech Chat is a monthly podcast about the civic technology movement. We seek to harness the power technology has to improve the delivery of public services to people everywhere. I'm Ryan Cook. I'll be guiding you as we dive into a panel discussion for this episode. So with all that said, let's hop right in. Today, we've got a couple of wonderful guests here to talk about some of their experiences in the civic tech movement as well as to go over some topics about it such as where it's at, what it is, and how you can get involved. So why don't we go around and have each of them give a little bit of information about themselves.
Why don't we go ahead and start with, you, Cyrus. Could you tell us a bit about who you are and what you're doing? Sure. Hi. Thanks for having me. I'm Cyrus Stefna. I'm with the United States Digital Service in Washington, DC. I'm here by by way of the General Services Administration in Chicago, and the Peace Corps Mission to Guatemala. Prior to my service, I was with an Ohio State senator's office in Columbus.
That's me. Thanks. Great. Thank you, Cyrus. Christy, why don't we have you go next? Could you introduce yourself to the audience?
Yes. I'm Christy Leech. I'm a design researcher and information architect in Chicago, independent. And that just means that I I know how to interview people and look at data, qualitative and quantitative, and, come up with some some theories and some recommendations.
And I've been active with with Chai Hacknight and now uptime code. Excellent. Thank you for that. And then lastly here, we have, Tom. Could you introduce yourself as well? Hey, everyone. I'm Tom Dooner. I work at Code for America on the network team.
I got involved in Civic Tech a couple years ago when I went to Open Oakland for the first time. And, you know, I've always been somewhat interested in building apps for other people to help other people get their jobs done and to improve the lives of others. And so I found Open Oakland a really great outlet for that. And gradually, you learn more and more about Code for America and eventually applied to be a fellow. And so my fellowship wrapped up last year. And, and, now I'm now I get to work on the network team at Code for America, helping brigades, with the technology
that they need to be successful. One of the things that's, I found to be a fascinating question to ask folks is about their personal why. It's one of those things that one should start with as they start begin an endeavor. So can I have each of you kinda get into, like, your personal why? Like, why are you involved in civic tech? And, Tom, could you, start us off with that?
Yeah. Absolutely. I think, just living in a city makes you realize how many people around you are, interacting with the systems that you pass by every day. And, you know, living in San Francisco, walking down the street all the time, it it's become evident that, you know, the government is not doing very well for a lot of people that live very close to me. And so I think just sort of seeing a visceral example like that, is a really powerful motivator. But also just, it just sort of speaks to, an opportunity that, you know, if people exist like, if we're working with people that, that have software engineering or design or UX capabilities, then it seems like it it's a great use of time for people like that to raise their hand and get involved in their community. And I think civic tech is a really great way to do that, and that's sort of why I got involved to begin with was just as a, it it's a very effective way to volunteer in your community.
Very nice. I like that, particularly that raise your hand and get involved in the community part of that that you were mentioning. Christy, could you, share your personal why for us as well? Sure.
Well, so a couple of years ago, I started going to Shai Hacknight, and, you know, I've just been trying to learn everything I can about becoming a better researcher, better user experience. And, so I was looking for a way to to volunteer, and find a way to to I could tell that it was something that just was it's a putable to a lot of context, and I was thinking about ways to share that skill set. So Shadi Hacknight stood out as an event that was centered around technology, and I knew I I didn't really know what Civic Tech was, actually. I but the event seemed to have something to do with learning more about Chicago, so that's why it was a draw for me and really has been a way for me to pay more attention to Chicago politics and to issues in the different neighborhoods in Chicago. And so then now I'm Uptown Codes is closer to home, and I'm I'm looking forward to exploring, you know, my neighborhood and my part of the city more deeply by being involved with that group. Awesome. Yeah. It sounds like that attempt to be connected with your community is really driving you
forward on, moving into this community as well. Cyrus, could you, also give us, your why as well?
Sure. In every role I've had across government, I have been frustrated by bureaucracy, struggling to keep pace with a a rapidly evolving technology industry. Technologists need to work alongside hardworking career civil service colleagues, to make services that work. I believe very strongly that government bears the responsibility of being effective and cost efficient while doing the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people, who happen to be in the greatest need. So that kind of drives me every single day, to keep doing this.
Thank you for your answer there. It's clear that each of you come from a very unique perspective, in approaching this, and I I definitely appreciate the fact that you've all through been willing to share that. I guess moving on our conversation, I guess one of the things someone listening to this episode might be wondering is, well, what is civic tech? So I guess there's a question for whomever in the group wants to chime in is can you answer that question, what is civic tech, as if I were five, kind of in simple terms.
Well, I mentioned that I just found out about civic Tech, like, a couple years ago. So why shouldn't I start? I I I've come to understand it to be technologists pairing with with the community or with a government partner doing something on on top of the normal participation in government and the normal build of government or or doing something to to make services better, to improve services through technology. That's my my understanding of it so far.
