data.bythebay.io: Lawrence Grodeska, Open Collaboration for Civic Impact
Recording: data.bythebay.io: Lawrence Grodeska, Open Collaboration for Civic Impact
thank you all thanks for coming um really excited to be here uh data runs the world at this point especially runs our cities so I'm going to be talking about some topics that are probably a little different than other days of the conference so far uh kind of real world use case of of data uh especially as it relates to Citizens and citizen hackers so uh Civic makers is a collection of makers hackers problem solvers facilitators uh we love to listen we love to build community and we're optimistic about doing better in our communities um and we're very committed to impact which is the the subject of this talk um we're a a Services design firm and we help agencies organizations and startups uh Define and rapidly deploy collaborative Sol solutions for public good these are a few of the clients that we've worked with and our approach is uh in-depth experience of the sector collaboration and solutions Focus um and really we've been seeing over the last decade an incredible number of trends that have led us to this moment of opportunity and and the work that we do uh governance is changing how we manage our organizations how we manage our cities how we manage ourselves is is drastically different than it was 10 years ago there's a whole new era of government Innovations from the federal level on down to the local level how many of you heard of 18 F or usds uh these are new federal level Innovation agencies that are funded to improve how we deliver government services uh alongside that Federal Innovation and the local Innovation is an explosion of community-driven solutions um uh referenced by the code for America Brigade Network which is 40,000 plus citizen hackers that are trying to build solutions to improve their communities for for free as a volunteers um and I think the open source movement as well is really indicative of of people's desire to contribute to to the commons and solutions for the commons and finally the shifting nature of work is also I think indicative of of how we're organized organizing ourselves differently uh and amidst all those Trends Civic technology is emerging and uh the Civic Commons is huge let me just stop for a second and Define share my definition of civic a lot of people think Civic is the relationship of of a citizen to their government and that's certainly one of the aspects of of civics but I also like to think of civics as a relationship of citizens to each other and to the organizations that are trying to improve the Civic space how we relate to each other and and what that means for how we work together so taken in that light the Civic Commons is huge in 2015 there was $6.9 billion spent on Civic tech software um there was 5 a. half million free and open uh Source software repositories uh earlier this decade um and as mentioned there's a tens of thousands of hackers that are trying to contribute to Solutions in the Civic Tech realm uh but it's a really immature sector uh there's Mal networks and silos there's a ton of duplicated efforts uh which any of you out in the open source World probably understand um and there's wasted resources and failing investments from the VCS that have tried to dip their toes into supporting this field and ultimately for us there's not enough impact so where are all these uh millions of dollars of investment and hundreds of thousands of hours of person time that have been spent building where is it actually moving the needle on the ground so for us we are trying to build a framework for collaboration uh through the Civic hacking movement but that can be applied to any kind of work where we're trying to solve Community problems and it's a very human- centered but data oriented approach um and really brings us the question how is civic Tech different than normal Tech this is the uh startup development uh life cycle which you're probably familiar with from problem Market fit all the way problem solution fit all the way to to business model and Market fit um but Civic Tech there's a few different key differences which uh we need to take into account with how we fund and how we build and how we build software and products but also how we build our companies uh it's very sticky problems that uh have many different systemic actors and also many different uh Masters many people that we need to address and this is a difference with government compared to business World government's on the hook to serve everyone and a company can choose who their users are a government can't uh and then also is the revenue question there are some Civic projects that may not be fundable as far as revenue streams so this all um is being expressed now through something called an ethos called build with not four in the Civic Community uh this is again the human- centered approach to building directly in collaboration with the community you're aiming to serve instead of working on assumptions or ideas that haven't been tested and validated if you're in the lean and agile world that should sound kind of familiar um but it's it's actually kind of lacking in some of the social and Mission driven um attempts out there um so this is the Civic Tech Project Life Cycle we we've been working on very simple uh Discovery Alpha uh beta and live Alpha is prototype stage beta is is a is a is a working um live production model and and uh live is actually at launch um for the Civic World there are a few different um differences that we need to think about um especially when you're talking about handing off a solution to a government rather than having a company continue to develop that over time so stage one um this will probably not be terribly new to all of you but make sure they have a really strong problem statement that you do your research and Define your hypotheses and identify assumptions ahead of time and that you prior PR ize the key opportunity areas a lot of people in the Civic space and the social space want to do everything all at once and that's the classic waterfall approach which is destined to fail so what's the highest value that we can deliver while we iterate through and expand the solutions that we offer over time uh in the discovery phase if done well can help to to uh elucidate that the alpha stage is the the the Proto type stage um low Fidelity prototypes that you put in front of users to get feedback and help to define the MVP um that you'll eventually roll out and this is also in the Civic hacking space where one starts a create a project plan and assemble a team and there are some um basic uh project management skills that are lacking that we need to be addressing as well um and uh I'll just take a stop pause and um I see one of my fellow code for San Francisco Brigade members out there um and I'm really talking about uh some of our experience um that we see week to week uh working with a bunch of volunteers that have really um uh high hopes and deep passion but not some of the experience working across the entire Project Life life cycle so we're trying to to Really Foster that best practices approach uh in the Civic hacking movement um finally when you're ready build something um but only when you're ready only when you know exactly what you're building and who you're building it for and how you're providing value um defining success and performance obviously you you can improve what you measure um and securing a a government Community partner is really important um and certainly in the open data World um these are the folks that that have the data to begin with so um in it could be a government agency it could be a nonprofit that manages social services but finding these partners and helping them um through their data is a really key part of the the Civic hacking um and Civic Tech space and always analyze get your analytics in there finally the the live stage is uh the launch and handoff um and I mentioned before this is where you actually give the the technology over to your partner and what are the expectations there are they expected to maintain it um or are you going to support that is there funding to maintain it so there's a this is a a um a breakpoint for a lot of projects where there's just not the sort of long-term scoping that's necessary to continue a sustainable um reliable tool especially if this is a tool being developed to serve the needs of of of Community Partners and citizens uh I think it's also always important to do a debrief and evaluation uh maintenance and scalability plan um and then basically go back to the beginning start over you know what's the new problem statement what's the new discovery and research you do um so this is the the basic uh plan that we've been working with at code for San Francisco and um there uh this is kind of a summary of that but there are a couple problems that we've realized and this is where um I want to spend the rest of the talk just talking a little bit about how we're trying to improve this process and then I'll open it up for questions about um what's happening in the Civic Tech space if you're interested um the understanding the problem statement is is a it's a huge hurdle for uh really anyone trying to to create a solution in the in the software world uh if you don't get the right problem statement you're not going to provide value and your company's going to fail um you're never going to get to that uh the growth phase you're never going to get that funding um to to uh to ramp up um in the Civic space you can keep hacking away and hacking away and providing something of marginal value and you you you can kind of convince yourself that you're not really working on the right problem so so we've identified this as an area where we need to take a step back and really do more listening and more what we're call calling co-discovery the other piece is on the um you know in broadstones on the other end of the spectrum once something is live who knows about it and how can you share what you've learned with other people working in other communities um so that they can uh take what you've done and repurpose it or um they can um basically just shortcut some of their work and we see so much duplication right now um through the the good efforts uh and and intentions of the Civic hacking space uh and and again I I'll say that I think this also exists in the open source base as well so how do we how do we address that and it's kind of an open question um so the problem statement definition um taking really just before we even like come up with a solution what are we working on um a problem statement definition is just not possible without input from individuals communities and institutions it could be the unit of of of focus could be a human or it could be a system um but it's really important to identify that upfront are you trying to serve um people on the ground that that have a problem or you trying to help the service providers that are addressing that problem two very different use cases and and and ways to go about having impact um and really importantly is there a government entity or uh NGO that's already working on this problem and how can you partner with them so um taking all this from an impact and a social lens broadly we live in an Ecology of of forces and variables that uh are systemic and so we need to think about them as we do this work and we can get a lot of help and support from folks that are already