Yeah. Awesome. If I could add to that a little bit. That's definitely like, there's so many different definitions of civic tech, that people, you know, come to this movement with. And I think, with the Code for America mantra is that government can work for the people by the people in the twenty first century. And so what does it mean to have a working government, and, and how do we build that? That's sort of the crux of civic tech, as far as I see it. It's like, how does how can government build effective, effective, software, effective programs, effective, policy for people? And I think we and I think technology, the technology part is almost incidental. It's more of a civic part. These these are themes that have come up repeatedly at Code for America events is that, really, it's not about building technology. It's about applying some of the principles that lead to good technology, like iterative approaches and in and user research and, these practices, applying them to how government builds technology or, or or policy even to some extent.
So I definitely wanna piggyback off of what, Chris, you said said and Tom said. As a designer and an engineer, I think we bring very unique and necessary perspectives to our movement. I I really want to, like, dial it back. Right? And think about, like, what is technology? Right? Technology to me refers to tools. Right? Anything that we use to simplify life. Humans have been putting tools, to work for thousands of years, and they've enabled us to evolve to the point where we're, tapping on, and talking into metal boxes. You know, if you make this very podcast, for example. Right? So, I think, you know, Civic, as Tom mentioned, refers broadly to our public space or shared common. And I I believe that, it's a place where, we come together. Right? Where all people, come together, I guess, willingly to participate, for this common good. Right? Figuring out ways of building tools that help us, improve the the commons, that civic space. So at a really basic level, that's what civic technology is. And I think, you know, the tools we have at our disposal today are much more sophisticated than our, Neanderthal ancestors.
Yeah. The technology part has definitely felt incidental to me or it seems incidental to me. Like, we are people a lot of the folks who are involved in the civic tech movement are people who are trained in, in software development or in design or in project management, the processes that go around building technology and software in particular. And so those are the tools that we have, and this is our way of being one of our ways of being engaged, with our communities. But I I I don't mean it to just mean to say that it's the only way for people to be involved. And I think that, technology, I think, happens to be a a big need, technology improvements, and software improvement in in government, which is maybe one reason why Civic Tech has gotten a lot of good buzz. But I think that it also can be what's the term folks use? It can have kind of a flavor of techno determinism or, techno fetishism or or whatever. Like, it's just so so great to have technology involved in government when really it's just, okay. This is the skill set that we have, and this is how we are participating.
I really like these answers. It it's sounding to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, that at the root of it is kind of a combination of having those relationships with government and it being more about people than so much the tool that you're using. Is that correct? People are
the most important part, and that's, I think, what motivates all of us to volunteer in the first place. Right? None of us are here for technology's sake because we like writing code and don't care about how it gets used, I think, or or, you know, don't like making designs or or, sorry, like making designs but don't care how they get implemented. You know? I think we're all here because we see a way that we can volunteer our skills in a way that leads to the better lives, of our fellow community members. And I think we need to build those we need to build anything we build with those community members as well. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Definitely. And that's a really good natural way to kinda nudge into,
a concept I wanted us to talk about here. Going to some events, including, I was lucky enough to go to that Brigade Congress we had, last year for Code for America. I heard the phrase build with, not for, very frequently as a principle to be followed, in particular by Code for America as an organization. When one of you guys like to kinda chime in and maybe give your thoughts on what that phrase means and maybe, like, what its significance is to, what we've just been talking about as far as, like, what the civic tech movement
is. I'm I'm So Tom is the Code for America representative. I think that's perfect.
Yeah. So, the the phrase build with, not for, comes out of a talk given by Warren Ellen McCann at a Code for America summit a few years ago. And in this talk, you know, this this phrase, keeps coming back because I think a lot of people in this movement really identify with this approach. And what build with not for really speaks to is that, that it's just a mindset about how we approach solving problems. And, as a group of volunteers or group of nonprofits or group of, you know, whoever is building civic technology, we really need to adopt sort of this mantra of building with the community because, ultimately, we're part of the community, and we're attempting to improve the lives of our fellow community members. And we can't do that if we separate ourselves as the builders or as the makers or as the doers from the people we're trying to help. We need to talk to them. We need to do user research with them. We need to, you know, know, understand their problems in a really meaningful way. And, that's part of that's what with really speaks to to me. I think, I think different people will interpret this phrase differently. So definitely interested to hear your guys' thoughts on this as well. But to me, what it means is that in order to do what we do, we need to consider ourselves all one big community. And instead of separating out you know, there's the people building a thing and then the people that the thing is for.
Yeah. I've recently been looking looking at, Lauren Owen's post about build with, not for. I just found out that they were the person who coined the phrase. And so I was, you know, doing some reading, especially in the last few days. And there's just there's, great resources up on the site. Actually, build with, notfor.wordpress.com. And learn on a whole series of posts about this and about applying this. And and one of the pages on the site talks about criteria for whether or not you're building with not for. And the first one says literally start with people. Identify the people in your community that you're trying to serve and start start with them. I mean, there's a lot of expertise. Like, for example, I've mainly been working with access to justice, and now starting to work on this this library project. And in in both cases, the the library project, for example, the librarians know how they are serving the patrons who are experiencing homelessness. We're it's a we're we have a hypothesis that we might do as a tool or a portal that people who are experiencing homelessness might access at the library. With the access to justice group, there are already a lot of organizations in Chicago that are serving people, returning from prison. They they already have things that they're working on, initiatives that they are working hard on. And so there there's a lot of expertise and ideas that we can tap into and support, and and that having that existing having the community be the source of ideas for projects is something that I really wanna do a better job of and and help the groups that I'm active in do a better job of.