have tried over the last 10 or 20 years different approaches maybe not with the Innovation or or um uh human Center design approaches that we can bring but it's really important to to think about the system um that's been addressing these problems in the past um secondary research is that landscape of analysis who's been doing this work um and uh determining the magnitude of the problem and and uh the opportunity and then we're really getting to the heart of the matter here with the prime primary research that needs to happen to validate a problem statement which is uh hitting the streets talking to people um that could be the individual that could be interviews with service providers and so we've been prototyping what that looks like um that co-discovery process um this is something that we just did um last week at code for San Francisco um on the right you'll see the team of folks that went out in front of the public library to get their feedback on an idea called portfolio in the cloud to address um some of the the struggles that people that are looking job hunting but don't necessarily have the advantages that you or I have understanding how Google Drive works or being able to uh you know be able to keep a flash drive or or or store the images of of their work um and and their resume over time U so they were trying to validate some of the ideas that they had and really understand the problem that exist for these folks um and it really is a very powerful way I know this is sort of it can be also really challenging to actually talk to to real users and I think there is amongst us technologists a reticence sometimes to get into into this work this dirty work um sometimes it's easy to just think about the data um and I'm all for that but I think the the quantitative has to be balanc with the qualitative and that's what we're working on with this this co-discovery process um and and the best practices for co-discovery are really taking yourself um uh out of your own perspective removing your assumptions and being open um and that lets you immerse yourself in the context of the user that you're trying to serve and you're only going to be as effective as you are able to understand the worldview um and the the real needs of the of the audience and the users you're trying to help um and then again partner with Community ambassadors and you can see that this is a very diverse crowd of folks and when you're going out to talking to people um sometimes the the focus group approach is is really uh or your typical market research approach can be really intimidating so how do you do this in a way that is is open and Embraces other people and having a diverse uh and welcoming um set of folks can can help to do that when talking to to the community Through user interviews um so the other piece I I shared and I'll wrap up here and then open it up for questions is um the knowledge sharing piece in the Civic space is is really um abysmal right now and that's everything from what who's working on what and who they're trying to serve and what's already been tried to the data around impact and uh um what we can learn from that so we've experimented with a few different ideas but it's not really clear what the right solution is um is it more hackathons is it more code for americ brigades to get people coming together an inperson um communication is it like single person integrators that know the space that can make the connections or is it a stack Overflow for civic Tech or a Marketplace for civic Innovation it might be all these things but I think to really see impact scale and to we're going to need the data from what's already been tried what's currently being tried and what's working so that we can um basically be more effective moving forward um because there's an incredible opportunity right now to harness uh what the the world of Sil Valley has delivered as far as uh usability user experience and and convenience uh and there's a lot of people very steeped in that knowledge that want to help we see it in the the movement for Bernie Sanders uh we see it in the Civic hacking space um and we're going to see more of it but we're going to see it as as so far as there's impact so how do we focus on that impact and how do we improve that's what Civic makers is working on um and if you'd like to talk about any of the specific projects if you have questions about what's happening in the Civic and government technology space in the Bay Area uh I've been in that space for about 10 years and happy to to share we're always interested in people coming out to the code for San San Francisco weekly hack night um there's a lot of open data in the Bay Area and we're trying to uncover more every day so um it's an open invitation to get involved with with uh collaboration for for civic impact thank [Applause] you any questions thank you very much Lawrence um we're going to take questions we are a very small group so don't hesitate I think you were first yeah thank you thank you hey Lawrence uh I I saw your your um in part of your coming up with and fleshing out the problem statement um this idea of looking at the landscape which I think is interesting you know who else has sort of done some digging here who else has tried to get at this um do have you have you kind of yourselves developed sort of a methodology for doing that I think that that really is a lot of like the Google and grunt work often times um what does that look like for you guys and what kind of process do you go through for you know um that that particular kind of dig on a project yeah this an interesting question and we actually prototype the marketplace for civic technology and Civic projects um and we're still uh playing around with that idea um that's