Yeah. So I I I wanna jump right out right on the tail of what you said, Christy. I think, you know, civic tech has to work for everyone, all sorts of people, because our society consists of myriad individuals. And if a technology project doesn't work for all, users, it it doesn't work at all. Right? At the US Digital Service, we are keenly aware, usability and accessibility are critically important to the adoption of, of any kind of service. Right? Any kind of tool. If it doesn't, impact, you know, a diverse spectrum of individuals, and address some tangible need, then we haven't done our job.
Thank all of you for chiming in on that. I think that helps, helps, the audience kind of understand the concept a bit. Why don't we go ahead and shift gears here a little bit? This is a nice moment to do so. I'd like to shift from talking about what the movement is to maybe where it's at right now. I I think those out there will be curious to to hear what the state of it is and, maybe a little bit more to that end. And I guess that's kind of like a first question about that, to the group is, how should or do civic tech organizations start building relations with government? And actually, Cyrus, if you wanna open up some comments. I know from you've worked with the on the government side of this a bit yourself. I thought maybe you might have some opinions about how that should work.
Yeah. Sure. So, as a government, employee, I have been in public service for many years, and also as a volunteer. I've been volunteering with, the Code of America Brigade Network in some way, shape, or form, as a private citizen now for a couple of years as well. I feel very strongly, about the the idea that, people are people. Right? Maybe, you know, government officials, they are stewards of public trust. We we we believe in them to execute, their duties in, the best interest of the public. Right? But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're no longer human beings, that they somehow convert into these, you know, bureaucratic robots that just turn out red tape. I think, you know, this is kind of a cliche, but but people essentially are people. Right? I'm sure there will be differences in culture and value system between, private, public, and nonprofit sectors of the economy. But I think we all at the end of the day, we all speak the same language. And particularly, service minded people all have, you know, good intentions. Right? So I think I think number one is to always assume good intent. Right? Maybe you run into you know, government is slow. Government is deliberative, and it's designed like that on purpose. Right? The United States government has woken up every single day for the last two hundred and forty one years. It's going to be here tomorrow, and it's going to be here the next day, and it's going to be here the next day after that. So, you know, knowing that public servants wake up every day tirelessly to do a job, I think, is, is really helpful. A job that many of them, many of my colleagues have been doing for longer than I've been alive. And they're gonna do it tomorrow, and they're gonna do it the next day. So, like, connecting with them on an individual level as people, is really important and assuming also that they mean well. Right? Most people aren't in government to become fabulously wealthy. Surprise if this is the news to anybody, but, public service careers are not typically the path to untold riches. So, you know, people aren't path to untold riches. So, you know, people aren't in this, for money or personal gain. They're in it for something that's bigger than themselves. And and that's something that we all have in common. Right? Whether we are government employees, whether we are volunteers, whether we are, you know, brigade captains or podcast hosts. Right? We all mean well. And I think that's a really great place to start.
Thank you for that that perspective, Cyrus. I I think it's really viable to, to hear that, especially, from someone like you who's been on kind of both sides of the relationship here as you've gone along. Tom, actually, would you be able to chime on this a bit as well? I know you have a bit of experience from the code code for America side, and I think that might be valuable to, listen to. Yeah. Definitely.
And I think to just echo what Cyrus said, there are an incredible number of really passionate, bureaucrats, and I use that term in the best possible way, that are looking to improve, improve everything as passionately as someone from the outside. And just and and starting with that is a huge, is is just a great it starts you off in the right foot to to assume the the best intent. A little bit about one particular relationship is to, is my fellowship project, which ended last year. I think that was a unique relationship with government. I was partnered with some agencies at the county level at in Portland, Oregon. And, this relationship came to be because, the because people in the government heard of the civic tech movement, and they realized that Code for America could do some things that their their government office was not equipped to do, that we had some expertise that could sort of help them. And so they got together a team of different people from different agencies, and they applied for the fellowship. And, because, you know, because they put together a really great plan, Code for America decided to to, support that fellowship project. So, I think I mean, I think that's one example of a relationship with the government, but definitely, there are tons more that happen between, the local brigades and government. And I think that's where this really gets interesting as far as the people are concerned. Because oftentimes, times, you know, city staff or county staff, local government employees, you know, they they work nine to five generally. And oftentimes, brigade meetings happen after that. You know? Everyone else is a volunteer group, so it meets, you know, 06:30, 7PM. So I think, one great way to build some relationships with government is to find a way to invite your your city partners or your your most important, your most important your most important partners at the city. Find a way to invite them to, to your volunteer group. Just get them there or meet them on their, on their turf. Have a meet have a lunch meeting with them. Find some way to, come to some common ground about what your goals are because there will be common ground. That's the thing. It's, like, if you're volunteering, if you're showing up at a brigade, then you have the best interest of the city, of the of, you know, the elected representatives' constituents, you know, of of the people that are being served by that public servant in mind. So by having by keeping all of that by getting alignment on that early, that can definitely be the beginning of a great relationship between, between government and your volunteer group or your nonprofit or whatever the situation might be. That that's a really good point there toward the end about that relationship
with, local officials like that. And, actually, that's an a good segue. Christy, I I know you've gotten some experience both for Shy Hack Night and perhaps a bit recently with, Open Uptown, trying to do that with a couple of projects. Could you share, perhaps, like, what your experience has been like, trying to work that process? Trying to work which process? Could you remind me of the question? Oh, sure. Sure. We're talking about, building relationships with, folks in government, at at whichever level.
Mhmm. Well, I haven't actually worked with any government partners. It's been, community organizations. I guess, technically, probably the library qualifies now as a The library
is part of the city.
Yeah. There so now now I am getting involved with a government partner. Alright. Well, I think kind of been treating it as an you know, I wanna make sure that I'm doing the basic stuff that I would do if I had a client at work, you know, being responsive and sending good notes, and being really clear about, you know, when we get together and and somebody is working late to talk to us that we know that we're ready for that meeting. We're prepared, and we know we're really clear about what we're hoping to accomplish in that time. But then, also, we've gotten together in person a few times with some community partners that we had and some some organizations that we've just invited to participate or provide feedback. And the co organizer of the access to justice group, has really pushed us to have those be warm social gathering in addition to our our fact find finding mission for the day to have us all break bread together and take our take care with our introduction and really pay attention to, just the the the be conscious of the the power dynamics. You know, if we have a diverse group of people in in you know, some of us are coming from the North Side of the city, and we're we're there in the assignment of we're building something, and we're we wanna get feedback on this, and this is how you get feedback. We're trying to equalize things a bit more and have it be more participatory. So we try to combine, you know, have it be have there be some social aspect and and while also trying to respect people's time and be organized. Yeah. I don't know how that will translate to working with the library, but we'll see.
It sounds like a solid set of, lessons learned that I I think will definitely apply in that situation as well.
If I could jump in with one more anecdote. Sure. The one of the early relationships in Open Oakland history, which I can't take any credit for, but I was talking with one of our founders about today, was with, city department called the Public Ethics Commission. And, this was a fantastic relationship, that that as soon as that very early in Open Oakland history, this was, you know, six years ago, seven maybe seven. The the city so the Public Ethics Commission is responsible for transparency and, good government related enforcement of policies, like anti corruption, campaign finance regulation. And so it's in their best interest, as a department to be partnering with community, that can help with, you know, identifying, identifying violations and and pushing for, pushing for political change. And so very early in this partnership, Open Oakland and Code for America threw its weight behind, getting a open data policy, pushed in in Oakland. And, you know, this was many, many cities have this now, but at the time, it was relatively novel. And, it actually succeeded getting and this open data policy would would, would, you know, made it clear in the city's charter itself that, you know, Oakland is committed to transparency and that data should be published in machine readable formats, available online, that kind of thing. And so that was kind of the starting point of this relationship. And ever since, you know, even today, we still have a great relationship with them. And they're and they keep coming back to us asking if there's more, that we can do to help them with their work. And so not only are we able to help public ethics commission, with, you know, with anything that they need, but also the public ethics commission then can introduce us to other government partners that we might want to work with for other reasons, like the library or library or like the city clerk or that kind of thing. So, that's definitely having a a single jumping off point within government. Like, somewhere where you have a good relationship can definitely be a great start.
Yeah. From from what I'm hearing from you guys, it definitely sounds like a lot of it is just getting that that first door to open. And then from there, a lot of possibilities unfold from that, once successful. I'd like to, I guess, continue on, our talk about where things stand. This will be more kind of an open question for the for the group here, if any of you wants to start us off. I'd be curious if, any of you would like to give your opinion on, I guess, the general state of things, good, bad, and different, as far as where the movement I know, civic tech is a pretty young thing, but, you know, it's kinda moved along through some different phases. Just curious what opinions are out there in the group.
Yeah. So, it is very young. Right? I I think that it's, like, things are going great. Right? There's always room to make things better. But the fact that we have a very inclusive movement that includes people of, all different points of view and persuasions and, ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic status is, is very special. Right? It's not often that you find all of these different kinds of people from all different places of The United States coming together, you know, around something that they're passionate about. So that's that's really, really cool to me. I think that's unique, and, I hope the trend of inclusivity continues. I I do feel as a as a public servant, that it's it's difficult to involve my colleagues. Right? A lot of people I'm lucky. I work at the US Digital Service, and everyone is a wonderful civic technologist. But when I was working in other parts of the government, I found it like, you know, I talked to people, like, hey. You wanna you wanna go to this hack night? You wanna go to a meet up group where we can, meet people who might be able to solve problems with technology? And people, you know, they're like, no. I don't I absolutely don't wanna do that. That doesn't sound like fun at all. So, like, I'm I'm really lucky that my hobby and my profession are, are in line. Right? But that is something that I, I continue to struggle with every day. And so how can we bring more doggies? How can we bring more career public servants, people with decades more of experience than I have, into this mix? And I think about that a lot. Oh, that's curious.