that's one approach and it's been tried before code for America actually created something called Civic Commons and the idea was to have a listing of all the open source tools that governments could deploy U it never took off it was defunded it was kind of a ghost town um and I think the the the real question is what are the incentives for people to share um everyone I mean you know you go into a GitHub a read me file is a a very hard thing to come by so if people can't even put a a flesh out readme file in their GitHub repo you know how are they going to actually meaningfully share what stage they're at what impact they're seeing and and and what they've tried so we think a lot about again the incentives you know is there a way that we can create some kind of uh reciprocity if you share something do you get something in return there you know and I hate to use this word but sort of like the the gamification approach you know there there is a way that we're all trying to play together so what does sharing your experience get you in return so that we're we're sort of fooling around with that um there's no again there's no real like solid solution that I've seen U but we love to to chat more with you about that if you have some ideas seems like a sh right acemic world yeah and I think that there is more of a said there's a lot of uh people in the academic world and the corporate world you know working on the same ideas would be great if we can understand what that is uh there is more of a a concerted effort to do a cross-disciplinary approach so bringing academic corporate and government together uh and and cataloging those in a more rigorous scientific uh approach uh there's a new uh lab here called super public Labs there's a cusp lab in in uh um in New York city so there are some some efforts this is still very nent uh Civic Tech as a term has only been around for three or four years I mean it was egov and gov 2.0 before that but um but yeah something will come up um and it could be just simple like a Q&A Forum we've thought about just posting a clone of like of stack Overflow and seeing how that might help but um yeah it's a good question so another question in the back um yeah I liked seeing you hitting the streets in San Francisco I wonder if you've had the experience that in San Francisco everybody is pitched with new technology and like if you've made an effort to get to elsewhere in the country and if they're more receptive out there yeah or less for sure so um one key difference here is we're not pitching anybody we're listening um so it's not we absolutely hear you I have a friend that's devel ing a new uh um uh what is it are you talking to talking to me on a call about it this morning like a new inflatable like chair um that you can like have a beer koozie and he was out of Beta Breakers and they had a few out and people were just rushing to to check it out and that was his like Market Research in a way um that's the best kind because people are you're pulling people in instead of pushing out um and so there is a dynamic when you're pushing a pitch on somebody but in this case I think this is really important the language the framing the messaging uh the mess Jers uh we want to listen are you having problems posting a resume to get new work what does that feel like what how what struggles are you having what have you tried that's very different than do you want to try my new uh portfolio in the cloud and that'll happen but that might happen um in a more curated kind of fashion so so that's one thing and then the other sort of uh answer I'll give is that there is a um a trend towards what's called a Civic user testing group um Chicago has a really great one it's called out of the smart Chicago collaborative called the cut group um and they've gotten Foundation funding to have a regular list of users that they can just go out and test Civic and govtech tools um and they they're they have this great map where they show how many users Per County and per District um what the diversity is so I'm working on doing something that here in the Bay Area not just San Francisco but Oakland and Berkeley and Hayward so that we can have access to the community directly to listen um more easily um but the other and the last thing I'll say is that the if a solution is going to work it has to be Community focused and local so there is a tension there as far as where you go to find the answers you need yeah we have time for one more question uh you mentioned best practices or best cases um you probably already know some like change.org or which Technologies is already working in best practices regarding the Project Life Cycle yeah yeah I mean it's it's it's interesting because I would say the cut group the Civic user testing there are a number of best practices that have emerged out of there and that's the early kind of uh so user testing is once you already have a solution and you need to um to understand how it's working as far as a usability perspective I would say there's less um best practices around the co-discovery piece and so the idea of using human centered design in to develop a government service is very new new so that's an emergent um set of best practices that that I and us and a bunch of others are thinking about um and then you know when you get into I used to work at change.org so you know they have a whole best set of best practices around um engagement which is a whole another discipline so it really depends on what part of the life cycle you're talking about um and actually be inter question is like what what are the the best practices for a specific part of the of the life cycle and then that's a that will be emerging as well so thank you very much thank you all thank you