As a follow-up to that, Cyrus, did you run into, like, any common barriers that that folks will put up as far as for, like, why they might not be interested, or was it just a general disinterest?
Yeah. So, it's it's a time thing. Right? Tom alluded to this earlier, but many, many traditional and, like, career civil servants work that nine to five life. Right? And, you know, they they like what they do. They care about their work, but it's a luxury to be able to, to volunteer. Right? To be able to go to meetups and, you know, pick up technology projects on the side is a is a luxury. And, you know, as a young person with no family obligations per se, you know, I I'm really lucky to be able to take advantage of that privilege. Right? And so I think we're gonna have more luck. Like, the US Digital Service, for example, connects directly with, other parts of the government during business hours. And so that has, yield been, you know, tremendously successful for us to be able to deliver these kinds of, solutions, during that nine to five, block that's so critical for government folks.
Thank you for that. Yeah. I could definitely understand why someone might hesitate, due due to schedules schedule, especially if, you know, family obligations and the like. I I think you hit on a very important point on that engagement during, you know, the normal duties. I think that is very important.
If I could add something about the state of civic tech. I think there are definitely some challenges that that face the movement. You know, figuring out models of collaboration that work across across different time time periods, you You know, if work hours, non work hours, I think is one challenge. You know, the best way for people to to have volunteer effort be used by, you know, by the ultimate of sustainable organizations being the government. Like, how do you sort of mesh the lack of the the the sort of lack of contractual obligation of being a volunteer with the greatest contractual obligation being The US constitution? You know, how do you, like, how do you match those up? So I think there are some challenges, but I think I'm really optimistic about, this the overall state and direction of civic tech. Just sort of moving, sort of more zooming out further and further every year, is is kind of the way that I see it. And so what I mean by that is when I got involved in civic tech originally, everyone was talking about open data. That was the the new hotness was, is your data released on a public website where anyone can download it? And I think, like, that's a foundational element of many of the projects that we do is, like, this sort of, this attention to transparency and the desire to work with a community, that's sort of embodied by releasing open datasets. But then at some point, the community kind of zoomed out. You know, the the we decided as a group that, you know, open data is great, but really, it doesn't affect anyone's life dramatically if it's a little bit easier to visualize a dataset. That really, to steal the phrase from Mike Bracken of the government digital service in The UK, he says, the strategy is delivery. So delivery sort of we zoomed out to being, okay. Well, how can we deliver services in a more effective way by all coming together, using all of the principles we've been talking about today. And I think I think we continue to zoom out further and further to tie back, to tie back all the work that we do and all the practices that we do to the the big giant goal, which is outcomes. How do we, improve the outcomes of the entire system as a whole? So I'm I'm really excited that, you know, that that everyone's aligned around that in this movement. And, I think there's so many different ways and different levels almost. Like, it's almost like different tiers that you sort of tackle the same problem on, but definitely, optimistic for the future seeing all of that.
Yeah. That's really interesting. I myself wasn't too familiar with, like, kind of what you're talking about, that scaling up, prospect over the more recent time. That's an interesting change to go from that open data focus to something that's more about the actual services themselves.
Really appreciate you sharing that with us. Yeah. I don't I don't know that I can speak to, like, trends or, I'm I told you all that I'm I'm learning about civic tech or through kind of participating in it. And now I'm trying to take a step back and see you know, get more familiar with brigades in the network and and their projects and other groups in Chicago, that kind of come under the umbrella of civic tech. Something that has been kind of emerging is there's this kind of soup of volunteers and, freelancers, contractors, and then companies. There's starting to be companies that are making money off of being involved in in civic tech. And going back to the idea of build with, not for, I'm still learning about that too. Right? But as this is instinctively, intuitively, what that should mean, I think, is that part or part of what that should mean is that it is not just people who are already, privileged technologists who can, participate in the industry of civic tech and that we pay attention to how people come along that pipeline of volunteer or whatever their current expertise is to being a company that gets work in civic tech and to make sure that that is inclusive and equitable.
Yeah. That that's another very interesting thing to think about is is, as you mentioned, those organizations that crop up specifically to service in that space. I don't think, one ends up hearing about them a lot unless you're inside the community itself. And now I also wanted to ask you guys, a question I know is gonna make me want to pull out a pen and start jotting down notes. But for folks that are kind of say starting out, whether it's starting a brigade, starting an like their own volunteer nonprofit or something related to this space, what piece of advice would you give them as they're getting started to make sure they're getting going on the right footing?
I'd say, you know, be willing to learn. Right? A desire to place people and communities first. Right? Civic tech is about groups of people coming together in order to build solutions that improve upon our public spaces. It's not about, being smarter than other people. It's not about, you know, getting more likes on Instagram or whatnot. You know? It's it's, I guess, humility is is great and always valuable, and it's just, like, the you know, a first, a curiosity. Like, why why is it like that, and how can we do it better? And what are people already doing? Like, you know, how do we honor the work that comes before us? Right? So those are three things that stick out of my mind.
I haven't been this is my first time being at the start of a brigade of TownCoast, but that's exciting. I have been involved in other volunteer organizations, and I'm seeing the same thing in the groups the civic tech groups I've been involved in is that volunteers, they have different degrees of wanting to be involved. Some people want to help shape the group and, organize things and talk about governance for the group and figure out how we're gonna pay for things and be involved in fundraising. Other times, people want a dis a discreet task or two that they can commit to for a short time period and finding ways to make it easy for those folks to be involved. Just helping people find their their place in the group is something that's that's really good to have.
That's huge. One thing that I was gonna say, is really related to that, and it's just really simple. Just show up. As far as, you know, as far as all the stuff you can do, just go to a meeting. Go to like, go hang out with these people, the people that are working on this. And, don't be afraid if you're not a coder. Don't be afraid, you know, if it says a hack night and you're like, but I don't but I'm not a hacker. Just if you feel like this is something that, that you're that calls out to you as a sense of responsibility or as something interesting or a way to learn, like Cyrus said, then find a way to get involved and you will, you know, as long as you come into it with an open mind and hopefully you'll find someone that is able to show you your place, or, like, that gives you a way to contribute to the movement as Christy was saying. And then also, I think show up speaks to the fact that not only do you need to be physically present in the meeting, but also you need to be there for the community as well and, you know, get involved. Be, like, be curious about what's happening in the city around you. Talk to people. You know, don't just go through the motions, but also try to, always be putting the user needs first, and that entails figuring out what they are and doing research and all of that stuff.
Yeah. Definitely. Don't be intimidated by that word hack. Right? Like, we're we're all hackers. Right? I use a coin to tighten a screw. That's a hack. You're supposed to use a screwdriver. I did not. Right? So, like, there there it's a loose word, I think. And it doesn't necessarily mean you have to have some sort of highly technical ability. So it's a ability, a willingness, a desire to think outside of the box.
Yeah. That that's a really good point. Actually, that that word hack has come up, a few times in in these answers. I would be curious, is hack a word that we should continue to use, or is that an anti pattern, for us to be using in this space?
Christy, how did you feel about going to Shy HackNet your first time?
I think that in that that case, it describes pretty well what goes on there. I mean, it's recurring hackathon on the on the after a presentation. You know? I I do think it's accurate. It's jargon. It has a meaning. I know that there have been some brigades who have used a different term. Like, they'll have a community action night, I think, is the term that I've heard a couple of times. And that's that's really I think that's great. I don't know. I think that I I don't feel strongly one way or the other. I think it's kind of I I I like the precision of it that it is it's a hackathon. It's global hackathon in in a lot of cases. So we did something in the access to justice group. We we used the word impact upon. We had to get together, and it was kind of like a scoping hackathon. At least that was the intent. It ended up being a little more freewheeling than that. But that was that was the term that our group went upon to try to kind of merge together a hackathon and and community impact. I think it's it's great to to pull out some creative language and to also put together an event that is not a hackathon. Like, if you put together a hackathon, you might as well call a hackathon. Hackathon. If you're gonna do something that is a different type of event, that would also be great. Yeah. I think,
I think the way the language that you use impacts the way that you think about about the event that you're having. I think that's a really great point. And, you know, I think that partially explains this the the slight trend that I've noticed of groups switching away from terminology that involves hack or code. You know, some brigades have renamed recently. There's been like, some brigades are using community design night, you know, to to imply that the design is really the focus, which I think is awesome because, ultimately, you know, we are hacking things in terms of, like, processes and, and we are writing a lot of code sometimes to do, like, an MVP, you know, very quickly. But, ultimately, we should aspire to more than just hacking all the time every night. Right? I think, ultimately, we should aspire to creating a sustainable, development pace and, and and a solid way of building products over a long period of time.
Excellent. I I think you guys made a lot of good points there. I also got to learn about the word, impactathon, which, I'm gonna that one's gonna stick in my head. I like that one. Now that we've talked a bit about what the what the movement is, why it exists, who who you folks all are, I'd like to have us end our our panel discussion, talking about how somebody gets involved. There might be folks that listen to this then decide tomorrow, like, I I'm ready. I'm ready to put my time into some civic works. So the first question they might ask is, well, do you need to be an engineer to do this?
Let's kick that one to the actual engineer.
Yeah. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You absolutely do need to be an engineer. No. No. Everyone everyone's voices are needed in this movement, and it's never been more true than now. And, and and we we definitely need everybody from all walks of life, from all different backgrounds, you know, any sort of every demographic to be represented. Because as Sarah said before, like, what we're trying to do, impacts the lives of everyone. And so if we're excluding people in any way, then that means that we're not doing as good as good a job as we should be doing. So, that's definitely a quick answer to the the engineer thing. Let me just briefly, plug the Brigade website as a great resource for people looking to get involved. So the brigade website is brigade.codeforamerica.org. And, we've been putting a lot of attention into it recently to make sure that it's up to date and that as many brigades as possible, are on the map that we can, that we can point you towards. So if you're not sure if a brigade exists in your city, it's a great place to go. It'll link you to the meetup. It'll show you the some of the projects that that brigade is working on as a great way to just, like, learn more about the program.
Excellent. And, we will make sure that, the links that have been mentioned, by voice here are added to the description for the episode for all those that are curious to, click and learn more. To the same end of kind of I guess, the same area of an engineer question, I would be curious to ask the group, what sort of skills are are usually in demand? What what sort of folks do we need as volunteers in order for a brigade or other organization to be successful?
It's really good to have people who can facilitate meetings, you know, people who can make sure that everybody who's there gets a a chance to contribute, that can organize the the the meeting and and, yeah, just either lead it or or help people participate depending on on the time. So good facilitators are useful to have.
Yeah. I think, if you're the kind of person who enjoys thinking, innovative, creative ways to, you know, improve life, you could say hack life, but we're gonna say improve life, you know, find a place in civic text. So it doesn't matter what your, what your profession is. Right? If you're a a communicator or a writer or a designer or an artist or a poet, a wordsmith. Right? There's room for everybody, at this table because it's it's our table.
You know, there have been a couple of people who came to Chai Hacknight who, so we had I I spoke with, a a doctor, for example. I'll use that example. There's a woman who came a few times, and she was a doctor. Doctor. And when I spoke with her, she was still trying to figure out how she might participate. I'm really curious what comes to mind for you all to get a doctor involved in your in your civic tech group or a That
comes to mind, like, right away to me. Like, how can we help people access maybe different kinds of health care services? Right? Like, I don't I don't know, what are, like, common conditions that people struggle with. Right? I don't know, like like the like, legal ramifications around being a a primary care physician. Right? There's a lot of things to to think about, where both a lawyer and a doctor could be involved, right, in that kind of space. One of
the one of the newer brigades, Code for Phoenix, what their government partner is in the Department of Public Health. And I think they they tackle, well, I I'm not exactly sure which projects they're working on at the moment, but, we had the, Cyrus, Ryan, and I, and possibly Christy too, had, had the fortune of meeting them at Summit Taylor and I forget her government partner's name. But the but I think public health is also a really interesting opportunity, that, you know, there's a lot of environmental impacts that are affecting all of our cities from manufacturing or, from, like, water, water access, water quality, you know, these sort of environmental justice issues.
Yes. But I wanna ask a a follow-up question. Ryan, I have a follow-up question for the other
Oh, by all means.
So my my assumption and my impression from this person is that she didn't wanna start her own group. Like, we didn't have a a public health group going on or health related group. What's a good way for people to kind of get their feet wet in in in the group or, you know, maybe apply some special skill set to a project that's not directly related to their field? I I kinda got stumped. And so and I haven't thought about that since since I was talking to her. I mean, I guess, con helping to create content or provide feedback on projects is is one way that people can jump in. I think I think this will be interesting to see if any listeners,
can weigh in and sort of communicate back to us if they think of anything. But, I mean, definitely this is a question that comes up. You know, there are a lot of people who are domain experts of, like, one specific thing. Right? And that, I think, is no that's incredibly true of And that, I think, is no that's incredibly true of doctors. But also, like, they're generally just stereotype a little bit, generally inquisitive people. And I think definitely, like, finding some way to like, utilize that domain expertise, whether it be, like, coming up with a list of, like, five of the biggest problems, like, health problems facing the city that then maybe can dig into. Or, if you had ax if you could get access to public health data for anything, like, what would you what would you want to FOIA? And then, like, matching them up with someone who would actually, do the FOIA, the Freedom of Information Act request. I don't know. I there's some ideas like that. I think, well, personally, like, we don't like, speaking of my experience with Open Elk, we don't end up with, people highly trained professionals like that very often. So, we don't have a very good workflow for it. But I'd be really interested to hear if people have been able to successfully integrate, you know, doctors, lawyers, like, you know, people like that into projects.
Yeah. One one thought that I have with with government folks, right, is they're always like, what am what am I gonna do when I have that? Right? I don't have any technical skills, but, oh, but you do. Some common government titles, like contracting officer. Hey. I bet you know a lot about, crafting, like, legally binding agreements. I bet you know a lot about the government procurement process. I know you that you could help us get some contracts that might actually pay us money. Right? I know, some brigades in the network are actually able to bid on government contracts. Public information officer, you you Tom mentioned before your request, that a PIO could really help a group out that's struggling to get access to some information. Just, you know, a hand it's two ideas off the top of my head of, you know, bureaucratic goals. Administrative assistant, you're the biggest killer at running meetings. Right? A a lot of valuable, skills, I think, can come to the table that has maybe nothing to do with, touching a keyboard.
And now that we've gotten through, skills and knowing now that we have to be an engineer to get involved, and I think, Tom, you made a comment about this once already. But, why don't we delve into, where one should start if they decide today, I wanna join the civic tech movement? Where would be the best place, to go?
I'll repeat what I said about the brigade website being a great webs a great way to get involved in these volunteer groups. I do wanna plug one other site, and then I'm curious if Cyrus or Chrissy have any other, have any other resources that they found helpful as they got involved. But one the one other, tool that Code for America releases, or or maintains for this purpose is the public interest technology job board. And so that's at jobs.codeforamerica.org. And what that is is an aggregation of of public interest technology jobs. And so public interest technology is kind of a a superset of civic tech depending on who you ask. Again, it includes some private companies. It includes some contracting firms. But, nonetheless, like, it's all, like, in the same general vein of, you know, making products for people to improve their lives. I'm sorry, making products with people. But, the jobs board, check it out, jobs.codeforamerica.org. It has hundreds of jobs all over the country. If you think you might be looking for a change, it's a great place to start, to see if you might wanna get involved. There's, like, government jobs, private sector jobs, all kinds of stuff, nonprofits.
Yeah. So I I I definitely think, I I wanna give Tom a a a plus one there. I think you should head over to your nearest Code for America brigade and introduce yourself. Participating in the brigade, program helped me to realize that my love of technology and my passion for public service weren't mutually exclusive. You didn't have you don't have to pick one or the other. If you like the idea of building a more awesome government through technology, there are all kinds of warm, welcoming, and wicked smart people eager to show you the ropes at your, local brigade. And if you, if you're already a professional or working professional, the US Digital Service is hiring, and you should apply. So you can check that and unplug my thing at usds.gov.
I I think that I'm a another plus one on those resources nationwide. And Chicago is also blessed to have, really active meetup scene and an active social justice scene, a lot of organizers, and there are some groups that kind of bridge the two. The t next techies comes to mind. And some of those groups pass through the the larger groups like Chai Hacknight and some of them don't. But, I don't know if you're really just getting started. Chicago also, we just found out, has cyber navigator cyber navigators at the library. And if you wanna go and and pick up tech skills, and you can start there. You You can start right at your your local library.
Oh, very cool. I actually, through the the work we've done together on that, I I also just recently learned that the that they existed. Seems like a really cool program that the library is doing. Today, we've covered a a great deal. We've talked about the why of the civic tech movement, where it's at, and, how one gets involved with it. And we've got to learn about, you three, some of the wicked smart individuals that are here in the movement. And as we kinda draw this conversation to a close, I'd like to have each of you maybe give, a couple of concluding thoughts on the conversation we've had today. And to that end, Christy, would you like to start us off with, maybe what words you'd like to leave us with?
Well, I think that one thing that I want to learn more about is just I I want to learn more about community organizing, and and I want to this it is really grounded in in getting to know Chicago for me. And and now I I wanna take that further down and just be participating more just even in in my neighborhood and the meetings that go on here. Here. I don't know. I do want to get away from the the skill building and kind of skill focus that got me into civic tech and more into the community organizing side of it. So I am that's really about me, I guess, and not not about so so much about civic tech at large, but, I don't know. I'm just looking for ways to have it be less about me, I guess, and more about the community. And I I guess I would encourage others to do the same.
Got it. That makes a lot of sense. I I think your comments about, putting that community thing first really reflects well on, a lot of what we talked about today as far as where the movement is headed. Mhmm. Tom, would you like to, share some of your concluding thoughts as well? Yeah. Christy's thought about community,
made me start thinking about, just, just sort of a good note to end on for, like, as far as I'm concerned that that there that we are all part of a community, for this. And there in my experience, you know, over going back almost five years now, there's, like, in the civic tech movement, I've never seen more energy or more passion or more people involved as today. And so I'm I'm super excited by where we are right now. I think more people are clamoring to work together across not only different organizations, but also different cities, different states, that I think, you know, the digital the state of digital communication has improved dramatically. The state of, like, our our shared policies and our shared understanding of problems and, like, communication around design thinking and how to best build these products is at a place where where I'm just super excited to see what all of us can do together for in a single national movement.
For sure. I wanna go down and and up too. Right? So and and have the the brigades talk more with each other and learn more from each other. I think that's also a a great way to to be branching out.
Yeah. Absolutely. I I'm really liking the optimism from from both of your responses there. And, Cyrus, would you like to take us home with with your concluding thoughts?
Yeah. Sure. So, Tom and Christy have said, said it all when it comes to, the, you know, the substantive, civic tax stuff. I just wanna, you know, just put it out there. Like, take care of yourself. Be good to yourself. Be good to others. Take care of others. Right? But never forget, you know, we're we're we're in this together. And, I I have in the past burned out on, projects I was working on because I I put way too much into it. Right? So it's important. I love I love volunteering. I love the communities that we've created. But, we can't hope to be successful and meaningful contributors if we don't first, take care of ourselves. So be happy, be well, and, in that way, we I think we can all be the most effective in, working together.
Absolutely. The mantra of take care of yourself is perhaps a reminder that, we all need quite a bit too often. Now I want to, first, thank, all three of you, Tom, Christy, and Cyrus, for taking time out of your day to, join us for this conversation. I have no doubt that there will be those out there that take a tremendous amount of value of what about what's been sped. And if anything, I've really enjoyed, hearing each of your very unique perspectives on where civic tech meet, sits right now as well as how it's interacted with your lives. So again, thank you to each of you for, coming on the program.
Thanks for having us. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for having us.
